Mist of Shadows
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Reluctant Villainy Part 21
🕑 Added 2021-08-14 07:14:28 +0000 UTC"This is the day, I finally get my-" Joker's speech was interrupted by what he was fairly sure was a pie in the face.
Batman turned to look at the brown haired girl wearing a kilt and black shirt that was holding another pie, wondering how she'd gotten close without him noticing. "You shouldn't be here, he's dangerous."
"Don't worry, I'm a professional," Myst's duplicate replied as she tossed a pie at Harley who was trying to sneak up on Batman.
Harvey dodged the pie. "Better luck next time."
"I didn't miss," Myst's duplicate replied cheerfully as she used telekinesis to levitate the pie and twist it around.
"Liar," Harley replied as she glanced over her shoulder and promptly got hit with a pie in the face.
Joker glared at the strange girl after wiping the whip cream out of his eyes. "You're stealing my act, girl."
"And your girl," Myst's duplicate replied as she pulled a rather large and steampunk looking blaster out of her inventory.
"What?" Joker sputtered, not sure he'd actually heard her correctly.
"Eat plasma!" Myst's duplicate shouted as she blasted Harley with her latest invention, causing the villain to fall unconscious as her green healing ray struck her in the chest.
"Eat plasma?" Batman asked with a raised eyebrow after noticing that Harley looked perfectly healthy, other than being asleep.
"Eh, taste the rainbow doesn't quite roll off the tongue," she replied as she adjusted her aim and shot the Joker, causing him to fall asleep. "Now if you'll excuse me, you need to get the Joker back to Arkham and I need to steal a Harley so I can ransom her to Ivy for a night of debauchery."
"You're selling Harley?" Batman asked, trying to figure out what the new villain's angle was.
"It should keep Ivy busy and out of trouble," she replied as she walked over to grab Harley.
"She needs to be locked up," Batman argued.
Myst's duplicate snorted as she gave Harley a copycat power and shared her mental health perk. "She needs a vacation and a lot of sex, getting stuck in Arkham with the Joker isn't going to help her sanity."
"That doesn't mean I'm going to let you take her," Batman replied as he grabbed a batarang from his belt.
Myst's duplicate shot Batman, the beam crossing the distance before he could dodge and dropping him unconscious. "Eh, whatever," she muttered as she walked over, picked Harley up and tossed her over her shoulder.
Batgirl tossed a batarang at the villain's gun and sighed when the villain kicked it out of the air with a crescent kick. "Shit."
Myst's duplicate smiled at Batgirl. "Don't worry, I'm just stealing Harley. Can you drag Batman out of here?"
Batgirl sighed. "Do you know how much he weighs in the suit?"
"Fair point," Myst admitted as she used her Telepathy to check Harley's mind, wanting to get an idea of how dangerous this particular version of the Joker was. 'Damn, yeah sorry Bats but I don't care if he's nuts, he's sane enough to abuse the system.'
"How long will it take him to wake up?" Batgirl asked, hoping she didn't have to drag him out of the alley.
"A couple of hours," Myst's duplicate replied as she scanned the Joker, wanting to make sure he wasn't a clone or body double. "Or until you slap him a couple of times."
"Shit!" Batgirl sputtered then stared in disbelief when the girl walked over and stomped on the Joker's head, crushing it like a watermelon dropped from a second story window. "What the fuck!"
"He twitched," Myst's duplicate lied.
"You can't just kill people!" Batgirl complained.
Myst's duplicate snorted. "I'll keep that in mind if I run into someone that isn't a mass murdering psychopath no one can keep behind bars. Now if you'll excuse me, I'd really like to hand Harley off to Ivy before she realizes I killed the Joker, she's a bit unstable when it comes to her Mister J."
"A bit?" Batgirl asked sarcastically then sighed when the girl smiled and vanished between one breath and the next. "So much for arresting Harley," she muttered as she walked over and grabbed a broken piece of a wooden pallet to see if she could poke Batman awake without getting within arms reach. 'At least the Joker's dead.'
0o0o0
'Killing villains doesn't make me a villain, dropping Harley off with her on again and off again girlfriend doesn't either, I need something villainous I can live with,' Myst mused as he worked on placing another spawn point for a magic using goblin in the dungeon he was building at the end of the Quarry Road. 'What about giving Batman powers without consent? Nah, that's just being an ass. What about using the sleep ray to rob some bingo halls?'
Moiraine pulled her attention away from the fountain surrounded by a mist filled garden and looked at Myst. "Is there a reason you're setting things up so people can't wear clothes in the dungeon?"
Myst turned and focused on Moiraine. "Everything has a price, if you can't endure some discomfort then you don't deserve the chance to improve your magic. Besides, I don't want people walking in with angreal or sa'angreal and obliterating the goblins without any risk or effort."
Lan glanced at Myst then went back to keeping watch on the entrance to the chamber as he didn't want anything sneaking up on them. "Makes sense, the more they have to work for it, the more they'll value it."
"That's the idea," Myst agreed. "I'm planning on letting everyone halfway reasonable run the dungeon once which should boost them up to a decent level of strength in the power without turning them into an unstoppable monster. After that, I'll probably let them fight for loot and talents or random magical abilities in a different dungeon provided they're willing to have children or let themselves get cloned."
Moiraine shook her head. "I can't see most of the Aes Sedai agreeing to have children."
"Considering how much the Tower values strength, I have a feeling most of them will change their tune when people that used to be below them start skipping ahead," Myst replied with amusement. "I imagine the Reds are going to be gnashing their teeth when they realize they can't enter the dungeons, especially when they realize that they'll grow old and die without the fountain."
"They'll probably complain to the Hall and try to force you to change the rules or sneak in," Moiraine warned him, knowing some of the Red sisters were arrogant enough to cause trouble.
Myst shook his head. "Considering the general opinion of Aes Sedai in the Two Rivers, best of luck causing trouble in any reasonable fashion. If they bring soldiers, I'll teleport them back to Tar Valon or send them to the Blight in another world or the ocean depending on their orders and willingness to cause trouble. That reminds me, I should probably send people to start recruiting novices and accepted for advanced training once my duplicates finish the rest of the dungeons."
Moiraine winced as she pictured the Hall's reaction to someone 'stealing' a bunch of novices and accepted. "They'd raise an army and come after you."
Myst shrugged. "Probably but once the army crosses into my lands, I have every legal right to teleport it to Seanchan or the Blight, mostly because one of my duplicates already bought the Two Rivers from Morgase in exchange for eternal youth, a chest filled with heartstone place settings and a decent amount of gold."
"You're going to cause a civil war when the rest of the noble houses realize she's immortal," Moiraine warned him.
"She was already going to live a couple of hundred years thanks to her magic and Andor isn't Cairhien," Myst pointed out. "Besides, I also tossed in some defensive ter'angreal which should make it a lot harder to kill her."
"Will her immortality be passed down if she has more children?" Lan asked, wanting to be sure they weren't creating an immortal dynasty.
"Good question," Myst admitted as he used his Clairvoyance to check possible timelines. "Some of her children have the potential to live to be two hundred years old but her grandchildren don't make it over a hundred and fifty unless they can channel."
Moiraine glanced at the fountain that they'd already drank from that was supposed to let them live forever or at least until they died to misadventure. "Are you sure you want to offer immortality to everyone that makes it this far?"
"It's hardly immortality, it's merely eternal youth," Myst pointed out. "Worst case, you can always kill them if they turn into complete monsters or banish them to a mirror world."
"Point," Moiraine admitted. "How long will it take your duplicate to finish cleansing the Ways?"
"It's already dealt with," Myst assured them, still not sure how to deal with the fact that he had a hundred duplicates running around working on problems, everything from watching a movie with Ella, Bella, Mione and Sarah to poking through alien junkyards for scans and spare parts. "I should have the Blight cleansed in a couple of weeks which means we can…" he trailed off when one of his duplicates was destroyed.
"Problem?" Moiraine asked, noticing the change in his expression.
"One of my duplicates ran into some trouble," Myst replied as he used his Clairvoyance to try to figure out what had managed to kill his duplicate without him even noticing that it was there. He froze at the sight of a massive dragon burning a stretch of Gotham to ashes as it flew towards his copy of Hogwarts.
"Is there anything we can help with?" Moiraine asked, figuring it was the least she could do for his help.
Myst sent the duplicate that had been eating a bagel at a cafe in Metropolis to deal with the monstrous dragon. "Not really, it's a rather large magic resistant monster and I have friends in the area that should be able to handle it." He gestured and dark orbed the group back next to the arch that led into the dungeon. "Everything should be reset by the time you get there."
"There you are," Nynaeve stated as she stalked over.
"Best of luck." Myst quickly orbed to the inn he'd set up in the town they were building around the dungeon so he didn't have to listen to Nyneave's complaining about using Lan to test the dungeon or the half naked minion girls wandering around the town.
"Hey boss, what can I get you?" the attractive redhead minion girl behind the bar wearing a white silk shirt and black kilt asked with a slight Irish accent and a smile.
Myst smiled at the young woman that had a passing resemblance to Mione. "Hot cider."
"Coming right up," the barkeep replied cheerfully as walked around the bar, conjuring a wooden mug of hot apple cider as she walked over to his table. "Any luck in the dungeon?"
"It's mostly just a collection of hot springs, goblins, cameras and treasure chests as well as the fountain of youth and garden at the end," Myst replied then tried the cider.
The barkeep smiled as she glanced up at the various viewing screens mounted on the walls that showed the various rooms in the dungeon. "I know, I've been keeping track. You're going to mortify the Aes sedai."
"That's the idea," Myst replied with a smirk, fairly sure most of them needed a reality check.
"You remembered the disclaimers, right?" the barkeep asked.
"Of course," Myst assured her. "If they want immortality and power, they can deal with the embarrassment of knowing people are watching them fight without their clothes."
"A proper villain would make a gladiatorial arena for the black ajah," the girl suggested.
"I'll put it on the list." Myst smiled as one of the screens showed Nynaeve, Moiraine and Lan walking into the dungeon. "At least everything seems to be working with the gear restrictions."
"Yep!" the barkeep replied cheerfully as a few of the view screens zoomed in on various bits of the group's anatomy.
Myst ignored the first screen and focused on the second and third screens as he sipped his cider, looking forward to watching the test run to see if there was anything he needed to fix before he let everyone run through the dungeon to boost their magic and get used to fighting with magic. 'I should probably make a couple dungeons for the school.'
0o0o0
Barry Allen stared at the teenage girl holding a steampunk gun that was waltzing out of the old folks home with a large cloth bag with an old fashioned money symbol on it tossed over her other shoulder. "You need to give the money back."
Myst's duplicate pouted at the hero dressed in red. "Nope, I stuffed it in their pockets fair and square."
Barry stared at the girl. "What?"
"Think of it like charity, I'm stealing from morally bankrupt people and giving it to a bunch of old people that could use the help," Myst replied with a grin.
Barry sighed in frustration. "Let's ignore the various laws you're breaking by stealing money for a second, what happens if they come looking for their money?"
"I doubt they're going to rob a bunch of old people for chump change, especially when I scattered the money between four old folks' homes, this isn't Gotham," she replied with a smile as she dropped the bag of loot and raised her blaster. "Please give the rest of the cash to a decent charity."
"I still have to take you in," Barry apologized.
"What makes you think you're fast enough?" Myst's duplicate asked as she pointed her healing ray at Barry and tried to zap him. She wasn't particularly surprised when he blurred and she found herself cuffed and Barry holding her healing ray almost before the beam hit the building behind Barry. "Cheater."
"What did you expect?" Barry asked as he quickly glanced over the healing blaster to make sure it wasn't going to explode.
"A bit more jobbing to be honest. Fine, just remember this is the day you almost caught the legendary Steampunk Girl." Myst's duplicate smirked and shimmered out of her clothes and the handcuffs, reappearing in his workshop.
Taylor frowned when she glanced up from the robotic pet she was working on and noticed Myst's blaster and clothes were missing. "Did you lose the blaster?"
"Technically, it's right where it's supposed to be," Myst's duplicate replied as she recreated the blaster with cosmic creation. "The Flash caught me with stolen cash so I 'had' to ditch it."
Amy raised an eyebrow as she looked at Myst. "Who did you steal the cash from?"
"Some gangs in Gotham, they're not going to need it," Myst assured her.
"Why not?" Taylor asked.
"Because they got flattened by a giant dragon," she replied as she walked over to the workbench's computer and started to load her collection of tinkertech. "Don't worry, I have a couple of duplicates working on evacuating the mostly innocent before they got crushed."
Taylor stared at Myst. "Mostly innocent?"
"It's Gotham," Myst replied with a shrug. "Outside of a couple of small children, mostly innocent is about the best they get."
"Did you manage to contain Lung?" Taylor asked hopefully.
Myst's duplicate nodded. "My clone managed to lure him through a portal into an alien space station, so he's someone else's problem."
"They were evil, right?" Anne asked as she walked in.
"Of course they're evil, I'm not dropping Lung somewhere nice," she replied with a grin as she started looking through her collection of tinkertech for a decent forcefield belt she could 'accidently' leave the heroes on her next job.
"Speaking of aliens, can you steal or copy a power ring?" Taylor asked, curious about the lantern rings.
"It wouldn't work outside of DC." Myst opened a portal to the inside of Larfleeze's brain then let it expand and cut his brain apart, instantly killing the corrupted alien. She reached through the portal and grabbed the alien's ring before it could flee to find a new host. "Let's skip a bunch of nasty possible timelines where Larfleeze goes to war with the Green Lanterns and gets a bunch of people dead."
"Is there a point to trying to use it when we've got mental shields and can't feel the greed it's trying to flood us with?" Taylor asked.
"Probably not," Myst's duplicate replied as she scanned the ring on the off chance that she needed an extremely advanced and tiny computer and energy storage device. She stuffed the ring in her inventory then pulled her arm out of the portal and let it close. "We might as well skip leaving the ring lying around for someone to find."
"Shouldn't we have looted his stash?" Anne asked.
Myst shook her head. "Considering the entire pile of loot has been soaking in the energy of greed for thousands of years, I'd rather leave it with his corpse on the off chance that it's tainted."
"Good point," Anne admitted. "How long do you think it would take you to make a knockoff Orange Lantern without the malware?"
"Ten seconds?" Myst mused as she opened a portal to a future where Hal's Ring had most of its malware removed and copied it while Hal Jordan slept in the League station. She quickly closed the portal when Hal's ring shocked him awake because of the portal. "Sorry about that Hal," she muttered as she used Cosmic Creation to create a copy of Hal's ring.
Taylor smiled at the strange ring lying on the floor. "That's one way to get a ring."
Myst's duplicate focused on her magic ring and an empty spot on the ground and summoned the fusion toad. She tossed the green lantern ring to the toad then pulled the orange lantern ring out of her inventory and tossed it to the toad which promptly ate both rings.
Anne raised her eyebrows as the toad spit out a muddy yellow ring. "Is that normal?"
"No clue," she admitted as she scanned the new ring. "Desire? I guess that makes sense with willpower and greed mixing. I'm not sure I'd want to use it without mental shields but that's true of all of the rings."
"What are you going to do with it?" Taylor asked.
"I'll probably give it to someone in the League after looking for useful schematics," Myst's duplicate replied as she changed back to his normal appearance, complete with clothes. He tossed the dull yellow ring to Taylor. "See if you can find any useful defensive shields I can leave for the various heroes during my next botched crime spree."
"Sure," Taylor replied as she slipped the ring on, trusting her mental defenses to keep her from going insane.
"Let me guess, you're tired of them running around like they've got plot armor?" Anne asked, thinking of some of the news reports she'd seen.
"Pretty much," Myst admitted. "Technically most of them are wearing body armor but it usually doesn't cover their faces and the bullets are still going to leave bruises on most of the heroes which is a problem as far as I'm concerned."
"We should probably toss in some magic gear," Taylor suggested.
"Probably," Myst agreed.
