Mist of Shadows
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Mist's Jumps Part 28
🕑 Added 2017-11-15 22:49:39 +0000 UTCClark Kent nearly put his finger through his keyboard as he ‘heard’ an unfamiliar mental voice, ‘Psst!’ He glanced around and relaxed slightly when he didn’t notice anyone that shouldn’t be in the office. ‘What?’
Mist smiled slightly as he watched Clark’s face from across the street from the Daily Planet with his X-ray vision. ‘I need to talk to you about an illegal cloning facility and your clones before the end of the day.’
‘Clones?’ Clark glanced around as he continued typing up his article at a ‘decent’ pace.
‘More or less, a mad scientist created one crappy clone and two human kryptonian hybrids based off your DNA.’
‘Who are you and how do you know this?’
‘You can call me Mist. As for how I know, that’s complicated and I’ll explain later.’
‘Where are they?’ Clark finished his article and e-mailed it to the editor.
‘That’s the sticky part, I can’t tell you yet.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the half kryptonian clones will be rescued by a team of heroes in such a way that they’ll chose to be heroes.’
‘Then why tell me?’ Clark asked suspiciously.
‘Because without my warning and some time to wrap your head around the fact that the clones are innocent kids who had no choice in being created, you’ll show up to the aftermath, find out that you were cloned without your permission then leave abruptly to process events,’ Mist explained mentally.
‘You’re telling me that someone cloned me but that I’m not supposed to be angry about it?’ Clark asked in disbelief.
‘Oh hell no, scream in space or punch the hell out of some asteroids or whatever you have to do to blow off some steam then put your big boy pants on and don’t act like an ass for the hour or two it will take to get things sorted out with your vat grown kids. They’re going to have enough issues without you freaking out in front of them.’
‘What’s your angle?’
‘I’m paying back a favor to a friend. You don’t have to trust me, hell, I’d be surprised if you did, just think of what your mother would say if she knew you’d broken the hearts of her grandchildren because you forgot your manners.’
‘My mother is dead and they’re not my children,’ Clark replied mentally as he gathered up his stuff to leave the office.
‘I meant your other mother Mr. Kent and biologically, they sort of are.’ Mist was just glad that his telepathy didn’t need line of sight as Clark tensed and glanced around again.
Clark would have protested but he could feel the certainty in the mental voice, it wasn’t a guess. He took a breath to calm himself as he realized that the voice had a point about his mother. He asked warily, ‘What do you suggest?’
‘For right now, consider what I’ve said, maybe have a chat with Martha. Once the team recovers the hybrids, I suggest running a bunch of tests to make sure they’re physically stable and have the martian look through their minds for keywords. I trust the clones well enough but the mad scientists who cloned them aren’t trustworthy. Just remember to sell the idea that the tests are for their benefit and not because you don’t trust them.’
‘I’ll try.’ Clark didn’t trust the voice but it had a point about mad scientists.
‘In that case, best of luck and I’ll be in touch.’ Mist broke the mental link then went back to reading the paper someone had left on the table. He was hoping that he hadn’t screwed things up for Robin and the rest of the group by making Clark suspicious about a new telepath in town but he’d wanted Clark to have enough time to consider the clones’ feelings on the matter so that he didn’t completely screw things up thanks to getting sucker punched.
Mist set his paper down then leisurely wandered down the street scanning various buildings as he made his way away from the Daily Planet.
0o0o0
Ginny glanced away from the creepy Gotham skyline she could see from their apartment and over at her ‘sister’ who wasn’t really her sister or maybe she was, it was hard to untangle where her life as Ginny Granger started and where Ginny Weasley started. Before she’d woken up, she’d been Puck and Hermione’s older sister and now she was sort of a jumble between their older sister and an eleven year old British wand wielding witch that had grown up in England with six brothers, no sisters and a wizard and an overbearing witch for a father and mother. “Does waking up with new memories ever get easier?”
Hermione considered the question for a couple of seconds then shrugged. “The first couple of days are usually the worst.”
Puck glanced away from her computer. “It could have been worse, we could have been street rats or something.”
“It’s a bit weird growing up with money but I’ll take it,” Ginny admitted. She knew that the Grangers weren’t fantastically well off but both of their parents were dentists which meant they weren’t hurting for money.
“Are we still planning on fighting crime?” Hermione asked warily.
“Considering we were doing missions without our magical items, durability and old powers, do you see a reason to stop?” Puck asked.
“No but I think I’m going to redesign my costume,” Ginny said as she headed over to the desk to grab an empty notebook.
“Oh?” Hermione was less worried about playing hero now that she knew about her rather insane list of defenses.
“We designed the costumes before we had access to decent magical items. Puck has a belt you should probably copy at the very least.”
“You do realize that you’re more durable than the belt’s shields, right?” Hermione asked with a touch of amusement.
Ginny smirked at Hermione. “I’d rather not advertise the fact that I’m a brute.”
“Why?”
“Because even in Gotham people aren’t generally stupid enough to charge brutes. I want them charging me, so I can break their arms and legs.”
Hermione glanced between her sisters. “You’ve been spending too much time with Puck.”
Ginny shrugged. “We’re teenager girls, if they’re willing to try to hurt us, they don’t need to be on the street.”
“Or walking,” Puck pointed out.
“Right.” Hermione sighed as she realized that their local personalities were having a lot of bleed over. “Let’s get started redesigning our costumes.”
0o0o0
Rose turned around and frowned at the thug that had just hit her in the back of the head with a crowbar. “Can I help you?”
The thug looked at the crowbar in his hand then looked back at the red skinned teenage girl he’d just tried to knock unconscious. “Ah, no?”
Rose grinned as she stepped forward and kicked him in the nuts.
Robin winced as he watched the man fly through the air as if he’d been hit by a speeding truck. “Overkill much?”
“He shouldn’t have hit me with a crowbar. What if I’d been normal?” Rose asked with a pout.
“Considering your skin is red and you don’t look quite human, I doubt he thought you were normal,” Robin pointed out as he texted the hospital to come get a body.
“It’s not polite to hit people with crowbars.”
“It’s not polite to kill people even if they’re thugs.”
Rose looked at the man that she’d killed or at least mangled with a kick. “Right, healing.” She gestured and sent a stream of healing magic into the thug to make sure he didn’t bleed out then cut it off before it actually fixed everything. “There he won’t die.”
Robin raised his eyebrows. “You’re leaving him like that?”
“Did you miss the part about him hitting me in the head with a crowbar?” Rose with a touch of annoyance.
“You’re obviously okay.”
“It’s not like he knew I’d survive, if he’d hit a human that hard, they would have had a skull fracture at the very least. So no, I’m not fixing him enough that he’ll walk again. He’s lucky I didn’t break his arms first.”
“Violent much?”
Rose stuck her tongue out at Robin. “I’m not the one wearing a costume tossing blades at people.”
“I don’t suppose you’ll willing come to the station to fill out a report?”
“Sure, he hit me, I hit him, he hit the ground then I gave him medical attention in the form of healing magic.”
“What are you?”
“Red,” Rose replied cheekily.
Roblin sighed knowing that it was going to be a long night which was unfortunate because he had important things to do tomorrow. “Fine, we’ll wait here for the cops.”
“Of course, I wouldn’t want to break the law.”
Robin glanced at the unconscious man that had been rather close to death from a single kick. “Right.”
0o0o0
Abby handed Selena her donut then sat down across from her. “Any idea when Mist is…” she trailed off as her cell rang. She pulled the cell out of her coat pocket then glanced at the caller ID. “Speak of the devil.”
Selena stuck her tongue out at Abby then took a bite of her chocolate covered donut.
Abby flipped the phone open and brought it to her ear. “What’s up?”
Mist’s voice came out of the phone, “Just checking in, I dealt with Darkseid, Lex and Ra’s.”
“Where are you?”
“Just leaving Ra’s office. I have an avatar sorting through his memories for valid targets.”
Abby glanced around the donut shop then whispered, “I thought you were just going to deal with the base then move on?”
“I was going to then I realized that the Blinded by the Light flaw probably included a decent number of their minions.” Mist opened a door to one hundred and fifty feet above Vandal Savage then stepped through and let the door close behind him as he hovered in place. He glanced down at the waterfront where a group of thugs was loading containers while a muscular man in fancier clothes supervised.
“Does this mean you’ll be late for dinner?” Abby asked with a fake pout.
Mist whispered, “Probably not, it shouldn’t take all that long to kill the rest of the leaders of the so called Light.” He held Vandal Savage in place with telekinesis then sent a thin stream of balefire at the man which vaporized him. He wanted to make sure no one could bring him back to life without a great deal of trouble. He scowled slightly as several of the thugs opened fire with their rather loud guns.
Abby frowned as she heard gunfire over the phone. “Are they shooting at you?”
“I can’t hear you over the gunfire, give me a second.” Mist reached out with his telekinesis and snapped all of the thugs’ necks after checking to make sure they’d make the world a worse place if he left them alive. “That’s better.”
“Do you need any help or should we continue our shopping trip?” Abby asked with a touch of amusement.
“If you want to deal with Queen Bee while I’m tracking down the Brain and Black Manta, I’d appreciate it.”
Abby rolled her eyes. “You just don’t want to see all of the scantily clad beefcakes she probably has walking around half naked.”
Mist snorted. “You’re right, I don’t.”
“No worries, I’ll grab Aisha then we’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks, I love you,” Mist replied as he opened a door to a thousand feet above the Brain’s jungle base.
“We love you too.” Abby closed her phone.
Selena finished the last bite of her donut then asked, “Beefcakes?”
Abby glanced around at the people that were paying a touch too much attention to them. “The boss wanted us to interview the male strippers for the bachelorette party.”
Selena snickered at her sister’s lie. “Oh, this should be fun.”
Abby stood up then put her phone back in her pocket then picked up her donut and headed for the door. She doubted it would take all that long to kill Queen Bee, the problem would be sorting through the people that were left and figuring out who was remotely trustworthy to take over before the bitch’s pheromones wore off and impersonating the queen became problematic.
0o0o0
Xander pulled himself out of the bay and onto the dock. He smiled coldly at the group of five thugs that looked like they were going to toss a gagged middle aged man into the bay with cinderblocks tied to his feet. He glanced at the slightly overweight man in a suit that seemed to be in charge. “I’ll admit that it’s none of my business but what did he do?”
Penguin said, “He was selling drugs in my club.”
Xander reached out with telepathy and looked through the man’s head. He scowled as realized that the man also liked selling his tainted products to children. He turned to glare at the soon to be dead bastard. “Let me get this straight, not only were you selling in Penguin’s club without his leave you’ve been selling tainted shit to children? Yeah, best of luck with the fishes.”
One of the thugs asked, “How do you know that?”
“I’m a telepathic magic user. I might have a better use for the man than fish food.” Xander took a few seconds to look through Penguin’s head with his telepathy. He was a touch surprised to learn that this version of Penguin was actually a ‘legitimate’ businessman for the most part. Sure, he had the occasional criminal tossed in the bay and smuggled tax free booze into the city but nothing worth killing him over.
Penguin raised his eyebrows. “Do tell.”
“I can curse people so they’ll tell the truth to any question unless he wants to suffer mind numbing pain. I can also curse his tongue so that he can’t reveal anything about your business. Rather than kill him, beat the crap out of him, break his legs and arms and hand him over to the GCPD. Even in Gotham most criminals don’t like people that target children.”
“What do you get out of it?” Penguin asked.
“Just the satisfaction of knowing that his death won’t be quick.”
Penguin briefly considered ordering his men to shoot the strange man but he’d been far too calm after climbing out of the bay which meant that he might very well be immune to gunfire. “Cast your spell then we’ll drop him off with the GCPD after working him over.”
Xander cast a tongue tying spell on the thug so that he couldn’t answer any questions about him or Penguin and a truth spell so that he had to answer any questions put to him or suffer mind numbing agony. He had a feeling the cops would ask him a lot of questions about Penguin. “That should do it, best of luck and if you find out who gave him the tainted drugs to sell beyond the obviously fake name of Grog, drop the Bat a line.” He grinned as he turned invisible then floated backwards toward the shore as the Penguin’s men looked around uneasily.
One of the thugs muttered, “I hate Gotham.”
Penguin shrugged. He’d been around long enough to not sweat the small stuff. “Work the drug dealer over then we’ll hand him over to the cops. No one comes into my club and sells tainted shit.”
Xander used a touch of magic to dry his clothes then spun back around and headed into the city proper to see what he could find for entertainment. He pulled his phone out of his inventory as he left the docks then dialed Buffy’s number.
Buffy grabbed her phone off the edge of the hot tub and pushed the button to accept the call. “What’s up?”
“I’m in Gotham, do you want to hit a couple of clubs or thrash some thugs?”
Buffy glanced over at where Willow and Tara were kissing in another hot tub then over at where her son was flirting with Ashley & Julia. “Sure, Liam is trying to flirt with Ashley & Julia, it’s almost painful to watch. I might need to give him some pointers.”
Liam groaned. “Don’t help Mom.”
Julia grinned evilly as she glanced between Liam and Buffy. “I don’t know, I think we could go for a foursome with you and your mother, right Ashley?”
“Not happening,” Liam replied with amusement as he floated out of the water and flew off to find Pat and Kim.
Buffy snorted. “Not happening.”
“What’s not happening?” Xander asked.
Ashley snickered as she watched Liam fly off. “One of these days, he’s going to take your teasing seriously.”
“Probably.” Julia smiled as she floated out of the water and flew after Liam.
Buffy smiled as she watched the naked girl fly off. “I’ll explain when I get there, shouldn’t take more than ten minutes to pick out an outfit.”
“Sure, I’ll see you in a few,” Xander replied then ended the call. ‘More like twenty minutes, ah well it gives me a chance to find a club.’ He wasn’t sure if he should be amused on annoyed that he barely made it three blocks before a man with a knife stepped out of an alley.
The thug shook his knife at him as he demanded, “Give me your money.”
Xander studied the man in front of him with his darklighter power and didn’t like what he saw, a worthless life filled with muggings, rape and eventual death when an eight year old girl stabbed him in the eye with a pair of scissors after he attacked her. “No.”
“What do you mean no?” The thug asked in disbelief.
“I mean no, you’re a pathetic waste of humanity, what’s going to happen is you’re going to drop the knife, walk to the police station, turn yourself in and confess to all of your various crimes or you die, right here and right now.”
The thug replied, “Fuck you.” as he swung the knife at Xander.
Xander reached out and grabbed the man’s wrist, twisted his arm then rammed the knife into the mugger’s chest as he stepped forward and to the side. He turned and stepped back a step so that he could watch the shocked and dying mugger fall to the ground. “Best of luck in the next life.” He scanned the thug’s pants then wallet with X-ray vision then teleported the two hundred and twenty dollars in his wallet to his hand. He absently stuffed the money into his inventory as he turned and continued walking toward the ‘better’ part of town.
0o0o0
One of Aisha’s avatars asked, “How much longer?” in the same tone of voice an annoying child might ask ‘Are we there yet?’ She smiled as a skill book appeared in two of the other avatars’ laps. “Never mind. Does that mean we can kill him?”
“Not yet,” Abby’s avatar spoke up as she used one of the tricks Mist had picked up in Unholy Heights to give Psimon the ability to assume a human form. “That should give him the ability to take a more human form.” She pulled her sword out of her inventory then used her telepathy to activate Psimon’s ability to change into his new human form.
The Aisha avatar that had created the telepathy skill book put the skill book in her inventory then stood up. “At least his skin isn’t a sickly grey.”
“And his brain isn’t exposed like a science experiment,” the other avatar replied as she stuck her new telekinesis skill book in her inventory next to the other skill book.
“True.” Abby’s avatar brought her blade down and through the man’s neck.
Aisha’s avatar picked up his severed head and stuck it in her inventory. “Dibs on his head.”
Abby’s avatar turned to look at the smirking girl. “Seriously?”
“Hell yeah, do you have any idea the sorts of naughty things I can get Riley to do for a telepath’s severed head?”
“As a matter of fact, yeah,” Abby’s avatar admitted as she picked up the rest of Psimon’s corpse and stuck it in her inventory, “that’s one of the reasons I wanted it.”
One of the other Aisha avatars gestured toward the bed and used magic to vanish the blood. ”Now what?”
“We check in with the avatars dealing with Queen Bee then we start checking the staff to see if any of them are worth keeping.”
The three Aisha avatars turned invisible as they muttered, “Great, work.”
Abby’s avatar shrugged then turned invisible and headed toward the throne room to make sure that Queen Bee was dead. They hadn’t wanted to take any chances with the queen’s weird pheromones which was why they’d sent avatars with bubblehead charms.
0o0o0
Pandora looked up as her twelve year old ‘twin’ knocked on her partially opened door. “What’s up?”
Brianna glanced around her sister’s slightly cluttered bedroom then looked at her sister who was stretched out on her bed reading a book. “Any idea when Dad is going to get back?”
Pandora put her bookmark in her book then set it on her nightstand. “Nope, he’s dealing with some rather nasty villains but he should be back after that, why?”
“Mom said that we can’t run around and explore until Dad gets back and I’m bored.”
“You could always grab a book from the library.”
Brianna shrugged. “I got a bit carried away last year with my literary power, I’ve read them all.”
“Video games?” Pandora asked.
“Don’t really feel like it right now.”
“Movies?”
“I don’t feel like rewatching stuff,” Brianna admitted.
“Yeah, that’s the problem with having an eidetic memory,” Pandora agreed.
“Any suggestions?”
“If you’re that bored, you could help me paint my gaming miniatures.”
Brianna shrugged. “Sounds like more fun than sitting here playing video games that I’ve already beat.”
Pandora stood up then walked over to grab her box of half assembled models. “What’s Mom up to?”
“In a hot tub kissing aunt Poppy and Phoenix and chatting about movies.”
“Weirded out?” Pandora asked with amusement as she picked up her box of miniatures.
“No, the kissing was fine, I mean they’re hot, it’s just that they were discussing who’d win in a fight, Vader or Batman when they weren’t kissing. It’s stupid and pointless, sans plot armor, Vader would win every time.”
Pandora snickered as she headed for the door. “Being able to hold someone in the air with telekinesis so they can’t move while you cut them down with a plasma sword is sort of cheating.”
“Yep, magic for the win. Speaking of magic, did anyone pick up any magical perks this time around?”
“Hermione and Xander grabbed everything worth grabbing.” Pandora slipped out of the door and headed down the hallway.
“Everything worth grabbing?” Brianna asked as she followed her sister.
“We ignored the order and chaos magic perks because they’re not all that great and they come with problems.”
“Considering we already have projection, I’m not all that worried about it,” Brianna agreed.
“I’m hoping for a nice relaxing year.” Pandora wouldn’t mind being a tourist for a year or at least a couple of months.
0o0o0
Riley pulled Fred back against the wall as a group of rather large troll like beasts rounded the corner. ‘Sneaky sneak, sneak sneak.’
‘You’re having way too much fun,’ Fred replied with her telepathy. It was a bit weird being able to adjust her mental shields with toggle so she could have a mental conversation with her friends.
‘Of course I am, how often do we get to explore a genuine mad scientist’s lab?’ Riley had to resist the urge to giggle.
Fred watched the last of the group move past. ‘Almost never or at least nothing this impressive.’
‘Exactly, which is why we’re getting scans.’ Riley let go of Fred. ‘A looting we will go, a looting we will go.’ She giggled faintly as she danced down the hallway.
‘You realize they’d going to try to kill us if they find us, right?’ Fred asked as she followed her ‘invisible’ friend. She was just glad that her goggles let her see Riley otherwise it would have been nearly impossible to keep track of the mad scientist.
‘That’s what makes it fun.’ Riley grinned as she rounded the corner and saw a group of electricity generating creatures in glass chambers lining the hallway. ‘Clean energy, here we come.’ She started scanning the creatures and the units to see what type of patterns she could snag.
Fred kept watch as Riley moved around the room.
Riley frowned slightly as she looked over the new blueprints. ‘I’m going to have to run the numbers when we get back, this shouldn’t work nearly as well as it does.’
‘I have a feeling we’re going to be saying that a lot. Let’s see what else we can find.’ Fred continued walking down the hallway.
0o0o0
Buffy scowled as her ‘shortcut’ through the park turned into a nightmare of ice sculptures and a lunatic in high tech armor. ‘Knew I should have stayed in bed.’ She shouted as she saw the man in armor point his freeze gun at another group of innocent people in the park, “Stop that!”
Mr. Freeze scowled as he turned and fired at the blonde only for the annoying blonde woman to dodge his ice beam. He twitched slightly as a batarang hit his suit’s helmet causing a crack. He swept his weapon in an arc toward Robin and the Batman. “You’re far too late to stop me.”
“Give it up!” Robin shouted as Batman tossed a batarang.
Xander pushed the button on his stopwatch and froze time. He glanced at the batarang that was about three feet from Mr. Freeze’s head. “That’s better.”
Buffy rolled back to her feet then glanced around at the people in the park that were frozen in time. “It’s certainly cheating.”
“Give me a second to scan him then we can steal his armor and freeze gun.” Xander started scanning the villain.
Buffy turned her attention toward Batman and scanned him. “I seem to recall someone mentioning that he needed the suit to keep him alive.”
Xander absently noted the basic containment suit pattern and minion traits he’d just unlocked as he replied, “Cry me a river of tears, the bastard was freezing children.” He gestured and teleported the suit off the villain and over to Buffy.
“It was easier back in Sunnydale, see the vampire, kill the vampire, no real ethical issues.”
Xander ‘coughed’, “Angel.”
Buffy ignored Xander’s comment as she started working on taking the armored suit apart enough that she could fit it in her inventory. “We really should go back and check on them one of these days.”
“Do you think Joyce will faint when she finds out she’s a grandmother twice over?” Xander asked with amusement as he worked on teleporting the ice away from the various people trapped in it.
“Probably,” Buffy admitted as she worked on transferring the suit to her inventory.
Xander glanced at the batarang then over at Batman. “Should we grab the batarang or let it hit him?”
Buffy orbed the batarang to her hand then stuffed it in her inventory. “I’d be pissed if someone swapped my targets and I killed someone by accident.”
“Point.” Xander smiled as Buffy stuffed the last bit of the power armor in her inventory. “Are you ready to restart time?”
“Give me a second.” Buffy ducked down behind the ice so that Batman wouldn’t see her suddenly appear when Xander unfroze everything. “I’m good.”
Xander pushed the button on his watch and smiled as everything started moving again. He smiled as Mr. Freeze dropped a couple of inches then started freaking out about not having his suit. He put his watch back in his pocket.
Robin blinked as Mr. Freeze’s suit vanished leaving him in his underwear. “What the hell?”
Buffy stood up, “Woah, that’s an awesome armor nullification device. Can I get your autographs?”
Batman looked at her suspiciously for a second then shook his head. “Sorry, I need to take him to jail before he dies of exposure.”
“I understand,” Buffy admitted with a pout as Batman picked up Freeze and headed toward the parking lot.
“I’ll check on the civilians,” Robin said as he headed over to free the people from the ice.
Xander frowned as he watched the two heroes leave. “Does it worry anyone else that they’re more worried about saving the piece of shit villain than they are the civilians the man tried to kill?”
“Yeah.” Buffy made a mental note to have a chat with Batman about his priorities as she started following Robin.
“Let’s see if they need any help,” Xander followed Buffy. He had a sinking feeling he was either going to spend a lot of time relaxing in the companion housing/slice of heaven or a lot of time killing villains during his stay.
0o0o0
Mist felt like clapping or cheering when Superman managed to not be an ass to Superboy and Beth when Robin and the rest of the group brought them out of the labs. It was a bit strange seeing Beth as a copy of Supergirl in a ripped solar suit. “Hey Beth.”
“Mist!” Beth giggled as she jumped the thirty feet separating them then pulled Mist into what would have been a bone crushing hug if he hadn’t been exceptionally durable.
“Hey cutie.” Mist hugged her back. “It’s good to see you.”
“Friends has me,” Beth said enthusiastically.
Mist glanced at the assembled Justice League then over at Robin, Aqualad, Kid Flash and Superboy. “So I see.”
Robin asked, “Care to introduce yourself?”
“Sure, my name is Mist o’Shadows.”
“How do you know Beth?”
Mist picked Beth up and floated over to the rest of the group. “She’s the reincarnation of a friend of mine.”
Robin asked, “You can fly?”
“I’m a magic user, there isn’t a lot I can’t do.”
“Good is magic!” Beth said enthusiastically.
“Are you also a telepath?” Superman asked warily.
“Guilty as charged and nice to meet face to face,” Mist replied.
“You know him?” Batman asked warily.
Superman said, “He gave me some useful information yesterday.”
Mist nodded slightly. “Just trying to help.”
The Flash glanced over at the news crew that had already showed up because of the fire. “Aren’t you worried about someone taking a picture?”
“Nah, I don’t show up on camera unless I want to.”
Kid Flash said, “That’s a weird metahuman ability.”
Mist looked down his nose at Kid Flash. “Show me a magic user that isn’t at least a little strange and I’ll eat my hat.”
Giovanni Zatara spoke up, “If they exist, I’ve never met them.”
Batman said, “Either way, let’s take this back to headquarters.”
“Lead the way.” Mist glanced at Green Lantern’s ring then decided that stealing a copy could wait until Wonder Woman wasn’t within twenty feet as he wasn’t completely sure that his watch would actually work on her.
0o0o0
Mist was rather amused at how the meetings and discussions with the Justice League went, apparently the sidekick flaw wasn’t really a big deal as long as you didn’t have a massive ego and didn’t care if you were on the team. He held out his arm. “I’m probably immune.”
Batman raised his eyebrows. “We’ll see.”
Wonder Woman looped the lasso around his wrist. “Tell us your name.”
“Mist o’Shadows or the Easter Bunny, either works,” Mist replied with amusement.
She stared at Mist in shock. “Are you a god?”
Mist considered the answer for a couple of seconds. “As much as I’d like to give the Ghostbuster answer, I’m not a god or even a titan, I’m just a really powerful magic user.”
“In that case, how did you resist the lasso?” Batman asked.
“I’m nearly immune to hostile magic and flat out immune to mind control.”
The Green Arrow spoke up, “If you really can sell mental defenses that stand up to divine artifacts why are you asking for so little?”
“A couple of reasons, I don’t need the money, you’re heroes and I really don’t want Superman or Wonder Woman getting mind controlled.”
“What about the rest of us?”
Mist looked at Oliver. “You and Batman are street level heroes that hit above your weight class in a lot of ways but you don’t have the power to casually destroy a city nor the durability to prevent someone with a gun from taking you out if they were a halfway decent shot. I’m sure you could do a decent amount of damage if you got mind controlled but you can’t casually destroy cities.”
“Or kill you?” Batman asked.
“You wouldn’t have a hope in hell of killing me with your usual toys. There might be a couple of relics scattered around that could kill me but most of them are lost or locked away.”
Green Arrow asked, “What would it take?”
“Not the kryptonite in Batman’s hand,” Mist replied with a touch of amusement.
Batman frowned slightly as he put the piece of Kryptonite back in the lead lined container on his belt. “How did you know?”
“X-ray vision and Superman had to go check on something,” Mist replied smugly.
The Green Arrow asked, “How many powers do you have?”
“A lot, I tend to collect them in my travels to different dimensions. I’m perfectly willing to sell you some durability or regeneration or healing items.”
“How much?”
“Careful, there is always a price to magic,” Batman pointed out.
Mist reached down and lifted the lasso off his wrist then dropped it. “You’re right, there is always a price but sometimes not paying the price is worse. What do you think would happen to people’s faith in the League if Superman got mind controlled and was told to destroy a city?”
“Nothing good,” Superman pointed out as he walked into the conference room. “How did you find out my real name?”
“Blame telepathy or the fact that I grew up on a world where just about everyone over the age of five knew your name.”
The Green Arrow frowned. “Does that mean you know who the rest of us are?”
“Oliver Queen, Bruce Wayne and Diana.”
“Great, any plans for telling people?” Oliver asked warily.
Mist snorted. “Why would I?”
“Fame, money?”
“Not my thing and I have plenty of gold coins stashed away for a rainy day.”
“In that case, why come here?” Diana asked.
“I wanted to make sure Beth was safe and I wanted to sell the League mental shields so I don’t have to worry about a bunch of really scary heroes running around breaking things.”
“Why sell them if you have plenty of money?” Batman asked.
Mist looked down his nose at Batman. “Because people are generally rather suspicious when you offer things for free. Buy the upgrades or don’t, I’m only in this world a year before my travel spell takes me somewhere else.”
“How many mental shields can we get?”
“As many as you need.”
Batman considered Mist’s offer and came to the conclusion that he was going to have to get to know him before he trusted him enough to make the deal. “In that case, I’ll make you a deal, I’ll buy enough mental defenses to cover the entire league and Robin’s team if you agree to join his team for two months.”
Mist figured being a member of Young Justice was almost as good as the Justice League for bragging rights that no one would ever take seriously back home. “That sounds fair, it would give me a chance to make sure Beth is settling in and get a better idea what being a hero is about.”
Superman said, “I’m curious what your world is like.”
“I have no problem sharing stories about my travels in exchange for hearing about your adventures. Besides, I should probably fill you in on your clone so you can rescue him from Cadmus.”
“That would be nice.”
0o0o0
Mist forced himself to smile as he shook Robin’s hand. “No hard feelings.”
Robin shook his hand. “Of course not, I have your number, if we need you we’ll call. If you need help with bounty hunters, feel free to call.”
“Sounds good.” Mist doubted that Robin would bother calling thanks to the sidekick flaw but it didn’t really bother him, he wasn’t cut out for being a hero or at least not the type of ‘hero’ the team expected everyone to be. The team had nearly driven him to quit during their first mission when they’d happily ripped apart a highly advanced exosuit that allowed its user to use aerokinesis and generate electrical strikes. Thankfully he’d managed to scan the suit before the idiots had destroyed it but for some damned reason they just couldn’t get it through their heads that recovering technology that could potentially stop hurricanes and tropical storms was actually worth some effort. He turned to look at Beth. “You’re welcome to stay if you want.”
Beth glanced at Kid Flash then at Conner and M'gann as she considered her answer. She’d spent the last two months fighting villains and bounty hunters as well as trying to relearn something resembling sentence structure when she wasn’t working on upgrading her brain so that she could think clearly again, she wanted a break. “I think I want to see the world.”
“In that case, we’re off to Disneyland,” Mist said with amusement.
“Aren’t you a bit old for Disneyland?” Kid Flash asked.
Mist smirked as he swapped to his younger alternate form. “Nope.”
Kid Flash blinked. “How the hell?”
“I told you, magic.”
“Magic doesn’t exist,” Kid Flash grumbled.
Mist briefly considered arguing with the hero about magic but decided to leave it alone, maybe there was a physics explanation for everything but if there was, he hadn’t found it yet. At least not for the magic he had access to. “Okay, no worries, magic doesn’t exist.” He smirked as he reached out and grabbed Beth’s hand then orbed back to his slice of heaven with Beth. “Let’s round up the munchkins and we’ll hit Disneyland.”
“What about the bounty hunters the remains of the Light hired to kill you?”
He wasn’t terribly worried about the bounty hunters yet considering the last couple had been using mundane Earth weapons. He figured he had at least another couple of months before he was dealing with alien bounty hunters then most of the year before he had to worry about Lobo. “As long as we’re only there a couple of days it shouldn’t be a problem. If it’s a problem, we can just orb them elsewhere.”
“Okay,” Beth agreed.
Sin walked over and pulled Mist into a hug. “Does that mean you’re done with the team?”
Mist shrugged. “Pretty much, I sold the League the mental defense abilities and built up enough of a rep that they should use them, beyond that I don’t care.”
“What about Nabu?” Sin asked.
“Eh, I sent Kent a letter and offered to create a clone body for the helmet, beyond that, I don’t really care what happens to him.”
“In other words you’re washing your hands of being a hero?”
“I’d rather be effective than a hero. Besides, given the team’s tendency to destroy or lock up any interesting technology they run into, I would have snapped eventually if I hadn’t quit.”
Sin smirked. “That’s why you scan it first.”
“I did and that’s not the point. The point is the villains have better gear in a lot of cases and Robin and Batman want to win via training and luck.”
Beth said, “At least Robin agreed to use the durability and regeneration upgrades after he got his arm mangled.”
“I don’t remember that from the show, what happened?” Sin asked curious what had changed.
Mist sighed. “Either my plot armor prevention perk screwed him or having two extra heavy hitting metahumans on the team caused the villains to step up their game.”
“Considering how much of a joke the team was on the show, I can see where the various villains would step up their game, especially considering how many villains we’ve been quietly killing.”
“Hopefully they don’t run into anything they can’t handle with their enhanced durability.”
Sin said, “Eh, considering I tracked down the idiot that killed his sister because he wanted the magical sword and cut his head off yesterday, they should be good for threats for a while.”
“Did you steal his sword?” Beth asked.
“I scanned it then transferred its ability to generate magical blasts to my sword which destroyed the cursed piece of shit, does that count?”
Mist said, “Good enough.”
“Where does that leave us?”
“Let’s see how many people want to go to Disneyland then we’ll have some fun, get some scans then tinker for a year.”
“Sounds good to me.”
