Mist of Shadows
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Myst in DC Part 6
🕑 Added 2019-07-22 16:49:20 +0000 UTCMyst blinked in surprise as he walked into the kitchen with Starfire and noticed Dinah in a large flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up cooking breakfast. His gaze jumped to her pink panty clad behind as she reached up and grabbed the pepper off the shelf. ‘Am I still dreaming, this feels like a dream, except for the fact that I’ve been awake for a while and the omelet smells delicious. Right, not a dream.’
Artemis smiled at Myst and Starfire. “What are you working on today?”
“Friend Myst is going to make artifacts of a mystical nature!” Starfire said happily as she walked over to grab a bowl of cereal.
Myst pulled his attention off Dinah’s behind when her shirt dropped back down to cover her butt and turned to look at Artemis, noting the fact that she was wearing gym shorts and a blue t-shirt without a bra. “I picked up some useful magical items from my gacha ability and figured I’d try to replicate them if I can find some basic supplies.”
“Nice. If you need anyone to help you test them, I’m available,” Artemis assured Myst with a wink.
“Sounds good,” Myst agreed, happy to have people enthusiastic about his gear.
“What do you need in terms of supplies?” Dinah asked as she sprinkled a touch of pepper on the omelet she was making.
“Maybe a couple of dozen bouncy balls, some plastic headbands, half a dozen cheap lockets, and glitter.”
“Glitter?” Dinah asked in disbelief as she turned to look at Myst. “What’s with the bouncy ball and tiara?”
“I need the glitter for the magical girl lockets and the bouncy ball is actually a magical spy drone.” He was reasonably sure that glitter would work, if not he’d have to use crushed gemstone or something more valuable.
“You have a stealthed drone?” Artemis asked excitedly.
Myst shrugged. “It doesn’t have the ability to record what it sees but yeah, basically.”
Dinah shook her head as she realized that he wasn’t actually joking. “We’ll get back to the magical girl thing in a minute, how does the drone work?”
Myst grinned as he took the tiara off which caused the floating ball to fall to the floor, bouncing back into the air. “The tiara lets you mentally control the ball.” He tossed the tiara to Dinah. “Give it a spin.”
Dinah put the tiara on her head then blinked as she took control of the ball and she realized she could see out of the bouncing ball. She blinked as the ball stopped then turned to look at Artemis. “That’s better than looking at a small display screen. What’s the range?”
“Judging by my upgrade ability, about a mile. The duplicates will probably be around a tenth of that unless I boost them.”
“That’s still extremely useful. I imagine-” she cut off as Batman walked into the kitchen carrying a pink pillow. “How are you feeling?”
“Alive and remarkably pain free,” Batman paused as he noticed the plastic tiara Dinah was wearing then glanced at the floating bouncy ball. “New look?”
“And people say you don’t have a sense of humor,” Dinah replied dryly as she turned around and slid her omelet on her plate then turned off the burner. “It’s basically a magical spy drone without a recording feature,” she explained as she walked over to the table and sat down.
“How does it work?” Batman asked, hoping they could replace the tiara with a simple circlet or anything less obvious and unprofessional looking than a plastic tiara that appeared to be from a Pretty Princess Playset.
“Magic,” Starfire offered.
Dinah took the tiara off and tossed it to Batman which caused the ball to drop out of the air and bounce. “Here, take a look.”
Batman’s lips twitched, curling into what might be mistaken as a smile when put the tiara on and took control of the bouncing ball. “The visual acuity is excellent.”
“I’m a fan.” Myst watched the ball spin around then move around in a variety of directions as Dinah started eating her omelet. “Having fun?”
‘Yes,’ Batman thought, but didn’t say aloud, as he sent the floating ball zooming out of the kitchen and down the hall faster than he could run. “How long will it take to duplicate the drone?”
Myst grinned as he could feel Batman’s interest in the drone. “I should be able to make an attempt to duplicate the drone as soon as I pick up some supplies from a toy store or possibly a craft store.”
“How much per drone?” Artemis asked, hoping that they weren’t too far out of her price range as they seemed useful.
Myst turned to look at Artemis. “It depends on how much the supplies run and how long it takes me to enchant the eyes and tiara. I’m guessing anywhere from five to twenty dollars.”
“That’s much less expensive than I was expecting,” Batman admitted as he set the pillow on the table.
“It’s just a ballpark,” Myst admitted as he picked up the pillow and stuck it in his inventory.
“What about the magical girl items?” Dinah asked after swallowing her bite of omelet.
Myst shook his head. “If I can get away with a toy locket and glitter, cheap. If I need gem dust and a real silver locket, a bit more. Thankfully we’re unlikely to be replacing them as often.”
Batman frowned slightly as the drone entered the gym and he saw a green haired girl in a strange costume jumping off one of the walls. “Is there a reason we have an unknown green haired young lady in the gym jumping off walls?”
“Pink skirt and a witch’s hat?” Starfire asked with amusement.
“Yes,” Batman replied as Robin turned and waved at the drone.
Myst laughed. “That would be Beast Boy. He agreed to help me test the magical gear that comes with the transformation. Basically, increased jumping and lifting capacity along with the ability to learn how to conjure a flying broom.”
“How much of a boost?” Batman asked.
“The boots increase your maximum jump height for a standing jump by thirty four inches and your safe fall distance by sixty four inches. I should be able to boost the jump and fall distance to something more impressive without too much trouble. The skirt boosts your carrying capacity by sixty nine pounds which is a decent boost if you’re trying to haul someone to safety.”
Batman glanced over at Dinah. “What do you think?”
Dinah smiled at Batman. “I think a number of people in the League would be interested in upgrading their costumes, I know I am. Being able to safely fall an extra five to ten feet would help avoid injuries.”
Myst said, “I’m going to need someone like Connor or Megan to test things, but I’m currently assuming that you have to actually land on your feet for the decreased impact effect to come into play.”
“That’s still a decent boost.” Dinah had lost count of the number of times she’d been limping on patrol in the morning because she’d jumped just a little bit too far without rolling with the impact because she hadn’t had room or time the night before.
“Every little bit helps,” Myst agreed as he opened his gacha menu and looked at the various wheels. “Might as well check my gacha menu. Fictional Toys for 100, Failed Toys for 50, Rare Books for 1,000, Clothing for 200, Costumes for 100, and Belts for 500.”
“Five hundred for belts should be something good,” Starfire said excitedly, as she looked at the prize wheel that was floating in the air in front of her friend.
“Fictional toys?” Batman asked, not sure what to make of Myst’s ability. He was going to need to get Giovani or Kent to stop by to see if his ability was pulling items from other universes.
“No idea.” Myst selected the fictional toys wheel. “Probably something like X-ray glasses or rocket boots, something that shouldn’t work but does.”
“At least there isn’t any theme music,” Artemis snarked with amusement as she watched the wheel spin.
“That would be worse.” Myst caught the pair of blue tinted glass sunglasses that dropped when the wheel vanished.
“X-ray glasses?” Artemis asked hopefully.
Myst glanced at Dinah then selected the Failed Toys wheel so that it would be spinning while he looked at the glasses with his upgrade ability. “Cat’s eye shades, they protect your eyes from bright light and let you see in low light conditions.”
“You got that from a fictional toy wheel?” Artemis asked doubtfully.
“Tech or magic?” Dinah asked as she held out her hand for the glasses.
“Magic,” Myst replied as he handed Dinah the glasses. He walked over to the lights and flipped them off, plunging the kitchen into darkness save what came in from the hallway.
Dinah put the sunglasses on then grinned as she looked around. “It’s like I’m looking through a film with a hint of blue where the deepest shadows are, but I can still perceive color.”
“I guess we know why they’re fictional,” Batman offered as he watched the glowing wheel vanish dropping what looked like a remote controller. “A remote?”
Myst turned to look as he heard a faint sound several feet to his right like plastic hitting the ground. “Did you hear that?” he asked as he flipped the light back on.
Batman walked over and carefully swept his boot through the air where he’d heard the noise then frowned when he felt something. He reached down and picked up the invisible object that he’d felt with his foot. He ran his fingers over the object trying to get a sense of the object’s dimensions. “It feels like a plastic jet.”
“Someone made an invisible remote control jet?” Artemis asked in disbelief.
Myst turned the remote on then frowned as the light didn’t turn on. He moved the controls then pushed a couple buttons in case the light was burned out. He opened the back of the remote and scowled as he looked at the empty battery compartment. “Yeah, batteries not included.”
“Check the battery compartment.” Batman handed the toy jet to Dinah, keeping track of Beast Boy and Robin’s tests. ‘The drone needs a speaker and microphone, shouldn’t be that difficult to have Cyborg wire something up.’
Dinah felt the bottom of the jet then opened the compartment, unsurprised when the compartment opened proving that it didn’t actually have any batteries. “No batteries.”
“Even if it had batteries, how would they power a jet?” Artemis asked fairly sure a remote that made a couple of lights activate was pretty pointless.
“I’m guessing they wouldn’t,” Myst replied as he studied the upgrade options for the jet, seeing nothing related to flight other than gliding time. “On the upgrade, I can probably move the invisibility effect to the spy drone which would make it far more effective.”
Batman said, “Make a list and we’ll have someone that can pass as normal pick up the supplies.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Dinah offered. “I need to hit the mall anyway to pick up some clothes for Myst.”
“That reminds me, I should try the clothing wheel,” Myst mused as he selected the clothing wheel.
Artemis looked at Batman. “Any luck finding The Hatter?”
Batman scowled as he was reminded about his failure to capture Jarvis before Deadshot found him. “The forensic techs are still running tests but someone burned a hole through his forehead and left his body with the police. I’m assuming that Deadshot caught up with him and was less than pleased about being mind controlled.”
“Are we going after Deadshot?” Starfire asked, feeling slightly guilty about letting him go now that she knew who the man was.
Batman shook his head. “No, he is exceptionally good at staying under the radar and he has most likely already left Gotham. Besides, he is exceptionally dangerous and doesn’t make a habit of shooting at heroes, I’d like to keep it that way.”
“So that’s...” Artemis trailed off as the prize wheel in front of Myst stopped spinning and a long length of pink velvet cloth appeared. “What is that?”
Myst tried not to wince as he unfolded the bright pink hooded cloak. “A really nicely made cloak in a very unfortunate color.”
“I like it!” Starfire exclaimed excitedly as Zatanna and Raven walked in.
“Pink?” Raven asked with a shiver.
Zatanna snickered as she looked at Myst’s expression. “Let me guess, your gacha was being evil?”
“Nah, just random,” Myst replied as he looked at the abilities the cloak granted the wearer.
“Anything good enough to justify using that pink monstrosity?” Raven asked doubtfully.
“It boosts health and mana regeneration enough that I’ll probably be using it for training even if I can’t change the color.” Myst was really hoping that changing the color would be as easy as moving the color from something else.
“Health regeneration? Are we talking bruises or bullets?” Dinah asked, curious if she was going to have to start wearing a cloak.
Myst looked at Dinah with his upgrade ability. “Judging by how much health you have, you’d go from almost dead to fully healed in a little more than an hour with just the regeneration that’s currently on the cloak, and I should be able to boost it without too much trouble.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll look good in pink,” Starfire said cheerfully.
“We should be able to change the color,” Myst assured her as he grabbed the Belt wheel for 500 then put the cloak on for the extra mana regeneration.
“How much does that boost your mana regeneration?” Zatanna blinked as she glanced between Artemis and Dinah, finally noticing what Dinah was wearing, or rather not wearing when she got up to put her dish in the sink. ‘Since when did she start wearing a flannel shirt and panties around the base?’
Myst smirked as he looked at his upgrade options. “It’s currently sixty eight mana a minute, so six mana a minute from the cloak or one every ten seconds. I should be able to improve the cloak up to one mana a second at the cheaper rate.”
“Which means that you’ll be up to two mana a second if you wear the cloak?” Raven asked, looking forward to improving her own cloak after Myst figured out how to duplicate the enchantment.
“In theory,” Myst agreed as the Belt wheel stopped spinning and a gold belt that resembled Raven’s belt appeared in his hand.
“Why did you get a copy of my belt?” Raven asked as she stared at the belt that looked identical to her own other than the magic she could sense from it.
“No clue,” Myst replied as he focused on the belt with his upgrade ability. “Interesting and sort of scary at the same time.”
“Scary?” Batman asked in concern as Beast Boy and Robin left the gym.
Myst frowned slightly when he noticed the increased loyalty quality that would be added to every child. ‘Yeah, that’s probably a deal breaker for most of the heroes. At least the children would be loyal to me rather than whoever sticks the belt on the girl.’ He quickly looked through the rest of the qualities that he could upgrade, not sure what to think of the strange belt. “It shortens pregnancy by two months and increases the compatibility of species while increasing the chance for a healthy child by 23%.”
“So you’re saying a Kryptonian or a Martian could use it to get a human pregnant?” Artemis asked.
“Or a Kryptonian hybrid a Martian,” Myst said, thinking about Connor and Megan.
“How is that scary?” Dinah asked.
“Beyond the fact that the resulting child should be able to breed with either of their parents species and would likely have both sets of metahuman or alien powers that their parents have? It also scans the parents’ knowledge and gives the child a basic middle school or low high school level of education, which is good because the child will age a year a day for the first two weeks of their life.”
“Meaning someone could use it to create an army of girl scouts?” Zatanna asked, slightly amused by the idea and slightly horrified at the same time as there were plenty of metahuman villains that would probably use the children as cannon fodder.
“Pretty much,” Myst agreed as he stuck the belt in his inventory. “Which is why it’s going in my inventory.”
“Probably for the best,” Dinah agreed.
Robin blinked as he walked into the kitchen and saw Dinah’s state of dress. ‘What the hell? First the locker room was altered and now there’s uncharacteristic behavior among our sponsors.’ He pulled his attention off Dinah’s bare legs and focused on Batman. “Do we have a mission?”
Batman glanced between Robin and Beast Boy then focused on Robin. “Not yet, though we are getting disturbing rumors coming out of Bialya, so you might get sent over there in the next couple days if we find enough evidence to justify it. For now, I want you to help Myst compile a list of what he needs to recreate the flying drone and the magical transformation locket then pick it up from the store.”
Artemis frowned slightly as she studied Beast Boy’s perfect breasts. ‘Great, he’s got a better rack than I do. I’ll have to test that.’
‘How come he doesn’t have to wear a shirt?’ Starfire thought as she glanced between Dinah and Beast Boy, not sure why no one was complaining about his state of dress when she’d been told that she had to wear clothing at all times when not in her bedchamber due to Earth customs.
“What about the rest of us?” Beast Boy asked.
“I suggest getting familiar with the drone and taking the time to write up a report on the mission in Gotham,” Batman ordered as he reached out and grabbed the flying drone. “I’ll contact the team if something comes up.” He took the tiara off then set it and the ball on the table.
“You can count on us.” Robin turned to look at Myst as Batman left the room. “Myst, Zatanna, let’s go make a list.”
“Sure, let me grab the invisible jet and the drone,” Myst said as he walked over and collected them.
“Best of luck, I’ll find you after grab something to eat,” Raven said as she walked over to the cupboard to grab some cereal.
“Sounds good,” Zatanna agreed as her and Myst followed Robin out of the room.
Myst frowned slightly as he realized he could almost cut the tension and worry coming off Robin with a knife. He waited until they got to a conference room and Robin shut and locked the door behind them before he asked, “What’s wrong, you’re acting weird.”
“How many locker rooms does the gym have?” Robin asked as he turned to face his teammates.
“No idea, Artemis mentioned something about showers during the tour but I didn’t check, why?” Myst asked, not sure how the locker rooms related to what was freaking Robin out.
“Two, what’s up?” Zatanna asked, curious why Robin was asking about the locker rooms when he’d been there longer than she had.
Robin shook his head. “Apparently not, the showers are co-ed and have been for a while.”
“Did you hit your head?” Zatanna asked as she studied his face.
Robin shook his head. “Not that I know of.”
Myst frowned as he realized he couldn’t detect any deceit from Robin. “I think he’s serious.”
“I was doing some early morning training since I’d missed training yesterday on account of the mission the night before and everything that happened yesterday. The separate locker rooms are gone, we simply have one that’s twice as large.”
“Seriously?” Zatanna asked, wondering if Kid Flash had put him up to this.
“There are a bunch of shower stalls and pool style showers. Our names are on our lockers, lined up in the order we joined the team, including the girls.”
“They expect us to share a shower room with Beast Boy and Kid Flash?” Zatanna asked in disbelief.
“Apparently,” Robin admitted, rather amused that Zatanna hadn’t included him, Myst or Connor in her objections. “Also, did you notice Dinah’s clothes or rather lack of clothes this morning?”
“She’s normally more professional,” Zatanna agreed. “Did you notice anything else off?”
“Not really, but I’ve only been on the team a day and a half,” Myst pointed out.
“You mean beyond Artemis not saying anything about Beast Boy’s lack of shirt or walking around without a bra?” Robin asked dryly.
“Yeah, beyond that,” Zatanna replied.
“There was that mostly naked girl who kinda saved… robbed that convenience store on the trip home that no one seemed all that concerned about,” Myst mused. “I just figured it was a power thing.”
Zatanna shrugged. “It might be or we might be in the wrong dimension. I used the gym showers three days ago and there was most certainly a girl’s locker room, which means that we’re either in the wrong dimension or something seriously weird is going on, considering we would definitely have noticed a construction crew altering the locker rooms.”
Robin snorted. “Even if we missed the construction, Kid Flash would have been talking about it. We both remember using the correct locker rooms three days ago, which means the change had to have happened in the last couple of days.”
“We can probably rule out the trip to the beach or Gotham which means we can probably blame things on our trip to the Tower of Fate,” Zatanna said thoughtfully.
“How do we fix this?” Robin asked.
Myst shook his head. “We need to figure out what changed before we worry about fixing it. If we accidentally ended up in the wrong world then we probably need to figure out how to get back. If the entire world got a little more open while we were in Fate’s Tower we can probably live with it.”
“Live with it?” Robin asked in disbelief.
“If Klarion’s death triggered a global spell, we might be able to break it. If it was a once and done spell that nudged the world, I can’t fix it because there isn’t anything to fix. No point in borrowing trouble, we’ll just ask Beast Boy, Raven, and Starfire how many locker rooms there are.”
“It might have been time travel,” Zatanna suggested. “Someone could have changed the past.”
Myst shook his head, not wanting to go down that particular rabbit hole. “Unlikely but the Tower of Fate is in an alternate dimension so we could have been shielded from the changes.”
Robin scowled as he thought about people messing with time. “We’ll have to go back and fix it.”
“You’re assuming we could find a time machine and track them down to a point just after they arrived and prevented whatever subtle changes they introduced. I don’t know enough about your world to even guess what they could have changed and you don’t have a photographic memory, which means you can’t either.”
“We’re heroes, we’re supposed to fix things,” Robin complained.
“It might not be something we can fix, it could just be reality balancing itself to the sudden absence of a chaos lord, which means things may need to adjust themselves by… easing up on social tensions, to keep the world from wobbling out of control,” Myst lied, figuring Robin needed something to cling to.
“This… is not something I ever expected to deal with,” Robin said, trying to wrap his head around the concept.
“If we hadn’t been inside the tower of Fate at the time we probably wouldn’t even have noticed, just like we haven’t noticed any of the other adjustments,” Zatanna suggested.
“Other adjustments?” Robin asked, freezing in place.
“Reality is always in flux,” Zatanna replied with a shrug, “It’s usually just small things like the Berenstain Bears.”
“You mean the Bernstein Bears?” Robin asked.
“Sure, now,” Zantanna replied.
“Let’s see how deep the rabbit hole goes before we decide we have to climb into it,” Myst said, hoping it was a side effect of Klarion’s death and not time travel.
“In that case, let’s work on the list,” Robin said, happy that he had something constructive to focus on. “I’ll check out the local print media, we can look through it when I get back. You two check the cable.”
“Works for me,” Zatanna agreed, knowing that her father was busy in Vegas for the rest of the weekend, so she had plenty of time before she could consult with him anyway.
Comments
Mist of Shadows
Thanks and yeah, Batman and Dinah are a touch off. Poor pillow, getting blamed for things... interesting theory and yes, the plot is stirring such as it is.
Patrick Sandhop
Ooh, nice use of the Mandela Effect there. One observation I noticed is that both Dinah and Bruce are now slightly off and they did sleep on the pillow. Myst may well be spreading low levels of chaos magic since he did puree a Lord of Chaos, however impermanent that may prove to be. Regardless, looks like plot is stirring.
