Mist of Shadows
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Myst in DC part 29
🕑 Added 2019-12-03 09:07:16 +0000 UTCPsimon glanced up as he heard someone walk into his room that he couldn’t sense. He focused on the blonde haired child standing in the doorway holding two bloody scalpels and wearing a blood covered apron. “That’s an interesting trick, do you have a name?”
“Bonesaw,” Myst lied as he slipped into the room, trusting his invisibility to cover him while his illusion distracted the telepath. ‘Hopefully the belt will fix his mutations in the next generation because replacing part of your skull with plastic isn’t a good look.’
“Let me guess, you’ve come to kill me?” Psimon asked with amusement, knowing that he could reach out and stop her with his telekinesis any time he wanted to.
“You sent an assassin after my big sister, I want to know why,” Myst replied, using his ventriloquism spell to make sure the sound was coming out of his illusion’s mouth.
“You’ll have to narrow it down,” Psimon taunted, a little disturbed that he couldn’t sense the girl’s mind and that she’d managed to slip past a decent number of guards to reach him.
“Tall girl with blue hair,” Myst replied as he glanced around the rather spartan room. ‘You’d think being evil would pay better.’
“Ah. So you’re here to avenge her?” Psimon asked with amusement.
“Avenge? Nah, that would require her to be dead or hurt.” Myst opened his upgrade menu and looked at Psimon. ‘Decent mental abilities. Pity you’re a sadist and psychopath otherwise you might actually be useful.’ He dropped 1,000 mana into upgrading Psimon’s verbosity while gloating and another 2,000 mana into his pride to encourage him to tell the truth. “I’m just here to find out why someone wanted her dead.”
“DeSaad said Darkseid wanted her dead, something about a prophecy.” Psimon laughed when Myst made the girl frown. “How does it feel knowing that a god wants your sister dead?”
“I’ve always wanted to kill a god,” Myst replied as he hit Psimon in the back with a stunner, dropping the telepath unconscious. “I really need a vacation from my vacation,” he muttered as he walked over, picked the metahuman up and stuffed him into his inventory.
He let the illusion of the child drop then used his X-ray glasses to look through the various walls between Psimon’s room and the royal chambers, looking for the Queen. Normally he wouldn’t have cared enough about a third world despot in a desert to go out of his way to deal with her but he was already here and she’d caused an endless stream of problems for the law abiding members of the League in various comics/shows by issuing diplomatic papers to various pieces of shit.
It took him a few seconds of searching to find the queen, mostly because she was in her bathroom taking a bubble bath. He took a minute to search through the morally bankrupt ruler’s mind to make sure she deserved death in this particular world then used his telekinesis to hold her under the water and keep her from thrashing. He wanted everyone to think that she’d drifted off and drowned ‘peacefully’.
Myst opened his gacha menu and looked over his choices while he waited for the bubbles to stop. ‘Shields 1,000, Orbs for 10,000, Sex Toys 1,000, Witch Queen 50,000... 50,000 for a Magical Queen?’ He got a brief flash of a castle and Willow’s town. ‘Yeah, I should probably save that for Solaris. Chalice 10,000, Mirror 1,000 or Mask 20,000… 20,000? Hopefully the high mana cost on everything means they’ll be worth it.’
He selected the Mask gacha as he didn’t want to mess with the Witch Queen gacha until he’d had a chance to talk to Willow. ‘Worst case, I’ll just use it in my version of Hogwarts.’ He kept Queen Bee under the water as he watched the wheel spin, trying to ignore the fact that Darkseid wanted him dead. He reached out and grabbed the mask as it dropped.
“Yeah, that’s cursed as hell,” Myst muttered as he looked at the mask’s magical abilities with his upgrade ability. “I’m not sure turning yourself into an insane Unseelie abomination and patchwork creature is worth the boosted abilities, though it might be useful to play with,” he muttered as he stuck the mask in his inventory and checked on the queen. He dropped his telekinetic hold on the dead queen and teleported back to the Mountain, appearing in the mission room in front of a trio of heroes.
Batman turned to Myst as if having expected him to teleport to that very spot. “Thank you for coming.”
Myst glanced at the man with the blue wings standing next to Batman then at the white haired young lady in a gold skin tight costume that covered most of her body below her neck, save her stomach which she left bare for some reason. He glanced at her brown leather boots and gloves. ‘Huh, her costume isn’t ringing any bells.’
“Meet Silver Sorceress and Blue Jay, they’re part of the European branch of the League,” Batman explained.
“Ah, pleased to meet you,” Myst replied as he looked at Blue Jay. “The ability to shrink and generate blue wings, not bad.” He turned his attention toward the attractive female hero and looked at her powers. “Magic, flight, energy projection and energy construct creation. Cool. What did you need me to upgrade beyond the standard mental defense package?”
“Everything would be nice,” Blue Jay said honestly, wanting to be more than a second string hero, which is how he rated himself when compared to his teammates.
Myst took a quick look through the man’s mind, curious what type of hero he was dealing with. ‘Huh, that explains why I didn’t recognize you, you’re from a parallel world.’ He glanced over the rather impressive collection of fangirls the man had hooked up with for one night stands, so many he couldn’t even remember all of their faces or names. ‘Of course, it wouldn’t be a heroic edgelord background without lots of mental trauma and self inflicted guilt.’ He wasn’t sure how much to blame the man for his world getting destroyed on his watch, no one could be on watch 24/7, and generally speaking, no one other than Batman created plans for what to do if their entire rogue’s gallery teamed up and tried to blow up the world out of spite. “Sure, to start with, I can make an elixir that gives supernatural strength and endurance, it should let you keep a decent amount of strength while you’re shrunk.”
“That would be fantastic,” Jay agreed, happy that he’d made the trip. “Thank you, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”
“No worries, this is why I’m support staff. Let me upgrade your mental defenses then we’ll see what we can come up with for upgrades,” Myst said figuring they could use the help.
“Sounds good,” Silver Sorceress agreed with a smile.
Myst reached out and upgraded Blue Jay’s mental defenses well into the supernatural range. “That should cover most forms of mental control or at least make it harder to mentally control or influence you.”
The Silver Sorceress giggled as she felt the excess magic wash over her, tickling her sides and reminding her of pleasant walks on the beach. “It tickles,” she told her teammate at his curious glance.
“Stronger mental defenses would have come in handy starting out.” Jay wasn’t about to turn his nose up at that particular enhancement, considering how dangerous telepaths were when they turned villain.
“No problem,” Myst replied as he turned his attention toward the sorceress and upgraded her mental defenses, making her shiver. “Ready for some agility and vitality?”
“Hell yeah,” Jay agreed with a grin.
Silver Sorceress nodded. “That would be great.”
Myst selected Jay’s physical stats then boosted them just past the supernatural range then did the same with the Silver Sorceress’ abilities, the sorceress trying hard not to giggle. “That should cover the basics.” He conjured two bottles of Coke that would give them supernatural strength and held them out toward the heroes. “Here, you won’t be in Superman’s league, few are, but lifting ten tons and tanking small caliber bullets isn’t all that shabby.”
“How long will this last?” Silver Sorceress asked as she looked at the glass Coke bottles, her own studies in potions suggesting they would only work for a set period of time, though it might be measured in decades.
“It’s permanent,” Myst assured her.
“Are you going to hand those out to everyone?” Batman asked, considering how that would expand League operations, as even the minor heroes would be able to handle more difficult emergencies.
“I will, it’s something I just developed recently. Took a bit of time to make it work the way I wanted to ensure there were no side effects at all. Want one?” Myst asked as he created a third bottle.
Batman looked at the bottle that was being held out to him and contemplated it for a moment, before taking it. “I can’t let my pride get in the way of my duty,” he decided as he tilted back his head and downed it in one shot.
Myst took a closer look at their powers. “Let’s increase the power of your wings so you can use them for more than just flight.”
“That would be great,” Jay agreed.
The sorceress bit her lip as a torrent of magic flowed into her teammate and Blue Jay’s wings swelled in size before shrinking back down to normal.
Blue Jay extend his wings out to the sides and examined them before they reshaped themselves, following his thoughts to form a shield and mace similar to what Hawk Girl wielded.
“Limited range, but a bit closer to how your partner forms constructs,” Myst explained. “It makes them a bit more useful…” he trailed off as he took a second look at Blue Jay’s powers, “and huh.”
“What?” Blue asked.
“Tell me, when Blue arrives on the scene do you get a surge of positive emotions?” Myst asked, a touch surprised that he’d missed the connection to hope when he’d first looked. ‘It must have been below the useful threshold.
“I take heart from having a teammate nearby, we are not involved,” Silver said firmly.
“Not what I meant by positive emotions,” Myst said with a chuckle as Blue pouted at her. “I mean do you feel a sense of hope when he takes the field?”
She considered that. “You know, I believe I do.”
“Well I am awesome,” Blue joked as his wings reformed and he did an over the top heroic pose, his wings becoming a cape and waving in a non existent wind, making her roll her eyes.
“You suspect he is tapping into the emotional spectrum,” Batman noted.
“Not so much suspect as am pretty damn sure,” Myst said, “which means he can probably use his wings for healing and boost Green Lanterns when in close contact.”
“Really?” Blue Jay asked hopefully, his cape reforming into a pair of wings.
Myst nodded. “It’s not as strong a connection as a ring would give you, but I’d suggest seeing if the Lanterns can loan you a ring and give you a bit of training so you can apply that to the way you use your wings.”
Blue Jay grabbed his hand and shook it. “Thank you, this is going to be a tremendous help.”
“Glad to help,” Myst replied before he turned to the Silver Sorceress. “I can boost your magical strength and capacity.”
“Please do,” she said. “I have yet to find a problem where I was too powerful, considering the foes we have faced.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Blue Jay agreed with a melancholy sigh that vanished as he extended his wings and shrugged his shoulders as if adjusting to their new weight.
Myst selected the Sorceress’ mana pool and tossed all of his mana at increasing it, figuring that way she’d never run out of mana and wanting to make a good impression when he asked her to teach.
The Silver Sorceress shivered and nearly fell to her knees laughing as the tsunami of mana washed over her tickling, everywhere it touched.
“Are you okay?” Blue Jay asked in concern.
“I’m fine, it just tickled,” the Silver Sorceress admitted, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes.
“Sorry, it’s a weird side effect of my magic,” Myst told her as he started pacing, to speed up the regeneration rate of his mana. “Give me a moment and I’ll boost your construct abilities as well.”
“I can feel your mana level increasing the quicker you pace,” she noted.
“Yep, cool trinket,” Myst replied as he walked, waving his arm with the wrist watch in their direction. “Enhanced senses, with automatic protections from overloads,” he muttered, waving at the three and sending out a small surge of mana.
The three heroes blinked and looked around, Batman sniffing the air as well and nodding with satisfaction at the results.
“Flexibility,” Myst commented with a wave barely causing a hitch in his mana’s regeneration rate. “Healing rate, oxygen filtration and retention, recovery speed, efficient digestion, poison resistance, proprioception sense, resistance to extremes in temperatures, dental hygiene, and finally the ability to sleep anywhere at will and wake up when you want.”
“That was random but helpful,” Blue Jay noted with a grin.
“Yeah, just random upgrades while I was regaining mana so I was doing something,” Myst said. “Okay, now let’s upgrade that lantern like construction ability. You may want to sit down for this one.”
The Silver Sorceress didn’t hesitate to take a seat, not wanting to actually fall over from laughing, as Jay would probably tease her about that for days.
“And upgrade,” Myst said pouring mana into her and making her giggle, and then doing it again, and again, and again.
“Stop! I’m about to wet myself!” she yelped through the laughter.
“Okay, take a moment to get ahold of yourself and think about dead puppies,” Myst told her.
The Silver Sorceress bursted out laughing.
Jay shook his head. “The power has corrupted her, she is laughing about dead puppies,” he said solemnly before she flicked a finger and flung a ball of gold light at him which his wings batted away. “These suckers are handy, even more so now.”
She took several deep breaths. “Okay, I’m ready.”
Myst nodded. “And.... upgradeupgradeupgradeupgrade!” he said quickly, blurring the words together as he upgraded her construct abilities as quickly as he could, one after another.
“Ack!” she slid off the seat and under the table.
“You okay down there?” Blue Jay asked.
“Yeah, give me a second, I’m casting a cleaning spell.”
“Sorry,” Myst offered, not having taken her warning seriously enough.
“There are spells for that? Wish I’d known them back in my partying days,” Blue Jay muttered. “So what’s the power level like now?”
“High, very high,” she replied as she climbed out from under the table, slightly embarrassed, but very happy about her increased powers.
“I’m about out of ideas… resistance to the atmospheric changes,” Myst said as it occurred to him. He quickly upgraded the three heroes, sending out three small pulses that she could easily ignore. “Okay, now that’s all I can think of.”
“Can you boost common sense?” Blue Jay asked half serious.
“Sorry that rare and highly valued super power does not exist in quantities sufficient to enhance in this reality,” Myst replied making the pair laugh and Batman’s mouth twitch before he caught himself.
“Figures,” Blue Jay replied.
“Joking side, you should probably take an hour or two and practice with your abilities,” Myst suggested. “I don’t want to be responsible for any accidents.”
“Thank you for the upgrades. Let’s hit the gym.” Batman turned and headed for the exit, wanting to get in some practice before he went on patrol.
“Best of luck,” Myst offered with amusement then teleported back to the island to pick up a tour guide and to play with his gacha.
0o0o0
Myst reached up and grabbed the ruby chalice that dropped out of his Chalice gacha as he stopped next to where Xander and Danielle were sprawled on the beach playing a game on Willow’s laptop. “Are you winning?” he asked as he looked at the chalice with his upgrade ability, hoping for something really interesting.
“More or less,” Danielle replied with amusement as she worked on destroying the golem guarding the vault she wanted to loot. “As long as the golem doesn’t get overly lucky, I should be fine.”
“Which heroes did you get to upgrade?” Xander asked as he glanced up at Myst then looked back at the laptop.
“The Silver Sorceress and Blue Jay, they’re from Europe,” Myst said.
“Cool, the Silver Sorceress is awesome,” Danielle said, wishing she could have gotten her autograph.
Xander turned to look at Myst and saw the ruby chalice. “What’s with the chalice?”
Myst glanced down at the chalice. “Would you believe me if I said it gave you the power to turn acorns into holy hand grenades?”
Xander shook his head. “Not when you can’t keep a straight face.”
“Fair enough, the chalice gives anyone that drinks water from it the ability to permanently conjure agates that generate holy sunlight,” Myst explained as he slipped the chalice in his inventory and sat down next to Danielle.
“Nice, that would wreck a vampire’s day,” Xander said enthusiastically.
“Any drawbacks?” Danielle asked as she finished off the golem.
Myst shrugged. “Not that I know.”
“In that case, we should probably pass the chalice around,” Xander suggested. “I know Buffy would feel a lot better if her mother had a decent defense against vampires.”
“Let me save my game then we can swing by unless you have something else planned?” Danielle asked as she worked on looting the vault so that she could get back to town and save her game.
“I need to swing by Solaris and use my Witch Queen wheel before I accidentally close the gacha menu but I’m good with teleporting to Sunnydale and dropping off the cabinets after I finish grabbing all of the wheels.”
“You have a Witch Queen gacha?” Danielle squealed in excitement.
Myst bought the 1,000 mana Sex Toy gacha. “And a few other decently expensive gacha options that I’d like to grab.”
Xander raised his eyebrows when the Sex Toy wheel stopped spinning and a strange ray gun dropped into Myst’s grasp that looked a lot like a phaser from the original Star Trek. “You got a Sex Trek phaser?”
“Does it work?” Danielle asked excitedly.
Myst glanced at the words on the side of the phaser. “Sex Trek?” he muttered as he looked at the phaser with his upgrade ability. “Why the hell would someone make a device that causes orgasms at range?”
“Because it’s fun. There was a complete bitch on the original show, the captain had to zap her now and then to keep her from going completely off the rails,” Danielle replied as she teleported her character back to town and saved her game.
Myst opened his mouth to ask how the fuck that was at all reasonable then realized he probably didn’t want an actual answer. It was either a case of the world being completely twisted or a case of the Star Trek knock-off being weird. ‘Of course they use naked superheroes to sell auto insurance and Uhura lost all of her memories in the original show and no one cared so I can see the writers coming up with some weird shit.’
Myst briefly considered breaking the toy and got a flash of several of the girls looking at him like he’d just kicked a puppy. ‘Screw it, Xander can deal with the girls.’ He bought the Mirror gacha then handed Xander the sex toy. “Don’t shoot anyone without permission.”
Danielle closed her laptop and set it on her towel. “Okay, shoot me!”
Comments
Mist of Shadows
I think it falls into the realm of DC did some odd things and names come from a lot of places. Besides, he came from another world so, eh? :) But yeah, from what I could find, they just seemed to be living their lives... not expecting to need Batman levels of paranoia...
Patrick Sandhop
I always did like the Heroes of Angor, though Wandjina as a giant bald white guy is kinda weird considering the name origin is apparently Australian mythology.
