Mist of Shadows
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Travels in the Multiverse Part 6
🕑 Added 2020-09-15 03:04:29 +0000 UTCMyst twitched and tumbled through the void between worlds in a moment of panic after waking up in an unfamiliar place and finding himself in a pitch black room. He winced as he landed on a dumpster with a loud bang, thankfully it was closed. Unfortunately, the dimly lit alley was occupied by five large creatures that looked suspiciously like mutated werewolves, half man and half wolf, their mangy fur a variety of colors, mostly whites, blacks and greys.
He nearly gave himself whiplash as he quickly looked towards the other end of the alley when he realized there was a small dimensional breach coming from the opposite end of the alley as the group of werewolves. His hopes of another way out were dashed when he saw two more werewolves near the dead end part of the alley.
His gaze jumped past the red furred werewolf wearing a pair of jean shorts and a long sleeved red silk top and fell on the massive white furred female werewolf that wasn't wearing clothes, mostly because she had dozens of gashes and a dimensional portal in her head like the rest of the parahumans he'd encountered. He stared at the slashes scattered over her body then jumped back to the girl wearing clothes. "What the hell?" he blurted as he rolled off the dumpster and tossed up his force field.
"Walk away mage," one of the mutated werewolves ordered in a growl that was barely recognizable as English.
"Sorry, I'm a bit confused, where am I?" Myst asked, turning slightly so he could keep the mutated werewolves in sight without completely turning his back to the other girls, even if he was fairly sure they were less dangerous or at least less inclined to attack him for no reason.
"Brockton Bay, you're in Spiral territory," the man snarled.
"As in Black Spiral Dancers?" Myst asked warily, finally connecting the dots between their mutated and feral appearance and the fact that they weren't bothering with clothes while the other werewolf was. He quickly focused on the mutated werewolves and listened to their rather horrific thoughts.
"Yes, now leave," the man snarled.
'Yeah, they're going to attack me as soon as my back is turned.' He grabbed the silver knife one of the werewolves was holding with his telekinesis and slammed it into the throat of the man's packmate who let out a horrific shriek as the knife flickered with a pale green flame. He ignored the man's gurgling as he grabbed the dumpster with telekinesis and slammed it into the group of werewolves, causing them to scatter.
Myst wished he had a translation spell as the werewolf with red fur growled something he didn't understand and stepped in front of the girl with white fur which looked a bit strange as the girl with white fur was at least a foot taller than her companion. He sighed as he caught bits and pieces of their frantic thoughts about finding a way out of the alley and away from the Spiral Dancers.
His attention was pulled back to the group of Spiral Dancers when he heard claws scratching across brick. He raised his hands as he turned to look directly at the three werewolves that were advancing towards him and unleashed a storm of crystal shards that ripped into the werewolves, causing them to howl in frustration and pain.
Myst sighed in relief when the three werewolves vanished into thin air, having decided that messing with a mage wasn't worth it. He picked up the unconscious werewolf he'd hit in the head with the dumpster, yanked him over with telekinesis and stuffed him into his pocket dimension with the dementors.
"What did you do?" the red furred werewolf asked in a voice that was surprisingly human despite the muzzle.
"I stuffed him in my inventory," Myst replied as he used telekinesis to pull the silver knife out of the werewolf's neck, mentally noting the fact that the werewolf hadn't changed back to human when he'd died. "What the hell is going on?"
"We need to leave, they could jump out of the umbra at any time," the red furred girl warned.
"Sure, where are we going?" Myst asked as he levitated the knife over to his hand and stuck it in his pocket dimension.
"I'd be careful of the knife, it's probably tainted," she warned him.
"Probably, but I'm not leaving it here for them to recover," Myst replied as he turned his attention towards the two werewolves, picking up a mental image of a 'safe' place to drop them off from their minds. He flinched as he got a flash of precog of the mutated werewolves appearing next to the girls and ripping them apart. He quickly teleported across town with the girls to the backyard they considered safe then stared at what looked like a furious melee between a female werewolf with white fur wielding a large silver sword and two mangy werewolves one of which had bat ears while the other was a patchwork collection of colors.
The white furred girl snarled and dashed forward almost faster than he could see and started furiously clawing at the back of one of the mutated werewolves, distracting it enough for the woman with a sword to stab him in the chest with her blade.
Myst gestured and lifted the last werewolf off the ground with telekinesis as he jumped at the woman with white fur and winced as she cut the other werewolf's throat without missing a beat. He held up his hands and stepped back as the werewolves turned to look at him. "I don't want any trouble."
"What's going on?" the woman with a sword asked in a voice that sounded barely more human than a snarl.
"He saved us from the Spirials," the red furred werewolf offered, her voice surprisingly clear and understandable compared to the other werewolves.
"I was just trying to help…" Myst trailed off as the red haired girl transformed into an attractive teenage girl with long red hair, her clothes shifting so they were perfectly sized for her new form.
"Don't freak out, it's just easier to…" the girl trailed off as she noticed the busted door on the back of the house. "What happened?" she asked as the dead werewolves transformed into naked humans.
The woman with the sword transformed, going from a large white werewolf that looked like a beast straight out of legend to a woman in her thirties with pale skin and long curly black hair that looked athletic but not built like an athlete or bodybuilder. He glanced at her white khakis shorts and plain black t-shirt then turned and looked at the naked girl with long black hair that was currently on her hands and knees throwing up, her back and arms a mess of cuts and gashes, most of which were still leaking blood.
Myst quickly pulled his attention off the naked teenager when he heard the woman growl. "Why are there Spirals running around?"
The girl with red hair snorted. "Because the tribes have given up on the cities."
"Why?" Myst asked, trying to stitch the pieces he had into something that made sense.
The woman focused on the arcane words floating over the man's head that almost made sense. "Thank you for saving my daughter and Emma, I'm Annette."
"Myst," Myst offered, smiling slightly as he caught her last name in her mind. 'Hebert. At least that makes a certain amount of sense, for a given value of sense.'
Annette sighed as she glanced back at her house. "I'd offer you something to drink but the kitchen is trashed."
"Spirals taste nasty," Taylor complained as she got to her feet and looked at Myst, focusing on his glowing eyes now that she wasn't worried about a bunch of Black Spiral Dancers killing her. "What are you?"
"A Traveler, my main power involves jumping dimensions," Myst explained, not really caring if they knew as he wasn't planning on staying long.
"Like Earth Aleph?" Emma asked.
"Something like that," Myst agreed as he studied Annette's sword, trying not to look at Taylor as he didn't want to make her uncomfortable or cause her mother to fly into a rage.
Annette turned to look at Emma. "Grab Taylor's robe and her sandals, there's glass everywhere in the house." She glanced down at the gashes scattered over her daughter's skin that would probably scar without attention and tried not to fly into a rage and hunt everyone down that had dared attack her daughter. "Grab the first aid kit from under the sink, it should have survived."
"On it," Emma said as she ran towards the house.
"Give me a second, I need to call Amy unless you want a bunch of scars," Annette said as she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and selected Amy's number.
"I know some of the idiots love scars but I'd rather not look like I walked through a meat grinder," Taylor complained, trying not to think about her various gashes.
"Amy, can you come over?" Annette asked, not taking her eyes off Myst. "A couple of Black Spirals attacked Taylor and Emma, Taylor got slashed up."
"I'll be over there in five," Amy replied as she ran out of her room to find Vicky.
"Thanks, see you soon," Annette said then ended the call and slipped her phone back in her pocket. "We'll get you cleaned up and Amy should be able to fix everything."
"Good," Taylor replied as she stared at the gashes on her arms she barely remembered getting, trying not to freak out over almost dying. "How did you end up in the alley?"
"I was working on a project and fell asleep," Myst said, thinking about the world jumping wand/remote he'd created before falling asleep.
Annette smiled at Taylor. "Taylor does the same thing."
"Twice," Taylor admitted as she studied the strange runes floating over the man's head. "Did you fall asleep on the switch or something?"
"No, I woke up in an unfamiliar pitch black room and panicked," Myst admitted as he tilted his head just enough to see Taylor out of the corner of his eye so he could check her thoughts, trying to get an idea what was going on. "I don't like waking up in unfamiliar locations and I haven't had my powers all that long."
"That makes sense," Taylor replied. 'If Emma was standing here naked, he'd be looking.' She glanced over at her mother who looked like she wanted to beat someone to death with a chair which wasn't an uncommon expression since her father had died. 'Then again, maybe he's just trying not to get mauled.'
'Pretty much,' Myst mused. "How common are the Black Spiral Dancers?"
"They took over from the Merchants last year and started pushing into ABB territory six months ago," Annette explained.
"So the Merchants are dead?" Myst asked.
"As a group, yeah, Skidmark and Mush got torn apart, Squealer flipped her shit and stuck silver spikes on a mech. Never piss off a Glasswalker Tinker to the point they have nothing to lose. She ended up joining the Protectorate after that."
"And they took her?" Myst asked in surprise.
"She's a Tinker, of course they took her. It doesn't hurt that she's a werewolf and thus a moderate brute in her 'breaker' forms," Annette explained.
"How do you explain a bunch of people running around with remarkably similar powers?" Myst asked.
"We don't, we just mark down that we have a standard Lycan package plus whatever other powers we have. It's pretty much like having an Alexandria package, it's dirt common and we use gifts to fake another rating if we don't have parahuman powers," Annette explained.
"I guess that's one way to deal with it. Don't the elders complain?" Myst asked, surprised that the traditionalists would accept the change.
Annette shook her head. "It's just another way to hide things. If anyone sees a werewolf, they just assume it's a parahuman. It's the same thing with mages, they just pretend they have powers."
"Do they even have to deal with Paradox?" Myst asked.
"They can be pretty blatant these days, especially out in costume," Annette replied, thinking about some of the mage's she'd met over the years.
"They busted up the house," Emma complained as she came back out of the house with a robe, pair of sandals and a first aid kit.
"Unfortunately," Annette complained, fairly sure they'd have to move now that the Spirals knew where to find them.
"We're going to have to move, aren't we?" Taylor asked as she glanced at the toolshed filled with her smithy and tools.
"Or kill all of the Black Spirals in town," Emma suggested as she pulled out the bottle of rubbing alcohol and started cleaning Taylor's cuts, much to her annoyance.
Annette sighed. "As much as I'd love to kill them, they have a small army under the city and in the boat graveyard."
"If you need a lift somewhere else, I can take you to a world where you don't need to worry about Black Spiral Dancers," Myst offered, fairly sure the other Taylor would love a chance to talk to a version of her mother.
"How much?" Annette asked, wanting to find a place where she could watch her daughter and Emma grow up in peace or at least without worrying about an army of corrupted garou that none of the elders wanted to deal with.
"Nothing," Myst replied with a shrug. "Jumping worlds doesn't really cost me anything and I'd like to think that someone would help me out if I needed it."
Annette tensed up as she saw Vicky flying with Amy in the distance dodging sickly green bolts of fire. "Shit! It's a trap."
Myst teleported up near Vicky and Amy and activated his force field, covering the capes. "Nice day for flying."
Vicky twitched and nearly hit Myst before she realized he wasn't a mutated werewolf. "Who are you?"
"Myst, I saved Taylor and Emma in an alley." Myst frowned as he noticed the nasty looking burn on Amy's side. "Sorry," he teleported with the girls back to the yard, "I'm a healer, if you want I can fix her burn."
Vicky stared at Myst. "Who the hell are you?"
"Just a traveler," Myst replied as he held out his hand towards Amy. "Just take my hand and I can loan you regeneration." He loaned Amy his regeneration when she grabbed his hand in a death grip.
Amy sighed in relief as her burn stopped hurting and scabbed over. "Thank you, healing myself is a pain in the ass and takes energy, recharging is also a pain in the ass."
Myst raised his eyebrows as he caught a memory of Amy healing herself with magic. 'Yeah, that's new.' He glanced at her 'wounds' where the scab was already flaking off revealing undamaged skin. "It should be completely gone in a couple of minutes."
"Good, I'll be right back, I need to grab our IDs," Annette said as she ran towards the house, wanting to grab their IDs and paperwork, flute and the go bag filled with cash just in case the spirals burned the place down while they were gone.
"If you can heal people, why didn't you offer before?" Taylor asked as she watched her mother run into the house.
Myst smiled at Taylor then quickly looked away when he remembered that she wasn't wearing clothes, mostly because Emma was still trying to clean all of her scrapes and gashes. "It looked like you had it in hand and it's always better to clean your wounds before healing them."
"Can you teleport us out of here before their reinforcements get here or do you have a range limit?" Vicky asked hopefully, knowing the Spirals knew how to deal with her force field and were certainly fast enough to take advantage as they'd proved a few times before.
Myst stepped to the side as he got a flash of claws ripping his throat out a second before a mangey werewolf appeared out of thin air and slashed at him with her claws.
Amy reached out and touched the werewolf, dropping her unconscious as Myst grabbed the monster with telekinesis. "That was close."
Vicky spun and kicked another werewolf, sending him flying into the fence but not otherwise causing any damage.
Myst jumped forward and grabbed the werewolf dropping it in his pocket dimension, making a mental note to research ways to increase the size of his pocket. He scowled as the other werewolf vanished back into the umbra. "That's getting really annoying."
"Can't mages jump into the umbra?" Emma asked as she continued working on cleaning Taylor's various gashes, trusting Vicky to keep the Spirals away from them until an entire pack showed up.
Amy kept her grip on Myst's hand as she stepped closer to Taylor and started healing her wounds, focusing on the gashes that Emma had already cleaned. "That only applies to spirit mages."
"Pretty much," Myst agreed as he watched Taylor's progress out of the corner of his eye, glad that at least one version of Taylor had decent friends. 'I wonder if I can adapt any of their rituals or if I'd need to be a kinfolk or garou with spirit backing? It's worth a shot after I grab some magic from Harry's world.'
"What type of mage are you?" Emma asked, curious about the stranger that had saved them.
"I have telekinesis and I can do some fun stuff with crystals," Myst offered.
"Are you a parahuman or just a mage?" Vicky asked.
"I'm just a magic user that can jump worlds," Myst replied with amusement, seeing no reason to lie.
"What are the other worlds like?" Emma asked.
"It depends on the world. I'm fairly sure the last dimension I was in didn't have magic or werewolves or at least they were better at hiding," Myst explained as Annette rushed out of the house with two duffle bags. "Ready?"
"Ready!" Annettle called out as she ran over.
Myst winced as he caught a vision of a dozen werewolves jumping out of the umbra and trying to kill them in a couple of seconds. He quickly stepped over and 'casually' rested a hand on Taylor's tool shed then jumped dimensions with everyone and Taylor's shed. He sighed as he saw another Taylor looking out the window of the house that would have been identical other than the recent damage. He'd been hoping to have a little bit of time to come up with a way to explain the alternates to Taylor and Danny. "Sorry about that, the Spirals were a second away from attacking."
"Weird," Emma muttered as she glanced around and noticed a few changes, mostly the fact that there was another tool shed and the yard was longer while the fence wasn't as high. "Is there anything we should know?"
"Try not to freak out if Taylor slaps the shit out of you, your alternate deserves it," Myst explained as the other Taylor dashed outside and stared at the group.
"Mom?!" Skitter blurted as she glanced between the woman that looked like her mother and the girl that looked like a more athletic version of herself. "What's going on?"
"Huh?" Emma muttered, wondering what her alternate had done that deserved getting slapped.
"Sorry, your alternate and her mother had some werewolf issues, they needed a place to stay for a couple of days," Myst explained as he gestured towards Emma. "Don't stab Emma's alternate, she doesn't deserve it."
"Emma?" Skitter asked warily as she noticed the familiar and yet unfamiliar girl standing in front of a shed she'd never seen before. 'When did she get muscles?' she asked herself, rather impressed with the girl's athletic appearance despite herself.
"Hey," Emma offered, not sure what to say thanks to Myst's warning.
"Relax, we don't bite," Taylor said as she slipped the bathrobe on now that Emma and Amy had already dealt with the worst of the gashes.
"Bullshit," Emma muttered under her breath, thinking of a couple of times that Taylor had bitten her while messing around.
"Werewolf issues?" Skitter asked as she glanced around the group.
"Basically," Annette paused as she thought about her dead husband, "is your father home…" she trailed off as Danny walked out of the house and stared at Annette in disbelief.
"Annette?" Danny blurted, freezing in place and suddenly doubting how awake he was.
"Danny," Annette replied, feeling the world drop away as she stared at her husband's alternate and compared him to the image in her mind of the man she'd loved and lost. She knew there were differences but she couldn't have named any as he dashed forward and pulled her into a hug, trying to fill a void that could never be filled.
Taylor shook her head, slightly annoyed that her alternate's father hadn't even glanced at her, not that she blamed him as her mother was staring at this world's version of her father. "Maybe we should get pizza."
"Or popcorn," Emma mused thoughtfully as she watched the adults hug each other like they were going to vanish the next second.
"Do I have an alternate?" Vicky asked excitedly, glancing at Myst.
"Yeah, she flies around punching things," Myst replied with amusement.
"That sounds like my sister," Amy replied with amusement as she healed the last of Taylor's wounds. "Do I have an alternate?"
"She's a bit snarky but she's probably the best healer in the world," Myst explained, feeling like he should slip away before people started asking him a bunch of inconvenient and tedious questions. "I was supposed to collect her this morning for a project, do you want to come with me and meet your alternates?"
"You're one of those secretive types like most mages aren't you?" Emma asked.
"Pretty much," Myst admitted. “You wanna come as well?”
Emma shook her head. "I should probably hear Taylor's story before I run into my alternate."
"Yeah, that can't end well," Myst muttered under his breath, forgetting for a second that the werewolves had excellent hearing.
"I want to hang out with Da…nny," Taylor said, not sure what to call him yet.
Amy glanced at Annette and Danny then at the other Taylor. "As much as I wouldn't mind sticking around, I'm more curious about my alternate."
Amy turned to look at the other Taylor and rattled off her Taylor's phone number. "Is that valid over here?"
"Yes," Skitter admitted, still not quite sure what was going on or how a version of Panacea had her number. "How do you know my alternate?"
Amy glanced at Taylor then looked at the other version of Taylor. "Techno's a hero and a garou, the changeling community isn't that large back home and the local heroes have to stick together."
"Techno?" Skitter asked, wondering what powers her alternate had received. "Garou? You're a hero?"
"Of course, I'm a Tinker and a Lycan, you?" Taylor asked as she studied her alternate, surprised that she had less muscle than she was expecting.
Skitter glanced at Emma then looked at her father. "I'm not a…" she trailed off as she realized they'd find out eventually about her being a parahuman. "What's a Lycan?"
"Basically a werewolf or Changer that takes an animal form and has a certain amount of supernatural durability," Emma explained. "So what happened with your Emma?"
"She went nuts when I went off to camp after Mom died…" Skitter sighed as she realized the other Emma had no idea what she was talking about. "A year and a half ago," she added.
Emma winced as she remembered the fight with the ABB that had gotten her father killed and got her stuck in the wards. "That's about the same time the ABB killed my father."
"Alan is still alive in this world," Skitter replied.
"Mom?" Emma asked hopefully.
"Yeah," Skitter assured her. "Not that it helped Emma, she went psycho."
"Like good psycho or psycho nuts?" Emma asked, wondering what the hell had happened to her alternate.
"She locked me in a locker filled with used tampons and filth!" Skitter snapped.
Emma stared at the other Taylor in shock. "What the fuck?!"
"Yeah, no clue," Skitter replied, a touch surprised and relieved that Emma actually looked shocked and nauseous. She turned to look at her alternate. "When did you become a cape?"
"Over winter break, I was trying to figure out how some tinkertech that Emma had recovered worked and it finally sort of clicked," Taylor replied with a shrug, not particularly bothered by her trigger event unlike a lot of people she'd run into.
"That's it?!" Skitter blurted in disbelief.
"Pretty much," Taylor replied, knowing second generation capes had it easy.
Myst jumped when his phone rang, not used to carrying a cell phone anymore. He pulled it out of his pocket and answered it. "Hey."
"We're at Sarah's house, do you want us to fly somewhere or do you want to pick us up?" Amy asked, wanting to leave before Carol showed up and started bitching at her.
"I'll be there in a second, don't freak about your alternates." Myst ended the call with a grin and slipped his phone back into his pocket. He held out his hand and focused on his crystal creation ability, creating a business card sized light blue crystal plate with his phone number in raised numbers that were a dark purple. "If you run into problems, just call."
Taylor stared at the crystal business card. “You could have just written me a note, less evidence that way.”
"I didn't have a pen or paper," Myst admitted as he handed her the card. "Give me a call after you've caught up and traded stories."
"Sure," Taylor promised as she worked on memorizing the number in case she lost the card or it melted or something when touching iron.
"Best of luck." Myst nodded towards the local Taylor then teleported with Amy and Vicky to the sidewalk in front of Sarah's house.
