Mist of Shadows
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Myst in DC Part 12
🕑 Added 2019-08-16 20:20:29 +0000 UTCMyst blinked as he hurried into the meeting room and saw the injured heroes, Superman looked the least injured, he had a superficial cut on his arm and a puncture wound on his shoulder that looked fairly deep. Green Lantern on the other hand was missing his right arm just below the shoulder and looked like he’d had the crap kicked out of him. He glanced at the glowing green cap/tourniquette that covered Hal’s stump. “What the hell happened?!”
“Magic is bullshit,” Hal cut in before Superman could explain that they’d gotten their asses handed to them by an apologetic teenage girl wearing a laughing theater mask and a cheerleader outfit while swinging around a magical sword that cut through his constructs like they weren’t even there.
“Fair enough,” Myst agreed as he walked over and touched Kal’s hand, lending him his regeneration. “That should fix your wounds.”
“Shouldn’t you worry about the man with the missing arm first?” Superman asked as Connor and Megan hurried into the mission room.
“Not really, I can only share my regeneration with one person at a time and you’ll be healed in less than a minute, it’s going to take a bit longer to fix his arm.” He opened his upgrade menu and looked at his cloak’s regeneration. “Besides, my cloak should be able to fix his arm.” He slid the slider on the regeneration until the price jumped then spent the 2950 mana to boost the cloak’s regeneration up to one ‘point’ of health a second. “Anyway, if he was near death, he’d be in the infirmary.”
“What happened?” Connor asked, staring at Hal’s missing arm.
Superman glanced between Megan and Connor. “I heard a report about Metallo robbing a jewelry store so I called for backup.”
“Which is when I showed up,” Hal said. “I’d just finished wrapping up Metallo when a lunatic with a magic sword that could cut through my constructs showed up. She kept apologizing as she tried to kill us.”
“Most likely mind control,” Batman cut in, annoyed at the recent increase in mind controlling villains.
“That doesn’t explain where someone found a sword that can cut through constructs like they aren’t even there,” Hal complained.
Megan pulled her attention off of Hal’s stump with a shiver and looked at Myst. “Are you going to be able to fix his arm?”
“One way or another.” Myst took his cloak off and handed it to Hal. “Put it on, it should fix your arm. Try not to get blood on it.”
Hal put the crimson cloak on then blinked as his arm started visibly regrowing. “That’s insane.”
Myst laughed. “You have a Power Ring, you don’t get to complain about my magic trinkets. Speaking of equipment, were you able to capture the girl with the sword?”
“Does it look like it?” Hal asked sarcastically.
Myst shrugged. “It looks like she stabbed Superman and kicked the shit out of you but I was hoping that Superman managed to knock her out.”
Hal glared at Myst. “It’s not that easy being a hero.”
Superman shook his head. “Sadly, Metallo used the distraction to take a shot at me allowing her to escape with Green Lantern’s arm.”
“Let me guess, she was trying to steal your ring?” Myst asked as he studied Hal’s ring with his upgrade ability.
“Thankfully that part didn’t work,” Hal said, glad that he’d been able to recall the ring and stop himself from bleeding out.
“I don’t suppose you’d let me make a knock-off of the ring?” Myst asked hopefully, knowing the answer would be no.
“Absolutely not,” Hal replied. “Even if I wanted to, the AI would object.”
“Yeah, I figured, but it would be nice to have a compact computer.”
“The AI would probably copy itself and object,” Batman pointed out, making a mental note to let Myst look at the League’s collection of captured alien tech that they hadn’t been able to make heads or tails of as there was a good possibility that the weaker copies he generated could be reverse engineered easier than the originals.
“Strenuously,” Hal added.
“Sadly,” Myst said. “Can’t blame a guy for asking.”
“I could but it wouldn’t do any good,” Hal said, wiggling his newly regenerated fingers. “How do I know when I’m completely healed?”
Myst looked at him with his upgrade ability. “You have another sixteen seconds.”
“How do you know that?” Hal asked.
Raven walked in. “He can see your life force.”
“Close enough,” Myst agreed as he turned to look at Superman. “Speaking of weaknesses and Kryptonite, do you want something that protects against Kryptonite or was there a reason that you haven’t found a technological solution?”
“If you have something other than a full radiation suit, I’d love the help,” Superman admitted.
“Why not use a radiation suit?” Connor asked.
Superman turned to look at Connor. “They’re expensive and they tear easily. That’s also why I don’t use a solar suit.”
“What about Kryptonian military suits?” Myst asked, figuring there had to be something useful in Clark’s fortress.
Superman looked at Myst, wondering if that was a guess or if he knew more than he was telling. “I don’t have access to most Kryptonian military hardware and the civilian protective devices are only partially effective against Kryptoniate and aren’t all that durable.”
“In that case, I have an enchant I can place on an armband or bracelet that should protect the user from a reasonable amount of harmful radiation. Do you have access to any alien alloys that would stand up to your strength or at least a decent fraction of it?” Myst glanced at Connor then back at Superman.
Superman glanced at Connor then looked at Myst. “I can certainly come up with enough for four bracelets if you’re willing to help my cousin and Power Girl out as well as Connor.”
“Kara and Power Girl? I can do that, but I’m going to want to upgrade your mental defenses. I’m unwilling to cover up your weakness to kryptonite without at least mitigating your weakness to mind control. I’m not all that worried about most of the League, but Kryptonians could do a lot of damage very quickly if someone had a mind to take theirs.”
“I have no objections to that and I doubt my cousin or Power Girl would either,” Superman agreed, knowing mind control was a large concern to his family and the rest of the League.
“Why aren’t you worried about Dianna or the other heavy hitters?” Hal asked.
“I am, just not to the same extent. The gods generally protect their chosen and the other heavy hitters aren’t in Metropolis right now. I want the entire League protected but I’m prioritizing.”
Connor glanced over at Megan. “Will it stop telepathy?”
“Only if you don’t want them in your head,” Myst replied. “It’s not perfect but it’s better than nothing and a decent start.” He turned to look at Batman. “Speaking of decent starts, I found a possible way to reduce people’s age back to their prime that doesn’t involve a Lazarus Pit.”
“Side effects?” Superman asked, thinking about his aging parents and Lois.
“Beyond the inability to grow old? None,” Myst replied.
“You mean you found immortality?” Batman asked warily.
“Unaging, not immortal,” Myst admitted.
“When did you find that?” Raven asked.
“This morning. I used the magic pillow to give myself some more time, I’ve been awake for a while and have been playing with my gacha ability, trying to get something interesting,” Myst explained as he looked at Superman’s mental defenses with his upgrade ability. ‘Huh, they’re actually slightly better than Batman’s mental defenses, not terribly surprising considering his family but they’re not nearly enough with all of the mind controllers running around right now.’
“My ring has records of entire worlds destroying themselves over immortality,” Hal spoke up.
“Please tell me that you’re not planning on selling eternal youth,” Batman complained.
Myst glanced at Hal. “Unaging, not immortality and I wasn’t planning on selling it. I might sell some age extension treatments, but selling eternal youth sounds like a good way to end up dead or in a cell somewhere.”
“Would that even stop you?” Batman asked.
“Dead? Maybe. In a cell? That depends entirely on how creative they got.”
“Do you need help with Metallo?” Megan asked, hoping for a mission.
Superman shook his head. “STAR labs has what’s left of him.”
“What’s left of him?” Batman asked in concern.
“I inadvertently hit his core with heat vision rather than the power leads when he hit me with a kryptonite beam. I’m sure they’ll put him back together eventually so they can put him in prison, again.”
“You killed him?” Megan asked in surprise.
Superman shook his head. “No, he’s on life support; the explosion damaged most of the systems in his chest when the kryptonite exploded.”
“Now we just need to capture the girl that cut my arm off.” Hal took Myst’s cloak off and handed it back to him.
“I’m more concerned about the fact that she might have been mind controlled than I am about your arm,” Batman said.
“What?!” Hal sputtered.
“Your arm has already regenerated,” Batman pointed out. “Mind control on a girl with a magical weapon that can cause this kind of damage is a fair bit more concerning than what happened to your arm.”
Myst finished looking over the cloak for signs of blood then put it on. “Speaking of magical swords, I know where one is that should be removed from its current location.”
“How do you know that?” Hal asked, curious how many magical weapons were floating around.
“Sabrina has information about a lot of interesting things.”
“Is it urgent?” Batman asked, fairly sure they had enough trouble without borrowing trouble.
“It will be if a villain grabs it,” Myst assured him as he accepted the purple gem Raven handed him. “Right now, it’s in a museum.”
“Could it be the same sword?” Superman asked.
“Was she shooting energy at you?” Myst asked as he pulled a length of wire and the pliers out of his inventory and went to work making a ring with Raven’s stone.
“No, it was just supernaturally sharp and she was faster and stronger than her build would indicate.”
“I’m fairly sure she could teleport or turn invisible or something, she came out of nowhere,” Hal complained.
“Do you want help tracking her down?” Megan asked, still hoping for a mission.
“Considering the possibility of a mind controlling villain in the area, we’re bringing in your uncle,” Batman said.
“Oh,” Megan muttered in disappointment.
“Look on the bright side,” Myst offered, “this is a good time to boost everyone’s mental defenses.”
“He’s right, it’s going to have to be a requirement for continued membership in the League,” Batman said, having already discussed the matter with Clark, Dinah, and Dianna.
Myst sighed as he realized that he’d just been volunteered for a job that was going to be a pain in the ass and cut into his available mana and plans, sadly it was also a very important job so he couldn’t really turn them down. “Great.”
“How soon can you start?” Superman asked hoping the answer was soon. “I want to at least boost the heavy hitters by the end of the week.”
“I can boost you right now and the rest of the Kryptonians, Martians, and Starfire after breakfast.” Myst turned to look at Hal. “Does your ring have a failsafe if you’re mind controlled?”
Hal sighed. “Depends on the type of mind control.”
“In that case, you’re on the list. I don’t need one of you pulling the planets out of orbit.”
“That would take a lot of willpower. Not exactly something we could do while mind controlled.” Hal wasn’t sure most Green Lanterns could move a planet even on their best day and he included himself in that category.
“Yeah, all that would take is some telepath convincing you that the world had been overrun or that you were actually on some alien world that was going to destroy a large part of the galaxy if they weren’t stopped. I obviously can’t force you to get the upgrade but I’d feel a hell of a lot better if you had it.”
“Can you up upgrade my willpower while you’re at it?” Hal asked.
Myst blinked as he looked at the price to increase Hal’s willpower. “Sorry, that would cost far too much mana to see any results.”
“Why?” Hal asked.
“Because your willpower is a lot higher than mine. You were chosen out of six billion people for a reason, mostly because you have a willpower of ‘Yes’. It’s like Superman’s strength, I don’t have enough mana to boost his strength even an ounce,” he explained as he finished Raven’s ring. Sure, technically speaking he could upgrade Clark’s baseline strength, but he had more important things to spend his mana on and it wouldn’t change his ‘normal’ strength level.
“But you don’t have a problem boosting people’s mental defenses?” Hal asked.
“Considering I’m flat out immune to mind control, not particularly.” He turned his attention back to Superman’s mental defense and dropped 650 points, boosting Clark’s mental defenses to the limits of Kryptonian biology then spent another 2,000 mana to push his defenses well into the supernatural range.
Raven blinked as she felt a large wave of mana wash over her. “How much mana did you just spend?”
“Six hundred and fifty mana to push him to the limits of his species then another two thousand to push him well beyond that. I’ll need about twice my maximum mana if I want to give him a percentage chance to be flat out immune to any mental attack in addition to his resistance. I’ll get there eventually.”
“I don’t feel any different,” Superman said trying to mentally figure out how one would test such a thing without someone attempting to control his mind.
“I can’t feel his mind anymore,” Megan admitted.
“I can still feel his emotions... and now I can’t,” Myst said with amusement. “Looks like a decently solid first step.” He turned his attention toward Hal. “I burned my mana upgrading my cloak and Superman, let me grab my pendants and something to eat while it regenerates, then I’ll start upgrading people.”
“Can we get copies of your cloak?” Megan asked hopefully.
Myst turned to look at Megan. “Sure, I’ll make them so they can’t be ripped while I’m at it.”
“I think he’s being sarcastic,” Hal said.
Myst laughed. “No, I’m being literal, my ring’s cloak can’t be ripped or torn. It should be easy enough to move the property to your cloaks, while they won’t be as strong initially we can fix that over time.”
Hal shook his head. “That’s bullshit.”
“You’re the one with a Power Ring.” Myst turned to look at Raven as he finished enchanting her purple ring. “I’ll experiment with color options later, when I have some spare gems to play with.”
Raven shook her head. “I wouldn’t object to more colors but purple and black should cover my costume.”
Myst spent 200 mana to upgrade her ring’s clothing selections then another 50 points to upgrade the artistic quality and thickness of the copper wire. “In that case, here you go.”
Raven’s lips curled up into a small smile as he handed her the ring. “Thank you.”
“How much do you want for a copy of your ring with at least twenty pounds of telekinesis and the ability to recreate my suit for emergencies?” Batman asked.
“You cover the supplies, I’ll add it to the list,” Myst agreed, not seeing a problem with helping out. He pushed the rest of his mana into boosting Hal’s awareness of mental threats as his mental defenses were already slightly past the max that should have been possible for an unaltered human, he was blaming that on working with the green light. “On that note, I’m going to grab my pendants then I’m going to start boosting people. I should be able to boost six or seven people every thirty minutes if you want to handle the logistics.”
“I’ll start making calls,” Batman said as he turned and left.
“Thanks for the help. I should go file my report now,” Hal said.
“I’d appreciate it if you limited your report to not include my abilities,” Myst said, not wanting to have to deal with the Guardians until he had a lot more magic under his belt and some solid anti Lantern defenses.
“Considering I have a Lantern ring and it records everything, they’ll find out eventually, even if I don’t report it,” Hal pointed out.
“That’s eventually,” Myst argued, more than a little annoyed with himself for forgetting about the ring’s AI. Of course, he was fairly sure it wouldn’t have mattered because someone would have mentioned his abilities to Hal eventually.
Hal shrugged. “I’m only sending the report about the sword because it’s a direct threat and I’m hoping for more information. Your abilities aren’t my responsibility.”
“Good, let’s keep it that way.” Myst nodded toward Superman then turned and left.
“I thought the Guardians were supposed to help people?” Megan asked as she watched Myst walk off.
“They do, however the Guardians tend to focus on the large picture,” Hal explained, knowing the little details tended to escape them, like the life and health of some of their corps, as they had a rather long view of time, “which means they don’t always take into account how we’ll view their actions until after they have already acted.”
Connor turned to look at Superman. “Are you up for sparring?”
“Of course,” Superman replied as he headed toward the gym, figuring he needed to wait for Kara and Karen anyways. Besides, it was a good chance to see how Connor was doing with his training.
0o0o0
Karen blinked as she walked into the lounge with Kara and saw the humanoid slime sitting at one of the benches with a strange spinning prize wheel floating in front of him. “Trinkets?”
Myst turned and looked at the attractive blonde haired superheroes, feeling his breath catch slightly as he glanced between the girls that managed to make Black Canary almost look plain by comparison. While Kara was in her ‘typical’ red skirt and long sleeved blue outfit with the House of El symbol on her chest, Karen was wearing sandals, jean shorts and a black Superman t-shirt that did very little to conceal the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra. “Yeah, one of my abilities is a bit random. Let me guess, it was your day off?”
“It’s summer and I’m done with college, every day is my day off, at least until I figure out what I’m going to do for money,” Karen said as she walked over and sat down across from Myst.
“What’s your degree in if I can ask?” Myst asked, curious what she’d gotten a degree in but not wanting to look like he was prying into her ‘secret’ identity.
Karen smiled. “Basically electrical engineering and computer technology and programming, I tested out of most of the classes but figured having the degree was useful.”
“If you’re looking for work, I need someone to help me reverse engineer alien tech,” Myst offered, knowing her talents would be wasted in a normal lab.
“Like Kryptonian tech?” Karen asked with a raised eyebrow.
“More like whatever tech we can beg, borrow or liberate from alien pirates or villains.” Myst blinked when his gacha wheel stopped spinning and dropped an ornate wooden hat box. He looked at the box with his upgrade ability. “Huh, the box creates average quality green clothing.”
“Green?” Kara asked with a raised eyebrow.
“I did mention it was a bit random.” Myst set the magical box off to the side then touched one of the pendants on the footrest and looked at Karen’s mental defenses. “Permission to upgrade your mental defenses?”
“That’s why we’re here,” Karen agreed, glad that Myst was being professional about things.
“Cool.” Myst used the pendant’s mana to boost her mental defenses as far as he could then touched the next pendant and finished the job, draining most of it. “Done with Karen’s defenses, Kara?”
“Of course,” Kara agreed.
Myst dropped the rest of the pendant’s mana into Kara’s mental defenses then touched the next pendant and boosted her mental defenses as much as he could then used half of another pendant to finish Kara’s mental defenses. “Done and done.”
“Thank you. As for the job, how much would it pay?” Karen asked.
“How much do you need it to pay?” Myst asked as he used 200 mana from the pendant to increase the quality of the clothing the box could create.
“I’m fairly sure that’s not how this normally works,” Karen pointed out with amusement.
“Why not? Wayne tech made Bruce Wayne extremely rich and they’re basically cutting edge or slightly less than cutting edge depending on the particular product. We could stand to make a fortune with the right type of technology. I can probably revolutionize the solar power industry with a lab and a couple days work considering my abilities. A few upgrades here or there is probably worth billions, so yeah, how much do you need?”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Kara asked.
“Extremely. One of my abilities is the ability to... evolve common technology which is great and all, but I’m not actually an engineer which means I’m going to need people to help reverse engineer my improved versions. Just imagine a world where everyone has effective and cheap power because we came up with amazing solar panels and insanely effective batteries that are cheap, durable and long lasting or filters that clean the water cheaply and near perfectly or a thousand other things we could revolutionize.”
“You’re not worried about overwhelming humanity with technology are you?” Karen asked.
“I’m a lot more worried about a hostile alien empire trying to take over Earth than I am improving solar panels and batteries. Superman and the League are great, but they can’t be everywhere. Besides, do you know how much we could auction trips into space for?”
“I imagine a decent amount,” Karen said, knowing a number of her classmates would have loved to go into space.
“I don’t have my degree yet but I was studying science on Krypton,” Kara offered, knowing the job would be more interesting than anything Kara Danvers could get for at least a couple of years.
“In that case, welcome aboard,” Myst said as Batman walked into the lounge.
“Welcome aboard?” Batman asked.
Myst smiled at Batman as he realized how to insure Bruce would be onboard with their idea. “We’re planning on starting a tech company, I was planning on drastically boosting a solar panel then having the young ladies help me reverse engineer it so we could license the patent to Waynetech or Luthor corp so we’d have enough money to start working on alien tech.”
“I’m sure Waynetech would be interested and much safer for everyone involved, considering Luthor’s extracurricular activities,” Batman said quickly. He would have felt slightly guilty about steering them toward his company except for the fact that Luthor wasn’t trustworthy and Waynetech could not only offer them a better deal but one that would actually result in the technology being used rather than shelved. The fact that it would keep his shareholders off his back for the foreseeable future was just an added bonus.
“I’ll make sure to start with Waynetech first,” Myst said, barely keeping from laughing when he felt Batman’s relief.
“Another gacha?” Batman asked, looking at the wooden hat box.
“Yeah, it makes green clothes.” Myst reached down and touched a pendant and used 400 mana to increase the variety of clothing choices the box could create from reasonable to excellent then another 400 to improve the craftsmanship of the clothes to what he’d consider professional level. He used the last of the pendant’s mana to boost the quality of material the box could create to the point professional designers would gush over it. He picked up the box and held it out toward Kara. “That should be enough upgrading. Picture something you can wear then reach in and grab it.”
Kara pictured a new swimsuit then lifted the lid and reached into the box.
Clark raised his eyebrows as he walked into the lounge with J’onn and saw his cousin pull a skimpy green swimsuit out of the box that Myst was holding. “Magic swimsuit?”
“Ooh!” Kara exclaimed as she examined the swimsuit she’d grabbed, finding it to be stylish and well made.
Myst set the box back down. “No, magic box. It creates green clothes.”
“Do you mind if we grab a couple of outfits?” Karen asked hopefully, knowing that her wardrobe could use some work.
“Go for it.” Myst handed her the box with a smile then turned to look at J’onn. “Let’s see how far we can boost your mental defenses.”
“Thank you.” J’onn trusted his defenses, but he wasn’t going to refuse the assistance, especially considering the boost to Clark’s mental defenses meant that he could barely sense him unless his friend let him.
“How long do the clothes last?” Superman asked as his cousins started pulling expensive looking clothing from the box, though all in varying hues of green for some reason. He guessed that was a new fashion trend that he was unaware of.
“Until destroyed,” Myst assured him absently as he tried to figure out how to deal with J’onn’s issues as increasing his basic mental defense score didn’t increase his mental defense against fire. “Your mental defense are a bit of a mess.”
“How do you mean?” J’onn asked.
“In general you defense against psionic attacks is excellent, however your mental issues with fire and heat are encoded in your genes. Do you want to be a Red Martian, so we can sidestep the issue, or should I just boost your resistance to fire as much as I can?”
J’onn shook his head. “I am happy being as I am, however any help with my race’s notable weakness would be appreciated.”
“I can work with that,” Myst agreed as he reached over and picked up another one of the pendants. He used the pendant’s mana to push J’onn’s mental resistance to fire as far as he could go for his species, which sadly wasn’t all that far. ‘Yeah, those little blue fuckers have a lot to answer for.’ He spent the rest of the pendant’s mana boosting J’onn’s mental resistance to fire past his racial limits then grabbed the next pendant and emptied it as well, finally getting J’onn’s resistance up to what it should have been had he not been a martian. “I’m not going to say this is a waste of mana, but this is annoying.”
“What’s wrong?” Batman asked.
“Things get harder when I’m trying to boost people past their species cap and the cap on his mental fire resistance was pretty damned low,” Myst explained as he set the empty pendant down then grabbed the next one. He spent another 100 mana then grinned when he saw the option appear to buy off J’onn’s mental issues with fire altogether. ‘A thousand mana to remove the mental issues related to fire and let me buy everything up naturally, yeah, let’s go with that.’ He spent the mana then dumped the rest of the pendant’s mana into J’onn’s mental defenses, trying not to grumble at the extra cost. “We’re almost there.”
“I’m sorry that you’re having to expend additional resources to help me,” J’onn offered.
“It’s not your fault, it’s just a lot more expensive than I was expecting,” Myst explained as he grabbed another pendant and spent all of the mana to push J’onn’s mental defenses to the point where he could buy the percentage chance to be completely immune to mental attacks. “Done, you’re up with the Kryptonians and Hal on all of your mental defenses, including fire.”
“Thank you. Are you going to boost M’gann as well?” J’onn asked.
“Of course, she’s my teammate. She’s next on my list after Batman then I’m going to talk to Cyborg about using his lab to upgrade the solar panels,” he turned to look at Batman, “unless there is someone else I need to upgrade?”
Batman shook his head. “Captain Atom, Stewart, and Captain Marvel should be here at lunch to get upgraded which takes care of most of the heavy hitters.”
“Good,” Myst said as he picked up another pendant so he could upgrade Batman’s mental defenses, actually a bit afraid of what he might see. ‘His paranoia better not be infective… or has it got to me already?!’
Comments
Chichi son
“Ooh!” Kara exclaimed as she examined the swimsuit she’d grabbed, finding to be stylish and well made. finding it to be
Mist of Shadows
Sounds about right, he was a touch too sane for them and was actually concerned with the people working for them.
Patrick Sandhop
Perils of immortality, I suppose. A few are pretty good at being more in the moment like Ganthet or the Old Timer before they decided he had to go all megalomaniacal in the Mosaic storyline. Come to think of it, didn't they recently kick out Ganthet and that female Guardian he was paired up with?
Mist of Shadows
That's basically it, they're really large picture without looking at the small stuff or not so small stuff with the Manhunter stuff... or Vega...
Patrick Sandhop
Yeah, let's avoid that whole Fernus incident. Man, the Guardians have some real major fowl-ups in their history; the Manhunters, the Alpha Lanterns, their tight-fisted grip on potentially useful information like why Vega was restricted access, just what the new laws in the Book of Oa were, a general inability to grasp the psychology of their Green Lanterns. Like a race of cosmic Dumbledores at times.
