Mist of Shadows
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Reluctant Villainy Part 12
🕑 Added 2021-05-18 07:17:49 +0000 UTC"I'm not sure this was worth the decrease in cost," Amelia grumbled as she finished lengthening the minion's femur of her newly regenerated leg so it matched her other femur. "Do you want me to remove your warts and moles?"
"No thanks, I'd rather terrify the students," the teacher replied with a smirk before shoveling more tuna and noodles down her throat, not bothering to close her mouth all the way while she was chewing.
Myst used his Skill Management power to give his minion some etiquette skill then scowled when his minion slumped in her chair and 'froze' the muscles on one side of her face, making the already gross display worse. "That's disgusting."
"Good, children learn better when they're terrified of their teachers," the teacher replied with a smirk that pulled her disfigured face in weird directions.
Amelia shook her head. "Bullshit."
"Are you a teacher?" the teacher asked snidely.
"No but there are studies," Amelia argued, thinking of some of her old teachers.
"I don't care, when you're a teacher, you can argue, until then shut your trap," the woman ordered.
'Great, she's worse than Snape,' Myst thought as he pulled a power sphere out of his inventory and handed it to his minion. "This should let you turn your magical abilities into power spheres so you can share your skill boosting abilities with your students."
The woman snorted, causing food to spray out of her mouth. "I was hired to teach them how to fight, not give away all of my tricks."
Amelia scowled as she was reminded of Snape. "Isn't sharing your tricks with the next generation part of being a good teacher?"
"I was paid to teach, not turn them into the next Merlin," the woman replied with a lopsided smirk.
Myst scowled when he realized she was completely serious about not sharing her skill trick or putting in more than a token effort. "Whatever, if you're not going to use the skill orb, just hand it back."
The woman smirked as she absorbed the power sphere. "I'm not going to turn down free powers. What else do you have?"
"How do you feel about being indestructible?" he asked as he used his Kingmaker power and gave her the Power Hub ability.
The teacher grinned. "I wouldn't object to being able to tell a student to take their best shot and not have to worry about dodging."
"In that case, we'll be back in a bit," Myst told Amelia then dark orbed to the Underworld with his minion so he wouldn't have to worry about the collateral damage.
His minion glanced around the cave. "Where are we?"
"We're in the underworld, I didn't want to wreck crap," Myst replied as he unlocked his Magic Immunity ability and his Adaptation ability so she could copy them. "You're immune to magic for the next ten minutes, let's get to work."
She turned to look at Myst. "How does that help?"
"I also let you borrow my ability to permanently adapt to attacks," Myst replied as he unlocked his mental stability ability and started tossing curses at her, causing her to flinch then grin when she realized it didn't hurt.
"Bring it!" she said cheerfully.
Myst swapped his Superhuman Skill power for a Specific Immunity for Disease and shared it then spent the next six and a half minutes tossing spells at his minion, going through his entire collection of wand based combat spells other than stupefy. "That should cover most of the more common spells."
"What about the less common spells?" she asked with a scowl.
"You can always ask Snape to help you cover everything once you get to Hogwarts, provided you let me make a copy of your Skill Growth power," Myst offered, hoping she'd take the deal.
She shook her head. "No thanks, you'd just share it with the idiots."
"Fair enough," Myst lied as he swapped his Creation power for an Exotic Striker power that improved a person's appearance, height and physical fitness. "Do you want a decent collection of magical powers?" he asked as he locked down his Specific Immunity Magic so she couldn't copy it.
"Of course, but I'm still not giving you a copy of my powers," she replied with amusement.
"Fair enough," Myst replied as he locked his Adaption power. 'Screw it, I might as well check her future plans, if she has any.' He used his telepathy to look through her mind. 'Shit, that's worse than Umbridge, at least Umbridge wasn't planning on murdering the worst students, just Harry.'
"What's next?" she asked gleefully.
Myst gestured and hit her with a stunner, dropping her unconscious. "You take a nap. Worst minion ever," he muttered as he walked over, knelt down, and used his Exotic Striker ability on the unconscious minion, causing her to change from an ugly 'hag' into a young woman that looked like she'd just stepped out of a movie or a magazine cover. "Sorry," he muttered as he reached down and cloned the teacher.
The clone yawned as she sat up and glanced around, grinning when she noticed Myst. "Hey Boss."
He helped her to her feet. "How are you feeling?"
"Good. Sweet!" she squealed in delight when she noticed the attractive looking redhead sprawled on the ground. "Please tell me I can skin her and wear her like a suit!"
'So much for the clone being saner,' Myst complained to himself as he swapped his Striker ability for an Exotic Striker ability that would erase someone's personality without damaging their skills. 'Fuck it, I'm supposed to be a villain and she's a dangerous lunatic.' He pulled his athame out of his inventory and handed it to the clone after giving her the Power Hub ability and unlocking his Heartless ability so she'd get magic from killing the original. "Just cut her throat."
"Fuck yeah!" she squealed as she quickly and gleefully slit the woman's throat.
'Yeah, you're nuts,' Myst thought as he watched his minion bleed out, not sure if he was talking about himself or the clone.
"Blood is such a pretty color, all the shades of red," the woman sang cheerfully.
Myst waited until he saw the clone's mana pool increase before he dark orbed the athame to his hand and scanned her, wanting an updated pattern.
"Hey, I was going to use that to skin her," the clone complained.
"Let's not." He reached out and poked her in the shoulder with the athame faster than she could blink, stealing her powers.
"What the hell?" she sputtered as she glared at Myst. "You don't want me to have a pretty dress?"
"Sorry, I was just making sure you were immune to power stealing daggers," Myst replied as he looked at his new power that would keep his skills from degrading and boost his ability to acquire skills.
"What!" she screeched as she dove for the knife he was holding, planning on stealing her powers back so he'd know she could handle herself.
He tossed her into the wall before he realized what he'd done, causing her to break several bones, crush her nose and fracture her skull. Everything slowed down as Myst's reactions sped up, causing the woman to look like she was moving in slow motion as she slid down the wall. 'Fuck!' He quickly unlocked his regeneration so her Power Hub would copy it. "I really should have spent more time sparring at camp."
"Harder Boss!" she squealed once her borrowed regeneration put everything back together and fixed her headache and the stabbing pain from just about everywhere.
"So much for my power fixing insanity, then again it did say recovery could take a bit," he mused as he used his telekinesis to crush her bones and pulp her heart, not particularly surprised that his regeneration fixed it before she even hit the ground. He blurred forward, touched her shoulder and activated his striker ability, scouring her personality clean and dropping her unconscious.
"That was a fucking mess," he muttered as he locked his Adaptation power then held his hand out palm up and created a power sphere for the minion skill boost. He scanned the sphere then reabsorbed it and gave the ability back to the clone. He scanned the young woman, picking up a template for an amnesia victim as well as a specific pattern that looked useful.
"Let's pick up some life skills and a better personality," Myst mused as he used his Age Shifting power on the clone, causing her to shrink until she looked five years old. He used his Creation power to create a set of adorable blue cat girl pajamas on the girl with 'Selena' written on the tag then swapped his Disease Immunity for a Precog power and went looking for locations where he could drop the 'five year old' so that she'd end up a reasonably well adjusted adult. 'I should probably make a couple of copies.'
0o0o0
Willow Rosenberg pulled her attention away from where Selena was using an iron pipe to beat the crap out of one of the vampires that had jumped them and glanced at Dawn. "Should we put it out of its misery?"
"Nope," Dawn replied as Buffy finished off the vampire she'd been fighting further up the alley. "It's cheaper than therapy."
"Funny," Selena replied sarcastically as she caught the wooden stake Buffy tossed her and staked the vampire, reducing it to ash. She tossed the stake back to her sister then turned to look at Xander. "I don't suppose Anya would let me borrow you for a couple of hours?"
Dawn shook her head. "Nope, I asked."
"Dawn!" Buffy complained as she walked over.
"What?" Dawn asked innocently as she pulled the cash out of the vampire's wallet she'd stolen after he was too dazed to object. "I wanted to know if he could fix a couple of things around the house."
Xander ignored the mischievous look in Dawn's eyes. "Give me the list, I'll see what I can do tomorrow."
"Thanks," Buffy offered. "Mom is still feeling a bit under the weather..." she trailed off when a portal opened against the wall of the alley and a handsome dark haired man wearing jeans, a black t-shirt and a jester's cap stepped out of the portal. "What the hell?"
Selena stared at the attractive man, feeling like she'd seen him before but unable to place his face.
Myst held his hands up and out so that Buffy could tell he didn't have a weapon. "Relax I'm not a demon."
"If you're not a demon, what do you want?" Buffy asked, fairly sure anyone that could make a portal was someone that she didn't want to deal with.
Myst conjured a letter and held it out towards Dawn. "I'm recruiting for Hogwarts."
"Hogwarts?" Dawn asked with a raised eyebrow. "You seriously expect me to believe that?"
"What's the phrase, exceptional claims require exceptional proof," Myst replied with amusement as he gestured towards the wall of the alley and opened a portal to Hogwarts.
Dawn stared at the castle across the lake. "Holy shit!"
"Language," Buffy snapped reflexively, staring at the castle she could see through the portal.
"It's real?" Willow blurted.
Myst laughed as he let the portal behind him close and turned to look at Dawn. "It's in a different world but it's real enough. Do you want to learn to use magic?"
"Yes!" Dawn squealed as she opened the acceptance letter and started reading it.
"Why Dawn?" Buffy asked warily.
"Because she has a certain disregard for the rules and because she has magic." Myst turned to look at Selena, noticing that the attractive young woman looked a bit less airbrushed and yet more 'real' than she'd looked before he'd reduced her age and dropped her off with Joyce. "I don't suppose you want a position on the staff?"
"Doing what?" Selena asked, trying not to sound too excited.
Myst grinned. "Whatever you want, we're pulling in three thousand new students and we need more staff."
"Isn't that like three times more students? What are you teaching?" Willow asked, unhappy that he wasn't asking her to teach.
"Unfortunately," Myst admitted. "I'll be teaching a couple of classes on wandless magic in addition to my Enchanting classes."
"I could teach them martial arts and the basics of ritual magic but other than that, I'm not sure I'm qualified outside of a couple of tricks," Selena admitted.
"We'd love to have you for a Defense or martial arts teacher," Myst assured her as he took a quick look through Selena's mind with telepathy, rather happy that she seemed well adjusted if you ignored the fact that she was a bit of an exhibitionist and found Dawn attractive in a way she probably shouldn't since they were sisters even if they weren't actually related by blood.
"How much of the Harry Potter books actually happened?" Xander asked, curious how screwed up the wizarding world was.
Myst used his Precog ability to check the local versions of the books. "They're fairly accurate though Hermione isn't quite as straight laced than you'd think from the books and Ron is a bit more annoying than the books make him out to be. Harry and his friends are currently heading into their fifty year after dealing with the Goblet of Fire."
Dawn grinned as she pictured learning magic and getting away from the hellmouth. "Excellent."
"You're not going," Buffy snapped.
"Why not?" Dawn demanded, glaring at her oldest sister.
"Because we don't have any proof that it's real or safe," Buffy complained. "Besides, do you think Mom is going to let you go to Scotland for a year?"
"Maybe?" Dawn offered, hoping she could convince her mother to let her go if she played up the cultural exchange angle.
Xander tossed a rock through the portal into the lake, causing the surface of the lake to ripple. "It looks real to me."
Buffy scowled at Xander. "Not the point."
"It would get her out of Sunnydale," Xander pointed out, knowing that Glory was looking for her.
"I don't suppose you know how to kill a god?" Dawn asked a touch sarcastically, not really expecting a yes.
Myst turned to look at Dawn. "That depends on the god and what you're offering for the trouble."
"Hell god and what do you want?" Dawn asked, wondering how much it would cost.
"No selling your soul," Buffy snapped.
Myst snorted. "I don't trade souls. However, I do trade favors."
"What type of favors?" Dawn asked thoughtfully.
Myst shrugged. "Anything from dates to accepting awesome magical powers, running around a tropical island without clothes or various other insane things depending on the age of the person I'm making deals with."
"You realize she's fourteen, right?" Buffy demanded, glaring at Myst.
Myst turned to look at Buffy. "Which is why I'd have to take a rain check on most of those."
"You'd kill Glory if I accepted magical powers? How does that work?" Dawn asked, wondering what he got out of it.
"You've seen America's funniest videos, right? Just picture someone with supernatural durability and bouncing powers bouncing down the road in a funny costume causing everyone to stare in disbelief or imagine fighting monsters in a silly magic girl outfit," Myst replied with amusement.
Xander laughed. "Sign me up."
"Seriously?" Buffy asked, staring at Xander like he'd lost his mind.
Xander nodded. "I can deal with a bit of embarrassment if it means I can help keep everyone safe."
"I'll go to Hogwarts if you can kill Glory and give me magic powers," Dawn offered, figuring her mother wouldn't be able to say no if it was part of a deal that kept her safe.
"Deal," Myst replied as he closed the portal to Hogwarts and opened a portal to another timeline where Excalibur was sitting in Piper's closet. He reached through, grabbed the legendary sword then opened a portal behind Glory and swung at her head as hard as he could.
Buffy stared in shocked disbelief as Glory's head fell from her shoulders and bounced on the ground. "How the hell!"
"Magic sword," Myst replied smugly as he reached down, grabbed Glory's ankle and shoved her corpse into his inventory on the off chance that he needed the corpse of a hell god for a future ritual. He quickly grabbed her head and tossed it into his inventory when he got a flash from his Precog of her head morphing into Ben's and Buffy freaking out. "That should keep her from coming back."
"How strong are you?" Selena blurted.
"Stronger than Glory," Myst admitted as he used a bit of magic to clean the blood off Excalibur then put it back in the closet and closed the portal. 'At least that should give me a decent boost to my available magic.'
"Does the sword have a name?" Xander asked, fairly sure most magical swords would have shattered.
"Several," Myst replied with amusement as he closed the portal to Glory's apartment. "The most well known is Excalibur."
"You have Excalibur!" Willow blurted.
Myst shook his head. "No, I just borrowed it. Trying to claim that sword would be a mistake."
"Why?" Willow asked.
"Because he's not king Arthur," Xander guessed.
"More or less," Myst agreed. "It's a sword of kings and legends, borrowing it for a moment or two to help the innocent is something that works with the legends and myths, trying to claim it as a trophy would be a mistake."
"I don't suppose you have any magical swords lying around that aren't cursed?" Buffy asked hopefully.
"Let me check," Myst said thoughtfully as he used his Precog to look for a magical sword that he could misappropriate for Buffy. 'Hmm, that one causes insanity, that one attracts monsters,' he mused as he searched through the sea of images for a decent sword. "Shit, give me a second," he muttered as he opened a portal next to a Lord of War that was about to murder a witch and punched him, sending the dark haired man flying into a stone wall and causing his crystal sword to drop to the ground. "I need to deal with a cultist."
Myst scanned the crystal blade then used his Telekinesis to toss the blade at the knight that was getting to his feet.
Buffy frowned as she watched the sword sink into the man's chest then explode in a flash of light, turning the knight into a withered corpse. "So much for that sword."
"Don't worry, we can probably find something better," Myst replied as he closed the portal and opened a portal to Dumbledore's office. He scanned Gryfindor's sword then closed the portal and kept looking for interesting weapons.
"Was that the sorting hat?" Dawn asked excitedly.
"And Gryffindor's Sword," Myst added with a grin then opened a portal to the campsite of a sleeping werewolf hunter. He dark orbed the man's bracelet off then closed the portal and tossed the bracelet to Xander after scanning it. "Here."
"Did you just steal this?" Xander asked as he examined the bracelet.
"From a werewolf hunter that was about to slaughter a family of werewolves on their own land because he liked selling pelts," Myst admitted as he had one of his duplicates create an 'identical' fake bracelet and orb it back to the man's wrist so he wouldn't notice there was a problem until he got into combat. "If you stick it on and concentrate you can conjure a silver sword which should help protect you."
Xander glanced at Buffy. "Shouldn't you give that to someone that can use it?"
"Nah, the blades wouldn't hold up to a Slayer using them," Myst replied as he used his Creation power to create a copy of Gryffindor's sword.
"Story of my life," Buffy complained then smiled when she turned and noticed the shiny sword. "Is that for me?" she asked hopefully.
Myst shrugged. "Technically but I sort of need to give you Regeneration and Adaptation so I can stab you with it before you can have it."
"What?" Buffy sputtered.
"No stabbing my sister," Dawn complained.
"Make with the explainy," Buffy ordered once she realized he wasn't going to actually stab her.
"Do you remember what happened to the sword in the Chamber of Secrets?" Myst asked, glancing between Willow and Dawn.
"Oh!" Willow exclaimed after a couple of seconds of thought. "Harry stabbed the Basilisk and it absorbed some of the snake's destructive power. Yeah, accidently cutting yourself would be bad."
"Which means I can't in good conscience give you the blade without making you immune to the effect," Myst explained as he used his Kingmaker ability to give Buffy the Power Hub ability then shared his Regeneration and Adaptation.
"How does that work?" Xander asked.
"Basically my Adaptation power makes me immune to any power that manages to negatively affect me or injure me and I can loan it to Buffy which means that she won't die if she accidently nicks herself with her sword," Myst explained.
"Fine, do it before I…" Buffy trailed off as she realized he'd already poked her arm hard enough to cause a trickle of blood to escape before the wound closed. "That wasn't as bad as I was expecting."
"I'm not trying to be an ass, it's just dangerous," Myst explained as he gave everyone the Power Hub ability and unlocked his Regeneration and Adaptation for the group. "We should probably make the group immune while we're thinking about it."
"Sure." Xander held his hand out, figuring if he was immune he might be able to borrow it at some point or at least be trusted to transport it.
Myst walked around and poked everyone, wanting to make sure everyone was immune then blinked and stared when the sword absorbed Dawn's blood rather than repel it like everyone else. 'Oops? Hopefully that doesn't do anything too weird.'
"Is there a reason you don't want Willow as a teacher?" Selena asked after noticing how much the offer had bothered Willow.
Myst glanced between Willow and Selena. "Beyond the fact that she's still working on her degree? Not particularly."
"Oh, I guess that's fair," Willow admitted, relaxing once she realized he had a good reason for not offering her the job. "Can I still look through the library?"
"I don't know, I'll ask McGonagall when I talk to her about my syllabus but it might be easier to use Age Shifting and turn you back into a teenager so you can go to Hogwarts with Dawn," Myst offered.
"What about school?" Willow asked.
"My portals can take people through time as well as space, you could spend the next couple of years learning magic and be back in time for classes," Myst offered.
"Can I bring Tara?" Willow asked hopefully.
"We'd be happy to have her if she wants to come," Myst assured her. "I'll even toss in immortality if you graduate from Hogwarts."
"What do you get out of this?" Buffy asked suspiciously.
"I get to help people," Myst replied. "You've been running yourself ragged and Willow could use a vacation from the Hellmouth while she works on learning magic."
Buffy sighed. "How do we know this isn't a trick?"
Myst gestured and created a portal on the ground above the lake at Hogwarts. "If I was going to resort to tricks, I'd just drop you through a portal."
"He makes a good argument," Xander pointed out, fairly sure Buffy could use a break and he probably had a good point about Willow needing a vacation away from the Hellmouth.
"How would we pay for everything?" Buffy asked, running out of excuses.
"I can conjure gold, jewels and magical items," Myst pointed out.
"If you can have us back tomorrow, I'd love to take a vacation," Buffy admitted reluctantly then turned to look at Dawn. "You get to explain everything to Mom."
"No problem, I'll just explain that it's a chance to explore another culture," Dawn said, looking forward to exploring Hogwarts and learning magic.
Willow wasn't looking forward to spending the next couple of years as a teenager again but she'd survived the first time, she could do it again, especially if it meant she could learn a new type of magic. "Sounds good."
"Best of luck," Xander offered.
Myst turned to look at Xander. "If you want to go, I'll give you enough magic that you'll be able to keep up. I'll even toss in immortality and durability if you graduate."
Dawn nodded. "It wouldn't be the same without you."
"In that case, count me in," Xander said, figuring someone had to keep an eye on Willow and Dawn to make sure they stayed out of trouble.
Myst closed the portal on the ground then opened a portal to the Magic Box where Tara was working.
"What the hell?" a customer in the shop sputtered as she stared at the portal in disbelief.
"Portal," Myst replied with a grin as he walked into the shop. He stared as the older woman ran out of the shop like the hounds of hell were after her. He smiled sheepishly at Tara who was standing behind the counter. "Sorry about that, I figured anyone in here would know magic was real."
Tara shook her head as her friends came through the portal. "Not really, just because people believe in small spells doesn't mean they're ready to see portals."
"Fair enough," Myst replied as he opened a portal to Buffy's house. "If you want to explain things to your mother, I'm going to look around and see what I can find on the shelves."
"She'll probably have questions," Buffy warned him.
"I might have answers," Myst replied with amusement as he headed for the magic books so he could scan them.
Comments
Mist of Shadows
Yeah, I'm not all that good at it.
Robert Buniff
I don't think you know how to villain correctly. Keep it going!
