Mist of Shadows
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Endbringers Hate Paperwork Part 10
🕑 Added 2023-03-04 08:11:00 +0000 UTC"Resizing equipment for the win," Myst said cheerfully as he tossed yet another magical staff from the pile of loot in the middle of the warehouse into his spatial ring, finding the ring ridiculously easy to use. 'And it comes with an inventory-like interface.'
"It should make it easier to loot everything to the ground," Vicky agreed as she poured the silver coins she'd scooped up with an old dustpan into one of the six expanded chests they'd bought from the merchant. "It's weird having money."
"It's a nice change," Myst agreed, knowing they'd be spending the silver like water once they found someone that sold decent magical items.
Taylor set a dagger in the ruby pentagram set into the top of the obsidian enchanting altar, causing a translucent window to appear over the altar. She glanced over the item's details then tapped the disenchant icon. She reached over and tapped the confirmation icon, confirming her choice and causing the dagger to turn into sparkles. She frowned as she watched the sparkles change into a small black silk bag filled with dust. "How much do you think going through the Item World would improve the exchange rate?"
"No clue, we'd have to survive to find out," Myst replied as he turned to look at the altar which looked like a partially melted table that appeared more uneven than it actually was. "The altar is basically an artifact which means we'd be fighting monsters that can casually kill us."
Vicky dropped another scoop of silver coins in the expanded chest. "In other words, we need better gear."
"Basically," Myst agreed as he went back to sorting through the loot, trying to get everything sorted into some type of order so they could figure out what they had and what they could turn into mana dust that they could use to improve their gear. "We might be able to survive the first couple of levels but honestly, I'd rather wait until we have a decent set of defensive gear before taking the risk."
"No objection here," Amy offered, not seeing a point in risking her life when they could just take things a bit slower. "What's the next step, books or potions?"
Myst glanced at the stack of books on the desk he wanted to upgrade. "Supplies, we're going to need stuff to enchant and I wouldn't mind kidnapping Uber and Leet."
"Kidnap as in grab so you can steal their tech and turn them in or kidnap so you can recruit?" Amy asked.
"Recruit, Leet can make just about anything once and fairy dust would probably help with his mental issues," Myst said as he used his telekinesis to levitate to his feet.
"You realize they're villains, right?" Vicky asked.
Myst looked at Vicky. "Compared to the rest of the villains in the city other than the Undersiders, they're practically saints."
"That's not saying much considering our gangs," Amy complained.
"I'm not saying they're decent people but I can understand their frustration, every device that Leet builds burns something out of his collection," Myst replied, knowing he'd be extremely bitter if he'd ended up with a power that was going to kill him in a couple of years. "If he's not really careful, his tech will kill him because he's already built something similar or used a component that functions like something else."
"Seriously?" Vicky asked.
"Yep, power sensing for the win," Myst replied with a sigh. "Imagine, finding out that you're the next Hero only to find out that you're going to burn through everything you have in five years, leaving you a broken and useless addict that still needs to tinker. Only everything you're building at that point is basically a death trap because you've burned out entire branches in your tech tree and it doesn't come with a heads up display so you’ll never know for sure what will kill you."
"That would suck," Vicky admitted, thinking about some of the stuff Chris had mentioned about tinkering.
"So yeah, I can sympathize, mostly because there are worse things he could be doing than running around pretending to be video game characters. I'm not asking you to trust them or become their pals or anything, I'm just saying that we should hit them with fairy dust and see if we can get them off the streets. I'd do the same with Squealer if I thought she'd stay clean."
"It's worth a try," Taylor said as she fed an axe to the enchanting altar. "Worst case, I get a copy of their powers and we haul them to the PRT." She picked up the small bag of mana dust and dropped it in the box next to the altar. "Best case, we turn a pair of villains into valuable members of society and we get some help."
Vicky looked at Amy. "What do you think?"
"Taylor's right, it's worth a try," Amy admitted. "Pawn shop on fifth for the rings?" she asked Vicky, trying to avoid the mall.
"We could also try the market," Vicky mused as she watched Amy's flying carpet nudge her legs.
Amy glanced down at her flying carpet then jumped on. "It's going to be weird running around in masks."
Vicky snickered as she stepped up on the carpet next to her sister. "And fun."
"Do you have room on your carpet for one more?" the demon girl asked Amy with a smile, looking forward to seeing more of this human world before she went back to the netherworld.
"Sure," Vicky agreed, wanting a chance to ask the demon about her world.
"Welcome aboard," Amy told the attractive demon girl, not seeing a problem with the other girl tagging along now that she wasn't obsessed with her sister.
Myst used his telekinesis to open the warehouse door and levitate the keys off the table and over to Amy as the demon girl stepped up behind her. "In case you get back first, I can open the doors with telekinesis."
"Thanks," Amy replied as she put the keys in her spatial ring.
"Don't do anything we wouldn't," the Vicky doll ordered, not looking up from the coins she was counting.
"We're counting the loot!" the Amy doll cheerfully exclaimed.
Amy nodded, glad that the dolls were staying behind so that there would be less connections between them and the Prism Girls. "See you in a bit."
"Have fun," Taylor ordered as she watched the girls fly off. "I should probably change back and find a mask."
"Your costume has a stranger effect and your hair is hidden, you'll be fine," Myst assured her as he walked out of the warehouse.
"I'm going to get arrested for public indecency," Taylor complained as she followed Myst out of the warehouse, not really as worried about it as she probably should be.
"Everything is technically covered and I doubt they'll press the issue, you're a cape," Myst argued as he shut and locked the warehouse door.
"If I get arrested, I'm blaming you," Taylor replied, only half joking.
"Good," Myst replied as floated into the air and focused on the various capes in the city. He frowned when he realized he couldn't feel Coil. 'So much for dealing with Coil.' He glanced towards the downtown area where he could feel Brian, Lisa, and Noelle. "Slight change of plan, I need to talk to a villain about a monster, it's sort of important."
"You're the boss," Taylor replied as she flew up so that she didn't have to stare up at him. "Who are we going to talk to?"
"Tattletale," Myst replied as he flew towards downtown.
0o0o0
'Shit,' Brian cursed silently as a pair of empire goons moved to block their way on the sidewalk.
The large brown haired biker smirked as he glanced between Brian and Lisa. "Are you stupid?"
"Have you looked in a mirror lately?" Aisha asked, trying to distract them so that her brother had a better chance at taking them while they were distracted.
"Wow, the bitch has a mouth on her," the skinny blond haired guy in an expensive leather jacket taunted as he pulled a switchblade out of his pocket and flicked it open. "We might need to edu-mi-cate her after we cut him."
"No shit," the large biker agreed with a smirk, looking forward to having some fun with the white girl after fucking up the trash.
"Can I have the jacket?" Myst asked as he landed behind the thugs while invisible.
The biker spun around and looked around the mostly empty street. "What the fuck?!"
"Last I checked, there's nothing immoral about curb stomping Nazis, just illegal, please give me a reason," Myst told the thugs.
Lisa glanced up, catching a faint outline of a giant when he moved. 'Huh, at least we don't have to worry about getting stabbed.'
The skinny guy turned so that he could keep the people in sight while scanning the area for people. "If you're so fucking tough, show yourself."
"Shut it Ralph," the large guy ordered his friend, wanting nothing to do with a cape.
"I'm curious. There's something I've never understood about your idiotic cult, why brand yourself like cattle?" Myst asked, a touch curious why anyone would get a tattoo celebrating a failed cult and political movement.
"It's a declaration of intent," the skinny guy said with a smirk as he gestured at Brian and Aisha. "They need to be put in their place."
"Fair enough," Myst replied, then used his telekinesis to shatter the man's knees and elbows, causing him to collapse to the ground, screaming in agony.
The large biker stared at the way Ralph's legs were bent backwards and his twisted arms that were flopping around as he thrashed. "What the fuck?!"
"I'm tired of your shit," Myst replied with annoyance. "You're entitled to your opinions, you're even legally allowed to spew your shit. It's not my fault that your friend's bones decided to spontaneously break."
"You assaulted him with a power, they'll send you to the cage," the biker argued as he took a step back, growing more concerned about the unstable cape.
"Unlikely," Myst replied as he reached down and stuck the screaming idiot in his spatial ring, tired of listening to him.
The biker stumbled back when Myst became visible. "Fuck!"
Myst snorted. "Not if you were the last person on Earth."
"Kaiser is going to fuck you up," the biker said, not really feeling it but trying to talk his way out of getting fucked up.
"Best of luck," Myst told him and snapped his arms and legs with telekinesis. He raised an eyebrow when Aisha kicked the screaming man in the nuts, adding to his misery. "Really?"
"He's a nazis," Aisha replied.
"Fair," Myst agreed as he reached down and stuffed the screaming idiot in his spatial ring.
"Thanks?" Brian asked, trying to avoid offending the unstable cape.
"No problem," Myst replied as he turned invisible again. "Sorry, about the invisibility but I'd rather not have to deal with the paperwork involved."
"Or their capes?" Brian asked, knowing the Empire had some nasty capes.
"I'm not particularly worried about their capes," Myst replied, glad that he could keep track of the capes in the city. "Can I pick your brain for a second Lisa?"
"Sure," Lisa replied, fairly sure saying no wouldn't be a good idea.
"Coil split town, do you have any idea why?" Myst asked, figuring she'd have some idea what her boss was up to.
'Yeah, he already knows who I am and what I can do, no point in pretending,' she mused as she tried to figure out why he wanted to know about Coil. "Not really. He wanted me to look into your history, I'd barely started working when he called me back and told me to destroy the files and that he was leaving me the base and that I should deal with Noelle. Do you know who Noelle is?"
"Yeah, she's a dangerous and unstable case 53 that Coil keeps in his base in a vault," Myst replied as he pulled a bag of fairy dust out of his spatial ring and floated it over to her. "You should be able to fix her mental issues if you hit her with the dust or get her to use it on herself. It might even fix her physical issues."
"Might?" Lisa asked.
Myst glanced down the street where he could feel Rune and Krieg coming closer. "I'm not a precog, I just know a couple. Even if the dust doesn't fix her physical issues, I know someone that can."
"How do we know we can trust you?" Brian asked.
"You don't but I'll let you in on a 'secret' that anyone with half a brain could figure out, Coil was never going to help you with your sister's paperwork," Myst replied as he reached out and knocked Krieg off the metal siding that Rune was controlling in the distance, putting enough force into the shove that his skull cracked open when he hit the rail despite his powers.
"He's not wrong," Lisa pointed out, knowing Coil wasn't the type of person to give up his leverage on people without gaining even more.
"And you didn't say anything?" Brian asked in annoyance.
"I'll explain later," Lisa promised, knowing she was going to need a drink. "Were you planning on killing him?"
"Considering his stance on recruiting people at gunpoint and drugging children so he can use their powers, I was going to turn him into an accordian," Myst readily admitted.
"His power probably warned him which is why he left town," Lisa mused, fitting the pieces into place neatly with the timing of Coil’s actions.
"Probably, he can basically run a simulation of future events then puppet himself so he acts like he's running two different timelines. He probably did something in the simulation that pissed me off and I killed him," Myst mused, knowing it wouldn't take much considering his low opinion of the bastard.
"That fits," Lisa admitted. "Why are you helping Noelle?"
"I don't want her to go on a rampage and destroy the city," Myst admitted. "I also want her for a job because she's a trump and a powerful brute."
"So you're going to fix her mental issues and offer her a job? What's the catch?" Brian asked suspiciously.
“Catch?” Aisha asked, giving him a look that said she doubted his intelligence. “Who wants crazy people working for them? Of course you are going to make them sane before offering them a job.”
"Exactly, there’s no catch, if she doesn't want the job, I'll see if I can get her back to Earth Aleph after hitting the rest of her team with dust, it should clear up their mental issues and let us avoid a couple of future problems," Myst explained, not seeing a reason to explain the Simurgh bit until Noelle was cured.
"Back?" Aisha asked.
"Her team got dropped through a portal from Earth Aleph," Myst explained as he watched Rune circle back around when she realized that Krieg had fallen or jumped off. 'That's probably going to cause some mental trauma.'
"Are you going to deal with the rest of the Empire?" Aisha asked hopefully.
Myst glanced at where Taylor was hovering in the air invisible. "Eventually. I want to deal with the Merchants first and make sure the ABB self-destructs. You should probably have one of the mercenaries give the dust to Noelle, I wouldn't put it past Coil to set off the self-destruct in his base if he thinks he can get away with it."
"Not a bad idea," Lisa mused, fairly sure she could bribe one of the mercenaries.
"Are you still using TT for PHO?" Myst asked.
Lisa glanced at Brian. "Am I that annoying when I'm doing my psychic thing?"
"Worse," Brian replied without hesitation.
Lisa gave Brian a less than impressed look before turning back to Myst. "Yeah, it's easy and it fits without being too blatant."
"I'll send you a message when I get a chance to set up a username," Myst assured her. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to track down a couple of capes."
"Thanks," Lisa replied, fairly sure they could trust him about Noelle from his physical tells.
Myst pulled a bag of fairy dust out of his spatial ring as he headed towards Rune.
[How long do you think it will take to deal with the Merchants?] Taylor asked as she followed Myst, glad that one of her powers let her see through invisibility as it made keeping track of him a lot easier.
[A couple of weeks? Ten minutes for the capes?] Myst offered as they flew down the block towards the scared looking girl standing on a sheet of metal looking down at Krieg's corpse.
[What happened?] Taylor asked when she noticed him.
[This is why you're supposed to wear a helmet], Myst replied as he loosened the drawstring a bit on the dust.
[His head looks like a watermelon exploded, I don't think it would have helped], Taylor replied, trying not to look at the mess.
[Don't feel bad, he was part of a German gang that loved brainwashing and torturing people], Myst replied as he tagged Rune with the dust as they flew past her, causing her to look like the victim of a glitter bomb. [That should help.]
Rune sputtered, spitting out the dust that had gotten in her mouth then looked around. "Fuck this shit, I'm going home and then getting the fuck out of town. Maybe I can rebrand somewhere where the entire place isn’t turning to shit," she complained then turned and flew towards the beach, not seeing a point in reporting what had happened when it was just going to get her killed.
0o0o0
[There is no way they're just going to eat…] Taylor trailed off as Squealer gleefully grabbed the chocolate sundae that she'd set on the table and started eating it, without even questioning where it had come from.
[This is your brain, this is your brain on drugs], Myst replied, sending her a mental image of an egg frying on a skillet.
[No thanks], Taylor replied as she watched the tinker through the window, more than a little surprised by the extent of the changes as the woman seemed to age backwards before her eyes, going from a washed out thirty something to a girl that was barely twenty as she ate the magical ice cream.
[Not my cup of tea], Myst replied as he floated a bag of fairy dust through the broken section in the garage window and over to Squealer. He waited until she finished the delicious ice cream then hit her with the bag of dust, causing her to look like she was hit by a glitter bomb.
"What the fuck?!" Squealer sputtered, not sure what the hell was going on or why she felt clear headed for the first time in years.
Myst smiled as he pulled a small bag of sleeping powder out of his spatial ring and floated it closer to the tinker, using her distraction with the glitter to hit her before she even noticed the sleeping dust. He carefully caught the tinker with telekinesis and floated her over as he opened the window. [That was easier than I was expecting.]
[I'm surprised she can sleep through the noise.] Taylor frowned as she watched Myst haul the unconscious tinker through the open window, taking a surprising amount of care considering his stance on villains. [How come you're being so careful?]
[She's not a Nazis, she's just a girl that got hooked on shit. Maybe she'll turn her life around, maybe she won't but there's no point in being an ass about it], Myst replied as he used a bit of magic to clean her up so they wouldn't get covered in glitter.
Taylor reached out and poked Squealer on her forehead with her finger, unlocking a copy of her powers. [How many mercenaries do you think Coil's base can hold?]
[No idea, why?] Myst asked as he used telekinesis and turned the music off. He pulled another healing sundae out of his spatial ring and floated it through the window and over to the table, figuring Skidmark would eat it without hesitation thinking it was Squealer's.
Taylor reached out and stuck Squealer in her spatial ring. [I'm going to need a base if I want to take advantage of my minion power.]
[I doubt the PRT would let you keep it and Coil probably has the explosives set up on a remote], Myst pointed out.
[I thought being a hero involved salvage and looting villains, are you telling me that Saturday morning cartoons lied to me?] Taylor teased as she waited for Skidmark to show up.
[Probably], Myst replied, making a mental note to ask Lisa about the rules for salvage on the off chance that Calvert actually owned the base. He smiled when Skidmark walked into the room and immediately went for the sundae after glancing around. 'Idiot.'
0o0o0
