Mist of Shadows
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Dawn and Reincarnation part 36
🕑 Added 2019-11-29 22:03:03 +0000 UTCAlec blinked as he walked out of his bedroom and saw most of his siblings scattered around the living area of the group’s hideout dressed up like Christmas elves and secured with ribbons and rope or in Romeo’s case, chains. He turned to look at his older sister who seemed to be the odd one out as she was wearing pink panties and bows over her nipples. She was also awake, gagged and secured to a chair with rope. He glanced at the festive looking envelope with a red bow on it that was sitting in his sister’s lap then at the bottle of whiskey and wooden paddle next to her chair. “What the fuck? It’s January.”
Cherie glared at her brother, not able to say anything because of her gag.
Alec briefly considered grabbing his coat and leaving the mess for Brian or Lisa but figured they weren’t immune to his siblings’ powers. He walked over and untied his sister’s gag if only because he was curious what happened. “Bad date?”
“Fuck you,” Cherie grumbled. “Untie me.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Alec replied sarcastically as he picked up the envelope. “What happened?” he asked as he opened the envelope. He raised his eyebrows when he saw the picture of a naughty looking elf on the front of the card. “Naughty elves, Jack and…” he opened the card and blinked when he saw a picture of his father sitting in a chair with his brains blown out. “What the fuck?!” He glanced at the words on the other page, “Dead relatives, Merry belated Christmas. P.S. You’re now the proud owner of nine sociopathic little brats and one girl that needs her ass paddled for considering joining the Nine, no take backs…” he trailed off as he stared at his sister.
“Ah… right that,” Cherie said with a sigh.
“What the fuck Charie?!” Alec demanded as he read the part about his oldest brothers being dropped off with the PRT. ‘Good riddance.’
“I was going to push them to kill each other and collect the bounty,” she admitted. “I was trying to scare off Guillaume and Nicholas, dad sent them to drag me back.”
“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Alec said as he showed her the picture of their father.
“If that’s real you can paddle my ass all you want,” Cherie said with a grin.
“It shouldn’t be that hard to confirm.” Alec turned to look as the door opened. “Tatts.”
Lisa glanced between Alec and the collection of tied up children dressed up like elves as she stepped in and shut the door behind her. “Is there a reason you decided to kidnap a bunch of elves?” she asked, fairly sure he hadn’t done it but not sure what the hell was going on.
“I didn’t do it, they were here when I got up,” Alec complained.
“Can you please tell my insane brother to...” Cherie trailed off when her power cut out. “What the hell? I can’t sense anyone.”
Faith smirked as she dropped the weave that made her invisible. “That’s because I’m suppressing everyone’s powers.”
Cherie glared at the strange cape.
“Is my old man really dead?” Alec asked as he grabbed the bottle of whiskey, hoping they weren’t lying.
“I’d say I was sorry but I’d be lying,” Faith replied with a shrug.
“Thanks, but did you have to bring them here?” Alec complained as he gestured at his siblings.
“Would you honestly want them in foster care?” Faith asked as she pulled a debit card out of her pocket and held it out toward Lisa. “Here, I raided Heartbreaker’s accounts. Feel free to use it to take care of the children and pay yourself a reasonable wage.”
“You want me to take care of them?” Lisa asked warily as she took the card.
“You’re more responsible than Alec and your old boss is quite dead which means you’ll need a new gig,” Faith said with a shrug.
“What happened to our old boss?” Alec asked as he glanced between Lisa and Faith.
“He tried to shoot a friend of mine, she killed him.” Faith turned to look at Alec. “Speaking of fixing problems, my friend loaned all of your siblings a regeneration ability and mental health power which should have fixed some of the mental damage your father caused, but they’ll probably all need counseling.”
“Best of luck with that,” Alec muttered.
“Are you saying we’re broken?” Cherie asked with a pout.
“You thought playing with the Slaughterhouse Nine was a good idea,” Faith replied sarcastically. “So yeah, you’re more than a bit broken and Alec really should paddle your bottom.”
“I doubt it would help,” Alec replied, not wanting to deal with the headache.
Cherie scowled at Faith and her brother. “Fine, I’ll admit it was a bad plan.”
“On that note, try to stay out of trouble, the various local gangs should be falling apart over the next couple of days,” Faith warned.
“Are you saying we shouldn’t be villains?” Alec asked.
“I’m saying don’t rob banks or hit public fundraisers or cause civilians trouble and you won’t be on my list of people to deal with,” Faith said cheerfully.
“You killed the Slaughterhouse Nine, didn’t you?” Lisa asked warily.
Faith tapped her nose. “Ding, give the girl a cookie. They were a problem and I dealt with them, my friend dealt with Coil for the same reason. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to kill Oni Lee and have a chat with some ABB lieutenants about the ethical treatment of girls.”
Alec blinked as the strange cape vanished. “Well, that happened.”
“Let me go!” Cherie ordered.
Alec sighed as he untied his sister knowing she’d cause problems if he didn’t untie her.
0o0o0
Xander focused on the house where he could sense Oni Lee thanks to the power that Dawn had loaned him that let him see and understand powers. ‘Sorry Faith, his power is shit.’ He reached out with a cable thick thread of fire, creating a large fireball inside the room with the various ABB leadership, almost instantly reducing the people inside the room to ash and blowing out the windows. He sighed in relief when Oni Lee vanished from his senses. ‘Rest in pieces.’
Faith pouted as she appeared next to him and saw the burning house. “How come you didn’t wait for me?”
“Because his power was screwed up and was slowly lobotomizing him, I wouldn’t have let you kill him anyways.”
“Ah, yeah, good call,” Faith admitted as she watched the flames.
Xander reached out with magic and pulled the fire into the ground, dispersing the heat and putting out the flames. “If it makes you feel better, you can deal with Mesaana.”
“Just a bit,” Faith agreed with a smile as they headed back toward the abandoned lot to check on the girls. “Speaking of screwed up people, how long do you think it will take to straighten Riley out?”
“A few decades of therapy or some memory editing,” Xander mused thoughtfully. Unlike Spike or Angel she actually was responsible for a metric ton of shit, mitigated to some extent by the fact that she was a child when Jack found her. “We gave her regeneration and got the cyberware out of her and handed her a temporary mental stability power to fix the worst of it. Short of using a power to give her a completely different life, I’m not sure what else we can do other make sure she goes to a decent shrink.”
“We’ll just have to play it by ear,” Faith said thoughtfully. “Since, you didn’t let me kill Oni Lee, can I kill Victor?”
“The Empire cape that steals skills?” Xander asked, not sure which other Victor she’d be talking about.
“Yep,” Faith popped her P. “We can probably split off the part that causes memory loss from the skill acquisition part.”
Xander nodded. “Which would get rid of a dangerous skill thief and let us copy skills without hurting anyone, assuming we can torch that part of the power.”
“If nothing else, I should be able to tweak it to be less damaging,” Faith said cheerfully.
“Sounds good,” Xander agreed, seeing no point in leaving someone like Victor around even if they couldn’t fix his power.
0o0o0
Mesaana glared at the dark haired woman that walked into her cell. “If you help me escape, I’ll make sure you’re rewarded.”
Faith laughed as she looked at the woman chained to the wall by a silver leash. “No.”
“I could give you riches beyond your wildest dreams,” Mesaana offered.
“If I wanted gold, I’d simply go to a mirror world and rip it out of the ground,” Faith explained with a grin. “If I wanted political power, I’d simply take it. You have nothing I want.”
“I can teach your friends secrets like you wouldn’t believe, that has to be worth something,” Mesaana offered, more than a little uneasy about the young woman in color shifting robes as she showed a complete lack of fear and yet seemed to know exactly who she was.
“Less than you think,” Faith said as she made a gremlin copy of Mesaana then reached out, grabbed the gremlin by the neck and squeezed.
“What is that?!” Mesaana demanded as she watched the strange creature thrash in the woman’s inhumanly strong grip.
Faith dropped the dead gremlin. “That was a gremlin version of you, all of your memories, all of your skill, all of your power.”
Mesaana stared in horror as she realized that the woman in front of her could channel just as strongly as she could where before she couldn’t. “That’s impossible.”
“You can find some truly interesting things in the mirror worlds, creatures out of legends, gods that are worth believing in. I mean what did your dark god ever do for you other than give you an excuse to misbehave because you weren’t good enough to do research?”
“He’ll give us immortality when he wins,” Mesaana snarled, still pissed that the Collam Daan board hadn’t seen her potential.
“Even if that were true and you’d have to be a fool to believe he’d care about anything or anyone once he won, I’m afraid he’s quite dead, my god killed him,” Faith taunted.
Mesaana laughed. “That’s impossible, not even the Creator could kill him.”
Faith laughed at Mesaana causing the woman to stare at Faith like she was insane. “You’re confusing ability with desire. Why go for the kill when you can go for the pain? The Creator knew that the Dark One would struggle for countless cycles then die like a bitch once he’d served his purpose, why would he kill him before he’d served his purpose?”
“You’re delusional,” Mesaana snarled. “You’re obviously going to kill me, get it over with.”
“You misunderstand, we’re not going to kill you,” Faith promised. “We’re going to help you.”
“Help me?” she asked suspiciously, not believing the girl in the slightest.
“Of course, I’m going to help you understand that you served a horrible and petty creature with delusions of divinity. He promised immortality but he couldn’t increase your power or give you life everlasting in your own body.”
“And your god can?” Mesaana asked in disbelief.
“My dark blessing allows me to steal skills and powers from the creatures I kill,” Faith explained with amusement.
“You’re lying,” Mesaana snapped.
“I’m not,” Faith replied as she walked over and touched the a’dam causing Mesaana to flinch in pain. “I stole the ability to channel saidin and I stole the gremlin’s ability to channel saidar when I killed her. I also copied all of your skills which means I’ll know when you aren’t being helpful.”
Mesaana shivered in fear when she realized the girl was either the best actress she’d ever seen or wasn’t lying. “What did you trade?”
“My service, I’m going to hand my god an empire and you’re going to help.”
“I’m willing to help if you release me,” Mesaana offered, planning on killing her as soon as she got free.
“Thankfully your cooperation doesn’t have to be willing,” Faith said cheerfully. “I’m going to chain you to a wall then I’m going to create gremlins with your power.”
“An army of channeling gremlins?” Mesaana asked in growing horror as she realized that they didn’t have anyone or anything that would be able to stand up to the woman’s master.
“Nah, you’re thinking too small. A friend of mine has the ability to share my power with other people, I’m going to share my dark blessing with all of the boys and girls that plenge themselves to my god.”
“You’d share your power?” Mesaana asked in disbelief.
”In the service of my god, of course,” Faith replied, rather amused about pretending that Xander was a god. “Now picture if you will, ten thousand rabidly loyal channelers with all of your talents, knowledge and power combined with the talents and power of a hundred Aes Sedai and wilders.”
“You can make someone stronger?” Mesaana demanded, trying not to show the fear that was creeping down her spine.
“Every channeler I kill increases my ability to channel which means my god’s empire will be unstoppable,” Faith taunted.
“You’re still just as vulnerable to dying as anyone else.”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong. All we need to do is copy and kill greater darkhounds,” Faith laughed at the look of growing horror on Mesaana’s face. ‘Of course, that’s slightly problematic without access to your world, not that you need to know that.’
“At which point you’ll still be vulnerable to the Power,” Mesaana said, feeling like the world was closing in on her and her usefulness was quickly approaching zero.
“Until we copy a Gholam,” Faith said smugly.
“How do you know about Gholam?” Mesaana demanded.
“I know about them because you know about them,” Faith lied, seeing no point in revealing any of her actual sources of information. She was just glad that killing the gremlin hadn’t given her any of Mesaana’s personal memories, just skills. “I also know where to find people that can create ter’angreal. So yes, we’ll have an unstoppable empire.”
“Why tell me?”
“Because you can’t stop us,” Faith replied with a smirk. “All of your knowledge, all of your skills and power are going to be used to create an empire that you’ll never enjoy, you’ll spend the next few thousand years as a prisoner bored out of your mind when Semirhage isn’t torturing you for fun.”
“Why not just kill me?” Mesaana asked, having absolutely no desire to let Semirhage torture her for any length of time.
“Why go for the kill when you can go for the pain?” Faith asked with amusement, knowing the cultist deserved death a thousand times over.
“If that’s the case, why not torture Semirhage?” Mesaana asked, trying to understand, if only to have more leverage.
”Because she’s a sadist and a masochist, there is literally no point in torturing her. Not to mention I can understand her jumping ship, the supposed light side wouldn’t have let her torture anyone they caught so that was never really an option. You on the other hand joined up with a dark god so you could murder people that wouldn’t let you do research…”
“They deserved it!” Mesaana snarled.
“Did you ever stop to consider the idea that you might be psychologically unsound and that they were right?”
“I was better than all of them!” Mesaana complained. “You’re going to die screaming when the Great Lord finds you!”
“The Dark One is dead,” Semirhage said as she stepped into the doorway from where she’d been listening.
“Traitor!” Mesaana snapped. “What did they promise you?”
“Immortality and the ability to split into two people and torture myself,” Semirhage lied, enjoying the look of horror and disgust on Mesaana’s face. “I’m going to enjoy torturing you Saine Tarasind no third name.”
Mesaana flinched at the mention of her lack of a third name. “We’ve worked together for years, why throw it all away?”
“Because I can,” Semirhage replied with amusement.
“Have fun.” Faith created a gremlin copy of Semirhage than used a thread of saidin to cut the gremlin’s head off, collecting a copy of Semirhage’s talents and knowledge. “Just don’t kill her, we need her alive.”
“Don’t worry, she’ll be alive when I’m done with her,” Semirhage promised, planning to strip everything away from Mesaana over a period of years.
Faith created a goblin clone of Mesaana and Semirhage then quickly bound and gagged the clones with threads of air, happy that Ethan had managed to create a ter’angreal that blocked saidar without blocking saidin as it made it easy to deal with the evil clones. She floated the goblins ahead of her as she headed back to where Dawn and Xander were talking. “Goblin delivery.”
Dawn frowned as she studied the two goblins. “Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m not sure I really want to copy their weaves considering they’re probably mixed in with a lot of hand gestures that we don’t need.”
Faith mentally reviewed some of the weaves she’d picked up from the two channelers. “Less than the modern Aes Sedai but probably more than you’d want.”
“In that case, I’ll just drop the skills bit and learn the weaves the hard way,” Dawn said as she used her ability to package powers and loaned Xander her temporary ability to copy skills. She drew her sword. “Okay, that should just let me copy their talents and increase my magical potential.”
“Are you sure you want to pass up a chance to get free levels?” Xander asked as Faith created another two goblins.
Dawn beheaded the two new goblins before they could run more than a few feet, picking up all of their talents and a decent boost to her magical potential. “I can always revisit the issue and kill another goblin clone if I want to copy their skills though that reminds me, we should probably pick up a copy of Oliver’s skills before we bounce worlds, having the ability to learn everything quickly would be useful.”
“How much time do we have?” Faith asked, trying to get an idea of how much time they had to finish collecting powers.
“Probably until I crash,” Dawn admitted. “I get the sense that our primary mission is done which means we should probably let everyone know that they should take everything they want to keep to the island and do any last minute shopping today. I wouldn’t mind picking up a bunch of computers and servers for the school I want to build.”
“I’ll talk to Joyce,” Xander said. “She can put the legion on it.”
“Sounds good, that gives us a day to kill the rest of the Endbringers and clean up the city. Do we want to steal some of Cauldron’s vials or are we good for powers?” Dawn asked.
“Do we really need to borrow trouble?” Xander asked warily.
“Normally I’d say no but we have a lot of cultists and corrupted channelers that would make perfect test subjects and the ability to give away the broken bits of any power we pick up. Besides, we’ll probably be jumping worlds in a few hours.”
“In other words, we might as well pick up some defenses that aren’t magic?” Xander asked, seeing the logic considering they didn’t have control of their destination.
“Pretty much. I also want to copy the skill learning aspect of Oliver’s power before we send them home.” Dawn also wanted to pick up a copy of Noelle’s strength, durability and regeneration just to be on the safe side as Xander had a point, there was no reason to overspecialize.
“Sounds like a plan,” Xander agreed, looking forward to grabbing some decent video games and movies he’d never heard of and having an actual vacation.
