Mist of Shadows
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Myst in DC Part 28
🕑 Added 2019-11-19 05:42:04 +0000 UTC“At least you’ll have an interesting story to tell Clark when you get back,” Lex told the other Lex with amusement, knowing he himself was the creation of magic and not quite sure how he felt about that just yet.
“Not to mention a laptop filled with our counterpart’s proprietary technology,” Lex replied cheerfully, still a little surprised that his counterpart had left his research network accessible from his phone which had been easy enough to connect to a laptop.
“Just be careful when you’re testing the inventions,” Myst warned.
“I’m aware that some of the designs might not work as advertised,” Lex assured the blue haired girl. “If nothing else, the public medical database will make me a billionaire several times over.”
“Best of luck with that, are you ready to head back?” Myst asked as he glanced between the two Lexs.
Lex looked at his twin who would be staying to take over their counterpart’s empire. “Best of luck explaining Connor to Clark.”
“I’m not looking forward to it,” Lex said with a sigh, knowing he was going to be dealing with a version of one of his few friends who definitely didn’t consider him one and that it was going to be an uphill battle to repair that relationship or possibly to create a new one.
“I can’t say I blame you,” Lex agreed, happy that he didn’t have to deal with his counterpart’s insanity. “I’m ready.”
“Thanks for being understanding,” Myst said as she raised the GMC Alternator 9000 and pointed it at Lex.
“I was here for a couple of hours, the recovered tech is going to increase my net worth by a truly insane amount and you gave me several magical rings which should let me enjoy it for centuries, it was time well spent.” Lex turned to the other Lex. “Just don’t let Clark lose himself playing hero, he needs someone around to call him on his hero complex.”
“Agreed, but I can’t see him listening,” Lex admitted.
“No but it shouldn’t be hard to look up his mother’s number,” Lex replied with a grin.
“On that note, best of luck,” Myst shot the original, sending him back to his world and bringing the unconscious Lex back. She turned to look at Lex. “Do you have any other questions for the Lex of this world?”
Lex shrugged. “I think we covered everything, the location of various properties, passwords and his twisted collection of fallback plans.”
Myst flipped the toggle on the blaster and shot the unconscious Lex sending him to another world and bringing a different version of Lex to the mayor’s office, a version that looked exactly like the version from the Supergirl show.
Lex looked at the new Lex’s orange prison jumpsuit. “That’s not promising.”
The new Lex glanced between Lex and Myst. “Some type of teleporter?”
Myst winced as she read the various thoughts bouncing around in the villain’s head. “Sure, let’s go with that. Normally, I’d just kill you considering your pathological hatred for Kryptonians and your plot to screw America over but you might still be useful.”
“I’m a scientist with a grasp on alien technology that surpasses anyone you are likely to find,” Supergirl’s Lex said smugly.
“That you are,” Myst lifted Supergirl’s Lex off the ground with telekinesis. “Just in case you ever get back home...”
“What are you doing?” Lex demanded as he found himself in the air.
“Obliviate Kara Danvers, oblivate Supergirl,” she said as she cast the obliviate spell twice, removing the connections in his mind, hiding the information as best she could. “Obliviate Superman, obliviate Clark Kent, obliviate chemistry, obliviate physics,” she chanted as she repeatedly hit the villain with the obliviate spell, speeding through his mind and erasing the various connections in his brain, leaving him an empty shell of his former self as rather large chunks of his life vanished from his thoughts and memories.
Lex stared in shock. “What the hell did he do?”
“Betrayed his sister, tried to take over the world, and ordered entire towns bombed, not to mention the typical supervillain shit that makes him too dangerous to have around.” Myst focused on the twitching version of Lex that was trying and failing to mentally put his life back together as she moved her arms and wiggled her fingers, casting the spell from the magazine that sent people to Hell.
Lex took a step back as the other Lex vanished in a burst of foul smelling smoke. He stared as the smoke cleared and revealed a blue skinned version of his Lana Lang wearing a white silk loincloth and bikini top. “What?”
“I wanted to make sure Hell had a vested interest in keeping him contained,” Myst explained as she looked at the gorgeous demon, catching a few of her surface thoughts before they faded behind mental shields while mentally sticking her tongue out at her. Still, it was enough to let her know that the demoness wasn’t a threat. The more evil the person you sent to hell the nicer the demon that got released, at least with that particular spell, some sort of karmic balance was involved and they rarely came much eviller than the version of Lex she had just banished. “I figured you needed a personal assistant.”
“It would be my pleasure,” the demon girl replied as she took in Lex’s athletic frame.
“Everyone needs a good assistant,” Lex agreed, knowing that he’d have to replace a decent number of Lex’s employees. “How are you going to deal with Mercy?”
“I suggest telling her that we came to an arrangement,” Myst said as she teleported the three of them to the alien ship. “On that note, I should probably introduce you to Cyborg, he’s our resident techmonkey.”
Cyborg looked up and glanced at the new people. He recognized Myst’s female form and the man looked a lot like Lex Luthor if he’d had some serious work done, but the blue skinned girl was completely unfamiliar. “What’s up?”
“I grabbed a version of Lex that wasn’t completely insane to take over his counterpart’s company,” Myst explained.
“And you weren’t busy with your own company?” Cyborg asked as he studied Lex’s face, looking for signs of deception.
“I was created with magic and my brother went back to run our company, which leaves me to fix the mess our counterpart created with his,” Lex explained. “No one asks to be born and I was apparently born to be a billionaire so I really can’t complain.”
“Don’t worry, this version of Lex is decently sane,” Myst grinned. “For a given value of sane.”
“I’d object, but it takes a little insanity to roll with the punches considering the nature of the reality we all live in,” Lex said with amusement.
“What line of work were you in?” Cyborg asked curiously, trying to get a feel for this new Luthor.
“Technically, I ran a global technology business but I spent a lot of time reverse engineering alien artifacts for Superman.”
“You worked with Superman?” Cyborg asked in disbelief.
“I worked with my world’s version of Superman, I’ve never met this version,” Lex explained as he glanced around the room. “FTL drive?”
“Yeah, the problem I’m having is that the drive uses several alien metals I’m unfamiliar with which means we’d need to mine materials in another solar system or at least off planet,” Cyborg complained.
“Or figure out a workaround,” Lex mused. “If you let me see the schematics, I can take a look.”
Cyborg glanced at Myst. “Is he trustworthy?”
“I trust him to do what’s right for humanity and to turn a profit in a reasonable way,” Myst replied with a shrug. “So yeah, I trust him not to screw us or humanity over.”
The demon girl glanced around the room, looking at the alien electronics and trying to figure out what her new role was going to be.
“I just need a bit of a distraction from trying to figure out how I’m going to shift gears and turn Luthorcorp into something useful, studying an alien stardrive sounds like just the thing,” Lex said, excited at the idea of getting to work with a stardrive that wasn’t Kryptonian tech.
“In that case, here’s what I have,” Cyborg said as he handed Lex a tablet.
“On that note, best of luck. Batman wants me to swing by and upgrade some more League members.”
“Let Superman know I need to talk to him when you have a chance,” Lex said as he looked at the tablet.
“I’ll let him know.” Myst focused and teleported back to the Mayor’s office to deal with Mercy only to stagger when she was shot in the head by an anti-tank rifle. Thankfully her force field took most of the hit and her durability the rest. She dove down behind a desk for cover and reached out with her telepathy, trying to figure out who just took a shot at her. “Deathstroke?! Why is he trying to kill my female form, I’ve never even used it before.”
Myst dropped 100,000 mana into improving his telekinesis then teleported to the roof where Slade was hiding and ripped his rifle out of his hands with telekinesis.
Slade reached for his knife only for the knife to be ripped from his hand by an unseen force at the same time he was lifted off the ground. “You’re more powerful than your file indicates,” he said as he studied the attractive blue haired woman he’d been hired to kill.
“Who hired you to kill me?” Myst asked as she dug into Slade’s mind, looking for a name or at least what was in the file someone had on her.
“You’re not going to find anything,” Slade snarled as he tried to bring up all of his horrible memories rather than focus on anything about his current mission.
Myst dropped another 100,000 to improve her telepathy, waves of magic spreading across the land. She ripped through Slade’s mind, looking for ways to contact his associate that handled dealing with the clients. “How the hell are you still in business considering the League has a decent telepath?”
She scowled as she dug through his mind and saw a series of images of judges that had been bribed and a disturbingly large collection of contacts scattered around the American military that he occasionally worked for, in a less than legal fashion. “That’s an impressive list of contacts.”
“I’ll be out in less than six months, no matter where you send me,” Slade said with confidence.
Myst shook her head. “I’m sorry, you seem to be under a misconception.”
“What’s that?” Slade asked, knowing the League wouldn’t let one of their people just kill him.
“I’m not a hero, I’m support staff. Do you know what the difference is?” Myst asked as she worked on teleporting Slades various weapons to her hand so that she could store them in her inventory.
“Less training,” Slade suggested dryly.
“Support staff typically fix problems. Sure, most of the time we fix problems with costumes or technical problems, but occasionally we fix villain problems when they step over the line. The heroes are paragons of humanity or at least that’s what they’re trying to be.”
“The heroes are just as flawed as everyone else,” Slade replied with complete confidence.
“If not more, but that doesn’t mean they’re not trying. But you said it yourself, if I stick you in prison you’ll just get released in a couple of months or a year at most, the next time Argus or one of the various government agencies need your particular set of skills,” she explained as she rifled through his head for passwords and the location of his stashed funds.
“If you kill me, people will come for your friends,” Slade warned, wondering if he had underestimated who he was dealing with.
“You left the contingencies up to your contact and you know where he lives and how to track down his girlfriend,” Myst said as she paced back and forth regenerating her mana. “She most likely knows where to find him or at least how to get in touch. He’ll know how where to find the people he hired or perhaps he hasn’t hired anyone yet. Either way, they are not the threat you are and I’m going to make sure you’re not a problem anymore.”
“By killing me?” Slade asked, knowing his regeneration would allow him to heal from levels of damage that would kill even a decently enhanced meta and should allow him to play dead and simply dig himself out later if she was foolish enough to stick him in a shallow grave, as several government agents had done before.
Myst took a walk through Slade’s mind, looking for hits that were completely unforgivable. It didn’t take her long to find an entire collection of such memories. “You killed a little girl in Texas several years ago because you were paid a lot of money to ruin a man’s life and your client didn’t want custody of her daughter. Most people, even most assassins, would have turned the job down and shot the client.”
Slade chuckled darkly. “I think you’re overestimating humanity. You do know if you kill me, you’ll become a murderer yourself,” he pointed out, the partial psyche profile he’d managed to assemble on the ‘support’ hero providing a means of manipulating her into letting him live.
“That argument would work better if I was a hero, wasn’t a telepath, and if I thought you’d actually stay in prison for any length of time if I turned you over to the authorities. Either way, I just wanted to make sure you were actually guilty of something worth killing you over.” Myst would have mentioned already being a murderer, but she wasn’t a villain who would lay out her evil and plan and many weaknesses, she had read the Evil Overlord’s handbook and took it to heart.
“Goodnight,” Myst said as she used his telekinesis to stop the man’s heart before he could try to manipulate her further. She walked over and stuffed the villain in her inventory. ‘No point letting someone recover your body and bring you back.’
She opened her upgrade menu and dropped 30,000 mana into upgrading her shape shifting then changed her appearance to look like Slade. He opened his ring’s menu and swapped to an expensive grey suit that fit Slade’s tastes well enough. ‘That should work.’
He focused on the memory of Slade’s contact and teleported into the man’s living room. He blinked as he saw a skinny black man in his forties fucking an attractive naked asian girl in her early twenties that was sprawled on the dining room table.
“What the hell?” Reece asked when he noticed Slade standing there glaring at him.
“The last job was blotched, the client didn’t provide nearly enough information,” Myst replied not looking at the naked guy while still keeping track of him with telepathy.
Reece sighed as he realized this wasn’t going to be a conversation he wanted to have in front of the girl he’d picked up for a night. “Danni, get a drink or something.”
The girl scowled then rolled off the table a little unsteadily and headed for the kitchen.
Myst lifted the information the man had about his client, a bureaucrat in Queen Bee’s employ that wanted him gone for undisclosed reasons. A quick look through Reece’s mind netted him the bastard’s computer passwords and the security layout on his computer which would let him rob the man blind. ‘The mutant hating bastards in Marvel should be happy that Charles is a borderline pacifist.’
“What happened and how did you get back early?” Reece asked, knowing Slade should have contacted him before returning one way or another.
“My target survived an anti-tank round to the skull, that was not in the file,” Myst complained, having to work to keep from smirking as he looked through the man’s head for contacts and contingencies and coming up empty. ‘No point paying people for a job you’re unlikely to need, which means no one should be coming after my friends.’
“Do you want the contract canceled?” Reece asked as he moved toward the liquor cabinet that happened to have a gun concealed on top of the cabinet where it wasn’t visible. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt that little hunch that something was wrong, it was something he never ignored and had served him well over the years.
“If you really want to get shot, keep walking toward the cabinet,” Myst said unconcerned about the pistol other than the noise and the chance of collateral damage.
“You’re not Slade,” Reece said as he turned to look at the man wearing his employer’s face. “Martian Manhunter?”
“Nah, he would have already arrested you,” Myst replied with amusement. “I’m the person that Slade tried to kill.”
“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?” Reece asked, wondering if he could grab a drink without getting shot because if he had to die it seemed a shame to die sober.
“Do you want to turn yourself in?” Myst asked as he floated a glass and bottle of liquor over to Reece.
“I’d end up dead within a week at the most, too many secrets,” Reece admitted as he took the bottle and poured himself a glass.
“I need to have a chat with Queen Bee’s aide about why he wanted to kill me.”
“I have a name and address where he works, I’ll trade them for walking out of here,” Reece offered then took a drink.
Myst had already plucked the information out of his head and looked over the man’s client and target lists in addition. ‘Yeah, you’re worse than Slade, you flat out don’t care who you’re killing.’ He carefully lifted all of Reece’s passwords as the man finished his last drink of the undoubtedly overpriced liquor then stilled his heart with telekinesis to keep him from making a scene. He caught the bottle and the glass with telekinesis before they could hit the floor. ‘Sorry, you’re a monster, but you only have yourself to blame.’
He floated the drink and glass back over to the cabinet as he floated Reece over to the computer and used his thumb to unlock it. He quickly stuffed Reece into his inventory and went to work looting the man’s accounts when he heard the girl walking down the hallway toward him.
Danni walked back out of the kitchen with a glass of some golden drink. “Where did Reece go?”
Myst turned to look at the naked women, she wasn’t a patch on the girls but she was still decently attractive, if you ignored the fact that she liked partying more than she should and had shit tier taste in men. “He had to step out for a minute.”
“Is he coming back?” Danni asked as she glanced around.
“Probably not, feel free to have a drink or take off,” Myst replied absently as he worked on donating the man’s various accounts and property to various charities.
“What are you doing?” Danni asked as she sat on the table.
“Donating Reece’s accounts and properties to various charities,” Myst said seeing no reason not to tell her the truth, as it would just confuse things in the long run.
“In other words, he’s not coming back is he?” Danni asked with a pout.
“Very unlikely,” Myst replied as he turned to look at the girl, lifting her actual name and some background details with telepathy. ‘You really should be going to school, not partying until you can’t see straight.’
“I don’t suppose you need a sex toy?” she asked as she spread her legs and smiled at him seductively. “I was supposed to get paid to screw his girlfriend, but I like older men.”
“My girlfriend would object, sorry,” Myst replied as he turned to look toward the bedroom. He used his X-ray glasses to look through the wall into the bedroom and through the door to the safe, “but as a going away present the combo for the safe is 24, 54, 12 and neither of us is going to be returning here to claim the contents.”
