Mist of Shadows
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Myst in DC Part 42
🕑 Added 2020-02-08 09:25:50 +0000 UTC
Myst used one of his invisible drones to focus on the hovercraft that Alanna was driving up the ramp as he blocked one of Ahsoka’s lightsabers with his lightsaber. “Sorry, that’s not going to work,” he replied as he jumped her leg sweep then teleported behind her when she brought her second stun saber around to stab him. He stabbed her in the back as she continued her swing and twisted, trying to recover. “I win, muhahaha.”
Ahsoka snorted as she turned around and gave him a look of annoyance. “That amulet is annoying.”
Myst laughed and turned the training saber off. “You can’t blame me for not wanting to fight a precog without some type of defense, can you?”
“Yes, yes I can,” Ahsoka replied with amusement as she switched her training blades off and glanced over at Alanna as she drove the hovercraft filled with droids and medical equipment up the ramp. “Do you want to take over sparring?”
“Maybe after we get everything unloaded,” Alanna said as she turned to look at the childcare trained protocol droids. “Unload everything.”
“Did you have any trouble finding everything?” Myst asked as he looked over the strange collection of medical equipment that Alanna had acquired. Some of it looked almost familiar while other bits were too strange to guess at their function.
“No, Kenobi’s contacts came through,” Alanna said as she watched the droids unload the equipment. “A few of the droids even have teaching programs which should be useful.”
“That should help,” Myst agreed as he handed the training saber back to Ahsoka. “Thanks for the match.”
“You’d probably get more out of it if you weren’t cheating,” Ahsoka teased.
Myst stuck his tongue out at Ahsoka. “Probably, but half of the point in cheating is to give you experience in dealing with things you can’t sense.”
“Right,” Ahsoka replied sarcastically.
Alanna grinned at Myst. “In other words, you knew she’d beat you in a fair fight?”
“To be fair, she’d had years of practice, I’ve had a few days,” Myst replied with amusement.
“A few days?” Ahsoka asked in disbelief. “You’re that good after just a few days?”
“I’m fairly sure it has more to do with being a precog and the amulet messing with your precog than actual skill on my part,” Myst admitted.
“I don’t suppose you have an extra amulet I can borrow?” Ahsoka asked hopefully.
Myst grinned at Ahsoka. “Technically, I have a couple but they wouldn’t help.”
“Why not?” Alanna asked.
“Because I made sure they wouldn’t block my abilities when I made them. I didn’t want someone to be able to steal them and use them against me. I have immunity to mental influence and control which means no one should be able to force me to track down my friends which means it’s not really a security flaw,” Myst explained as he watched the droids unload the last of the supplies.
“Makes sense. I’ll be right back,” Alanna said as she backed down the ramp after checking to make sure none of the droids had placed something in the way.
Ahsoka turned to look at Myst. “Have you figured out where you’re going to build your academy?”
“No, Sabrina is working on a list of suitable locations so hopefully she’ll find somewhere out of the way.” Myst was hoping the radiation level on the Iokath Dyson Sphere had dropped to an acceptable level as it contained plenty of space for the next few thousand years. “On that note, I should probably see what she’s came up with.”
0o0o0
Myst waited for the lightning to stop crackling over the Thinking Cap then reached down and picked up the helmet and stuck it in his inventory. He would have felt worse about mind wiping the man but Psimon was basically irredeemable for various reasons that shouldn’t pass down to the next generation. He glanced up at the large statues overlooking the shrine and wondered how many of the ancient Sith had considered improving the next generation with alchemy.
“Not enough,” he muttered as he pulled a knock-off of his cursed fey mask out of his inventory and placed it on Psimon’s face, curious what counted as an unseelie abomination as he wasn’t going to test the mask on anyone he cared about.
He flinched as the mask melded with Psimon’s face, changing into something resembling an elk’s skull while his limbs grew in odd and twisted ways, gaining bulk in some cases and turning into twisted sections of shadow, frost or fire in others. Between that and the twisted claws that sprouted from his fingertips, he certainly looked like an unseelie abomination. He looked at the man with his upgrade ability. ‘Low end supernatural strength and agility and enough durability against everything other than cold iron to ignore most firearms.
The metahuman groaned as he woke up and found himself in a strange underground structure with no memory of where he was or even who he was, which was more than a little disturbing. He twitched as he looked around and noticed a man in back robes looking down at him. “What happened?”
“You were guilty of various high crimes. I offered you a way to avoid death for the small price of your memories and a new appearance, you took it,” Myst lied.
“In exchange for what?” the man demanded as he got to his feet, too distracted to notice the talons on his fingertips or the fact that one of his hands was larger than the other. “My life? How is living without my memories any different than death?”
“The alternative was death, you figured at least this way there was a chance to get your memories back if you lived long enough. There was also the fact that you get to have sex with a number of attractive women.”
“Oh, I might have agreed to that,” the man admitted. “When do I start?” he asked, figuring sex was a decent distraction until he could figure out where he was and who he’d been before having his mind wiped.
Myst tossed the man a knock off Magic Boy amulet. “As soon as you put the necklace on, your current appearance is rather off putting.”
“Are you saying I’m ugly?” the man demanded.
“I’m saying mad scientists shouldn’t experiment on themselves,” Myst replied as he gestured and conjured a standing mirror for Psimon to look at himself.
The man blinked as he saw his appearance in the mirror, more than a little horrified by the fact that he could see his brain and that his face was more like a skull than a proper face. “What the fuck did I do?!” he asked as he realized that his body was basically a collection of warped body parts pieced together by a lunatic and a fair amount of magic or super science unless he was very much mistaken.
Myst shrugged. “I’m fairly sure that’s the other reason you took the deal, a new appearance.”
“I can see why,” the man admitted as he put the necklace on. “Now what?”
“You should be able to focus on swapping to your alternate form and shift,” Myst explained, knowing it shouldn’t be all that hard to figure it out. ‘Hopefully the necklace can cover the mask’s issues or I’m going to have a hard time talking the girls into having sex with him.’
The man focused and morphed into an athletic looking pale skinned teenage male with short brown hair. “That’s better, I can’t see my brain and I have a face… What the hell was I thinking?”
“No clue,” Myst replied as he gestured toward the door in the wall where a female twin of Dooku’s was waiting, having copied him earlier. “Either way, there’s a girl through the door that would love to rock your world. Just follow the droid’s instructions and put on the crown before you knock her up.”
“Is this some type of demonic deal?” the man asked warily.
“Would it matter if it was?” Myst asked, fairly sure most people would be horrified to wake up looking like a monster.
“I’d rather not sell my soul,” the man complained, reasonably sure that Hell existed and that selling your soul was a good way to end up there, but not sure how he knew that.
“If it makes you feel better, I don’t trade in souls. Once you’re done, you’ll have a chance to rest up and put on a different necklace and screw another girl. After that, you’re free to leave with one of the necklaces and make something of your life or stick around and keep knocking up various girls, it makes no difference to me.”
“None?” the man asked.
“I’d rather you stick around for a while considering your durability and enhanced strength but it’s your choice. I can certainly make it worth your time,” Myst offered.
“We’ll see, they better not be demons,” the man muttered as he headed for the door.
Myst walked over and sat down on the base of the large statue of a naked girl and opened his gacha menu, figuring he might as well do something useful while he waited. ‘2,000 mana for a Ring, 10,000 for a Musical Instrument, 30,000 for a Device or 3,000 mana for a Book, yeah, let’s see what the insanely expensive Device wheel gives me.’
He bought the Device wheel then pulled a stick of chalk out of his inventory and started working on drawing a magical circle so that he could work on increasing his mana pool without causing half of the Jedi Council to die of shock.
Myst managed to get a third of the way done with the circle by the time the Device wheel stopped and dropped what looked like a combination of an old power glove and a television remote. He reached out to grab the glove and got a flash of danger from his precog so he yanked his hand back and caught it with his telekinesis as it lurched at his arm. “Fuck that!” he snapped as he looked at the glove with his upgrade ability.
“Sorry, I’m not interested in having knock-off gamer powers if it means you fuse to my arm...” he trailed off as the glove started inching closer despite his telekinetic grip on it.
“None of that,” Myst complained as he tried and failed to teleport the artifact to the surface. “Fine, we’ll do this the hard way,” he grumbled as he unchained his precog and tried to figure out if he could stuff it in his inventory. ‘No, it’s alive and conscious so that’s not going to work, destroying it? Yeah, not if I want the planet to survive. Teleporting, it would find someone and feed on the dark side of the force… becoming a world destroying monster? Yeah, no.’
He pulled his portal device out of his inventory and played with the settings, trying to get a favorable result from his precog. ‘I don’t suppose we can talk about this?’ he sent to the glove, hoping he could talk it down.
‘Need high magic host for repairs, morality offline,’ the glove replied as it struggled to reach him.
Myst watched himself push the button on the portal device when the glove lurched forward, almost touching him before he teleported across the room. He shoved the glove into the portal as it flew at him, only seeing the familiar looking black haired young man after shoving the glove through the portal and stumbling backwards. “Shit!” he tried to pull the glove back through the portal but the glove powered through the telekinesis and jumped onto the startled wizard’s arm.
Myst used his precog to walk through tossing the glove elsewhere then checked on Harry’s timeline, only to watch the dementors kill him in a few hours. ‘Yeah, Snape’s right, that’s rather gruesome.’ He followed the timeline of Harry’s adventures in a version of the Gamer’s world and figured it was better than dying or even Harry’s normal fifth year so he activated his portal device, opening a portal to Harry’s room.
“What the hell?” Harry blurted as a portal opened up in his bedroom and he saw a man in a black robe and a floating black glove standing in a dimly lit room.
“Sorry to bother you but I have a dangerous magical artifact that needs a host, it will give you fantastic magical powers if you agree to take it off my hands.”
“You want me to be a test subject?” Harry asked sarcastically.
“What do you mean a test subject? I know exactly what it does,” Myst replied.
Harry shook his head. “No deal, as soon as one of Fudge’s cronies finds out the glove is a powerful artifact, the unspeakables are going to come after me. That’s assuming it doesn’t try to devour my soul.”
“No one said you had to stay here,” Myst said as he struggled with the glove that was trying to reach Harry, figuring he’d be an easier target.
“What about Hermione and the rest of the muggleborns?” Harry asked. “Am I just supposed to abandon them to Voldemort’s non existent mercy?”
“Nothing says you can’t come back when you’ve mastered the glove’s abilities,” Myst replied unconcerned.
“Nice, try Death Eater,” Harry said with a snort, guessing that the blood wards were protecting him from direct action, if one of Voldy’s flunkies required his agreement to fall to whatever plot this was.
Myst scowled. “Look, if I was a Death Eater, you’d already be dead. I’ll put up with a lot of insults but those guys are terminally stupid. Between Riddle crucio’ing them like it’s going out of style and inbreeding, his followers aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed. So, yeah, help me out here, I need to get rid of the artifact.”
“Why don’t you use it?” Harry asked suspiciously, still not sold on the idea, but willing to allow that he may not be a Death Eater.
“Because I already have fantastic magical powers. Besides, Fate pretty much fucked you, I’m just trying to balance the scales.”
“Why?” Harry asked.
“Because I know another version of you and he’s my friend, so take the damn help,” Myst ordered as he struggled to keep the glove from moving closer to Harry.
“And the alternate version wouldn’t smack me for trusting some random guy that showed up in my room?” Harry asked sarcastically.
“Fair point, but you’re being a pain in my ass and this thing is getting harder to control. I should have grabbed Sirius or grabbed Hermione first, or maybe I’ll just give the power to Ron,” Myst muttered.
Harry looked at Myst with suspicion, unsure if that was a threat towards his friends or not. “Then you’d have to deal with Mrs. Weasley’s big mouth.”
“Fine, if you don’t want it, I’ll give it to Sirius or Hermione. I’m sure Sirius can find some use for it. Then again, it’s a study aid, so Hermione would love it.”
“Give it to me,” Harry said as he held out his hand, figuring he’d rather be the one tripping the trap than one of his friends. “How does this work?”
“Like this,” Myst let go of the glove with his telekinesis which promptly jumped onto Harry’s left arm. He winced slightly when Harry fell over screaming then passed out. “Yeah, he’s so going to try to kick me in the nuts for that.” He walked over and picked the unconscious teenager up then focused on Sirius and teleported.
Sirius blinked then pulled his wand and pointed it at Myst. “How did you get here and what’s wrong with Harry?!”
“I gave him a magical artifact of phenomenal cosmic power and he took a nap,” Myst replied as he floated Harry over to the couch.
“You gave him a genie lamp?”
“No, I gave him a magical glove that should drastically decrease the amount of time he needs to train in any given subject.”
“Say I believe you, why would you just give that away?” Sirius asked, wondering what the man’s game was.
“Mostly because it’s not really all that useful to me, I already have a couple of powers that work far more effectively for all of that.”
“If you can do that, why not just use that on Harry?” Sirius asked.
“Because it takes a lot of time and effort on my part while the glove makes him do it himself, and I am currently a bit busy.”
“Lazy, I can respect that. How did you bypass the fidelius?” Sirius asked suspiciously.
“One of my abilities lets me find people. So, do you want me to show you how I can upgrade people while we wait for Harry to recover?”
“Who wouldn’t?” Sirius replied, not sure if he was on the level but willing to extend a little trust for having brought Harry to him.
“It was a lot harder to convince Harry to take the glove,” Myst said, surprised he wasn’t going to have to talk Sirius around to it.
“It’s a magical artifact, what did you expect? He’s already encountered a magical book that tried to eat his friend’s soul,” Sirius pointed out. “Naturally he’d be a bit leery of magical artifacts.”
“Fair enough. So, magical strength or reserves?” Myst asked with amusement.
“What are you offering and what will it cost me?” Sirius asked, knowing most rituals required a certain amount of sacrifice.
“Harry’s going to need help learning skills and Molly Weasley is going to pitch a bitch fit about him practicing magic, tell her to piss off and I’ll give you, Harry, and Hermione some amazing upgrades,” Myst told him.
“Not Ron?” Sirius asked curiously.
“Sorry, I’m not remotely interested in giving him any upgrades other than mental defenses and possibly common sense. Sadly a big component of common sense is actually developed through experience... so yeah, not worth bothering with.”
“It almost sounds like you know the guy,” Sirius said with a snort.
“I know of a version of him,” Myst replied as he looked at Sirius’s magical abilities with his upgrade ability. “I’m friends with a version of Harry and Hermione in a different dimension. Their Ron, ended up more of an acquaintance because he wasn’t really trustworthy and Molly wouldn’t let him leave Hogwarts when they decided enough was enough and left the British wizarding world. I would have left with my friends, to hell with the rest, he didn’t and wouldn’t. So yeah, I doubt this version is much better. Harry Potters tend to have a saving people thing, and that’s not always good for longevity or happiness.”
“Probably not,” Sirius agreed, wondering if the bloke was a bit mental, talking about dimensions, but wanting to hear more as he could just be a seer and everyone knew they were a bit mental. “And yeah, as long as we’re careful, there’s no reason that Molly needs to know he’s practicing magic here.”
“Excellent,” Myst said as he conjured a cupcake. “Eat this, all the damage from years in Azkaban and bad food, gone, as if it never happened. If we can trust Remus, I’ll give him one too.”
“What do you mean if?” Sirius sputtered as he took the cupcake.
“Is he Dumbledore’s toady or is he a real boy, because I’m not interested in Dumbledore’s rather insane plan of having Harry dancing a razor’s edge between being competent and not, so that he can find Tom Riddle’s Horcruxes and then die, so that he’ll live… and that’s the nice version of Dumbledore, there are other versions that are worse.”
“You’re going to have to explain all that and yeah, Remus can keep his mouth shut. Besides, we can go to Black Island, no one that isn’t keyed to the wards is getting in there without my help or a team of curse breakers that are willing to die.”
“Sounds like a good place to start. We should probably work on your upgrades before we grab Hermione, that way you know they work and can explain it,” Myst said, fairly sure he wouldn’t get away without answering more than a few questions.
Sirius looked at Myst with a raised eyebrow. “How about we leave that for Harry?”
“Way to throw your godson under the bus,” Myst said with amusement.
“She won’t expect detailed answers out of him.” Sirius smirked then took a bite of the cupcake after wandlessly checking it for poison. He grinned as he felt a feeling of warmth and some of his old aches and pains vanished. He quickly ate the rest of it, feeling better than he’d felt in years. “Did you mug Nicolas Flamel?”
Myst grinned at Sirius, wondering how long it would take him to look in a mirror and notice that he looked in her early twenties or late teens rather than in his forties. “Not a chance, the guy survived at least six hundred years worth of Dark Lords, I doubt he’s dead and I don’t need his stone or his gold.”
“I can’t say I blame you,” Sirius said with amusement, fairly sure Nicolas was just using the loss of his stone as an excuse to fake his own death.
“Let’s see, mana or magical power?” Myst asked, not sure which one to upgrade first.
“Both?” Sirius asked hopefully.
“Right, stupid question.” Myst dropped a few hundred thousand mana to double Sirius’s magical strength then dropped the rest of his mana to increase his mana pool by as much as he could.
Sirius shivered as an almost solid wave of magic washed over the room. “Merlin! What was that?!”
“That was the reason I didn’t want to boost Harry’s abilities at Privet Drive, my ability is rather noticeable by anyone magical, unless I set up a magical circle in advance and I’m not sure how sensitive the ministry sensors are, they managed to detect a hover charm in the other world,” Myst explained as he started pacing back and forth to increase his mana regeneration.
“Same,” Sirius agreed, having heard the story about Dobby from Dumbledore. “How long till you recover the mana you’ve tossed about?”
“I just spent an insane amount of magic, boosting your magical power and mana reserves. So… probably about a minute walking about should do it. I’ll boost Harry’s abilities then.”
“What’s your name?” Sirius asked, feeling stronger and more alive than he had in decades.
“Myst, pleased to meet you,” Myst said cheerfully, happy that he could help out another version of his friends and equally pleased to piss off another version of people he didn’t like.
