Mist of Shadows
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Taylor Hebert Dungeon Girl Part 16
🕑 Added 2018-07-03 04:40:14 +0000 UTCVictoria glanced around the large empty automotive garage as she set the stack of clothes on a table. “Why is it so clean?”
“I hired some dockworkers to come through with paint and a mop,” Taylor replied. “You can’t get better service,” she said loyally.
“How much would it cost to clean out my closet?” Victoria asked jokingly.
Amy snorted. “I’ve seen your closet, I don’t think you have enough.”
“It’s not that bad,” Victoria replied halfheartedly.
“I think I heard something growl in the back of your closet once,” Amy said, not entirely joking.
Victoria turned to look at Taylor, ignoring her sister. “So, how does this work?”
“I picture Arcadia and then I open the door to the storage room. If everything goes well, we’ll have a decent dungeon to explore.”
“If it doesn’t?”
“Then I shut the door and try again,” Taylor replied absently as she focused on what she knew about Arcadia.
“If you can do ones based on location there is that club one of Mom’s friends had their bachelorette party at…” Victoria teased.
Amy sighed. “A strip club? Really, Vicky?”
“Strip club… dance club, place with a good sound system and decent booze….” She hovered in place rubbing her hands together.
Taylor opened the door and blinked when she saw the film was green. “That’s weird.”
“Weird?” Kevin asked.
“My forge and shop are green, for the school to be green, I’m guessing it’s not a combat zone by default,” Taylor explained.
“In other words, don’t attack anyone unless they attack us.” Victoria flew into the dungeon.
Amy followed her sister into the dungeon and glanced around.
“We might as well take a look.” Randal stepped into the dungeon based on an extremely nice high end school. “I half expect to find a massage room and sauna in this place.”
“I’m pretty sure they don’t have a...” Amy trailed off as she noticed a sign that read ‘Physical Therapy and Massage.’ She sighed. “Right, I don’t remember that from our version.”
Taylor followed Kevin into the dungeon. “So, where first?”
“I was thinking physical therapy and massage or we could look at the map.” Amy pointed at the map near the principal’s office.
“It looks better than ours…” Victoria trailed off as she saw Clockblocker dragging a half dressed teenage guy in a large dog catcher’s net walk around the corner toward them. She stared as she noticed that his costume didn’t actually have clocks on it, it had a bunch of roosters with red circles and slashes through them. She frowned as she noticed the hall monitor sash around his waist and his mirrored sunglasses over his facemask. “What the hell?”
“Roosters?” Amy asked in confusion.
"Male chickens…” Kevin started laughing. “Cockblocker.”
“We know where your mind is,” Amy pointed out sarcastically.
“I’m blaming your sister,” Taylor said as the ‘possible’ hero dragged the guy into the principal’s office.
“Well, that happened,” Randal said.
“Now I really have to see the massage room,” Victoria said, floating towards the door.
“Might as well,” Taylor agreed as the group followed Victoria into a well furnished room with massage tables. She blinked as she saw another version of Amy dressed in gothic lolita attire drinking tea while Victoria’s alternate was sitting on one of the tables dressed in a white, string bikini and wearing a Miss America sash, while twirling a scepter in her hands to go with her ever present tiara.
“Here for a massage?” the Gothic Panacea asked hopefully, a bright smile on her lips that Amy was sure had rarely graced her own.
Amy blinked in shock. “Wha?”
“Massage, you know, you strip, get on my table I use my hands and fingers to remove your tension.” She wiggled her fingers playfully.
“Strip?” Victoria asked in surprise.
“Clothes just get in the way,” the Gothic Panacea pointed out with amusement. “Not to mention how would I collect my fee if you were dressed?”
“Fee?” Victoria asked warily.
“Well it’s only fair that if I remove your tension you remove mine as well…” the Gothic Panacea explained with a sultry grin, as she undressed Victoria with her eyes.
Randal turned to Kevin and urgently whispered, “Back away. Move slowly and quietly towards the door.”
“But… but,” Kevin whined.
“I know,” Randal agreed, “however we are outnumbered and outgunned.”
“Point,” Kevin said, his feet slowly shuffling towards the door without turning around.
Victoria looked at her doppelganger. “So, do you give massages?”
Pageant Victoria smirked. “I had some tension and Cockblocker had already given Dean two strikes today, so I asked my sister to lend a hand.”
Victoria shook her head. “How do you pay her?”
“Same way everyone else does,” she replied, “by doing whatever is necessary to keep that smile on her face.”
Victoria froze her eyes staring at nothing for several seconds while a beeping noise started getting more and more urgent by the second.
Panacea whipped out her phone and checked the messages. “Shit, we have a six car pile up I have to deal with. I need a portal to Brockton Bay General hospital stat!”
Taylor gestured and opened a portal to the balcony so that Panacea could help. “Here.”
Panacea and her Gothic Doppelganger both vanished through the portal and into the hospital at a run, leaving everyone else to stare after them.
“Did she…” Victoria asked, turning to the group only to find Taylor the only one there.
“Jump through the portal? Yeah…” Taylor trailed off not quite sure how to process her dungeon dwellers being able to leave the dungeon.
“I’m going to make sure nothing gets heated at the hospital.” Victoria flew through the portal.
The Pageant Victoria sighed. “I guess it’s time for class anyways.”
Taylor opened the door. “Guys, Amy had to run to the hospital, so I opened a portal… her doggelganger followed her through.”
Randal opened his mouth then closed it then opened it. “What?”
Kevin stared at Taylor. “I’ll second that, that sounds like you said someone from the dungeon left the dungeon. Is this anything like Star Trek and Moriarty?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said, they both left to help,” Taylor replied as she tried to figure out what they were going to do. “And no… while they might share some of the same tastes in fashion, this Hologram is more perverted than evil.”
Randal nodded. “Which means we have to go keep an eye on her, since we are responsible. Well when I say ‘we’ I mean ‘you,” he said with a bit of humor in his voice.
“Thanks,” Taylor said dryly but appreciating the effort. “Yeah, lets go. I’ll have to shut this dungeon down. We can try it again later.” She headed for the entrance to the dungeon. “I’ll shut the dungeon down then open the hoverboard dungeon so you can set up your video while I’m at the hospital helping as Alchemist.”
“You should probably stay as Neverland and use your healing spell, considering Victoria doesn’t know you’re Alchemist and this is a good chance to get her recognized as a healer,” Kevin pointed out as him and Randal followed her out.
“Point,” Taylor agreed as she closed the dungeon. “Best of luck with the video, if you need me, I’ll be at the hospital.” She opened the hoverboard dungeon in the storeroom doorway and then opened a portal to the hospital in the middle of the room so that she could keep track of the Gothic Panacea.
0o0o0
Panacea frowned slightly as she double checked her doppleganger’s work on the unconscious crash victim. “Is there a reason you moved a couple of inches from her stomach to her butt and breasts?”
The Gothic Panacea shrugged. “If you look good, you feel good. Besides, I was already fixing some scarring. She gave permission before she passed out from the drugs, if she complains when she wakes up, I’ll put it back.”
“I doubt she’ll complain but…” Panacea trailed off as one of the doctors approached looking confused.
“Did someone split you into good and evil versions?” the doctor asked, only half joking.
“Dibs on being the evil one!” Gothic Panacea called out with a grin.
Panacea sighed. “No, I’m still me, whole, hale, and hearty. I just… picked up another me somewhere. Please don’t ask, it’s cape business and I haven't had time to come up with any lies yet to explain it.”
“Dimensional Analogue,” Gothic Panacea offered. “I simply got on the wrong bus.”
“That works,” the doctor agreed, not sure what the truth was but not really caring either especially if it meant that Panacea had help. “Thanks, I really needed to put something in my records for all of this other than ‘No idea.”
A nurse hustled in with Neverland. “Do we need…” she trailed off as she noticed everyone in the emergency room was already healed. “That was quicker than I was expecting.”
“Two Panaceas, no waiting,” Gothic Panacea replied as she finished giving one of the nurses a tuneup. “Any other issues while we’re here?”
“I’m good,” the nurse replied with a wink then hurried on her way as she didn’t want to be yelled at for wasting Panacea’s time even if there were two of them for some reason.
Taylor stared at the Gothic Panacea, rather surprised to see her still existing, considering she’d closed the dungeon and the portal.
The doctor glanced at Panacea then back at the version of her in a black dress. “I’ll get a list of the most critical.”
Gothic Panacea looked at Panacea. “Screw the list, let’s just empty the place.”
Panacea found herself nodding, her alternate’s enthusiasm infecting her. Why couldn’t they just empty the entire hospital in one go? No triage, just go room to room and see what they could do. “Okay, let’s try.”
“Great, this way.” The doctor grinned as he turned and headed toward the elevator.
“Let’s go.” Taylor doubted her healing spell would be all that useful compared to Panacea’s power but this was probably a decent chance to get it ‘certified’ and get some practice in a controlled setting, if nothing else, she could at least provide some security if things went weird...er.
Gothic Panacea grinned as she looked at Panacea. “Race you?”
“You’re on,” Panacea replied, wanting to enjoy healing for once and put off thinking about what Carol was going to say when someone mentioned her doppleganger.
0o0o0
“You’d think there would be more action on a Friday night,” Dennis complained as he looked through the various PHO threads.
Dean kept his eyes on the monitor he was supposed to be watching. “I’m sure things will pick up.”
“Probably…” Dennis trailed off as he noticed a new thread in the Brockton Bay section that looked sort of interesting. “New healer in town?” He clicked on the link then stared at the image at the top of the thread. “Does Amy have a twin?”
“Not that I know of, why?” Dean asked absently as he watched the monitor.
“Because someone posted a picture of her with another girl that looks exactly like her, other than the black gothic dress or the fact that Amy herself usually doesn’t wear leather armor.” Dennis held up his tablet so Dean could see the picture of Amy and her possible evil twin.
“Armor?” Dean asked as he turned and looked at the tablet. “Nice looking leather armor. Huh, if it wasn’t for the kid holding both their hands and the general strangeness, I’d say it was photoshopped.”
“So that’s a no for an evil twin?” Dennis asked as he scanned the post talking about Panacea and the Gothic version clearing the entire hospital and posing for pictures with some of the grateful patients. “Sounds like the duplicate has Amy’s powers.”
“I’ll call Vicky,” Dean replied as he grabbed his phone off the table and called Vicky, curious if she knew what was going on.
Victoria tried to ignore her sister’s doppelganger flirting with her sister as she answered her phone. “Hey Dean.”
“Hey Vicky, have you heard anything about your sister having a twin?” Dean asked as he turned back to look at the monitor.
“Yeah, she’s a horrible flirt,” Victoria replied as she watched the doppelganger lick her ice cream cone suggestively out of the corner of her vision much to her sister’s embarrassment.
“Why didn’t she ever mention having a twin?” Dean asked in surprise.
Victoria had to resist the urge to snicker. “It’s a cape thing, more than that you’ll have to ask Amy.”
“A cape thing?” Dean asked with confusion.
“Yep, a cape thing,” Victoria agreed with amusement, deciding that using that for ‘I haven’t thought up a suitable lie’ was going to be her new catch phrase.
“Are you in public?”
Victoria glanced around the ice cream shop. “Yeah, we’re getting ice cream.”
“Ice cream?” Dean asked, trying to figure out why they were getting ice cream in January.
“They needed the sugar.”
“It also tastes good.” Gothic Panacea leered at Amy.
Amy blushed, wondering why she had such a perverted duplicate and whether to blame herself or if she could get away with blaming Taylor… who was enjoying this way too much. ‘Yep, Taylor’s fault,’ she decided.
“Right, call me later?” Dean asked, wondering what was going on but getting the idea there were things Vicky couldn’t talk about in a public setting.
“Sure, no problem, love you,” Vicky replied with amusement then ended the call.
Dean sighed as he set his phone on the table. “Yeah, that was clear as mud. At least we know she’s aware of it.”
“Good to know.” Dennis snickered as he read Void Cowboy’s theory about Panacea being duplicated by Blasto. “I should probably add a couple theories for why we have two Panaceas running around before all of the ‘good’ guesses are taken.”
Dean shook his head. “Your funeral.”
“Don’t worry, I’m fairly sure Amy doesn’t know about at least one of my screen names,” Dennis replied with amusement as he started working on typing up his various ‘guesses’ about the new healer.
“Probably for the best,” Dean agreed.
0o0o0
Kevin scowled as he watched Randal work his ‘magic’ with the editing software on his laptop. “This isn’t going to work.”
“What do you mean?” Randal asked absently as he spliced two of the clips together from the race with the dungeon Kid Win. “It looks fine.”
“That’s the problem.”
Randal turned to look at Kevin. “How is that a problem?”
“There aren’t enough explosions,” Kevin complained.
“You’re complaining because our gear didn’t explode?” Randal asked with amusement as he took a step back from the tool cabinet they were using as a desk.
Kevin shook his head. “Okay, when you put it like that, it does seem a bit silly, doesn’t it?”
“Just a bit,” Kevin admitted as a town portal opened against the wall near the front door. “Looks like they’re back.”
Randal smiled as Taylor, Amy, Victoria and the other Amy walked through the portal. “Welcome back, did you get everything sorted?”
“Amy is a rockstar,” Gothic Panacea pointed out as she walked over and handed the guys their ice cream and plastic spoons. “We even had time to grab ice cream.”
“Can we keep her?” Kevin asked half jokingly as he opened the container of chocolate ice cream.
“I’ll keep that in mind if I can’t stay in Amy’s closet.” Gothic Panacea grinned at Amy.
“I’m fairly sure Vicky’s closet is larger,” Amy pointed out as she walked over with the rest of the group, trying not to worry about her family’s reaction to her duplicate.
“Nope, I need my closet,” Victoria complained good naturedly.
Gothic Panacea pouted at Victoria and tried to give her puppy dog eyes while clearly picturing her naked. Victoria drifted behind Taylor.
Taylor glanced at the laptop on the tool cabinet. “Any luck with the video?”
“I’m still putting everything together but we managed to beat Kid Win in a race and get some decent footage,” Randal glanced at Victoria, ”or at least the dungeon version of him.”
“Are you going to post it as Uber and Leet?” Victoria asked.
Kevin shook his head. “I’m not sure we should, half the reason people watch our show is because of the explosions. Not to mention I’d rather not implicate Neverland in any criminal behavior, like helping a couple villains with their show.”
Gothic Panacea glanced at Kevin and Randal’s rather generic ninja costumes they’d pulled over their armor. “So don’t. You were wearing masks, right?”
“Of course, I’d rather not give the PRT solid proof who we are.” He was fairly sure they could have tracked them down if they really cared, despite their precautions but there was no point in giving the PRT their identities on a silver platter.
“How hard would it be to add some tags to the video?”
“Easy, why?” Randal asked warily.
Gothic Panacea smirked. “Because I’ve got an idea.”
“What’s that?” Amy asked warily, as her mind immediately went to the many uses of ice cream and plastic slip and slides before she pushed those thoughts away.
“Uber and Leet are all about video games, right?” Gothic Panacea asked with an evil grin.
Kevin said, “More or less, it helped me keep track of everything I’ve made and we’re geeks, why?”
Gothic Panacea rubbed her hands together. “Excellent. I was thinking one last perfect score then you can retire.”
“Give up our show?” Kevin asked sceptically.
Randal laughed as she gave him an idea. “If I label you Uber and myself as Leet, this could work.”
Kevin looked at Randal like he’d lost his mind. “I’m taller, no one is going to buy that.”
“Of course not, that’s part of the joke, we’ll do everything backwards.”
“What do you mean?” Kevin asked, curious where his friend was going with this.
Randal grinned. “Just think about it, I’m Leet, you’re Uber, nothing explodes, we have one perfect job then we’re caught, which never happens.”
Kevin opened his mouth to object then closed it as he realized his friend had a point, even in the beginning they’d never managed a perfect job though they’d never gotten caught. “Okay, I’ll admit the idea is growing on me, who’s going to catch us?”
Victoria said, “I’d volunteer but Mom would flip.”
Gothic Panacea shook her head. “It would have to be someone whose powers you can duplicate.”
“Armsmaster?” Victoria asked with amusement.
“I don’t think he’d take that particularly well,” Taylor pointed out, trying not to laugh at the entire crazy plan.
“Besides, too much work and he’s enough of a prick I don’t want to give him the credit,” Kevin complained.
Gothic Panacea piped up, “What about Miss Militia?”
Randal considered the logistics of framing Miss Militia for their capture, the costume wouldn’t be that hard, the voice should be doable via recordings, even her weapon swapping to something else wouldn’t be that hard with a bit of editing. “We probably could but we probably shouldn’t. It’s probably enough to end the clip with someone saying, you’re surrounded. That way we can avoid impersonating a federal officer, I hear they take things like that personally.”
“Probably for the best,” Victoria agreed rather glad that he’d been joking about framing a hero even if it was for stopping a crime rather than committing one.
Amy twitched when her phone played her mother’s ringtone. “Shit, time to face the music.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and answered it as she headed for the door. “Carol?”
Carol asked in a far calmer tone of voice than she felt, “Why am I the last person to hear about you having a twin considering I know for a fact that you don’t?”
“Mostly because there was an emergency at the hospital… it’s a bit of a story,” Amy admitted.
Victoria whispered, “That’s putting it mildly.”
“One you can tell us over dinner?” Carol asked in a tone that heavily implied that it wasn’t a request.
Amy glanced at Taylor, half wishing she could bring her friend to toss under the bus but knowing it would be a rather bad idea. “Of course, I’m guessing she’s a changer/trump, we were a little busy with the six car pile up to ask. Vicky and I will be there soon.”
Carol relaxed slightly as Amy hadn’t slipped any codewords into the conversation to let her know she was in danger. “I’m going to need a couple of aspirin, aren’t I?”
“Probably,” Amy admitted as she glanced at her alternate and wondered how they would explain her long term. “I still don’t do brains.”
Gothic Panacea grinned at her alternate, she was curious what this world’s Carol would be like but didn’t want to deal with the drama right now.
“Should I expect a call from the PRT?” Carol asked.
“I don’t see why.” Amy was hoping she had enough time to get their stories straight before she had to get home.
“In that case, I’ll call Sarah.”
“Probably a good idea,” Amy agreed.
“See you when you get here,” Carol said then ended the call before she said something she shouldn’t.
“I’m guessing Mom wants us home?” Victoria asked.
“Yeah, any idea what I should tell my family?” Amy asked as she glanced between Taylor and the guys.
Taylor sighed as she realized there wasn’t a good answer to Amy’s question. “I’d rather you not tell anyone my name or everything about my powers, but some of the details about my powers are probably going to get out eventually.”
Gothic Panacea rolled her eyes. “To hell with that, just go with I showed up, I looked like you, had powers like you and you really wanted to do me.”
“I guess that’s technically true, if misleading,” Amy agreed, before realizing what she’d just agreed with and face palming.
Victoria and Taylor snickered not so quietly in the background.
“That’s probably for the best,” Kevin said as he thought about all of the rules and regulations surrounding the breach to Earth Aleph.
Victoria spoke up, “Either way, we should probably get going.”
“True,” Amy agreed reluctantly.
“I’ve got a spare room you can use,” Randal offered.
“Thanks,” Gothic Panacea replied.
“Don’t worry, things happen, Mom will understand,” Victoria said as they exited the garage.
Amy sighed as she followed her sister out of the warehouse, thinking that the Gothic version of herself might have been on to something with that massage idea as she was way too tense these days.
Randal watched Amy leave then turned to look at Taylor. “Where are we going next?”
Taylor glanced over at the drone they’d stuck out of the way against the wall. “Can I talk you into stealing more feathers?”
“I’d be happy to steal more, assuming they’re worth stealing.”
“Let’s find out,” Taylor opened her crafting menu to the elemental leather page then tossed the hide she’d gotten from the mini boss and his accept. She grinned as she looked at the tooltip for the large roll of elemental leather she got. “Wind and Lightning infused leather, these boots are going to rock!”
“Don’t forget to toss in the sinew and feather,” Kevin needlessly reminded her.
Taylor briefly wondered who or what she’d have to kill to get a ‘magic’ book for social skills then opened her footwear tab and scrolled down until she found the soft old fashioned leather boots she liked. She added the feather from Sephiroth then the elemental leather and sinew from the mini boss. “No worries, I’m also tossing in one of the mana crystals I got from Diablo.”
“Good call,” Randal agreed.
Taylor tossed the magic crystal in then looked at the picture for the boots. She wasn’t a huge fan of the light blue color in the picture but figured she could dye it. “I’m going to have to dye it.”
“How much of the shadow dye do you have?” Kevin asked thinking about the dye they’d gotten off Shadow Stalker.
“Lots, it’s a pretty common when I kill Sophia and killing Sophia is a common event,” Taylor replied.
“So what you’re saying is, killing people is a bit of a hobby?” Gothic Panthea asked concerned as she moved behind Taylor and started gently massaging the tension from her shoulders.
“Sophia isn’t a person,” Taylor corrected as she tossed a vial of shadow dye into the ingredients section. She grinned as the picture of the boots turned midnight black and wisps of darkness started pouring off the boots which looked really neat if rather distinctive. “Okay, I might have to start using the shadow dye.”
“And we are all OK with this?” Gothic Panacea asked carefully.
“Ah, we’re talking about projections, not real people. Taylor has the ability to make fictional dungeons. No actual people were hurt,” Randal pointed out.
“Yeah,” Taylor agreed, her eyes closing as she moaned slightly in Gothic Panacea’s grip, “Sophia herself is a person… barely.”
Gothic Panacea sighed in relief. “You had me a bit worried there.”
Kevin shook his head. “Back to crafting and less to worrying about our increasing sociopathic tendencies.”
“Let’s hope this isn’t a waste of leather,” Taylor replied as she hit accept and started crafting the boots.
Randal crossed his fingers. “Let’s hope.”
Gothic Panacea paused massaging Taylor’s shoulders for a second as a pair of black fog covered midnight black boots appeared in Taylor’s hands. “Okay, that’s cool.”
Taylor stared in shock at the tooltip. “Fucking hell!”
Gothic stepped to the side and a bit forward so she could look at the black mist covered boots. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I just wasn’t expecting the feather to increase my movement speed by 5 times or decrease how fast I get tired by 50%.”
Kevin whistled. “Damn.”
“So they give you a mover rating?” Gothic Panacea asked in surprise.
“Basically. They also increase my mana by 20 points, stealth by 5% which is probably from the shadow dye, my jumping by 30 feet and my wind and lightning resistance by 20 points as well.”
“In that case, let’s steal some feathers so we can make boots for everyone.” Randal paused as he realized he wasn’t sure how much leather the boots used. “How much of the mini boss leather do you have left?”
Taylor checked on her large roll of leather, thankfully it didn’t use more than it would have if she’d lined everything up and carefully cut everything out. “As much as if I’d carefully measured and cut everything which means I should have enough for the rest of the group and some extra. I’m thinking elemental gloves.”
“Could be fun, let’s st-” Randal glanced at Gothic Panacea, “liberate the feathers then we should probably test the boots a bit before we call it a night.”
“Sounds good, I still have to organize everything for the market,” Taylor admitted as she walked over to the door to the storeroom.
“How many powers do you have?” Gothic Panacea asked curious what Taylor’s powers actually were since she’d been rather vague while getting ice cream.
“I just open dungeons, everything else is a result of finding a book or picking up gear.” Taylor opened her Final Fantasy dungeon.
“Don’t forget your ability to identify everything,” Randal replied as he walked over to turn the drone on.
“Ah, right, I should probably give you a summary while Randal fishes for feathers.”
“That would be nice,” Gothic Panacea admitted.
Comments
Chichi son
Male chickens…” Kevin started laughing. “Cockblocker.” missing"
Mist of Shadows
I'm glad that you like it.
Patrick Sandhop
Driving force of the world, really. I'm really enjoying the story by the way. Quite engaging.
Mist of Shadows
That covers a surprising amount in that world.
Patrick Sandhop
Obviously, it's a cape thing.
Mist of Shadows
You'll get more details later.
Ben Benson
Any explanation on the new Panacea? Or is it to come later.
