Mist of Shadows
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Myst in DC part 17
🕑 Added 2019-09-02 20:30:45 +0000 UTCArtemis twitched when the six green rupees that formed the anchor for the magical circle flashed with green fire then crumbled to dust as she stepped into the lounge. “Was that my fault?”
“No, the crystals just wore out,” Zatanna explained. “Nice timing though.”
“Good to know,” Artemis replied as she glanced between the new people and the vending machine sitting against the wall.
“Mission successful?” Myst asked as he stood up and stepped out of the circle, glad that the circle had burned out even if it meant less mana, mostly because sitting in one place for eight hours with only a couple breaks was extremely annoying.
“Completely,” Artemis replied happy that she’d been able to help her mother. “More heroes?”
“More like supernatural problem solvers,” Xander offered, not sure they actually counted as superheroes.
“Cool,” Artemis said as she walked over and sat down next to Harry. “I’m Artemis.”
Harry smiled at Artemis. “Arcane or Apprentice, but you can call me Harry if you want.”
“Apprentice?” Artemis asked, wondering why he’d choose that for a code name.
“Blame Constantine, I do.” Harry wasn’t overly bothered about the code name bit, mostly he was just glad to deal with people that didn’t care or know about the whole Boy That Lived deal.
Myst sat down next to Zatanna on the couch. “It could be worse, you could have gotten stuck with Kid Mage or something equally stupid.”
“That would suck,” Artemis agreed, thinking of Kid Flash and Aqualad. “What about you?” she asked Xander.
“Xander, short for Alexander,” Xander replied, pulling his attention off the screen where Willow was beating Beast Boy at his favorite fighting game. “Willow is our magic user and tech girl. Buffy hunts problematic demons,” he explained as he gestured toward his girls.
“Someone has to,” Buffy chimed in cheerfully, feeling a lot better about her life expectancy now that Myst had boosted her regeneration to an insane degree.
“No secret identity?” Artemis asked, a touch surprised.
Buffy shook her head. “Masks would just warn the demons I’m dangerous and not all harmless and innocent as I look, though I’m looking forward to playing with my new magic girl form.”
“Does that mean you finished everyone’s gear?” Artemis asked Myst hopefully.
“More or less.” Myst pulled Artemis’ ring, wristbands and pendant out of his inventory and passed them to Artemis via Harry. “I wouldn’t try to parry high caliber rounds, but you should be able to parry most melee or thrown weapons thanks to the enchantment unless the person is a lot faster than you. The ring will boost your carrying capacity by a decent amount and generate boots that will let you fall a hundred feet without taking damage as long as you land on your feet.”
“Your ring also lets you fly,” Zatanna said with amusement.
“Yep, up to one thousand feet.” Myst figured a thousand feet was high enough to start with, especially since the enchant also let you glide if you were over your flight cap.
“Sounds fun. What happens if you fall off a mountain or jump out of a plane?” Artemis asked.
Myst grinned at Artemis. “You automatically glide if you’re over a thousand feet above the ground or water, then when you reach the right height the flying kicks in.”
“How fast?” Artemis asked excitedly.
“Provided you aren’t diving, thirty miles an hour, give or take.”
“That doesn’t seem all that fast,” Artemis commented.
“That’s where the next part comes in, you can summon boots with wings that will push your max flight up to 530 miles an hour.” Myst was particularly proud of that little trick as it let people fly around normally then kick it into high gear if they needed to.
“Okay, that’s fast,” Artemis admitted.
Starfire grinned. “It will be nice to have people to fly with even if they are a little slow.”
“I’m looking forward to it.” Artemis turned to look at Myst. “Just in case I forget, thank you for the gear.”
“You’re welcome,” Myst assured her. “It should help keep you safe.”
“Just don’t use the boots in town,” Karen warned her. “At least not until you’ve had some practice.”
Kara shifted uncomfortably. “Hitting buildings tends to make a lot of people very unhappy, especially when you break them.”
“I’m going to do my best to avoid that,” Artemis assured her.
Myst glanced over at Karen and Kara. “Not to mention, I’m not sure how much damage the force field can take.” Technically speaking he knew exactly how much damage the force field could take thanks to his upgrade ability, it just didn’t really mean anything to him as he didn’t have enough of a background in physics to understand it.
Artemis shook her head. “Don’t worry, I’d rather not end up like a bug on a windshield.”
“The ring should also make you immune to most electrical attacks which should keep someone from knocking you out with a taser and no, that doesn’t mean play with a transformer or high voltage power line, we still need to do some testing with a Kryptonian or a Tamaranean.”
“Or a Martian?” Megan asked as she walked in with Connor.
“Considering high voltage lines can cook people from the inside out, no, not a Martian but thanks for volunteering,” Myst said with a smile.
“Yeah, let’s avoid that,” Megan said as they walked over to the other couch.
“What about the pendant?” Artemis asked.
“Anti scrying, agility, mana regeneration and your magical girl form. That and it’s also your control device for your drones.”
Artemis glanced between Myst, Zatanna and Raven. “Anti scrying? Does this mean you won’t be able to find me if something goes wrong?”
Myst shook his head. “I sort of cheated to make sure I wasn’t making things easier for kidnappers or villains by adding an exception to the anti-scry protections that only applies to me and Zantanna.”
“It was really sneaky,” Willow agreed.
“It seemed pretty reasonable to me.” Karen was glad that someone was finally doing some actual networking and actually asking, how can I help the rest of the team improve rather than worrying about people’s egos.
“Thanks. I made a copy of Constantine’s anti-scrying necklace which dropped the effectiveness then I boosted the anti-scrying effect for everyone other than Zatanna and I,” Myst explained as he opened his gacha menu and looked over his choices. He picked the 50 point Cleaning Supply wheel because that was the first time he’d seem cleaning supplies on offer.
“That would let you and Zatanna find me in an emergency, good call.” Artemis glanced over at Raven. “What about Raven?”
Raven hunched her shoulders slightly. “My magic is similar to my father’s magic, I’d rather not leave gaps in my friends’ protection he could use to locate them.”
Harry was just glad that Myst had included a conjured ring option in his costume ring that gave him scrying protection against Constantine which covered the fact that Harry’s pendant was modified to allow his teacher to scry him in case he was kidnapped. Of course, both of his anti-scrying items excluded Myst, Zatanna, and Hedwig for obvious reasons which he was perfectly fine with as he could always find something else to muddle things if he really needed to.
Myst blinked when the wheel stopped and a bar of white soap dropped from the wheel. He looked at the bar of soap with his upgrade ability. “Huh, this would have been nice to have in gym class, simply wave it at people or objects with intent and they’re cleaned and scrubbed.”
“That would have been useful in Potions,” Harry mused, thinking about Snape.
“Of course, it has a bit of a flaw, cursing around it causes it to wash a person’s mouth out.” Myst picked the 20,000 mana Curiosity wheel, hoping for something especially useful and glad that he’d increased his own mana levels to what he considered satisfactory allowing him to buy it without waiting a couple of hours or days.
Harry watched the wave of mana wash over the room and his arms. It felt a bit like walking through a sprinkler on a warm summer day, pleasant but nothing to get worked up about which meant the girls probably felt something else as Zatanna, and Raven all looked to have enjoyed the pulse of magic as did the two girls from Sunnydale.
“That’s bullshit…” Beast Boy trailed off with a disgusted look on his face. “Gah!”
“You were actually serious, weren’t you?” Kara asked, rather amused at the way Beast Boy was trying to scrape his tongue clean on his teeth.
“I wonder if Tamaranean curses count,” Starfire mused but made no move to test her idea.
“Yes and no idea.” Myst smiled at Starfire then stuck the bar of soap into his inventory. “I’m going to need to make copies.”
“Can I get a copy for pranks?” Harry asked hopefully.
“I’d love a copy,” Xander agreed.
“I take no responsibility for the trouble you’ll get into but sure, I don’t have a problem making more.” Myst caught the snow globe that dropped into his lap when the wheel stopped.
Harry stared at the tiny duplicate of a snow covered Hogwarts and the surrounding area in the glass globe. “I wouldn’t have noticed before you upgraded my eyes, but that’s an amazingly detailed replica of Hogwarts, it almost seems real.”
“Down to the pebbles on the ground,” Kara added in surprise.
Myst pulled his attention off the globe’s collection of enchantments, doing his best not to giggle or break out into evil laughter. “That’s because the globe is basically a pocket dimension and the castle is a full sized replica.”
“Are you saying you just copied Hogwarts?” Harry asked in disbelief.
“Apparently.” Myst selected the Tools wheel for 10 mana. “I’m curious if all of the enchantments were copied.”
“How do we get in there?” Xander asked then shrugged when everyone turned to look at him. “What? He said it was a pocket dimension.”
Willow shook her head. “That doesn’t mean we can go there.”
“Actually, all you have to do is touch the globe or the stand and say the name of the castle and you’ll be sent there.”
“That’s it?” Harry asked, surprised that it was that easy.
“The phrase to get out is slightly longer, but at least it’s easy to remember.” Myst caught the roll of duct tape that dropped when the wheel stopped. “Nice, you can never have too much duct tape.”
“Let me guess, it’s a never ending roll of duct tape?” Beast Boy asked with amusement.
Harry looked at the perfectly normal looking tape. “It’s not magic.”
“Duct tape has a magic all its own.” Myst put the roll of tape in his inventory along with the snow globe then closed and opened his gacha to reset the wheels as everything else was low cost and less than interesting. He selected the book gacha for 200 mana then looked at Beast Boy. “But yeah, to answer your question, it’s not magic.”
“Is this a good time to ask about getting upgrades?” Connor asked hopefully. “I mean the flight ring and boots are great but I’d love to have heat vision and fly under my own power in case something happens to the ring.”
Myst turned to look at Connor and Megan, unsurprised that Megan was once again using Connor for a seat. As much as Connor was sort of a broken record about getting his powers to a useable level, he could sympathize. “Sure, I can also upgrade Megan to a Red Martian if she wants to improve her magic and make it easier to improve her mental defenses.”
“Please,” Megan agreed quickly.
‘At least she has less mental issues than her uncle.’ Myst looked at Megan with his upgrade ability then spent the 500 points to ‘upgrade’ her species. ‘Yeah, most of the potential is already there, just locked.’ He tapped the mana in his pendant and boosted her mental defenses against fire to match the rest of her mental defenses then bought the flaw off. He selected her mental defenses then slid the slider up as far as it could go with his pendant’s mana then hit accept.
Zatanna shivered as Myst’s mana washed over her. “What was that?”
“That was me making sure no one screws with the team’s telepath.” Myst looked at Megan’s magical talents, unsurprised that her talents weren’t terribly impressive compared to the rest of the group’s mages. “That should do it. Biologically, you’re a Red Martian and I boosted your mental defenses.”
“Thank you! If there is ever anything I can do to help, just ask,” Megan offered.
Myst grinned. “Now that you mention it, I’m going to need a ride to Norway at some point.”
“Sure, what’s in Norway?” Megan asked.
“An ancient magical tower that I’d like to explore,” Myst replied not wanting to give her more details until they were already on the way, as he didn’t want to put Aqualad in an awkward position. He caught the booklet of stamps that dropped when the wheel stopped.
“Stamps?” Harry asked, curious what the magical stamps did.
Myst looked at the stamps with his upgrade ability and smiled, trying not to laugh as some of his plans just got a lot easier. “Neat, instant mail delivery.”
“So, like texting?” Xander asked.
Myst selected the 20 mana Supplies wheel. “More like, I need to send a letter to a girl in the middle of some hell dimension and rain or shine that letter will get there instantly.”
“That is slightly more impressive than I was thinking,” Xander admitted.
“It would also be useful if I had a name but no contact information,” Myst pointed out, thinking about Tara and Faith.
“Could you send portkeys to villains?” Harry asked, knowing there were still a couple of Death Eaters out there that he wouldn’t mind messing with.
Xander grinned as he pictured Spike opening a box with an explosive device inside. “Or explosives?”
Myst grinned when the wheel stopped and dropped a decent sized mundane spool of thick copper wire on his lap. “Nice but yeah no, you can’t send anything physically harmful or that you believe would result in harm which means no sending death traps.” He selected the 1,000 mana Spellbook wheel then looked at Connor with his upgrade ability, trying to figure out the best way to upgrade him that wouldn’t come back to bite him in the ass.
“Do you need to put a return address on it?” Harry asked with a grin as he thought about all of the ways he could screw with people by being able to drop letters in their laps without using an owl or letting them know it was him.
“Not that I know of but we should probably test it.” Myst spent five thousand mana to upgrade Connor’s hybrid ability then grinned as he looked at Connor’s collection of abilities. “Looks like your empathy is a bit better and you should be able to fly on your own. Your pyrokinesis and cryokinesis could use a bit of a boost but you should be able to light candles and chill your soda which means you can start training your abilities, same with your clairvoyance.”
“How far can you push the hybrid bit?” Beast Boy asked, looking forward to seeing what Myst could do for his own ability.
Myst twitched as he got a flash of Connor picking up some inhuman features with the next boost and getting nothing all that impressive to show for it, certainly nothing that he couldn’t use upgrade to get him without having issues. “Yeah, that’s it for upgrading his hybrid ability without him ending up looking decidedly monstrous for no real gain.”
“You can still upgrade each ability, right?” Karen asked before Connor could complain.
“It’s just going to take a bit of mana and some training.” Myst caught the magazine that dropped from his gacha wheel. If you ignored the animated picture of two identical naked teen girls with bright green witches hats kissing and fondling each other, it looked like a typical magazine for teen girls. “21 Naughty Spells Your Mother Doesn’t Need to Know About for the Young Witch or Wizard.”
Willow turned and looked at the glittery magazine. “Is the cover moving?”
Harry shrugged. “Most wizarding books have moving pictures.”
“Apparently.” Myst selected the 2,000 mana Furniture wheel then opened the magazine and looked at the table of contents. “How to sneak your boyfriend into your room by changing him into a girl. That seems a bit…”
“Much?” Kara asked.
“I was going to go with drastic,” Xander suggested.
Harry shook his head. “Human transfiguration is supposed to be difficult, that sounds like a good way to get someone stuck halfway.”
Xander twitched. “You just had go there, didn’t you?”
Myst stared at the second entry. ‘Twincest? Either my gacha is screwy or this world is weirder than I thought.’ He made a mental note to look the publisher up to see if it was a real magazine or at least a magazine from this world. “There’s a spell to conjure a naughty twin sister for a couple of hours and a spell to bring your dolls to life to ‘play’ with you.”
“Dr. Jekyll and Hilda potion?” Zatanna asked as she glanced at the list of articles. “That sounds disturbing.”
“On so many levels,” Sabrina walked in then promptly stopped when Myst’s gacha wheel stopped spinning and a loveseat appeared where the circle was. “Furniture?”
“I was sort of hoping for a wardrobe that took me to Narnia or a vanishing cabinet,” Myst replied when he looked at the loveseat with his upgrade ability.
“We’re going to need name tags if we keep getting new friends without introducing them. I’m Megan, you are?” Megan asked, fairly sure Cyborg or Kid Flash weren’t using the magic girl necklace at the moment as the body language was all wrong for it to be either of them.
Sabrina snickered then walked over and sat down on the armrest next to Raven. “Just think of it as practice for when you can’t use your abilities, I’m Sabrina.”
Megan tilted her head, surprised that the magical talking book of Raven’s had a human form that looked like Starfire’s magical girl form and wasn’t wearing a pendant.
Harry smiled at Sabrina. “Welcome to the party.”
“Thanks.” Sabrina turned to look at Myst. “What’s with the loveseat?”
“If I’m reading this right, the enchantment on the chair expands so you’ll always have enough room for your friends without increasing how much space it takes up.” Myst was fairly sure he could easily copy the enchant for his bed.
“What other spells does the magazine have?” Kara asked curiously.
“It has a spell to conjure chains and cuffs and a spell to send your ex to Hell… How the hell is that reasonable?” Zatanna asked as she quickly flipped to the right page and started skimming the article. “Okay, this is either a joke or someone is seriously twisted. You can basically banish someone to Hell and get a succubus to help make the pain of a bad breakup go away.”
Buffy shook her head. “That sounds like a good way to get in a lot of trouble.”
‘Honestly, there are a couple of villains that could spend a few days in Hell. Not sure I’d want a succubus running around causing trouble, but I guess that depends on her personality.’ Myst shook his head when Zatanna flipped the page to a spell for conjuring a strap-on.
“The clothes to chocolate spell seems a waste of perfectly good clothing,” Raven complained.
“Pretty much,” Myst agreed.
“I’m going to have to learn that,” Harry said, wanting to prove to Hermione that creating ‘food’ with magic was possible.
“Conjure Wondrous Brothel?” Raven asked in disbelief when she read the page.
“That sounds fun,” Artemis mused thoughtfully.
Zatanna flipped through the last few pages of spells and ads for various products she was fairly sure didn’t actually exist or at least didn’t exist on their world the last time she checked. “Fight Club? Changes the target’s clothes to boxing shorts and boxing gloves that can’t actually hurt anyone.”
Willow grinned. “I wouldn’t mind learning the chains spell for dealing with vampires.”
“I don’t have a problem sharing a copy of most of the spells.” Myst wanted to run some tests before he handed out the spell to send people to Hell but most of the spells were harmless enough or at least no worse than anything else they could pick up. The spell to make someone immune to STDs for a year and a day would be nice if could upgrade it to cover all diseases.
“Most of them seem simple enough,” Raven mused, not sure how far she trusted the spells.
Myst blinked when he got a mental flash of Robin being ambushed by Clayface and ripped in half. “Shit! I need an envelope!”
“Here,” Harry said as he dug through his bag for writing supplies.
Myst took the envelope and quickly wrote, ‘Robin, put the fucking ring on! Clayface, incoming!’ then pulled Robin’s ring out of his inventory and dropped it in the envelope then sealed it. He pulled his book of stamps out then quickly stuck one of the stamps on the envelope. “Robin.”
Beast Boy watched as the envelope vanished in a burst of flames. “What was that about?”
“I got a precog flash about Robin being ambushed by Clayface, I figured he could use the ring. Speaking of precog, I should probably upgrade that to get a touch more warning.” Myst opened his upgrade menu then looked at his precog ability. ‘100 points per minute to extend the range, could be worse.’ He spent 1,500 mana to bring his precog up to thirty minutes rather than fifteen then looked at his empathy ability, not sure if it was worth upgrading. ‘To hell with it, I can always dial it down until I get a handle on it.’
“Why aren’t we running toward the zeta-tubes?” Beast Boy asked when no one had started moving.
“Mostly because we don’t know where to find him.” Myst spent the 10,000 mana to upgrade his empathy to telepathy then winced when everyone suddenly started ‘mumbling’ at once. He spent a couple of seconds trying to tune the voices out then simply turned his telepathy off.
Megan glanced at Myst. “Did you just try to read my thoughts?”
“Sorry, I upgraded my empathy to telepathy, I’m going to need some help learning to use it,” Myst admitted.
Beast Boy jumped when he got a text message at the same time as the rest of the team. He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Thanks for the ring and warning. Busy, talk more later.” He stared at the message. “What the hell?!”
“What were you expecting?” Artemis asked, relieved that her teammate was safe.
“More than, thanks for the ring and I’m busy fighting Clayface?” Beast Boy asked sarcastically as he sent a text message off to Batman, informing him that Robin needed help with Clayface.
“Are we not going to help friend Robin?” Starfire asked.
Beast Boy shook his head. “I’ve already notified Batman, he’ll call if he needs help.”
“The League can be a little territorial,” Karen explained, fairly sure that Batman would call in the unlikely event that he needed help.
“What’s a Clayface?” Harry asked.
“Shape changing mud monster,” Beast Boy said as he put his phone back in his pocket.
“That sounds messy. How do you kill a mud monster?” Xander asked.
Beast Boy shook his head. “He used to be a person, he got exposed to unstable chemicals, so killing is off the table.”
“Is there a cure?” Willow asked.
“Not that Batman or the League has found,” Artemis replied.
“Can you upgrade my empathy?” Connor asked hopefully.
Myst turned to look at Connor. “What part of ‘I just turned mine off with another ability’ did you miss?”
“I have Megan to help learn to control it,” Connor pointed out.
Myst briefly considered saying no then decided to hell with it. ‘He’ll either learn or he won’t.’ He forced himself to smile. “Sure, if that’s what you want?”
“Yes,” Connor replied quickly, wanting to be more useful to the team and knowing they didn’t have anything scheduled for at least a couple of days.
Myst spent the 10,000 mana it took to turn Connor’s weak empathic ability into a strong empathic ability and then to a weak telepathic ability, that he was probably going to have to boost a respectable amount to get all that much use out of.
Connor glanced around then focused on Artemis. “I can sort of sense people and I’m getting a word or two from Artemis.”
“Your ability should improve with practice,” Myst assured him then looked at his collection of potential abilities. ‘Okay, might as well take advantage of the fact that I’m a slime. Huh, if I change into an ice type slime I could be immune to cold or immune to polymorph if I change into a type of sort of sentient jelly, of course that would most likely lock me out of mimic which would suck.’ He selected the immunity to ice ability to get a better description and blinked when he realized he could buy it for ten times the cost of upgrading his species without having to change his species. “Huh, neat. I can actually pick up some immunities without having to change species.”
“How many are we talking?” Zatanna asked.
“Immunity to cold, acid, lightning, poison, slashing as well as immunity to a number of status effects, mostly being blinded, deafened, paralysed, stunned, petrified or shape changed against my will,” Myst explained as he spent 20,000 mana to pick up complete immunity to cold.
“That’s a new tier of bullshit, can you upgrade my shape shifting so I don’t have to stay green?” Beast Boy asked.
Myst focused on Beast Boy then tapped his amulet’s mana and upgraded Beast Boy’s shape shifting so that he could control the range of colors. “That should do it.”
Xander grinned slightly when he felt the mana wash over him, “That feels like a sprinkler on a warm day.”
“Sounds about right,” Buffy agreed, feeling refreshed.
“Sure, exactly like that,” Willow lied, not wanting to admit that it felt like a warm wind caressing certain parts of her every time he spent mana.
“Speaking of new abilities, how do you think he’s doing with his ring?” Beast Boy asked.
“It’s user friendly, he’ll be fine,” Myst said as he pulled the snow globe out of his inventory. “Anyone want to explore a castle?”
Elsewhere...
There was an explosion of brick and mortar as Batman was flung through the wall of an alley, rolling with the blow and coming back to his feet in an instant, hands already reaching for the cryogenic batarangs he had prepared for this foe.
‘How the hell does he do that?!’ Robin asked himself as he flew down the street carrying the girl Clayface was trying to eat. ‘If I get the chance to pick up some battle magic or an alien blaster of doom, I’m taking it, to hell with League rules.’
Comments
Mist of Shadows
He's not nearly that insane. Besides, power armor would take a lot to maintain..
William Jackson
And now I'm picturing Robin smashing bad guys as a Space Marine after going to Batman levels of overpreparation.
