Traveling Magic Shop Part 30 (Patreon)

"Take advantage of your right to remain silent and stop talking," Officer Murphy complained as he glared at the asshole in the rearview mirror that he'd arrested for flipping over a desk and threatening to beat the principal of the local middle school stupid.

"It's not my fault that your face looks like someone beat you with the ugly stick until it broke," Harry replied with a smirk, having fun with his attempt to destroy the credibility of Aisha's mother's boyfriend.

"At least I'm not a degenerate piece of shit," Murphy replied, well aware that he wasn't particularly attractive and not particularly concerned about it.

"Is this because I'm black?" Harry asked sarcastically.

"You're not black and no, you're a degenerate piece of shit because you're a fucking idiot," Murphy complained.

"I don't suppose I can bribe you into letting me walk?" Harry asked, trying to get an idea how corrupt the officer was.

"Contrary to popular belief, not every single officer in the bay is corrupt," Murphy replied as he headed back to the precinct, having lost track of the number of people over the years that had tried to bribe him.

"Can you transfer me to one of those officers?" Harry asked.

"No, shut the fuck up," Murphy replied as he pulled into the precinct, long past ready to toss the guy in a cell and forget about him.

"Whatever," Harry replied, going silent as he didn't want to actually push the guy to the point where he 'accidently' smashed him into a door or forgot about him in the back of the squad car for a couple of hours. 'This would be so much easier if he was actually corrupt.'

Murphy grabbed the car's radio. "I'm going to need a couple of officers to help me transport a suspect, he tried to bribe me and he's violent."

"I'll send Fitz and Smith," a female voice replied over the radio.

"Thanks," Murphy replied and took his finger off the button. "The less trouble you give us, the less trouble you'll be in."

"You can't keep me, I have connections!" Harry replied cheerfully, having fun pretending to be an idiot.

"Great," Murphy replied sarcastically. "You should make it easy on them and keep your mouth shut."

Harry flipped the cop off then quietly waited for the officers, planning on making a scene so they’d dump him in a cell before they managed to fingerprint him so he could drop the body in the cell and escape before they realized that they were dealing with a shape changer since his shape changing ability didn't extend to fingerprints unless he spent an insane amount of time manually adjusting them.

0o0o0

Myst forced himself not to glare at the overweight woman that was inspecting the snow globes and pointing out all of the 'flaws' in the designs, wishing that she'd hurry up and buy something so he could get back to watching the rest of Cherie's naked jumping jacks.

"There should be more holiday decorations," the woman complained.

"I just sell what the company sends me,” Myst replied, wishing it was warm enough to stun her and toss her outside so he could get back to watching the show. 'I'm starting to understand why the old shopkeeper quit.'

“Stupid company, you need Baby Jesus,” the woman complained as the door opened and Rose walked in.

"I'm not selling holiday trash," Myst replied with annoyance, not really interested in selling crap that would get tossed in a closet or storage unit after the holidays until it was pulled out for the holidays next year.

"Heathen!" the woman shouted then turned and stormed out of the shop with her nose in the air.

"What's her problem?" Rose asked as she walked over to where Taylor was studying her cards and doing her best to ignore the woman.

"No clue," Myst replied, just glad that the annoying woman had left since he'd been putting up with her for the last twenty minutes. "How did things go with Aisha?"

Rose hopped up and sat on the table. "We dropped her off at school and made sure her mother's boyfriend wasn't going to be a problem anymore."

"Swimming with the fishes?" Taylor asked, mostly joking and trying to distract herself from what her projection was doing in the game room.

"Nah, just a bit of good old fashioned character assassination," Rose replied, not seeing a point in telling Taylor that Aisha had killed him, since she'd be morally obligated to turn her in. "Is there a reason your ears are red?"

"Cherie decided to strip for powers which spiraled into a dancing competition and my projection sucks," Taylor admitted, glad that she'd managed to touch Cherie's arm as she walked by so that she could pick up her powers since it let her know that everyone was laughing with her projection rather than at her which helped.

"I heard that!" Taylor's projection complained from the game room.

"Cherie?" Rose asked as she turned to look at Myst.

"The girl with a red streak in her hair that was flying around when you and Harry left. She's a Canadian Villain that wants to jump dimensions to escape her family because her father is sadistic and more than a bit insane," Myst explained.

"Makes sense," Rose replied as she glanced at the familiar book that was sitting on the counter in front of Myst. "Who got trapped in the book?"

"I managed to trick Scion into using the book, I'm not sure if he's physically trapped or just brain dead," Myst replied.

"Why would you trap Scion?" Taylor asked, feeling a bit conflicted since Myst was talking about trapping the world's most powerful hero and her shard was happy about Scion getting trapped.

"He's responsible for destroying countless planets in an attempt to survive the eventual heat death of the universe and because he's sadistic at heart," Myst replied.

Taylor stared at Myst, wondering if he was joking. "You're going to have to explain that."

"The version that you've seen is basically a projection, he's also depressed because he's emulating human emotions and his partner died when they were landing on the planet."

"Landing on the planet?" Taylor asked.

"They can travel in space, which is why no one had powers before Scion first showed up," Myst told her. "Scion is basically a massive alien computer that is in charge of half of the shards while his partner is in control of the other half. The basic goal is to use sapient species as a source of creativity and innovation then blow them up at the end of a three hundred year cycle so they can use the energy to leave."

"That's insane," Rose complained. "You'd be better off spreading the tech in different dimensions and leaving people alive behind you to continue advancing on the off chance that they figure something out. It wouldn't be hard to leave them with a favorable opinion of you and a couple of shards to make sure the natives aren't planning on hunting the shards down and causing trouble."

"My power agrees, I get the sense that she was overruled," Taylor offered.

"Makes sense," Myst agreed, knowing that Scion didn't consider any of the shards worth listening to. "Either way, as things spiral down the drain, you'll get more parahumans which will eventually cause society to collapse because they can't maintain critical systems."

"We're getting close with the endbringers," Taylor complained.

"Do you know how to kill them?" Rose asked, figuring he had a good idea.

"In theory," Myst replied with a shrug.

"In theory?" Taylor asked.

Myst sighed. "Just because I know a couple of capes that could probably kill them doesn't mean I know how to line everything up so they'd die. Taylor has a decent shot at killing them but she's going to need to figure out how to set up force fields that can stop a nuke because if you destroy their core, they'll explode. Part of the problem is that the endbringers get information from the shards which means they're always one step ahead."

"Which powers do I need?" Taylor asked, fairly sure she could build something that would replicate Vicky's Force Field to contain the blast once she had a decent lab.

'This would be so much easier if I trusted Cauldron to not take the worst path,' Myst complained, making a mental note to send Legend a message right before he pulled the lever to jump worlds. "Flechette's power would let you cut through an endbringer's flesh like butter and your projection can probably hold an endbringer in place long enough to destroy their cores, assuming that my information about the endbringers is correct."

"Where can I find Flechette?" Taylor asked.

"I think she's a ward in New York or Boston," Myst glanced at the door when the bell rang, "I'm not actually sure which but you should be able to look her up on the boards." He used his Upgrade ability to check the dark haired woman in her late twenties that walked into the shop wearing a black business suit and a fedora, half expecting to find that the woman was a precog. 'Huh, no shard but she has enough strength to punt a truck into the bay from the parking lot, supernatural agility and a decent amount of magic.'

'I'm going to kill Kenny,' Rebecca complained, wishing her contact had warned her that the shopkeeper was an eldritch abomination with enough power to obliterate her if he sneezed.

Taylor frowned, wondering why the woman had gone from worried but reasonably fine to 'check your pants terrified' when she stepped into the shop.

Myst glanced down at her black combat boots that didn't match the suit then focused on her face. "Welcome to the Magic Shop, how can I help you?"

Rebecca glanced at girls sitting at a table with magic cards then focused on the shopkeeper. "I need to restock my healing potions and I need a containment device upgraded."

"What type of containment device?" Myst asked as he pulled one of the bottles of cider out from under the counter and upgraded it so that it would completely heal someone, completely missing the woman's fear.

Rebecca carefully pulled the containment device out of her pocket then walked over and set it on the counter, hoping that he wouldn't eat her for asking about a containment device or wasting his time.

Myst stared at the device that looked suspiciously like a pokeball for a couple of seconds then focused on the pokeball and used his Upgrade power on it. "What are you trying to capture?"

"I've got a contract for a Behemoth, someone wants to use it as a terraforming device but I don't trust the capture device they gave me," Rebecca admitted.

Taylor stared at the girl that didn't have powers that was talking about capturing an endbringer, wondering if she'd lost her mind.

"Nothing wrong with double checking the equipment," Myst replied as he spent the mana to improve the capture device, increasing the device's ability to capture anything and everything other than him. 'No reason to create a trap that someone can use on me.' He spent the mana to speed up the capture rate and to make sure Behemoth couldn't just redirect the energy that would pull him into a pocket dimension. "I'm not sure if your contact was an idiot or trying to kill you but I increased the power enough that it should work."

"How much do I owe you?" Rebecca asked warily.

"Ten dollars for the capture device, two for each potion. How many potions do you need?" Myst asked as he grabbed another bottle of cider and upgraded it.

'Two dollars?' Rebecca relaxed, glad that the 'man' didn't seem to care how much the stuff should have been worth. "Twenty?" she asked, not wanting to piss him off by demanding too much but not wanting to pass up the chance to grab something that had more magic in it than a legendary elixir.

"Coming right up," Myst replied as he set the bottle down next to the other one then grabbed another one from under the counter. "What type of work do you normally do?"

"Bounty hunting, I capture criminals and monsters," Rebecca replied as she watched the shopkeeper burn enough mana to destroy a town on each bottle. 'Maybe Kenny knew what he was talking about.'

"Does it pay well?" Rose asked.

"Depends on the job," Rebecca replied as she pulled her wallet out, grabbed a fifty dollar bill and set it on the table. "Sometimes you make enough to retire and sometimes you spend more on ammunition than the job was worth. Of course, that's assuming the client pays you in cash rather than company points, trade goods or favors."

"How do you price favors?" Taylor asked.

Rebecca focused on Taylor. "It depends on the favor and the person giving you the favor but there's a reason that I try to get cash for a job or company points. I know a guy that was owed a favor by a greater devil, by all rights it should have been worth something, except when he needed it, the devil was nowhere to be found because of a technicality. On the other hand, I knew a little girl that was owed a favor by an apprentice magic user, by all rights, that favor shouldn't have helped when she ended up stuck in hell."

"What happened?" Rose asked.

"She called in the favor and Merlin showed up with an army of magic using unicorns and a bunch of demons had a really bad day," Rebecca replied with a grin. "So, yeah, you never know how much a favor is worth until you have to call it in."

Myst finished the last of the twenty bottles then grabbed the strange fifty with a president that he didn't recognize and dropped it in the till, glad that the shop didn't care where the money came from as long as it was legitimate currency somewhere. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

'Screw it, he's been reasonable so far,' Rebecca thought, figuring she might as well ask since he was pretending to be a reasonable shopkeeper. "Do you have anything that will let me fly?"

"Sure," Myst replied as he pointed at the bags of lemon drops on the counter. "I have lemon drops that will give you temporary flight and I have the ability to give you the ability to fly permanently, which do you want?"

"How much?" Rebecca asked, wanting to make sure they agreed on a price before she got stuck with a bill she couldn't pay.

"Five dollars for the lemon drops or free for the permanent flight if you manage to capture Behemoth," Myst replied, not seeing a point in charging when he didn't have to.

"Property values?" Rebecca asked as she started moving the healing potions to her spatial ring.

"Basically," Myst replied.

"He'll be gone by tomorrow," Rebecca assured him as she moved the capture device to her pocket since she didn't want it in her spatial ring.

"Excellent." Myst snapped his fingers and used his Pyramid Scheme ability to give her a copy of his Flight ability. "Best of luck with your rat hunting."

"Thanks," Rebecca replied as she floated off the ground, making a mental note to grab her target and get the hell off the world as soon as possible and let Kenny know to mark this world as claimed for the company records.

Taylor watched the strange woman leave then turned to look at Myst. "Do you think she'll be able to capture an Endbringer?"

"There's always a chance, she has magic and she's durable enough to take a couple of hits unless Behemoth stops sandbagging," Myst replied as he went back to reading the adventure book, not particularly worried about the bounty hunter as she seemed to know what she was doing and she had enough durability to survive a fight with Behemoth limited as he currently was.

"Is there a reason she was scared of you?" Taylor asked, trying not to think about the fact that the Endbringers were apparently sandbagging or the fact that her power couldn't sense or manipulate non parahuman powers.

"No clue," Myst admitted. "Her contact was probably just winding her up."

Rose shook her head as she laughed. "Or she has the ability to sense mana, you have enough mana to make most mages run screaming."

"Any suggestions?" Myst asked, wishing he'd been able to take the advanced mana control class that covered hiding your mana when he was in the book.

"We should have a book on the subject, we'll take a look," Rose replied as she headed for the door to the 'library'.

Taylor followed Rose, curious what they could find.

"Thanks," Myst replied as the bell over the door rang and an old man walked into the shop. He quickly checked the man with his Upgrade ability, finding that he didn't have magic or powers. "Welcome to the Magic Shop, how can I help you?"

"I'm looking for something for my joints, do you have medicinal herbs that help with pain?" the man asked.

"I have a garden, let's take a look," Myst replied as he grabbed a bottle of cider from under the counter and headed toward the garden.

0o0o0

Myst looked up from the adventure book when Harry walked in. "Any trouble?"

Harry glanced around the empty shop then focused on Myst as he walked over to the counter. "How much did Rose tell you?"

"Not much, we got busy and Taylor was here," Myst explained. "What's up?"

"Aisha's mother has horrible taste in boyfriends," Harry complained. "He grabbed her arm and decided to beat her with a belt so she kicked him and he cracked his head open on the wall or at least that's her story."

"Probably legit," Myst agreed. "What did you do with the body?"

"I turned him into a stuffed pig and cleaned up the crime scene with magic then dropped Aisha off at school so she'd have an alibi when he turned up dead. I went a bit overboard yelling at the principal and ended up getting arrested so I left the guy's body in his cell with an Empire thug after conjuring some blood and faking a crime scene in the cell."

Myst sighed. "They're going to go over that with a fine toothed comb."

Harry shook his head. "I doubt it, they're completely filled with Empire thugs from the rally they busted, they'll probably just take pictures then spray everything down so they can use the cell."

"What if you got the blood splatter wrong?" Myst asked.

"Magic," Harry stated.

Myst raised his eyebrows. "Why do you have a spell for faking crime scenes?"

"Dad taught me. Mum wasn't amused when we used it to fake a crime scene for Halloween," Harry admitted. "We ended up hiding in the dungeon for a couple of hours until Mum calmed down. I had to spend the next day cleaning everything up with a scrub brush because I should know better than to encourage him."

Myst laughed. "To be fair, she has a point. Was it worth it?"

"Yes," Harry replied with amusement that faded to a comfortable silence. "How much is this going to blow up in our faces?"

"I don't know, there's a decent chance that the asshole had a record and that Aisha would have gotten off with a warning or probation and a term in the wards, something that would probably help her all things considered. There's also a decent chance that things would have gone completely sideways and she'd get arrested and tossed in jail for defending herself. Either way, you probably should have called me for help when you realized he was dead."

"That's fair," Harry admitted.

"You should probably help Rose with research," Myst suggested, wanting to finish reading about Scion's adventure, since Hephaestus was planning on using his body to jump out of the war in Olympus and he was curious what he'd do with the shard network.

0o0o0