Mist of Shadows
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Myst in Worm (CYOA) part 12
🕑 Added 2020-08-11 07:13:45 +0000 UTCCody blinked as he found himself in the pool area of a motel standing next to Myst and four naked copies of Jess, Marrissa and Oliver. "What's going on?"
"Congratulations, you're a clone, have some chocolate," Myst suggested as he gestured toward the box of chocolates on the table.
Cody glanced at Myst then glanced around at the various girls lounging or running around that were obviously clones then glanced over at the dark skinned teenager and the dark haired young man that looked better than Oliver usually did. He turned his attention back to Jess and Marissa's duplicates. "I don't feel like a homicidal lunatic."
"So you don't feel like kicking Trickster in the nuts?" Myst asked with amusement as he grabbed a chocolate from the box.
"You've met the guy, right?" one of the Olivers cut in. "I'm fairly sure everyone in the group has considered kicking Francis in the nuts at least once, and that’s just today."
"Point," Myst admitted after noticing that the girls hadn't disputed Oliver's statement.
"What he said," Cody said as he glanced at the group of Olivers, glad they were wearing shorts.
"Joking aside, my clones are generally stable or at least no worse than the original." Myst popped the chocolate in his mouth, glad Cody wasn't taking it worse.
"I've always wanted sisters," one of the Jesses said excitedly as she hugged two of her clones, not able to reach the one on the end. The Jess on the end grinned as she hugged the other three. "Group hug!"
"Same," the group of Marissas replied with amusement as they watched the group hug, just happy that they didn't have to go back and deal with family drama.
"Any reason you didn't copy me more than once?" Cody asked as he pulled his gaze off the group hug, making a mental note to thank Panacea for giving her a tune up.
Myst finished swallowing his chocolate. "Would you rather have a one to one ratio of males to females or four to one?"
"Point," Cody admitted, thinking he liked his odds better at four to one since he knew he was a bit of a dick. 'Fuck, maybe I should tone things down? At least I don't see Francis.' He glanced around then looked at Myst. "What about the rest of the group?"
"I don't need Trickster or Ballistic's power and Trickster is an ass. Noelle's power needed to be suppressed, at least until we could find a solution, so there's no real point in copying her," Myst explained. "Besides, I think everyone needs a break."
"So, why copy me at all?" Cody asked, knowing his power wasn't that impressive.
"One of my powers is basically alchemy, being able to reverse time if an experiment doesn't work is useful," Myst explained as he turned his attention towards where one of the Riley's was chasing a smirking Aisha with a nerf bat. 'At least she's having fun.'
"Alchemy?" Cody asked in disbelief. “As in Skyrim alchemy? Magic?”
"Pretty much. I can also teach it," Myst replied smugly.
"Nice," Marissa said, looking forward to picking up some tricks she could use that weren't as dangerously uncontrollable as her miniature sun.
"Bullshit," Cody replied, shaking his head, knowing that good things didn’t just happen to their group.
"Nope, that's why I copied Oliver." Myst gestured towards the area where the girls were working on scanning the spell books he'd copied. "I have a small library filled with arcane books and the ability to give people magic. He should be able to learn at an accelerated rate and I should be able to copy his skill to the rest of us and each of his clones which means we should be decent magic users in weeks or months rather than years or decades."
"I'm game," Oliver offered excitedly, figuring he'd be able to learn something useful even if it wasn't actually what they would consider magic.
"When do we get started?" Cody asked, not sure why he trusted the strange cape, but figuring it was a good chance to turn his life around or at least get a fresh start, something he was looking forward to as the last few months had been a hellacious trial.
"Let me awaken everyone's potential then we'll get started. I figure you can help one of the Olivers with cultivation and alchemy while one of them works with my projection learning the basics." Myst glanced between the Olivers. "That leaves the last two to help Lisa scan everything into a computer so we can run searches."
"Sounds good," Oliver agreed. "I've used OCR software before."
"How can I help?" one of the Jesses asked after glancing at her siblings.
"Walk around, have some fun and get used to your legs working," Myst suggested as he pushed mana into Cody, awakening his magical potential and causing his aura to light up with blue flames for a couple of seconds.
"Gah!" Cody sputtered as he patted at the flames on his arms before he realized they weren't burning him. "A little warning next time."
"Sorry, my bad," Myst replied with a grin then looked at Jess. "Or if you want, help Lisa scan all of the books. We also have a number of movies you can watch at the theater as well as some other sources of entertainment so no one gets too bored around here."
"I'd rather learn magic," two of the other Jesses said at the same time.
"Yeah, that's a bit creepy," Cody muttered, relieved that he didn't have multiple copies of himself running around. 'At least the original gets to go back home and deal with his shitty life while I get to learn magic, fuck yeah!'
"Works for me, I should be able to give you the basics," Myst assured them as he worked on awakening their magic, rather pleased with his plan to learn magic at a 'reasonable' rate.
0o0o0 Day 5 (Friday)
John woke up and stretched his wings, accidentally rolling Vista onto his chest. She muttered something in her sleep and wrapped him in several tentacles, anchoring herself to him in a white silk cocoon with only her head sticking out, much to his amusement.
Testing had run late, as they’d needed to repair some of the equipment, but they’d completed it for both of them just in time for dinner. He’d accepted an offer to use Vista’s room with the Wards, rather than stay another night in the infirmary.
Vista’s room looked like someone had taken a military officer’s room and allowed a teenage girl to decorate it. He wasn’t sure whether they had made Vista add the teenage touches or she had done it herself. He loved her, but he knew she was a bit obsessive about being taken seriously as a member of the PRT.
John slid out of bed and stood up, Missy remaining asleep, glued to his chest. It didn’t look like there was an attached bathroom, so he entered the main room and looked around. He’d visited once or twice over the years, but hadn’t spent any real time here, so he wasn’t sure where the showers would be.
“Hey… Naked Angel Guy with my teammate tied to his chest,” Clockblocker said before shaking his head. “Um… why are you naked? And have Missy attached to you? And… winged?”
John ordered his symbiote to cover him like a black body stocking. “I wasn’t paying attention,” John replied. “I’m Missy’s twin, John,” he explained, “I just triggered yesterday and have been in testing. Where are the showers?”
Clockblocker gestured to one end of the room. “Girls to the left, Boys to the right.”
“Thanks,” John said, heading to the left hand side.
“Shadow Stalker is in there,” he warned.
“I doubt she takes up that much space,” John replied.
Clockblocker opened his mouth and then shook his head. ‘Some people have to learn things on their own.’
“Who the fuck are you and why is short shit stuck to you?!” a slender dark skinned girl demanded as he entered the shower room.
“John, Missy’s twin,” he replied, his symbiote vanishing as he took the shower next to her and turned it on.
“Eep!” Missy squeaked and practically vanished as she leapt onto the ceiling before the cold water could touch her, suddenly dressed in a yellow rain slicker and galoshes.
“Watch the wings!” Shadow Stalker ordered, as one of his wings came close to her and she shoved it away, her form blinking for a split second as she made contact with it.
John just smiled as three clones of Sophia Hess pinned her in place inside his pocket dimension while he forcibly rewired the original's mind to be an obedient slave. “Hey, mind washing my back? Kinda hard to reach between the wings.”
“Only if you’ll do mine,” she half agreed, half ordered with a snarl as if he had challenged her.
“Suits,” John agreed, pleased the clone actually has some acting skills, if he didn’t know better he’d swear she was the original… except for the lack of stabbing of course.
“I can get his back,” Missy said possessively, dropping silently to the floor, her clothes vanishing.
“You can get his front,” Shadow Stalker growled out, “and what’s with the new powers? He some kind of Trump?”
“Something like that,” Missy agreed, keeping a clone eye on Sophia, who while she was a teammate was also the biggest bitch she’d ever met, even more than their mom.
“And what would I have to do to get an upgrade?” the dark skinned girl demanded as she grabbed a washrag and scrubbed his back roughly, as if trying to remove a stain.
“Be a good teammate to my sis and probably develop a close relationship with me,” John replied. “Pretty sure I can only upgrade people I care a great deal about.”
“Huh,” Sophia said thoughtfully. “You’re a teenage male, it shouldn’t be that hard.”
Missy growled softly, her teeth lengthening and her nails thickening.
“Provided I can beat her to your dick a few times a week anyway,” Sophia said, not remotely phased.
0o0o0o0o0
"No harm in asking," Riley whispered as she headed towards the pool area.
"Worst case, he says no," the other Riley agreed. "Besides, it's for science, do you really think he's going to say no?"
Amy shook her head as she followed the two Rileys, surprised that they actually had a decent sense of humor. "Generally speaking, asking people for their blood never goes well."
Riley smiled as she walked over to where Myst was lounging by the pool reading a book. "Excuse me good sir, we're looking for volunteers for a mad science experiment."
Myst looked up from his book and noticed the less than innocent grins the three girls were wearing. "Not it."
Riley pouted. "But you haven't even heard our request."
"This is why you don't mention mad science," Amy offered dryly.
"Okay, what's your request?" Myst asked as he put a slip of paper in the spell book to mark the page.
"Amy wants to duplicate your symbiote and we want some blood samples," Riley explained.
"For science!" the other Riley said cheerfully, causing Chris to look over at the group before he went back to working on soldering a wire for his game system.
"You're not planning on cloning me, are you?" Myst asked, wanting to make sure he didn't end up with a bunch of evil clones running around.
"Of course not," Riley replied as she shook her head. "We're trying to duplicate your physical enhancements or at least figure out some improvements we can upgrade everyone with."
"Which means taking blood samples," the other Riley added. "Just in case your biology keeps changing."
Myst glanced between the two Rileys then looked at Amy. "Are you willing to stick around and make sure they don't go completely off the deep end?"
"That depends, what's in it for me?" Amy asked with amusement.
Myst conjured a large bag of potatoes. "Biomass for your symbiote research?"
"You can also spank us if we misbehave," one of the Rileys offered as she reached over and playfully swatted Amy's behind.
Myst shook his finger at Riley. "None of that, if you want to be spanked, ask. You're a bio-tinker, you don't need a reason to misbehave."
Riley stuck her tongue out at Myst.
"Fine," Amy agreed. "I'll make sure they don't go off the deep end. Can I examine your symbiote?"
"As soon as my clone finishes a bit of grave robbing," Myst replied as he conjured two chocolate ice cream cones and handed them to the Rileys. "John wanted me to grab Fleur's body so he could bring her back to life."
"Which requires the symbiote?" Amy asked with a raised eyebrow as the pair of Rileys started licking their ice cream cones.
Myst grinned as he used the connection his symbiote gave him to transfer Fleur's coffin to his clone in John's pocket dimension. "No, it just makes it easier, I used a tentacle to extend my power's reach and transferred the coffin without having to dig anything up."
"Won't that cause the grave to collapse if someone steps on it?" Amy asked.
"Probably." Myst swung his legs around and stood up. "I'll be right back." He conjured a set of winter clothes then stepped out of his pocket dimension into the graveyard. He nodded to his clone then headed for the exit while his clone stepped into the pocket dimension and sat down on the lawn chair. "Sorry about that, it was easier to swap clones than transfer the symbiote."
Amy opened the sack of potatoes. "Can we get started?"
Myst held out his symbiote covered hand towards Amy. "Test away."
"Thanks," Amy said as she grabbed his hand with her left hand and grabbed a potato with her right and started reshaping the potato to match the symbiote's alien biology. "I wonder if I could reproduce the symbiote's force field in humans?" she mused as she studied the alien creature's biology.
'Yeah, this might be a case of the cat watching the canaries,' Myst mused as he watched Amy's lips curl into an unconscious smile. "It's probably worth checking."
"Nah, I'll need a volunteer," Amy said thoughtfully, fairly sure it was better to just use the symbiote even though the alien design was extremely elegant.
"Not it," both Rileys said at the same time. "At least not until you have the process down," Riley said after glancing at her sister.
"That's fine," Myst agred. "John copied Shadow Stalker, she's a decent test subject, mostly because she'll probably pick up damage anyways."
"Is she a local villain?" Riley asked.
"She's a bitch of a vigilante pretending to be a hero," Myst replied. "I was planning on using my sharing power on her so that she adapts to damage, which should give you plenty to study."
Amy shook her head, fairly sure using an altered symbiote was better than doing insane modifications they stole from a power far too close to Crawlers. "Yeah, we can probably skip that, I don't want to have to keep fixing her after every mission and the clones aren't the original."
"I don't know, it could be interesting but we should probably save it for a villain," Riley agreed.
"Fair enough," Myst agreed.
"Speaking of crazy mad science, can you make a clone of Blasto?" the other Riley asked hopefully.
"Sure, we have plenty of space," Myst replied, making a mental note to make a separate area for all of Blasto's creations. "If we're going to go full mad scientist I could always clone Nilbog before I kill him."
"Hell no," Amy replied. "That bastard is half the reason I have so many problems, it would be like cloning Hilter, sure it's a clone but it's still Hilter."
"Didn't you just use the argument that the clones aren't the same?" Myst asked.
"I don't care, we don't need him," Amy complained as she worked on duplicating the symbiote.
"Are we so powerful you feel the need to create problems for us?" John asked as he walked over, curious what they were plotting.
"Nah, I'm just looking at ways to staff our pocket realms with animals and interesting creatures," Myst assured him.
"Dinosaurs," John mused, thinking about what kind of area he’d need to create to have his own nature preserve of them.
"I wouldn't mind setting up a Jurassic park where people could see dinosaurs or even a place where people could hunt monsters," Myst suggested. "Maybe two areas, one where I've used Sharing to make sure the animals can fight back and one where I haven't."
John nodded. "As I recall, in the book they lost control of them, because they adapted and started breeding. Not sure empowering dinosaurs is a bright idea, but it’s your dimension.”
"I'd warn them of the danger and make sure they signed a waiver, people should be free to make their own choices," Myst replied with a grin, "even stupid ones."
"Do we get a base in a volcano?" the Riley that wasn't hugging Myst asked.
"If you didn’t I’d be disappointed," John said.
"Draw up the plans, I'll see what I can do," Myst promised.
0o0o0
Myst felt a little dirty as he let Max into Jessica's apartment, making sure to brush his hand and spawn four copies, dropping the loyal and polite clones in his pocket dimension to provide fuel for the replicator.
It felt a bit dickish to shapeshift into a girl and cockblock what was probably going to be the last time in his life Kaiser was going to get laid, but there was no way he was volunteering for that job! But honestly, it was a lot easier than trying to clone him at work or in public where he kept his guard up.
"Let me get your coat," Nessa offered as she held out a hand, knowing that he kept his phone in his coat pocket.
Max slipped off his coat and handed it to Nessa with a smile. "Thank you."
"Did you have fun at the office?" Nessa asked as she carefully draped the coat over the back of a chair.
"Not particularly," Max replied dismissively. "I have to go back after lunch so, couch, bed or table?"
Nessa glanced at 'Jessica' then the table dining room table. "Table."
Myst waited until Kaiser turned to look at the table then used his Midas ability to quickly turn him into a stone statue, not wanting to take any risks. "And they said romance is dead."
Nessa rolled her eyes. "I'm not sure what Nessa saw in him, compared to Uber he sucks at sex and he's an ass."
"You and Uber?" Myst asked with raised eyebrows.
Nessa shrugged, which caused her breasts to jiggle. "Amy gave him a clean bill of health and made sure he can't knock me up and he's got skills, skills that just keep improving."
Myst laughed. "No judgement." He shifted back to his normal appearance and grabbed one of the Kaisers and transferred him into the room. "On that note, you should probably head back to the office."
The Max clone glanced at Nessa. "So, does that mean we can't have fun first?"
"Yes," Jessica called out from the bedroom. "We're going shopping,” she reminded her twin. “There are a number of things of a feminine nature that aren’t programmed into the replication just yet.”
“Maybe Later,” Nessa said, “after Panacea has a chance to work you over a bit.”
“Harsh,” he said with a wince. “You know very well there is nothing wrong with my… progenitor, except his personality and loyalties.”
“Yes, but I can’t tease him, so you will have to do,” she replied.
The clone chuckled. “Women.”
0o0o0
“Is this really going to bring her back?” Vicky asked, staring at Fleur’s body floating in the tank of green fluid.
“It’s weird ROB magic, it’ll work,” John assured her as he transferred in a quartet of Kaisers from Myst’s pocket.
“ROB?” Amy asked.
“Random Omnipotent Being,” John replied. “It’s weird to explain.”
“I thought it was supposed to be hard to explain,” Amy said.
“No it’s pretty easy to explain, just weird,” John replied, before turning to the Kaisers. “I need you guys to generate chunks of metal and feed them into the replicator.” He gestured to a metal hopper that stuck out from the side of the replicator.
“Replicator?” one asked.
“I’m making a bunch of androids so I can wipe out Skidmark and his friends in a week or so,” John replied.
“Not going to make clones of them?” he asked.
“No, they all have to die,” John replied with an evil grin. “While I would prefer slow and painful, they are already managing that themselves, so as an act of mercy I plan on doing it fast and painless, as a public service.”
“That’s… nice of you,” Vicky said lamely, exchanging glances with Amy.
Amy walked over to John and put an arm around him, leading him off, Vicky quickly joining him on the other side. “Let’s grab a room and relax for a while, you spend too much time working.”
“You’re just trying to distract me so I don’t rush off and kill them,” John said, letting them pull him towards the hotel.
“Yes, and it’s working,” Vicky assured him.
“Well, I still have a penis,” he pointed out.
“Yes and that makes it easy to distract and calm you down,” Amy said, “it’s quite handy.”
“Fine,” John agreed with a sigh, “oh what a horrible life I lead where beautiful girls drag me off to sex with me and delay my righteous vengeance.”
“Oh yes, horrible,” Vicky agreed, waving for a couple more clones to join them, “that’s what we are.”
0o0o0
John chuckled and shook his head as Myst transferred him to the twins' apartment in Brockton Bay, altering his appearance to look like a young James Dean. “Well, I guess I’ll just handle things with Taylor right now, since my plans for the Merchants are being delayed. That’s probably for the best anyway. I need to handle the little things before starting on the ones that go bang.”
"Probably," Myst replied. "Having a decent plan is probably better than bringing down the thunder without one, less collateral damage."
“Yeah, I made a plan before this all started, I just didn’t realize I’d hate them so much when I got here,” John replied.
"I had a hard time not torturing Coil to death," Myst admitted. "I had to remind myself I had conflicting missions."
“You took the hardest missions,” John reminded him, “mine were simple in comparison. All I have to do is wipe out the Merchants, kill Othala, free Dragon, take care of The Bitches Three, and help keep Panacea stable. Thankfully the last one just required adding a world change where incest was the norm between siblings.”
"I can't really complain, it made getting some of my villains checked off on my list easy. The only one I regret picking is Bakuda, mostly because I still have to find the bitch," Myst grumbled.
“Did you tell Lung to look for her?” John asked. “He’s the one who found and brought her here in canon.”
Myst shrugged. "It's on his list."
“You took a lot of missions to pay for powers you didn’t even need,” John said, shaking his head. “I mean, I did too, but at least I kept it modest.”
"I wasn't expecting to have to actually deal with it," Myst replied a touch flippantly. "And I've dealt with most of the shit already, I just need to torch Nilbog and I'll be more or less done."
“That’s why you are supposed to make choices as if you were going to actually live them,” John said. “I’ve always hated stories where people did something stupid for plot purposes. If your main character has so many idiot balls he has to juggle them I don’t want to read it. Well, I gotta go eat a burger and meet up with Shadow Stalker as she lures two more girls into my evil clutches.”
Myst shook his head. "I need to see about getting a date with Purity, one more villain on my list so yeah, have fun."
“Remember to grab copies of her, I could use some,” John said as he left.
"Will do," Myst replied.
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