Mist of Shadows
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🕑 Added 2025-03-01 07:43:35 +0000 UTCTaylor blinked a couple of times as she woke up from a strange dream that involved worms that traveled between dimensions and a giant caterpillar with a pipe that was blowing a reality-eating mist everywhere.
"World Merger Complete, Earth Bet has been successfully merged with Cataclysm 726, please see patch notes for the specifics. Unacceptable Power Source detected, providing replacement powers."
"What the hell?" Taylor sputtered, unable to move more than her eyes and trying to figure out where the voice was coming from since it seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere yet remained completely understandable.
"Analyzing powers... providing matching powers would exceed reasonable safety limitations of subject's body, providing random powers."
"Random powers?" Taylor asked, not sure how to feel about her powers being changed since she hadn't even realized she had powers beyond going crazy because she was hearing everything and catching flashes of motion from thousands of sources.
"Mental Defenses integrated successfully, Upgrade implemented successfully. Mana Pool implementation failed. Providing alternative power to compensate. Power Bestowal: Conjure Persistent Minion: Pixie Stripper, implemented successfully. Initialization Complete. Please enjoy your world merger."
"Taylor?!" Danny called out from downstairs.
"I'm fine!" Taylor called out, relieved that she could move and more than a bit confused by the strange voice or what it meant by the world merging. She rolled out of bed and quickly pulled on a pair of sweats since she could hear her father hustling up the stairs.
"Did you hear a weird voice?" Danny asked from the top of the stairs.
"Yes," Taylor replied as she pulled her sweatshirt on, not sure if she should be relieved that she wasn't the only one or more concerned as it wasn't just her imagination. "It said something about the world merging."
"Cataclysm 726, right?" Danny asked, wanting to make sure he wasn't hallucinating.
"Yeah, did you try the news?" Taylor asked.
"No, I was more concerned that something had happened to you," Danny admitted.
"I'm fine," Taylor assured him, feeling fine despite the insanity that she'd had to deal with in the hospital. "Let's check the news."
"Are you sure you're okay?" Danny asked.
"I'm doing better than yesterday..." Taylor trailed off as she thought about her powers and a floating translucent user interface appeared in front of her, reminding her of some of the videos she'd watched of people in power armor that had a heads up display. "Give me a minute to get dressed," she told her father, trying to buy enough time to figure her new powers out.
"Sure, I'll turn on the news," Danny replied as he turned to head back down the stairs, glad that he hadn't just burst into her room to check on her. 'At least she sounds lucid.'
Taylor glanced at the red sphere near the left bottom of her field of vision that was next to a blue sphere. 'Health and mana?' She mused, not sure why that felt correct. 'Did I get turned into a character in a video game?'
She twitched when she focused on her dresser and several grayed out 'upgrade' options popped up along with the option to improve the paintjob which cost five mana. 'How much mana do I have?' She focused on the sphere of mana and smiled when it swapped to show 10/10 Mana, 1/month, giving her a better idea of what she had to work with.
"Does that mean it improves every month or recharges?" Taylor mused as she walked over and grabbed a pair of socks from her drawer.
She sighed when she checked the numbers on her bed and realized that it was going to take her a long time before she was anywhere close to combat ready. 'Can I upgrade my mana pool?'
Taylor sighed when she noticed that the upgrade option would cost ten points and only give her increase her mana by .1 points. 'So it would basically cost a hundred points for one point, that wouldn't be so bad if the regeneration was better.'
She checked and realized that she could increase the regeneration but that it would cost five hundred mana to increase her regeneration to the point where she'd regenerate a point every week rather than every month. 'Fantastic, at a point a month, that's only going to take a couple of decades before I can afford to increase my regeneration.'
Taylor focused on her other power and sighed in relief when a translucent window appeared that resembled some of the free games that let people make heroes she'd played with a couple of years ago. She glanced at the Minion Creation label at the top of the window then looked at the mana cost above the Bestow Minion button. 'Ten points?'
"Probably just as well that I didn't try to upgrade my mana pool," she muttered as she sat down and started putting her socks on. She mentally played with the interface, a touch annoyed that most of the more interesting options were grayed out but trying to stay positive because her new powers weren't driving her insane which was an improvement over her old powers. 'One point of strength, ten points of dexterity, eight constitution, two points of magic and twelve charisma because she's adorable?'
Taylor mentally checked the strength rating. 'Able to lift five pounds without getting tired or ten with effort, could be worse I guess. Special abilities, Mana Tips?' She checked the special ability and stared at the description of the ability. 'Huh, every dollar she makes in tips gives me a point of mana. That's a hell of a lot better than waiting months to regenerate my mana.'
She finished putting her socks on then opened the door and headed downstairs as she checked some of the grayed out options. 'Toss fireballs, florakinesis, conjure glitter, healing dance?' She checked the description of the healing dance. 'Minion can perform a dance to heal people in a thirty foot radius, the dance heals one percent of the pixie's health per ten seconds. That would actually be impressive if they had more than forty health.'
"The news is saying that everyone heard the voice," Danny told her.
"What happened..." Taylor trailed off when she looked at the television and saw the half naked woman on the screen standing in front of a map of the east coast wearing a professional looking black skirt.
"We're getting reports that various cities have been replaced or changed. In case you don't recognize me, I'm April O'Neil with Channel Six News and I'll be here all day as we try to figure out what happened and why we have people flying around in tights."
"Flying around in tights?" Taylor asked as a short clip of an unfamiliar man in a red and blue costume with a large yellow S on his chest put out a large warehouse fire by breathing on it. "New cape?"
"It looks like someone decided to dress like Superman," Danny mused, thinking about the old comics that he'd read as a kid.
"Superman?" Taylor asked.
"He was a comic book hero before we had capes," Danny replied.
"Have you tried changing the station?" Taylor asked.
"No, I just started watching. I had to scan the available stations, most of them were playing old movies because of the time and April caught my attention," Danny admitted.
Taylor glanced at the woman's generous bust that was on display. "I can't imagine why."
"Style and charisma, probably," Danny replied as he turned the volume low as the news reporter started talking about the flying hero like it was strange to see capes flying around. "I need to make some calls and I'll probably have to head into work, are you going to be okay?"
"Are you sure you want to drive today? The roads are going to be insane," Taylor warned him, knowing they got weird any time there was an emergency.
"I don't have everyone's number," Danny admitted.
"So call Kurt and Lacy, you can do a phone tree or we can ask someone that lives closer to check on things," Taylor suggested.
"I'll see what I can find out," Danny said as he set the remote down and left to call Kurt, hoping the phones worked.
"We're getting a report from the White House," April announced, prompting Taylor to turn the volume back up. "Someone claiming to be the president has announced a state of emergency while they figure out what we've lost and what we've gained."
The screen cut to an image of a tall distinguished man in his mid to late fifties with more silver in his hair than black that was wearing a black suit. "While I shouldn't need an introduction, recent events have brought that into question so let me start by introducing myself," the man paused for a couple of seconds to let his message sink in then continued smoothly, "I am Richard Blackstone, president of the United States of America. While I understand that we have cities and possibly entire counties stolen from other worlds, I'll do my best to keep everything moving in the right direction. I believe in liberty and justice, I believe that we're better together than we are apart and that we'll rise to this challenge as we have every other challenge."
"I'll have a full press conference when I have more information. I wanted to get ahead of things and let everyone know that the voice was serious about the world merging and that some of our neighbors might have changed, the world certainly has from what our satellites have shown. Please stay calm while we try to sort things out. I don't know what the future has in store for us but we will survive this, we have survived worse."
'Not the person Dad voted for or anyone I've heard of but he seems competent,' Taylor mused, surprised that he'd tossed a speech together in a couple of minutes that actually sounded halfway useful and inspiring.
"And that was apparently our president," April said as she reappeared on the screen. "Like the man said, have some patience and if you can, you should stay off the roads. We don't know if they're safe or even connected between cities and we don't know what else came with us. By the way, if you see a group of humanoid turtles, they're probably there to help."
"Humanoid turtles?" Taylor muttered, wondering if they were the result of a tinker or if they were aliens or something stranger. She tuned the reporter out as she started talking about the traffic situation in New York, mostly because it seemed pretty mundane compared to everything else happening.
'Let's assume I'm not crazy or the victim of a really elaborate prank and the world has gone to hell, I'm going to need mana which means I'm going to need a minion,' Taylor mused as she looked through the flaws she could give her minion to get more points, looking for something that wouldn't completely cripple her.
'Oh, Nearly Talentless: Magitech, gains the ability to build, create and use magitech, this flaw reduces the chances of successfully using, creating or building magitech by thirty percent. I can probably fix it later,' Taylor mused as she took the flaw, giving her a couple of points to spend on talents for her new minion.
'Frail, minus two starting constitution? That would make her a bit squishier but I should be able to just summon her back if she gets hurt or killed, it's probably worth the points,' she decided as she added the flaw to her new minion.
'Impish? Playful and weird, sure, why not,' Taylor thought as she added the flaw. She skimmed over the rest of the flaws, not particularly interested in most of the personality flaws as they'd probably leave her minion neurotic at best and a sadistic bitch at worst. 'Oh, Uncontrolled Magic: This flaw cuts the pixie's starting magic in half, increases the point cost to raise their magic attribute at creation and reduces the pixie's ability to use most types of magic by 30% while unlocking all types of magic. Defeating enemies will occasionally give her a random spell?'
'That would drop her magic down to one and give her a bunch of random spells while probably making her prone to magical accidents, on the other hand, the way it's worded implies that she'll have a chance to increase her magic and getting spells when she defeats people sounds like an advantage, or maybe I'm just completely screwing things up, I’m not exactly an RPG nerd, where's Greg when you need him?'
She swapped back to the talents section and gave her the Healing Dance ability, hoping it worked on paper cuts or bruises if she danced long enough then spent the last point on the ability to permanently conjure glitter, figuring it might come in useful at some point. She pushed the button to bestow the minion and selected herself when the option came up.
Taylor blinked a couple of times when she suddenly knew how to summon and unsummon her minion. She glanced toward the kitchen where she could hear her father talking to Kurt quietly enough that she couldn't really understand what he was saying then focused on the new feeling and 'summoned' her minion, causing an adorable foot tall pixie with pale skin, rainbow butterfly wings and sparkling green hair to appear out of thin air on the coffee table dressed in a black and white cheerleading outfit.
"Hello world!" Moonbeam called out, her voice surprisingly deep and loud for a girl that was only a foot tall. "I'm Moonbeam, the best and most fantastic pixie the world has ever seen!"
"Hi, can you…" Taylor trailed off as her father walked back into the living room and stared at the pixie standing on the table.
"What's going on?" Danny asked, staring at the pixie.
Moonbeam spun around and waved at Danny, causing the back of her skirt to flare out and show Taylor that she wasn't wearing underwear. "Hello! Nice to meet you, I'm Moonbeam!"
"Okay, that doesn't explain as much as you think," Danny told the pixie, trying to figure out why he had a pixie on his coffee table.
"Oh right, I'm your daughter's pixie and she's my Master, no refunds!" Moonbeam declared enthusiastically.
"Pixie?" Danny asked as he glanced between the 'pixie' and his daughter, not sure what to say.
"Apparently I have the power to permanently bestow the ability to summon a pixie minion in exchange for mana," Taylor admitted, figuring she might as well tell him about her power since the cat was out of the bag, or pixie in this case.
"As in magic points?" Danny asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Apparently, I have zero of ten mana currently because giving myself the ability to summon Moonbeam cost ten points and I think I'll naturally regenerate a point in a month but Moonbeam can convert tips into mana," Taylor offered.
"Yep, every dollar someone gives me as a tip, gives the Boss a point of mana," Moonbeam explained smugly.
"Which Taylor can use to give people the ability to summon pixies?" Danny asked, trying to make sure he had the entire picture.
"Yep!" Moonbeam agreed.
"The voice gave me new powers because my old ones were dangerous to duplicate for some reason," Taylor admitted.
"Probably for the best," Danny admitted, glad that he wouldn't have to deal with her ranting about the voices in the walls anymore or things crawling over her. "Do you know anything about the voice?"
Moonbeam shook her head. "Not a clue, I got some of Taylor's basic knowledge about the world when I was created so that I wouldn't be brain dead, but I don't know anything about the voice that Taylor doesn't, sorry. I'm just here to be her friend, companion, sidekick and entertainment."
"How much do you know about magic?" Taylor asked her pixie.
Moonbeam shrugged. "I know that magic is basically an energy source that certain people and monsters can manipulate to create various effects if they have the right talents or information, but I'm not an expert on the history of it."
"Did you talk to Kurt?" Taylor asked, trying to change the subject.
"Yeah, I've got to go into the office," Danny admitted. "Apparently the cargo ship is gone and there are a couple of large ships in the bay that shouldn't be there and someone in charge needs to be around to sort things out."
"That could be a good thing," Taylor pointed out, hoping the large ships meant the union would have work.
"Not having to worry about the cargo ship is fantastic, but I'll probably be stuck at work for a while, are you going to be okay?" Danny asked, wanting to make sure.
"I'll be fine," Taylor assured him. "I've got a bunch of books to read and I have a feeling the news might actually be interesting for once."
"Probably," Danny agreed as he walked over to grab his jacket. "Are you sure?"
"I'll be fine, go," Taylor told her father, planning on locking the doors as soon as he left and doing some research on ways to gain mana faster.
"I love you, call me if you need something," Danny told her then headed for the door.
"I will," Taylor told him as she walked over and sat down on the couch. She gave her father a reassuring smile then sighed once he left, trying to figure out how she was supposed to leverage her power to become any sort of cape.
"So, what's the plan?" Moonbeam asked as soon as Taylor's father was gone. "Do you want me to dance for you or do you want to discuss plans on how we're going to defeat the villains and get the girl?"
"Get the girl?" Taylor asked, not sure what she was talking about.
"Isn't that the hero's job, you save the world or the kingdom and you get to fuck the princess or the cute girl, right?" Moonbeam asked hopefully.
"I don't think it works that way," Taylor admitted.
"That sucks, it should," Moonbeam argued.
"If I tip you, do I still get the mana?" Taylor asked, trying to keep things on track and not think of her non-existent social life.
"Yep, but I'm not giving you the money back, it's mine," Moonbeam warned her.
"That's fair," Taylor agreed as her stomach grumbled, reminding her that she hadn't had anything to eat in a while. "Do you need to eat?"
"No, but I like food, especially sugar, can I have sugar?" Moonbeam asked hopefully.
"This is going to make you hyper, isn't it?" Taylor asked as she got up and headed for the kitchen.
"Maybe," Moonbeam replied with a grin as she flew after her master.
0o0o0
"Do you have any good news?" Clark asked as he walked into the meeting room on the Watchtower, hoping they'd come up with a way to fix things.
"We have a new president," Oliver offered, relieved that they wouldn't have to keep dealing with Luthor. "From the information I could find, Blackstone seems pretty solid despite him being a magic user."
"What's wrong with being a magic user?" Zatanna asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Nothing in theory, but certain types of magic lends themselves to abuse, especially for someone in office," Oliver replied, thinking of some of the dark mages he'd run into over the years.
"We'll keep an eye on it," Bruce assured him as he brought up a map on the large screen. "Unfortunately, we have larger problems. Gotham seems to be a patchwork of sections stolen from different dimensions. We have at least three different Jokers and several Robins, including Nightwing."
"Having more heroes is a good thing," Starfire argued.
"Doesn't make it less strange," Nightwing argued, knowing the extra Jokers were going to be a problem.
"At least most of the important bits in Gotham are still there, I don't even recognize anything in National City," Kara complained. "How am I supposed to deal with the fact that I have a duplicate that is still in high school or that I have a duplicate that works as a reporter?"
"What's wrong with being a reporter?" Clark asked.
"That's your gig, I like tech," Kara replied, looking forward to meeting the other versions of her.
"You're missing the point, if Gotham was stitched together, the same thing probably happened in other cities, this is going to be a mess," Bruce argued.
"Speaking of messes, do you have any information on parahumans?" Clark asked, having heard the word while he was putting out fires.
"No one knows where the powers came from or at least I couldn't find any information about where the powers came from but they showed up in the eighties and seem to be the result of traumatic experiences. Fortunately there seems to be an entire network of heroes that we can probably tap if we need the help."
"Assuming they'd want to work with us," Oliver cut in. "They don't take normal people, just people with powers."
"Do you want me to make some power armor?" Kara asked, wanting something to distract her from the fact that her world was gone... again, mostly.
"Wouldn't be a bad idea," Oliver admitted as Hal walked into the conference room, not seeing a point in passing up a set of power armor. "Were you able to contact the corps?"
"No, I also couldn't find any beacons or signs that the Guardians exist though I found evidence that this dimension has aliens and faster than light space travel, most of the aliens use massive star gates to travel between solar systems and a strange element to power gravity drives from what my ring could decipher from the media signals it picked up," Hal explained as he walked over and sat down at the table. "On the bright side, we shouldn't have to worry about Darkseid or the Thanagarians or most of the aliens we're used to dealing with."
"Which means Argo is gone," Kara muttered.
"They're probably fine," Hal assured her. "We're the ones that got moved through time and space."
"Time?" Zatanna asked.
"I scanned the world looking for traces of what happened, every city or at least every county was pulled from a different time. According to the calendar it should be 2015, according to the position of the stars and planets, 2025. However most of the cities were stolen from somewhere in the late nineties to the early 2020's with a couple of exceptions."
"Exceptions?" Clark asked.
"There's a group of people in a vault that might have survived an apocalypse, they have a lot of mutated plant life around the entrance to the vault and the computers in the vault list the date as a couple of centuries from now. China was completely replaced by a version from the middle ages or several versions stitched together, it's hard to say. Japan seems to be a mess of cobbled-together villages that range from primitive to alien tech with every couple of villages having a ninja academy and the top half of Mexico seems to have come from a dimension where they never gave up on legalized dueling or owning really large weapons and mechs, they're also part of the U.S."
"That's going to annoy some people," Oliver mused.
"How long do you think it's going to take the country to redesign the legal code?" Nightwing asked thoughtfully.
"It's going to take a while," Bruce pointed out as the computer noted that they had an incoming call. "Masks up," he said as he pulled his mask back on.
Batman gave everyone a couple of seconds then brought the video call up on the screen, showing an overweight woman with a severe hair cut in a business suit and a man in power armor off to her side. "Can I help you?"
"My name is Emily Piggot, I'm the director for the Brockton Bay Parahuman Response Team and I've been asked to contact you on behalf of the PRT as I've been told that you're a group of heroes that operate in the United States and some of the directors were rather concerned when they learned that you're in control of a large space station," Director Piggot explained, not particularly happy about being elected the PRT's spokesperson because half of the directors were missing, including the Chief Director but unwilling to let one of the more questionable directors screw things up.
"I can understand the concern," Batman assured her. "I'd certainly be concerned if an alien ship or station appeared over my world with no warning."
'That's an understatement,' Clark thought, knowing his friend had a lot of plans for unlikely events, including aliens showing up out of nowhere.
"Is there any chance that you'll allow someone to tour your station so that I can assure the other directors that you're not a treat?" Piggot asked, curious how reasonable the heroes were.
"That might be problematic," Kara admitted, thinking about the weapon systems she'd installed on the station to help defend against the White Martians.
"Because of security concerns?" Piggot asked, wishing she was surprised that they didn't want people on their station.
"We take security seriously but no, it's an issue because the station has weapons that we can use against alien ships and asteroids, our world wasn't exactly safe at the best of times," Kara explained, making a mental note to talk to Zatanna about warding the station against undesirables teleporting to the station.
"Aliens?" Piggot asked.
"Different worlds, different problems," Kara replied with a shrug. "Our dimension has an entire species of shape shifting aliens on Mars, some of them were extremely hostile."
"On Mars?" Piggot asked in disbelief.
"They're quite a bit more durable than humans and they have advanced tech that rivals tinkertech in a lot of ways," Kara explained, not seeing a point in mentioning that they were telepathic as that was something that wasn't supposed to be possible for parahumans according to everything she’d been able to find online.
"Even if I believed you and I'm having trouble believing you without proof, having weapons of mass destruction on the station violates several treaties," Piggot warned them.
"I haven't had a chance to read all of the various treaties from every world that was stitched together to make Cataclysm 726 but none of our weapons are nuclear or what I'd consider weapons of mass destruction which means the treaties I remember, don't apply."
"You don't consider weapons you can use against spaceships weapons of mass destruction?" Piggot asked.
"None of them can crack planets, so no, I don't consider them weapons of mass destruction," Kara replied, fairly sure the main cannon would only destroy most of a continent rather than actually cracking the planet even if she disabled the safety systems and redlined the cannon.
"You have weapons that can crack planets?" Armsmaster asked warily.
"Not on the station but I've seen alien tech that could crack planets, we had all sorts of rules about that sort of tech, the problem comes when you find a group that ignores the rules and doesn't care."
"We're getting off track," Clark pointed out, trying to avoid jumping down a rabbit hole.
Kara glanced at her cousin then focused on the screen. "We can appreciate your desire to make sure everything is safe, your world's tinkertech sounds sketchy, but I understand everything on the station with the exception of some of the Lantern systems that the Guardians installed and they've had the tech for millions of years, it's proven."
"Millions?" Armsmaster asked in surprise.
"The Guardians are biologically ageless and they've been around a long time," Kara explained. "Look, as much as I'd love to discuss tech with some of your tinkers or scientists, letting you inspect the station sets a bad precedent."
"Bad precedent?" Armsmaster asked.
"I don't need some idiot with delusions of importance in the U.S. government using our generosity as an excuse to think that we're supposed to answer to the government or the PRT or that various governments can simply demand access to our tech or resources."
"So you're above the law?" Piggot asked.
"We're currently in space, so technically," Oliver offered.
Piggot glared at Oliver. "That's not what I meant and you know it."
Kara glanced at Oliver then continued explaining why she wasn't willing to roll over for an organization she'd never heard of, "I don't know how it was in your world but the U.S. currently has fifty two states if you include what should have been Cuba and the top third of Mexico, a president most of the country has never heard of and a patchwork collection of senators from all fifty two states along with nine supreme court justices from different worlds and that's just looking at the U.S. From what I could tell by looking on the net, the U.S. legal code is a large ball of yarn currently and your organization would be illegal in at least half of the versions of the U.S. that were mashed together, so no, I'm not currently interested in letting U.S. government agents who may not even be legal on the station."
"We might reevaluate that policy when things are less chaotic but currently, we have to politely decline," Clark told them.
"Understandable, I had to ask," Piggot replied, trying to see things from their point of view and knowing that she wouldn't want a strange organization she'd never heard of walking around her building and telling her how to do her job.
"Is there a better way to reach you for tech questions?" Armsmaster asked Kara.
"Just use the extension 5272," Kara told him. "I'm not always here but you can always leave a message."
"Thank you," Armsmaster replied, curious what her specialty was since she seemed to be the team's tinker.
"What can you tell us about the extra states?" Piggot asked.
"Do you want maps or a summary?" Batman asked as he started collecting some of the maps that he'd had the computer put together.
"Both," Piggot replied, planning on passing the information along to the directors in the southern states.
"I'll send you the information," Batman assured her. "What can you tell me about parahumans?"
"What do you want to know?" Piggot asked.
"Everything," Batman replied, causing the rest of the team to sigh as they realized the call was going to take a while.
"I'll send you an information packet, I need to talk to the other directors and figure out how we're going to approach things," Piggot admitted.
"Best of luck," Barry offered.
0o0o0
Comments
ZeroLink21
Damn this is gonna get crazy I could swear I saw a mass effect reference in there and if so I wanna see both superman and green lantern kill a reaper it would just blow the reapers away lol tftc
Mist of Shadows
Dc: The Watchtower, various heroes and villains, Worm: the bay and various PRT/Protectorate buildings, April/turtles ninja turtles, vault = fallout are the ones that I can give out currently.
Ben Benson
Sweet! I hope you get as far as reactions from the council. Also, I hope the changes are kept to Earth. I prefer seeing the reactions with everyone else dealing with that sort of insanity.
Michael Willis
This will be a nightmare to keep straight but allows so much chaos, made it easier to hide the bad authors in the comics, I really want to see you do it justice here. Can you give a list of source locations when it won't be spoilers? I normally miss half of them.
