Mist of Shadows
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Boosted Villainy Part 14
🕑 Added 2022-07-16 06:27:18 +0000 UTC'Stay together!' Kid Win mentally ordered his hoverboard, hoping it wouldn't fall apart before he managed to disengage from the insane blender of death. He fired off a couple of blasts at the insane lunatic that was chasing him, trying to distract him or get him to disengage. 'Fuck! I need better weapons, fucking regs!' he mentally cursed as he tried to get a bit more height so he could get over the RV in the way, mostly because he didn't have the time to swerve around it without getting caught.
He felt his stomach lurch when his board sparked and dropped a foot and a half. "Eject!" he shouted and jumped off his board, doing his best to twist and roll sideways along the top of the RV when his voice activated systems actually shut down the electromagnet that held his boots to the hoverboard like it was supposed to. He screamed in pain when he clipped the top of the RV with his chin and shattered his jaw.
Myst started when a teen in red armor tumbled off the top of the RV and landed in S.R.S Vicky's arms a second before something hit the RV hard enough to cause it to lurch and move a foot and a half towards him with the sound of multiple saw blades hitting metal. 'Fucking bastard!' he complained mentally, wishing he'd paid more attention to the amount of metal they'd recovered from Hookwolf's 'corpse' but he'd been tired and it had slipped his mind.
"Sorry," S. Vicky muttered as she flew over and grabbed a beat up pickup truck by the tailgate. "Not sorry!" she said as she lunged forward and swung the truck around as hard as she could, hitting Hookwolf like the hand of an angry god as he crawled over the RV.
Vista smirked as Hookwolf hit the twisted space she'd just finished setting up and ended up soaring over the bay. 'Fuck with my teammate, get fucked,' she thought as she ran over to check on Chris. "Are you okay?"
Rose tapped Kid Win with her healing ring as she 'checked' on his jaw, causing his obviously shattered jaw to reassemble itself and the rest of his various injuries to heal. "Hold still and let me check, it's probably not that bad," she told him as she quickly used Myst's gloves to copy his power.
Kid Win blinked when the pain vanished and he realized that he was being held by a purple haired girl that looked a lot like Vicky. "Vicky?"
"No, I'm Amethyst the Destroyer of Worlds," S.R.S Vicky said dryly.
Kid Win laughed then paused when he realized that he actually felt fine. "I feel fine." He quickly wiggled his toes and fingers then moved his legs, wanting to make sure he hadn't been paralyzed.
"Glad to hear we're not going to have to file a bunch of paperwork," Myst said as he copied Chris and Missy.
"Are you still alive?" Clockblocker asked over the ward's coms.
"Yeah," Kid Win replied as S.R.S. Vicky set him down. "Not sure what happened to Hookwolf."
"I tossed him into the bay," Vista said smugly.
"Can you repeat that?" Clockblocker asked, wanting to make sure he'd actually heard her correctly.
"I twisted the space between his current location and a hundred feet over the bay then Glory Girl knocked him through the twist in space," Vista explained.
"I'll let Armsmaster know, he might be able to catch him when he swims to shore," Clockblocker told the wards then pushed the button to contact Armsmaster so he could give him a report.
"You're my hero," Rose said as she held out a hand towards Vista, quickly copying her power when the young cape grabbed her hand. "You're my favorite ward."
"Thanks," Vista replied as she shook the girl's hand.
"Thanks for the save," Chris told S.R.S. Vicky.
Rose let go of Vista's hand when she finished copying her power and copied him and Vista, looking forward to having a shadow tinker to make her gear.
"You're welcome," S.R.S Vicky replied with a grin. "Can you skip mentioning the truck in your report?"
Myst focused on the truck and used his gloves to repair it, restoring it to mint condition. 'At least Vicky won't get yelled at, probably.'
Chris turned to look at the truck and noticed that it had actually held up surprisingly well. "They don't make them like that anymore."
S. Vicky smiled as she walked over with Chris's damaged hoverboard. "At least he didn't cut the board in half."
Chris accepted the hoverboard and looked it over. "It shouldn't be too hard to fix."
"Plug and play?" Rose asked, figuring she might as well toss the kid a bone since she had a good idea how his powers worked.
Chris turned to look at Rose. "What?"
Rose gestured at the various parts of Chris' hoverboard that she could see. "Plug and play components, right? You just swap the damaged things out and slot in new components and you're good to go."
"That would be nice…" Chris trailed off as he realized that a lot of his inventions were like that.
"Is there any reason to stick around?" Myst asked Vista, wanting to leave before someone from the PRT showed up to take statements or file an incident report.
Vista glanced at the RV then looked back at Myst. "Do you need an incident report for insurance?"
"Nah, my friend has a garage," Rose assured her.
"We'll just knock the dents out and cover everything with the solar panels I was planning on sticking on it," Myst replied.
"It's not like my insurance covers capes so there's no point in reporting it," Rose grumbled, thinking about the 'excessive' cost of getting insurance that covered capes.
"That sucks," Chris complained then blinked when he realized there were two Vickys, having been distracted by his hoverboard. "Am I seeing double?"
"Probably," S.R.S. Vicky replied seriously then snickered and pointed towards S. Vicky. "This is Azure."
"Changers?" Vista asked.
S. Vicky shrugged. "Everyone has a double somewhere, there are worse people to look like."
"In other words, you don't want Carol screaming at you, got it," Kid Win said.
"Would you?" S. Vicky asked as she headed for the door to the RV.
"Nope," Vista replied, having met Brandish on more than one occasion.
Myst followed Rose and the Vickys into the RV then closed the door. "That sucked."
"I'm just hoping no one caught my face on camera," Rose complained, not looking forward to having to explain the fight at dinner.
"Where are we going next?" S. Rose asked as she started the car.
"Admin's house," Myst replied as he checked on the mirror, surprised that it hadn't shifted more than half an inch thanks to the RV getting rocked by Hookwolf. "I'm suddenly glad that I boosted the shocks."
Rose sat down on the bench as they headed out of the parking lot. "It certainly makes for a better ride."
"Modular systems?" Myst asked Rose.
"Glasses?" Rose asked, looking at his sunglasses.
"Yep," Myst replied, glad that the glasses actually listed his power as modular systems.
Rose shrugged. "His power didn't match the Ward’s web page on him, so I figured I'd say something."
"Are you going to go crazy and lock yourself in a lab?" S. Rose asked.
"Probably," Rose replied with a grin.
"Do you have a power induced urge to tinker?" Myst asked, hoping they could copy tinker abilities without picking up the need to tinker.
"Not that I know of," Rose offered. "It's more like a bunch of skills and ideas I can tap into if I want."
"In that case, we should probably copy Leet's power," Myst said, looking forward to seeing what they could build and if they had Leet's issues.
"We should probably discuss costumes," S.R.S. Vicky suggested.
Myst pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at the GPS map of the city. "Does anyone want to grab a mask and fly back to Coil's house to stuff him in my inventory ring?"
"Sure," S. Vicky agreed as she held out her hand for the ring. "Do you think it will be large enough for him?"
"It should be considering I can fit a fridge," Myst replied as he gestured at the RV and repaired the damage that Hookwolf had caused.
"Cool," S. Vicky replied cheerfully. "Speaking of kidnapping villains, when are we going after the rest of the gangs?"
"In a couple of days. I want regeneration, a brute rating and fire resistance or immunity before I go after Lung and a stranger rating or magic item that duplicates it before I deal with the Merchants," Myst explained.
"What about the Empire?" S. Vicky asked.
Myst sighed. "Right or wrong, the Empire capes show up to endbringer fights, that means I'm less interested in making them vanish than I am the villains that don't show up. As for the idiots making up the gang, everyone has a right to free speech. We also have the right to call them on their shit, drain their bank accounts, lure them into fights and otherwise make their lives a living hell."
Rose shook her head. "Pretty sure none of those actually count as a right other than the first one and maybe the second as an extension of the first."
"Details," Myst replied with amusement as he grabbed one of the cheap masks they'd picked up from a box under the table and tossed it to S. Vicky. "You should get going."
"On it," S. Vicky replied cheerfully as she pulled the theater mask on and headed up to the cab so she could use the passenger door to leave.
Myst grabbed one of the notebooks and sat down at the table to start sketching costume ideas.
Rose watched as Myst tried to sketch a set of robes or at least she was reasonably sure it wasn't a dress. "I've got a better idea," she suggested as she grabbed Myst's laptop and set it on the table.
"What's that?" Myst asked as S. Rose pulled over to let S. Vicky out.
"Hero Builder, it's a free online web game that has a nice character builder," Rose explained as she booted up the computer. "It should give us a place to start and you can take screenshots."
"Cool." Myst quickly drew another three sketches of robes and used his power to boost his original sketch, causing the original sketch to improve as the other three vanished. "I think I'll stick to being a villain, it's easier."
"I wasn't going to say it," Rose teased.
S.R.S. Vicky laughed. "I was!"
"That's because you're evil," Myst replied as he put the notebook and pen in a box under the table, looking forward to seeing what they could come up with.
0o0o0
"Ragged tarps over the broken skylights, boards over the person sized holes in the wall, yep, you picked a winner," S.R.S. Vicky joked as they exited the RV.
"To be fair, none of the pictures showed the skylight," S. Lisa complained as she stared at the building they were supposed to restore. "We're probably going to have to deal with extensive water damage. I should have looked at the satellite photographs."
"Don't worry about it," Myst told her as he headed towards the heavily damaged building.
"Do you think the gloves will fix everything?" Taylor asked as they followed Myst.
Myst did his best to ignore the used needles he could see scattered around the parking lot where the broken pavement had prevented the wind from rolling them any further, knowing they should vanish when he used the cleaning and repair gloves. "I'll probably have to fix the walls and replace the windows and the skylights but I was planning on doing that anyway."
"What are you going to replace the walls with?" Taylor asked.
"Something exotic and weird," Myst replied with amusement as he used the key the realtor had given him to unlock the plywood covered wooden door. He pulled the door open a couple of inches before the warped door caught on the concrete and jammed in place. "Lovely."
"You knew it was going to be a fixer upper," S. Lisa pointed out.
Myst yanked on the door then stepped back. "Can our resident brute pull it open?"
"Vicky smash," S.R.S Vicky teased as she reached out, grabbed the door and pulled it open, causing a rather obnoxious grinding sound.
Myst stepped back when the scent of rot hit his nose. "Safety masks," he ordered as he pulled a stack of dust masks out of his inventory and handed one to Taylor and Rose.
"Thanks." Rose pulled her dust mask on, not wanting to get the crap in her lungs.
"If we're lucky, we'll find a safe filled with cash," S.R.S. Vicky said cheerfully as she flew into the building, looking forward to seeing what they could find. She paused when she got inside and found the floor had collapsed under the skylight, revealing stagnant water. "You've got water under the floor."
"Lovely," Myst muttered as he pulled his flashlight out of his pocket, pushed the on button and followed her into the dark building.
"Crawl space?" S. Rose asked thoughtfully as she floated over to check on the damaged floor.
"Looks more like a smuggling tunnel," S. Lisa said as she examined the concrete wall under the damaged floor. "I bet it goes from the kitchen or storeroom to the old warehouse."
"At least we bought it," Myst said as he shined the light around, revealing a fair bit of trash from when people had camped out in the building and the vaulted ceilings that were easily high enough to put in a second level where they'd have a great view of the bay and the stage. "And now we know why the place was so cheap."
"Do you want to repair everything or do you want to look around first?" S. Rose asked as she floated towards the hallway, not trusting the floor.
"We might as well take a look around," Myst replied as he floated towards the kitchen, wanting to get a better idea of what they were working with. He scowled when he reached the doorway to the kitchen and saw the torn up walls, broken appliances and missing countertops. "Fucking wire thieves."
"They probably did us a favor," Taylor said as she slipped past Myst to look at the damage, thinking of the couple of job sites she'd visited when she was younger.
"What do you mean?" Rose asked as she followed Taylor and Myst into the spacious kitchen.
Taylor pointed at a bit of wiring that was still in the wall. "They haven't used that type of wiring in decades and the place has been out of business for more than a year, which means you'd need to replace it or bribe the inspector to certify it. It's probably easier to just hire the dockworkers to replace all of the wiring."
"Or the electricians guild," Myst teased.
"They'd charge you an arm and a leg," Taylor replied with a grin. "Also the dockworkers know when to keep their mouths shut."
"Dockworkers it is," Myst replied as he headed for the storeroom, wanting to see if he could find a way to access the tunnel before he repaired everything. Thankfully, it wasn't all that hard to find the entrance, mostly because he'd accidentally hit a broom that had fallen at the exact right angle to hit the release lever and cause it to unlock the latch on the shelf. "Would you believe me if I said I meant to do that?"
"Nope!" Taylor and Rose replied at the same time.
"Worth a try," Myst replied as he swung the shelf out of the way, revealing a small room with a rusted hatch set into the concrete floor and wooden shelves filled with dusty cleaning supplies that looked to be from the forties or fifties. He focused on the hatch and unleashed his gloves' magic, causing the rust and dirt on the hatch to vanish. He reached down and opened the hatch, not surprised to find the tunnel filled with stagnant water. He focused on the water and used his gloves to clean it, causing the water to lose the scent and causing it to turn crystal clear.
"Any idea of how we're getting the water out?" Rose asked.
"Not really, from the cleaning supplies, I doubt they've used the tunnel since prohibition or maybe the war," Myst mused.
"Or they left the cleaning supplies alone to make people assume no one had used the place in decades," Rose suggested.
Taylor glanced around the storeroom that was covered in water stains. "Probably true at this point."
Myst stepped back out of the hidden room, waved his hands and used the gloves, restoring and cleaning the storeroom and causing a lot of the trash to vanish. "Let's see if I can ignore the damage to the walls," he mused as he walked back into the kitchen and waved his hands, causing all of the mold and grim to vanish. "Step one."
"Do you think it's sterile?" Taylor asked thoughtfully.
"Probably but we'll probably be replacing all of the counters and cutting boards anyway," Myst replied as he floated back out of the kitchen. He grinned as he waved his hands and the entire dining area went from looking like something from a zombie movie to looking pristine and spotless except for the windows and the skylight which were still very much missing.
"Do you think you can enchant a glove machine to make repair or cleaning gloves?" Rose asked thoughtfully as they floated down the hallway.
"It's worth a shot," Myst replied as he waved his hands and cleaned and repaired the entire building other than the spots where the wires had been ripped out. "Hopefully we'll be done looking around by the time S. Vicky gets back with my ring which means we can head to Coil's base and copy Noelle's powers before we have to get you back."
"She'd have more time if you had someone call the union about the windows and the repair work," Rose suggested as she pulled her phone out of her pocket. "It's not like we don't have the money and supporting the local economy is a good thing, especially since we're going to be using shadow clones for labor once we're up and running."
"Go for it," Myst said cheerfully, fairly sure the dockworkers wouldn't screw him over, at least nothing compared to the electrician's guild.
0o0o0
"How many self destruct systems do you fucking need?" Myst asked as they walked past a wall that had been torn apart in Coil's base on the way towards the vault.
"Enough to collapse everything and level part of the business sector, I wanted to make sure I could kill anyone that invaded the base," S. Coil replied. "I figured they'd be hesitant to raid the place if they knew I could blow it up."
Myst stopped walking and stared at S. Coil. "Let me get this straight, you have one of the best tinkers in the world in your city and you think it's a good idea to put remote controlled explosives in your base?"
"I doubt he's going to destroy a large part of the business district, just to kill me," S. Coil pointed out.
"Accidents happen, it wouldn't be too hard to trigger some fire alarms and make sure the surrounding buildings were evacuated for safety while he's trying to remotely disarm some explosives," Myst pointed out.
"Oops, I couldn't disarm them and they exploded," Rose added dryly.
Taylor gave Rose a look, fairly sure Armsmaster wouldn't actually do that.
"You'd need to enter a random code that is generated by a paired system, you can't just accidently set them off," S. Coil complained as they started walking again.
"Most people barely understand how to use computers, don't like reading directions and aren't remotely tech savvy enough to understand that someone would have to intentionally set things off. Besides, what's more believable, that their beloved or at least respected hero decided to blow up part of the city or that the dishonorable master had moles in the PRT and decided to take everyone out with him when he realized they were attacking?" Myst asked.
"I'm not a master," S. Coil grumbled, knowing things would be easier if he was.
"It's pretty hard to dispute their narrative when you're dead," Myst pointed out as they reached the door to the room that contained the vault door. "Also they'd just have to claim that the explosives were tinkertech, everyone knows that tinkertech doesn't last forever."
S. Coil scowled as he thought about Armsmaster's personality. "You have a point, I'm not sure what the hell I was thinking."
"Pretty sure you weren't or Coil wasn't," Myst replied as S. Coil opened the door.
S. Coil walked over to the intercom on the wall and pushed the button. "I found a cape that might be able to help you, they're a healer."
"Really?" Noelle asked hopefully.
"Yes," Myst replied after walking into the large room, resisting the urge to say 'really, really' or anything that might set the unstable cape off, forcing himself to not gag at the nearly overwhelming stench of her mutated body.
"You don't smell like a cape," Noelle replied, wondering if he was lying as she could only smell two capes in the room.
"I'm a trump, I have certain defenses against power sensing," Myst replied, hoping she believed him.
"Oh. How does your power work?" Noelle asked, ignoring the voice in the back of her head telling her to rip the other cape apart before he could make things worse.
"I'm a biokinetic," Myst replied as S. Coil worked on opening the vault door.
"Do you have to touch me for your power to work?" Noelle asked warily.
"My power can work through gloves which should prevent your power from copying me," Myst assured her, hoping he didn't need the other 'timeline' where he was showing Danny and a couple of the dock workers around the marina.
"Good," Noelle replied, not particularly happy about someone else seeing her but hoping he could help.
Myst glanced at Rose's ring that he'd stuck on his pinky, hoping that it could remove the Simurgh's influence and help stabilize her personality so she didn't decide he was wasting her time. "Can I get you to put a hand or a foot near the edge of the vault?"
"Okay," Noelle offered hesitantly, doing her best to ignore the spike of worry coming from her other half as she stuck a mutated foot near the vault door as it opened.
Myst copied Noelle, figuring her shadow clone could buy him a few seconds or minutes to run if she attacked him and wanting the ability to make twisted clones to increase the number of powers they could copy. "I'm just going to reach out and touch your foot so I can check something, try to relax."
"I'll try," Noelle replied, forcing herself to relax or at least not shift in place.
Myst carefully and slowly reached over and used Rose's ring on the cape, restoring her physical and mental health. He stared in shock as her monstrous physical body seemed to melt like wax over the next couple of seconds until a half naked and very much human looking Noelle was standing in the middle of a mound of writhing fleshy goo. "That worked better than I was expecting."
"It worked!" Noelle squealed.
"That's the first step," Myst told her, keeping his hands where she could see them.
"First step?" Noelle asked.
"You should still have your powers, I just healed you," Myst explained as he held his gloved hand out. "I need to borrow your hand for a minute so I can see if I can fix your powers."
"Give me a minute," Noelle replied as she pushed her way out of the mound of goo.
"Sure," Myst replied, keeping part of his attention on the ooze in case it started moving on its own.
Noelle glanced down at her ooze covered legs, fairly sure she should be disgusted and freaking out but too excited about being back to normal to care. "I need a shower."
"I don't blame you," Myst assured her. "Let me check your powers first, then you can get cleaned up and we can figure out the next step."
"Okay," Noelle replied as she held her hand out, stopping a couple of inches short of his gloves.
Myst touched her hand with his glove. 'Ability to make loyal clones with related powers if they're a cape, enhanced strength, durability and regeneration, cape detection via 'scent' and a really screwed up changer rating, which makes sense and tracks with the story,' he mused as he copied her regeneration and her ability to make clones of people.
"Anything?" Noelle asked when he didn't say anything for a few seconds.
"Your changer rating is screwed up which means we're going to have to fix it or keep healing you every couple of months." Myst relaxed when the copying process finished and he realized that the cloning power let him set the personality and motives of the clones as well as control the activation of the power unlike Noelle. 'That makes sense considering her shard was controlling everything.'
"How are you going to fix it?" Noelle asked, finding herself oddly calm. 'It's so weird not being angry about everything or afraid. I don't even have pants and I don't care. Master effect? Or maybe I'm just happy since there's hope?'
"We have a couple of options," Myst said as he walked out of the vault so they could get away from the stench. "We can try using Oliver's power as a template to see if we can fix your changer rating or I can try to fix your power with biokinesis."
"Wouldn't using a template be safer?" Noelle asked as she walked out of the vault, a touch surprised that she wasn't having more trouble with her legs. She glanced between the two girls that were wearing theater masks that covered the top half of their faces, dress clothes and identical jester caps then turned back to look at Myst and Coil. "Can I get a shower first?"
"Probably a good idea," Rose suggested as she copied Noelle. "Where's the closest shower?"
S. Coil pointed at the other door. "I was planning on using the area for the rest of the Travelers, the shower should work just fine. I'll have one of the mercenaries bring you some sweats."
"Thanks," Noelle replied as she headed for the door, wanting a nice long shower while she tried to figure out what to do about her broken power. 'You're back and your head is clear, no voices, no self doubt, you just need to keep it together until you can collect your team. Hopefully he can fix Jess' legs as well.'
Taylor copied the girl, wanting more capes in her collection. "What's next?"
Myst pulled his attention away from Noelle's bare behind as she left the room and focused on S. Coil. "Let's meet some of the saner mercenaries while Coil sets things up for a meet and greet with his pet capes."
"Setting up a meeting with Trainwreck might be a bit problematic unless you want to sneak into Merchant territory, he sticks out," S. Coil warned them as he started walking for the door they'd come through.
"Check to see if they're planning anything, if they're not planning on causing trouble we can probably wait until after the holidays," Myst admitted as he followed Coil, knowing he could use a break.
'Probably for the best,' Taylor thought, knowing that she'd be stuck spending most of the day with her grandmother and father.
