Mist of Shadows
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Mist's jumps part 15
🕑 Added 2017-08-31 23:42:33 +0000 UTCWyatt walked back into the living room from the kitchen. “The pizza should be done in twenty.”
“Now that we’re all together,” Prue turned and glared at Phoebe, “and dressed, what new and interesting powers do you have for us?”
Xander glanced around Paige’s livingroom at both sets of the Charmed Ones then over at Harry who was sitting between both Prues on the couch. He glanced over at Mist who was sitting with Paige, Poppy and Phoenix on a large conjured black leather recliner. He held up the glasslike sphere that contained the ability that he’d copied from Mist. “This little beauty should give everyone the ability to sense magic.”
Chris spoke up, “Which should make it less likely for us to be fooled by shape changers and illusion magic.”
“Not to mention make identifying demons easier,” Phoebe agreed.
“That’s the idea,” Xander agreed.
Piper glanced over at Wyatt and Chris. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around time travel and alternate worlds and having adult children when I’m way too young.”
Wyatt wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel about his mother’s alternates, on the one hand his fate wasn’t connected to what they did, on the other they were still family. “Just think of us as your nephews if it makes you feel better.”
“That might be easier,” Piper admitted.
Mist said, “Don’t worry, we’re looking into ways to save your family Wyatt.”
“That would be nice,” Chris agreed. He turned his attention toward the power stone. “What else can you share?”
Mist spoke up, “We should be able to get the ability to sense evil from your familiar which wouldn’t be a bad thing to hand out.”
Phoebe asked, “What would you have to do to Kit?”
“Nothing, just reach out, touch her and copy the power.”
Prue looked at Mist. “How long are you going to remain a genie?”
‘Until I knock up Piper, Paige, Poppy and Phoenix.’ Mist patted Paige’s left leg with his hand. “Whenever she wants to free me but the more powers I acquire as a genie, the more powerful my ring will be.”
“And the less time you’ll have to spend dealing with the rest of your curse, right?” Chris asked.
“That’s certainly part of it.”
Xander handed one of the Phoebes the glasslike sphere. “You’re up then I’ll copy the power again and give it to the next person and so one.”
“Then what?” Phoebe used the sphere then stared as she glanced around the room at everyone. She stopped as her power kicked in and she realized that Mist was basically a walking nuclear reactor of magical energy. “Holy shit!”
Mist smirked.
Piper asked, “What did you see?”
“Mist has an insane amount of magic,” Phoebe replied.
Phoenix grinned as she patted him on his left leg. “He also has stamina that just won’t quit.”
“Paige!” Piper snapped.
The other Piper smirked. “She’s not wrong.”
Chris waved his hands. “Nope, not happening, I’m not listening to this.”
Mist conjured a pair of fuzzy pink earmuffs and tossed them to Chris. “Here.”
Chris snorted as he caught the earmuffs.
Xander reached out, touched Phoebe’s leg and copied the magic sensing power again. “I think power mimicry is my favorite power.”
“It’s certainly up there,” Chris agreed.
“Almost as good as projection,” Wyatt pointed out with amusement.
Chris muttered good naturedly, “Ass.”
Piper said, “Let’s just get the powers handed out, I need to get to work.”
“Same,” admitted the other Piper.
Mist turned to look at Prue. “Speaking of work, I could use some help pricing stuff for my next project, are you interested?”
Prue spoke up, “Of course.”
The other Prue looked at Harry. “I’ve got a few hours to kill before our date with Harry tonight, so sure.”
“Cool.” Mist was looking forward to seeing what he could find in Magic School and Buckland’s.
0o0o0
Phoebe smiled as one of the Prues walked into the kitchen with a smile on her face. “You look entirely too cheerful, spill.”
Prue smirked at her sister. “I’m just happy, Harry is awesome in bed, we have Grams and Mom back or at least a version of them, Paige, Poppy and Phoenix are living across the street, Wyatt and Chris are great and I just made several million selling paintings.”
Phoebe sputtered as her brain caught up with her earts. “Several million?”
“Hermione and I managed to sell several rather expensive paintings and some high end antiques that we picked up from the pocket world Mist created.
“And they’re just letting you have it?” Phoebe asked in disbelief.
“The money is being split between everyone minus my cut for selling the paintings.”
“Everyone?”
Prue said, “Mom and Grams, Wyatt and Chris as well as our alternates and ourselves. Basically Mist wants to make sure that we can afford to take the time to fight evil.”
Harry commented as he walked into the kitchen, “People should get paid for fighting the forces of darkness or homicidal lunatics.”
“And you don’t want any of the money?” Phoebe asked curious what his deal was.
“This isn’t the first pocket world we’ve looted, it won’t be the last. Besides, we can open portals to pocket worlds where the monsters drop gold coins when you kill them.”
Prue smiled as she thought about all the gold they could grab. “That sounds useful.”
Phoebe stared at Harry for a couple of seconds then shook her head. “If you’re using magic to loot the dungeons doesn’t that count as personal gain?”
“That’s one of the reasons my friends and I are neutral magically. I don’t mind helping people and I’ll do it out of the goodness of my heart but I’m not going to let it consume my life, not anymore.” He thought the Elder’s self righteous ban on making a living with magic was a crock of shit considering the elders were dead and didn’t have to eat or pay rent.
“I don’t blame you.” Phoebe smiled as Pandora walked in. “Did you find the magical painting that you were looking for?”
Pandora grinned. “Yep, now I just need nine volunteers to jump into the painting’s item world so that we can make it better.”
Phoebe raised her eyebrows. “How does that help and what’s an item world?”
“An item world is a magical pocket realm that I can create that is filled with monsters that represent the flaws in an item, by killing the monsters you remove the flaws and make the item more powerful. In other words, by hunting monsters we can make the portrait more impressive.”
Harry spoke up, “It’s also a really good way to train and get money and magical items like shoes that let you move faster or dresses that protect you like armor.”
“Sounds fun, I’ve been meaning to test out the fireball ability Xander gave me.” Phoebe turned to look at Prue. “Are you in?”
“I’m in.” Prue figured if she was going to be hunting demons, she might as well do it as safely as possible and getting magical gear to defend herself should help with that.
Harry said, “In that case, let’s get the other Prue out of bed, then we’ll only need four more people if we can get the other Phoebe.”
“Three if we grab Xander,” Phoebe pointed out.
“Works for me, let’s go ask the girls.” Pandora doubted it would be all that hard to find three extra volunteers to go with them to boost the painting.
0o0o0
Cordelia walked into the living room and stopped as she saw a girl wearing her face sitting on the couch with Ranma. “Why do I have a copy?”
Kyra turned away from the video game on the television and looked at the girl that was wearing her face. “You said you had a friend that looked like me, I wasn’t expecting her to look identical.”
Ranma paused the game and set the controller on the end table. “Cordelia, Kyra, Kyra, Cordelia. She’s a demonic seer that we’re helping turn into a magical creature with a soul.”
“Ah, so she’s a good demon?” Cordelia asked dubiously.
“More or less.” Ranma stretched his arms over his head.
“I want to experience what it’s like to be human or at least human plus.” Kyra happened to like having powers.
“As long as she’s not trying to screw us over, I’ll deal.” Cordelia figured it was better to keep an eye on the demon then let her wander around looking like her. “How are you going to turn her into a mortal?”
Ranma said, “We’re going to give her the ability to turn her powers into marbles then we’re going to strip her powers and the sisters can turn her into a human. After that, Mist or Pandora should be able to turn her into a magical creature.”
“At which point, I’ll use my powers to help people.” Kyra didn’t see a problem with helping the group wipe out some of the more problematic demons.
Cordelia looked down her nose at her lookalike.
“And myself,” Kyra admitted.
“Nothing wrong with some enlightened self interest,” Ranma pointed out.
“In that case, tell me about your life.” Cordelia figured she might as well get to know the demon that was wearing her face.
Ranma picked up the controller and unpaused the game so that he could distract himself as the girls chatted.
0o0o0
Beth frowned slightly as she looked around the bare stone lot with the four crystal trees in a square. “I was expecting something a little more impressive than stone tiles.”
Mist turned to look at Beth and Rose who had just flown down to see how his project was going. “I thought about putting in some dirt and grass but I didn’t want to have to maintain it.”
“I guess I can see that.” Rose glanced at the nearest crystal tree. “What are you making first?”
“Something neutral, cute and female.” Mist walked over to the closest minion tree then reached out and touched it with his hand. He smiled as a popup window appeared showing his various options. “Any preference for what the minions should look like?”
Beth said, “How about a cross between Hermione and Daenerys with a C or D cup?”
“That could be fun,” Rose agreed.
Mist smiled as he reached out and selected the custom appearance tab with his free hand. “Let’s see, blended faces.” He smiled as he looked over the collection of editing tools that should let him create a very cute mix of Hermione and Daenerys. He selected Hermione’s image then Daenerys then hit the button to mix them together as if they’d had a child. He smiled as an image of a baby appeared in the window. He slid the age slider up and watched as the baby changed to a toddler then a child then a teenager. “This could work.” He reached over and pushed the slider up that controlled her breast size until she had a nice looking c-cup. “How tall do you want her?”
“How about six foot?” Rose asked.
“Works for me.” Mist glanced at the various sliders he had to work with and pushed the slider that controlled the length of her legs up three inches then added another inch to her body so that she was six foot even. He tweaked her breasts a touch then reached up and spun her around so that he could see her behind and look for any other blemishes that he needed to remove. He removed a couple of blemishes then tweaked her hair a bit and spun her back around. “What do you think?” He used his magic to project an image of the girl.
Beth snickered. “Completely fuckable.”
Rose laughed. “You’re a dog, you know that right?”
“Considering my alternate form is a Poochyena, sort of,” Beth admitted.
Mist glanced at the options then smiled as he found the option that let him save her as a template. He saved the appearance as a template then looked through his options for powers and abilities. He selected twice blessed as a race modifier then selected Pandora’s collection of races from his list. He winced as the mana cost jumped rather drastically. He selected the FISS package which pushed the mana cost even higher. “This is going to give my mana pool a workout.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Rose asked.
“Probably.” Mist opened the magic tab and looked over his various options. “I don’t need to add Diablo magic as she can just drink potions and read books for that.”
Beth said, “You can also hand out Disgaea magic with your ability which should free up some points there.”
Mist added the Leaky Limiter trait and winced as the mana cost jumped a staggering amount. “I could blow up a mountain with this much mana.” He knew it wasn’t actually that bad but he could certainly alter a mountain with the amount of mana he was pumping into the girl.
“As long as you have enough for her research skills.” Rose was looking forward to having some fun with the new minions.
Mist finished adding various types of magic to the new minion that they couldn’t easily handout then swapped over to the skill tab. He added the research package then tossed a basic high school education package to her. The actual skills were crap but the basic skills and knowledge base were useful. He added the driving skill he’d scanned off Xander then flipped back to the powers section and assigned the powers that her collection of races gave her. “Projection, power absorption, power containment and gifting, dark whispering teleportation, eye beams and sensing.”
“That’s a good start.”
Mist added disease and poison immunity then flipped over to the personality traits and added happy, dedicated, nudist, exhabitionist and bisexual traits then flipped back to the main menu and saved the template so he didn’t have re-enter all of the basics for the next minion. He flipped to the powers section and added various powers until he ran out of available mana then flipped back and pushed the button to finish creating the girl. He shivered as his entire mana pool drained into the tree.
Rose smiled as she watched the crystal tree sprout a fleshy pod from one of the branches. “How long until your mana pool regenerates?”
“Half an hour or so, taking that background in Skyrim screwed up my regeneration which means that I’m basically relying on my magic items to pick up the slack or a night’s sleep.”
Beth snorted. “Or you could just drink one of your copied full mana potions stop being lazy.”
Mist sighed dramatically then reached into his inventory and pulled out a full mana potion. “Fine.” He drank the potion then opened the minion menu again and brought up the template he’d saved. He brought up the skills tab and added the shop keeper package he’d gotten off one of the local shopkeepers. He swapped over to the powers section and started adding various powers. “We should be able to make a couple of dozen girls then start working on creating some farms so the minions don’t starve.”
“How long do we have until they’re ready?” Rose asked.
“Twenty four hours. That should give us plenty of time to get the barracks and the farms set up before we need them.” He was looking forward to building a themed town, he just wasn’t quite sure what he wanted yet.
0o0o0
Mist opened the door and frowned when he saw the man standing on the porch. “What do you want Leo?”
“You know who I am?” Leo asked warily.
“You’re the sisters’ whitelighter which is why you still have access to the manor unlike the rest of the deadbeat angels.”
“I’m sensing some hostility here.”
“You think?” Mist replied sarcastically as he stepped back from the door to his house. “You might as well come in, I don’t need the neighbors causing problems.”
Leo stepped in and looked around the living room after shutting the door. “What are you?”
“I’m a neutral spell casting and darklighter.”
Leo twitched as he mentally got ready to orb. “What?”
“Don’t worry, I’m far more likely to kill another darklighter than I am a whitelighter.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not evil and most of them are.”
“So you’re not trying to corrupt the sisters?”
“If by corrupt you mean make sure they have a good time and actually have some fun, sure. If you mean talk them into being evil, hell no. Demons are for the most part, rather uncreative. Warlocks are generally speaking, stupid. I don’t need evil intelligent witches running around causing problems.”
“Warlocks are stupid?” Leo asked curious why he thought warlocks were stupid.
“Putting morality aside for a minute, if you had a choice, would you rather stab a demon in the underworld that no one will miss or a witch where you have to worry about mortals, tracking them down and all the various people you’re going to piss off for killing them?”
“When you put it that way, it makes more sense to hunt demons, at least until various demons come looking for you.”
Mist shrugged. “That’s what cloaking spells are for. As long as you stay off the radar and disguise yourself, you’d have to kill a lot of demons before anyone would even notice.”
“Why help the sisters?” Leo asked suspiciously.
“My magic might be neutral but I’m a decent person, I’d rather help people than hurt people. If I’d left things alone, the sisters would sort of muddle through things until they got their feet under them in a couple of months but a lot of innocents would be hurt despite their best efforts.”
“Is that where Prue got the paintings she sold?” Leo asked.
Mist shrugged. “None of them were stolen or anything. Dealing with the magical side of things takes up a lot of their time, they should get something out of it.”
“They’re helping people.”
“And I’m helping them. Speaking of helping, you probably should tell them who you are.”
Leo sighed. “That’s not how it’s done.”
Mist opened his mouth to argue then decided to hell with it. He glanced over toward the Halliwell manor and used his x-ray vision to find a spot he could teleport to. He reached out with his power and teleported himself and Leo into the living room where Piper and Prue were having a discussion.
Piper gestured and froze Leo.
Mist snickered. “Nice reflexes.”
“Don’t do that.” Piper mock glared at Mist.
Prue asked, “Who’s your friend?”
Mist gestured at Leo. “This is your whitelighter, basically your Elder assigned healer and watcher. I figure you might as well listen to his sales pitch.”
Leo lurched as he unfroze. “What happened?”
“I teleported us and Piper froze you.”
“You don’t freeze?” Leo asked in surprise.
“Why would I?” Mist asked with amusement. Technically speaking without his resistance gear and magic resistance he’d probably freeze but he didn’t care if Leo came to the wrong conclusion in this particular case and assumed he didn’t freeze because he was a good witch.
Piper glared at Leo. “You’re our whitelighter, spill.”
“Best of luck.” Mist smiled at Leo as he teleported back to his house.
Pandora walked into the living room and smiled at Mist. “Was that Uncle Leo I heard?”
“Eh, it was Leo, I’m not sure if the other Piper will end up with him but we’ll see.” He wouldn’t be overly bothered if she ended up with Leo as he was a nice enough guy unless you pushed him to the raggedy edge of sanity but that was true for most people.
“Point.”
“That’s it?”
Pandora shrugged. “I’m not a romantic at heart Dad, I can fake it but I’m more of a realist. Depending on how events play out, Auntie Piper might end up with Leo, she might not. We already have a copy of Chris and Wyatt, they aren’t going to vanish if things change in this world so I don’t really care if you change the timeline.”
”Cool, speaking of changing things, did you look at the plans for the magic town?”
“Yeah, I agree with Sin, where’s the brothel?” Pandora asked with a pout.
Mist looked down his nose at his fifteen year old daughter and lied, “It’s behind an age ward, you’ll never see it until you’re old and grey.”
“You realize I’m immortal, right?”
“Exactly, which means you’ll never get old and grey,” Mist replied with amusement.
“Do I have to tell Tara that you’re being mean?” Sin asked as she walked down the stairs with Willow.
Mist laughed as he looked over at Sin and Willow. “You’re going to tell Tara that I’m being mean by not putting in a brothel, yeah, you might want to rethink that plan.”
Pandora laughed. “I can’t see that working.”
Sin snickered as she floated the rest of the way to the ground. “Probably not.”
Mist smiled at Sin. “Besides, the minions are nudists and exhibitionists, I don’t think you’ll have a problem getting a show in the park or in the theater we’re going to build.”
Willow finished walking down the stairs. “Why do you want a brothel?”
Pandora smirked. “I don’t, I just wanted to see Dad’s face twitch.”
“Mission successful,” Mist muttered.
“Seriously, if I can’t talk Harry, Denis or most of the girls in the group into having fun whenever I want sex, I’m giving up my sexy witch card.”
Sin grinned at Pandora. “Any time you want.”
Mist rubbed his face. “I don’t suppose I can blame Paige for your warped sense of humor?”
“You could but we both know I get it from you.” Pandora stuck her tongue out at Mist.
“Fair enough.”
Pandora held her hand out toward Sin. “Kitchen table while Dad works on finishing the town?”
Sin laughed at the horrified look on Mist’s face. “Maybe after we help your father build the town.”
Mist stood up and headed for the basement where he’d left the chest. “Let’s go before I lose my lunch.”
Pandora blew Sin a kiss then teleported down to the basement.
Willow shook her head. “She’s certainly a handful.”
“This is going to be an awesome year.” Sin smirked as she headed toward to the basement.
“Hopefully.” Willow blushed as she followed Sin thinking about Sin and Pandora having sex on the kitchen table.
0o0o0
Lily might have almost felt bad about her plans if her target wasn’t a demon with a list of crimes longer than most books. She glanced over at James. “How sure are you that this is going to work?”
James looked away from the wall of the extra magical trunk they were using for their project and down at the large magical circle that Albus and Fred had drawn out on the stone floor. “It should work but there aren’t any guarantees.”
Fred looked up from checking her notes for the 5th time. “I copied the circle from an ancient book in Magic School and we empowered the circle with enough magic to stop a god, it should hold him for years.”
Albus said, “I’ve warded the trunk with a fidelius and several other concealment spells including some spells from the books we recovered from the school. It should block their power long enough to kill one of them.”
Wyatt tightened his grip on Excalibur. “I can kill him.”
Chris said, “I should be able to distract the other two without getting killed.”
“Let’s avoid dying.” Fred glanced down at the yellow ring on her finger then back at the binding circle she was really hoping would hold the demon. “Let’s do this.”
“Now.” Lily opened a door to the Triad’s chamber inside of the binding circle.
Fred created a large yellow construct hand and grabbed two of the very surprised black robed demons and dragged them through the portal before they could react.
Albus shot a stunner through the open door at the last demon sending it sprawling.
Lily closed the portal.
Chris smirked as he pulled a stone enchanted with silence out of his inventory then set it just outside of the binding circle.
Lily pulled her soul stealing bow out of her inventory then a dragonbone arrow. She didn’t particularly care for trapping souls but she’d make an exception for evil twisted demons with contingency plans for how to come back from the dead. She shot one of the demons in the chest with an arrow.
Wyatt stepped forward and swung as hard as he could at the demon that was partially responsible for causing Christy to go insane.
Fred shivered slightly as the demon’s head rolled off his body before the demon burst into flames and vanished much to the horror of the other demon that looked to be trying to concentrate on something. She pulled a supercharged taser out of her inventory and zapped the second demon to distract him from whatever he was trying to do.
Lily shot the remaining demon with a second soul stealing arrow.
Fred grabbed the demon with a yellow hand then pulled him to the edge of the binding circle.
Wyatt stepped to the side and hacked the demon’s head off.
Albus walked over, picked up the silence rock and stuffed it in his inventory. “Did you get their souls?”
Lily pulled two strange starfish like stone sculptures out of her pocket. “I’m not sure if they have ‘souls’ but I captured their essence. Let’s grab the other demon.” She reopened the door to the demon’s lair.
Fred used her glowing yellow hand to drag the unconscious demon into the binding circle.
Lily closed the portal. “You should probably turn the new powers into marbles before you kill the last one now that we have time.”
“On it.” Wyatt worked on turning the new powers into marbles for Mist to copy. “We should hit a certain fear demon next.”
Albus frowned slightly as he thought about how much better the wizarding world would have been if someone had quietly gotten rid of the worst of the bunch, sadly he wasn’t sure who he would have trusted to make that call, surely not himself.
Chris used his new telepathy to look through the demon’s mind for the location of Christy. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the crazy girl. The only thing that kept him from writing her off completely was that the fact that Billie had almost managed to get through to her a couple of times and Mist had a couple of ways to deal with insanity. He smiled as he found her location as well as the location of the demon’s loyal henchman. “I have Christy’s location.”
Lily pulled out another arrow and knocked it. “Ready?”
“No, they had a large number of powers,” Wyatt replied as he continued creating the power stones out of the new powers he’d gotten by killing the two demons.
Lily turned and looked at Chris. “Can you kill the last demon and get Christy to safety?”
“I’ll drop her off with Mist and Paige, they should be able to help.” Chris pulled his enchanted shades out of his inventory and put them on. He turned invisible then used his new dark whisper power to teleport to Dumain’s location. He scowled as he saw Christy playing chess with the demon. He knew she was just a scared teenager at this point but he couldn’t help but think about what would have happened if she’d spent another ten years down here. ‘No, nothing is written in stone.’ He focused on the demon and unleashed a blast of lightning from his eyes into the demon’s back.
Christy stumbled back as Dumain burst into flames. “Who is there?”
Chris moved away from where he was just in case Christy sent a wave of fire at him or something equally as dangerous. He used his illusion ability to create a demon shimmering into view. He used his voice manipulation power to toss his voice to his illusion and make it sound deeper and darker. “I’ve finally found you, prepare to die.”
Christy gestured and sent a ball of fire at the ‘demon’.
Chris had his demon dodge as he circled around so that he was next to her then he appeared and ‘killed’ the demon by orbing a rock into it. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Christy turned and stared at Chris. “Who are you?”
“Your guardian angel, we need to get somewhere safe.”
“Get me out of here, please?” Christy asked hopefully.
Chris orbed back to Paige’s house.
Paige jumped slightly as Chris appeared with a teenage girl in rags. “What’s going on?”
“Rescuing an innocent.” He was really hoping that she was still an innocent. Either way, leaving her in the underworld wouldn’t have done her sanity any favors. “Can you get her a change of clothes and a shower? I need to try to find a number for her parents.”
Paige smiled at Christy. “Sure, we’ll get you fixed up in no time.”
Christy wasn’t sure if she should trust the man but he’d saved her and gotten her out of the underworld and the woman seemed nice. She rattled off her parent’s phone number or at least the one she’d burned into her memory during her stay in the underworld. Maybe this was a trick but maybe it wasn’t, either way she just wanted to see her parents and little sister again.
Chris watched Paige lead her away then teleported back to the warded magical trunk to check in and let them know that he’d saved Christy.
0o0o0
Mist glanced over at where Christy was working on eating a plate filled with waffles then back down at his phone. He felt a little guilty about giving Christy a cell phone so that he could put her on his contact list so that he could edit her mental landscape but she had some rather nasty mental trauma from being kidnapped and taken to the Underworld. He selected the weak twisted affection trait that he was fairly sure was the start of Stockholm Syndrome and deleted it then looked at the next trait, ‘Paranoid.’ He deleted that particular trait then looked at the next, ‘Cautious’. ‘You can stay.’ He scrolled down to the next trait and then deleted it as he doubted she needed to be unreasonably terrified of being bad. That type of crap often did far more harm than good as Riley could attest.
He scowled slightly as he scrolled through her rather long list of mental issues. While most of them were minor, there were a couple that were rather serious or at least might become serious if they weren’t dealt with by a trained shrink, sadly there weren’t all that many trained shrinks that knew about magic and even less that would be able to relate to being held prisoner for years. He looked at Christy and focused as he tried to figure if leaving her alive was better than doing something drastic, thankfully for his peace of mind, his power let him know that she’d do more good than harm now that they’d saved her. He went back to work deleting her various mental issues and overly negative personality traits while she ate.
He still wasn’t sure what he’d tell her parents but figured they had a right to know that she’d been kidnapped by demons and that she had magic at the very least. He turned as Leo orbed in. “What’s up?”
Christy jumped and tossed a ball of fire at Leo.
Leo orbed and dodged the ball of fire. “It’s just me.”
“Sorry,” Christy apologized sheepishly.
Mist glanced at the wall the fireball had hit, thankfully it hadn’t done all that much damage. “Don’t worry about it, maybe this will remind him that we have a door for a reason.”
Leo said, “Sorry, the elders are assigning her a whitelighter, I wanted to inform you so there won’t be a misunderstanding when she shows up.”
“That should help. Chris killed the demon that took out the demon watching her but there is always a small chance that they’ll come for her again. A whitelighter should be able to cloak her until she gets more training so that she can protect her little sister and herself.” He made a mental note to adjust the anti scrying bracelet so that her whitelighter could find her.
Christy shivered as she thought about more demons coming after her. “I’d rather avoid demons until I figure out how to use my powers.”
Leo smiled at her. “My friend should be able to keep you safe or at least come get help if something happens.”
Mist smiled at Christy. “I’ll make you a protection charm that should help keep demons from finding you again. Between that and your whitelighter cloaking, you, you should have time to get some proper training at magic school.”
“Thank you,” Christy replied tearfully.
Mist was just glad that they’d gotten to her in time. He went back to deleting various mental issues as Leo explained what a whitelighter was and the benefits of magic school.
0o0o0
Barbas listened in horror as Lily finished explaining about how the enchanting process would consume his essence and obliterate his mind and everything else that made him the demon he was. “I don’t suppose you’d make a deal?”
Lily looked down her nose at Poppy’s Barbas as she asked, “What are you offering?”
“What do you want?” He was more than a little unhappy that his power to see a person’s fears had failed against the group that had dragged him out of his lair, through a portal and into an annoyingly effective binding circle.
“I want information about the Source, where to find him, the best way to attack him and all of that.”
Barbas shook his head. “Woah there, you’re insane if you’re planning on fighting the Source of All Evil. He’ll kill me if he finds out I gave you any information about him.”
James was just glad that Albus had already headed back as he spoke up, “We can do worse than kill you.”
“What do you want to know?” Barbas asked.
“Can you bring someone to him?” Fred asked.
“I could arrange an audience but it might take some time and you’d have to release me.”
Lily lifted the location of the Source’s current base from the demon’s head then quickly cut the connection as the demon tried to fill her with fear.
Barbas shook his finger at Lily, “Naughty, naughty, trying to cheat, you’re supposed to be the good guys.”
Wyatt tightened his grip on his sword. He’d grown up with stories of Barbas, he wanted him dead and gone before the underworld understood what having the Charmed Ones around meant. “Let’s start with something simpler then, the location of his seer.”
“She’ll see you coming.”
Wyatt smiled coldly as he thought about all of the trouble the seer had caused his Aunt Phoebe. “Let us worry about that, if nothing else you can claim that you knew she’d see us coming and prepare a trap.” He wasn’t all that surprised when Barbas decided to save his own skin by giving them the information they wanted.
0o0o0
Mist scowled slightly as he looked down at the rather large collection of demons in the demonic marketplace from where he was floating in the shadows. He wasn’t sure how many demons were evil because it was their nature and how many were evil because that was how they were raised but that didn’t change the fact that all of the demons he’d looked at would cost the world something if they remained alive. He reached out his projection power as he cast his spell, “From this cavern let no demon escape through magic until the dawn.”
He pulled his blade out of his inventory as he dropped to the ground. He felt slightly guilty killing them while invisible but only a little considering they were evil demons. He blurred toward his first target and cut off the demon’s head as he shouted, “Lord Zankou!” He turned and ran toward his next target before the first demon’s head even managed to slide completely off the demon’s neck. He brought his sword up and around as he cut off another demon’s head then checked the next demon to see if the world would be better off without him. He wasn’t surprised when he saw that it would. He dropped that demon and the next five before the demons realized there was a problem and another seven before various demons started trying to teleport out of the market and found they couldn’t. He’d checked and killed another fifty seven demons in a blur before several demons started running for the exits.
He paused long enough to shout, “Down with the Source! Zankou protects!” then started slaughtering the almost motionless demons again as he made his way toward one of the stalls that was selling magical items that were probably cursed. He dodged a strike as a demon actually managed to move at a decent rate compared to his FISS enhanced speed. “Zankou demands your death!” He pushed his speed up further as he brought his blade around and cut through the demon’s sword and body. He reached into his pocket and pushed the button on his stopwatch and watched as most of the demons froze. The few that didn’t freeze were making their way toward the exit or hiding which suited him fine. “Zankou will kill you all!”
He smiled slightly as the fleeing demons picked up the pace. He spent a few ‘seconds’ looting the various stalls and stuffing magical trinkets into a bag. He ignored the trinkets that were useless or weak and heavily cursed as he made his way around the marketplace stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down.
He put his bag and sword back in his inventory then ran to the middle of the room and unpaused time. He raised his hands then sent a torrent of lightning from his hands as he slowly spun around so that he raked the cavern with his lightning. He wasn’t all that worried if some of the demons escaped, the underworld was large enough that killing every demon wasn’t a viable goal, at least not without resorting to drastic measures.
He smiled as several demons shimmered in and started tossing energy bolts at him. “Zankou protects!” He laughed as he dropped the lightning and started tossing energy balls back at the demons. “Zankou destroys!” He laughed as he felt a large ball of fire vanish as his spell absorption turned it into mana. He raised his hands and started tossing large balls of fire everywhere that exploded. “Great balls of fire!”
Mist frowned slightly as his fireball destroyed the last demon that had shimmered in. “Is this all you have?!” He glanced around with his x-ray vision for a demonic survivor. He smiled as he saw a demon cowering under a table. He blurred forward and kicked the table sending it flying. He glared down at the terrified looking demon that was staring at him in terror. “Tell the Source I’m coming for him, for the glory of Zankou!” He shimmered out of the cavern and reappeared in a dark alley in San Francisco. ‘Well, that was fun.’ He smiled as he changed back to his normal appearance then teleported back home with his mutant power.
Sin smiled at Mist from her spot on the couch with Paige as she paused the movie. “You might as well drop your invisibility Boss.”
Mist pouted as he dropped his invisibility. “What gave me away?”
“You mean beyond the fact that you’re rocking enough magical gear to end a war by yourself?”
“I really should look into ways to conceal that. What are you watching?”
“Frozen, I needed something upbeat and demon free,” Paige replied.
“Why? What happened?” Mist asked with concern.
“Pregnancy test…” Paige trailed off.
Sin said, “Congratulations, you’re going to be a father at least four times over… well five if you include Pandora…” They’d need to do some tests once the children were born to see if Paige’s child was Pandora but it seemed likely.
“Please don’t kill me?” Mist asked hopefully.
Paige snorted. “Get over here and watch the movie with us.”
“Yes Master,” Mist replied as he walked over and sat between the two hot women. “No problem Master, thy wish is my command.”
“Right, are you ready to get released from your bottle yet?”
“Second.” Mist turned to look at Sin. “Four?”
Sin smirked. “Piper’s pregnant as are Phoenix and Poppy, thus four or five counting Pandora assuming that she isn’t Paige’s first child.”
Mist turned back to look at Paige. “In that case, give me twenty minutes to sort through and copy all of the demonic powers my sword and I absorbed then I’ll be good to be a mere mortal.” Normally he might have tried to hold off for a few more months or at least weeks but he’d acquired a hell of a lot of powers over the last couple of weeks and he’d rather not be stuck as a genie while the girls were going through the later stages of pregnancy if he could help it.
“Cool, tell me when you’re ready.” Paige snuggled against Mist then rested her head against his shoulder as Sin unpaused the movie. Even if the last few weeks had been crazy, it was nice having family.
Mist wasn’t sure what he was supposed to feel thirty minutes later when Paige wished him free, other than his bracelets falling off and a disturbingly familiar gold and sapphire ring appearing on his finger he didn’t really feel any different than he had before. He had a feeling he’d feel differently if he took the ring off but other than having Pandora duplicate the ring, he wasn’t planning on taking it off for any length of time or at all.
“How do you feel?” Paige asked hoping that he wouldn’t change his mind about her or anything now that he was free.
Mist rubbed his wrists. “It’s nice to have the bracelets off my wrists but I don’t really feel any different.”
“Does that mean you still love me?” she asked hopefully.
Mist reached out and tapped her nose playfully. “Yep.”
“That’s a relief,” Paige admitted.
“Every genie is different.” Mist pulled a potion of permanence out of his inventory then glanced down at the perfect replica of a ring he hadn’t seen since before he’d started jumping. ‘Same starburst pattern, same blue sapphire. If it’s not my ring, it’s close enough.’ He’d expected a simple band or something gaudy, not a copy of the ring he’d gotten as a gift when he turned eighteen. He made a mental note to thank Genie when he saw her.
Paige asked, “What are you going to do with the potion?”
Mist pulled his attention off the ring and back to Paige. “Make sure my ring doesn’t break but I should probably head to my room and unload my inventory before I risk taking the ring off.”
Sin snickered. “Probably a good idea, do you need any help?”
“Sure, let’s finish watching the last bit of the movie then we can sort through my inventory and Pandora can make copies for everyone.”
“Sounds good.” Sin unpaused the movie and rested her head against his shoulder.
Paige rested her head against Mist’s other shoulder, she knew at some point she was going to have to figure out what she felt about her ex-genie but that was for later.
Comments
Mist of Shadows
Ah, amusingly enough it's actually a darklighter perk. They normally use it to target good people but it's a rather nice way to tell if people will improve the world if they're left alone.
Alex Wierzbicki
Awesome as always. Remind where this power is from please power let him know that she’d do more good than harm now that they’d saved her.
