Myst in DC part 4 (Patreon)

Myst studied the magical ring with his upgrade power. “Nope, just a magical knockoff.”

“As in it’s worthless?” Kid Flash asked.

“As in it’s great for making clothes, moving small objects and the only force field it can make is more like a windshield.” He slipped the ring on his right ring finger then focused on the ring and brought up the interface that controlled the costume. “Black shorts with purple eldritch symbols, I can live with that.” He activated the costume function then grinned as a pair of black and purple shorts appeared around his waist that didn’t look half bad.

“Looks good,” Megan agreed as she studied the strange yet artistic patterns on his shorts.

“What does the forcefield look like?” Raven asked wondering what it would take to duplicate the ring.

Myst brought the force field up and smirked as he looked at the harmless purple ‘fire’ that surrounded him. “Sweet!”

“Pretty,” Starfire squealed as she stared at the purple flames.

Megan took a step back from the flames then relaxed slightly as she realized they weren’t producing any heat.

“A bit too noticeable for my taste,” Robin said as he studied the glowing purple ‘flames’ that covered Myst.

“Sadly, I doubt the shield would stop a tennis ball but it’s something to work on.” Myst was fairly sure he could get the shield up to the point it could block bullets with a reasonable amount of effort once he increased his mana regeneration and mana capacity which would make him a lot less nervous about Zatanna and Raven running around as heroes.

“I wouldn’t mind having a ring that stored my costume,” Kid Flash admitted.

“Purple is a good color,” Starfire agreed with a smile.

“I can also make a hand of doom!” Myst said as he used the ring to create a glowing right hand of purple energy.

“Hand of doom?” Robin said skeptically as he eyed the glowing hand floating in front of Myst. 

“Okay, it’s more like hand of minor telekinesis, but it’s still pretty cool.” Myst caused the hand to wave at Robin.

“That could be useful,” Starfire agreed as she studied the glowing hand.

Artemis nodded. “I don’t suppose you can get more rings for the rest of us?” she asked hopefully.

“If I can’t get more rings from the gacha, I can probably reverse engineer it,” Myst assured her. “I should be able to boost the shield to the point it actually functions as armor.”

“What about recharging?” Robin asked, knowing that was Green Lantern’s main issue with his ring.

“Nope,” Myst said smugly. “You shouldn’t have to recharge it at all.”

Connor glanced at Starfire who was hovering in place. “Would it let me fly?” he asked, thinking about Green Lantern’s ring.

“I wouldn’t mind a flight ring,” Zatanna agreed as she poked Myst’s arm with her finger, trying to see if the flames were physical.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Myst replied, knowing the rest of the team would benefit from flight.

“Since you’re taking requests, can I have a version that doesn’t glow?” Robin asked hopefully.

Myst stood up and stretched his arms over his head. “Probably not any time soon but we’ll see what I can come up with.” He took a couple of cautious steps then grinned when he realized that he had no trouble with his balance. “Okay, time to get back in shape and distract myself from waiting for my mana pool to fill, does anyone other than Kid Flash or the aliens want to race?”

“Sure,” Zatanna said as she took off running down the beach with a smile on her face. “Catch me if you can!”

“That works,” Myst said as he sprinted after the attractive magic user.

Artemis smiled as she watched her new teammate chase after Zatanna. “Do you think he could make rings of invisibility or a flight ring?”

“Probably not until he increases his mana,” Raven said as she watched Zatanna and Myst. “The more mana he puts into the gacha the better the gear.”

Megan said, “Sign me up for anything that grants resistance to fire.”

“That sounds good,” Starfire agreed, fairly sure most of the group could use the boost to their defenses.

“How much do you think Batman is going to freak about the ‘magical’ gear?” Kid Flash asked Robin with amusement.

“Batman doesn’t freak, he glares,” Robin replied as he reached down and pulled a pocket notebook and a pen out of his bag. “Joking aside, I think his opinion will depend on how reliable the gear is and how many people on the team can reproduce it.”

“In other words, no point getting reliant on something you can’t replace if it breaks?” Artemis asked as she watched Myst tackle a giggling Zatanna into the water.

“Basically,” Robin agreed as he turned to look at Cyborg who was walking their way with a cooler and Black Canary who was dressed in a swimsuit and had a rolled up beach towel in her hand. “What’s up?”

Dinah shook her head as she noticed Myst’s new form. “Mostly rest and relaxation. When did he get a human form?” she asked as they closed the distance to the group, curious why Cyborg hadn’t mentioned Myst’s new form.

“About nine minutes ago, give or take,” Robin offered. 

Raven snickered at the look on Cyborg’s face. “He also managed to conjure a knockoff Lantern Ring which gave him a costume.”

“Knockoff?” Cyborg asked, curious what Myst had managed to create while he’d been getting extra drinks.

“It lets you conjure a purple and black costume, a flaming bug shield and a glowing telekinetic hand that you can mentally control,” Raven explained as Myst and Zatanna started walking toward them.

“Flaming bug shield?” Dinah asked with a raised eyebrow as Cyborg opened the cooler and started passing out cans of soda.

Beast Boy grinned. “It’s basically a really weak force field with some visual effects which makes it pretty much useless for anything other than a bug shield, at least until he upgrades it.”

“I’m a fan of the ability to instantly swap costumes,” Artemis said as she opened her can of coke. “It would probably stop mosquitos as well.”

“That sounds useful,” Dinah agreed as she spread her beach towel on the sand next to Raven and Zatanna’s towel.

“Time to spin the wheel.” Myst selected the pillow wheel on his gacha menu as soon as his mana hit fifty, curious what type of magical pillow he’d get. 

Dinah studied the glowing spinning prize wheel that was floating in front of the humanoid slime. “Pillows?”

“I like comfortable pillows,” Myst replied, not sure what he was going to end up with.

Robin blinked as an expensive looking pink silk pillow appeared as the wheel stopped. “Nice color.”

Myst caught the pillow then focused on it with his upgrade ability. “Eh, it cuts the time you need to sleep for a good night’s sleep by an hour and makes naps twice as effective, I’ll deal with it being pink.”

“How much do you want for it?” Dinah asked immediately as she stared at the pillow.

Myst laughed. “Sorry, I’m keeping this until I can figure out how to duplicate it for the team.”

“I’m going to want a copy.” Dinah knew that most of the League would want copies as it would make their lifestyle less problematic.

“Don’t worry, I should be able to copy the enchantment to your favorite pillow. Just give me enough time to test the process and figure out what I need to duplicate it.” Mist glanced at Robin who was writing in his notebook. “Taking notes?”

“I have a good memory but I have a feeling you’re going to conjure a lot of magical items today,” Robin explained as he copied down the details for the two magical items.

“Fair enough,” Myst agreed, seeing no problem with Batman getting a list of everything he conjured as he was basically the League’s gadget guy.

“Any idea how it works?” Kid Flash asked, curious if there was a scientific effect that he could replicate.

Myst shrugged. “No clue, we’d probably need a medical doctor or at least a nurse to run some tests.”

“Wait, really? You’d let us run tests?” Kid flash asked, wondering what the catch was.

“I’m a magic user, not a mystic or a cultist. If you can figure out how the magic does what it goes after I make a copy, great. If you can’t, no harm done as long as you don’t try to cut the pillow apart.”

“Cool,” Kid Flash replied.

Myst stuck the pillow in his inventory. “In that case, is anyone up for volleyball, I missed the first game.”

“I’ll play,” Stafire agreed as she looked at Connor. “What about you?”

“Sure,” Connor replied, fairly content to spend time in the sun charging so that he was ready for the next mission.

0o0o0

Zatanna looked up from the recipe Sabrina was showing her and Raven as the timer on her watch went off. “Are you at 100 yet?” she asked as she pushed the button to stop the noise before it woke Dinah up from her nap.

Myst pulled his attention away from Dinah’s bikini clad behind that he was trying not to stare at directly and checked his mana bar. “Yeah, I’m up to 101 of 105.” He quickly grabbed the 100 point trinket wheel when his mana went to 102.

“Hopefully you get something decent,” Cyborg offered as he watched the floating wheel spin in front of Myst.

“Hopefully,” Myst replied as the wheel came to a stop. He blinked as the wheel vanished leaving him something that looked suspiciously like a wristband pedometer. “Huh, not what I was expecting.” He looked at the device with his upgrade ability. “Huh...”

“Something good?” Raven asked, hoping it was actually useful.

“Sort of?” Myst muttered as he glanced at where Kid Flash was playing volleyball with the rest of the team. “It boosts my mana regeneration when I’m walking or moving.”

“That’s good, right?” Cyborg asked as he looked at the pedometer.

“I’m sensing a but here,” Zatanna said as she studied Myst’s face.

“Pretty much,” Myst agreed. “It’s only an additional 1% of my max mana every mile I walk or run.”

Dinah snickered as she opened her eyes. “Considering you’re not a speeder, that sounds less than useful right now. You can upgrade it, right?”

Myst frowned slightly as he looked at the cost for upgrading the device. “Huh, yeah, that might take a bit. 1,000 mana to reduce the number of feet required to get the boost by one which means that I might have it down to something reasonable in a few million mana.”

“Can you modify the percentage?” Zatanna asked.

“Ten thousand mana to increase the percentage by 1 which wouldn’t be all that horrible if I actually had the mana.” Myst was fairly sure he could turn the device into something useful with enough time but it was going to take a while.

Dinah pushed herself up then twisted her legs around so that she was sitting. “Which means, you just need to get your mana pool up to 1,000 with a reasonable amount of mana regeneration and you could quickly boost your new trinket so that you’re regenerating one percent of your total mana every couple steps, right?”

“In theory,” Myst admitted, not sure how the upgrades would scale or if it would reach a certain point and drastically jump in price. “That’s assuming nothing goes completely weird with the pricing. I’m currently up to twenty mana a minute, another hour should double that.”

“Close enough,” Cyborg agreed, knowing that it was within a couple of minutes of an hour by his calculations. “You’ll probably be up to one mana a second by dinner.”

“At which point I’ll probably spend some time upgrading my mana pool so I don’t have to pay constant attention to my upgrade menu.” Myst was looking forward to getting his mana high enough that he didn’t have to worry about running out of mana but figured that would take a couple of weeks. “Speaking of upgrades, did you enjoy your healing slumber?” he asked fairly sure this was a good test of his healing power.

Dinah grinned as she picked up the enchanted pillow and tossed it to Myst. “More than I was expecting,” she replied as she stretched her arms above her head. She had a feeling most of the League would appreciate having all of their old injuries completely healed as if they’d never happened to say nothing of the excellent nap that left her feeling refreshed.

Robin blinked as he read the message on his communicator. ‘Master Bruce had a bit of a  kerfuffle at work, so if you’re available, we could use your healer.’ He quickly read the message again. “Shit!” He quickly to civilian mode then sent Barbara a quick message, ‘Is anything weird going on in Gotham?’

“What’s up?” Raven asked warily.

Barbara perked up as a message from Dick popped up on her computer. ‘Anything weird? Yeah, you could say that.’ She quickly typed a response, ‘You mean like the alien attacking the bank? It’s crazy, he’s tossing fire trucks around like candy.’

“Batman is injured and Gotham is being attacked, let’s go!” Robin replied as he ran over to where Myst and the girls were standing up and grabbing their gear. “Batman is injured and Gotham is under attack,” he explained as he read the message Barbara had sent him. He looked at Myst. “Batman needs a healer, are you up for it?”

“No problem,” Myst replied getting a flash of the Batcave with Bruce unconscious in a set of power armor with a blood trail leading from the batmobile to the armor. ‘What the hell?!’ 

“Playtime is over, let’s go!” Dinah called out as she grabbed her bag and sprinted for the parking lot.

Myst dropped the pedometer into his inventory as he didn’t want it damaged then started running toward the parking lot.

“Grab Black Canary,” Starfire called out as she picked up Zatanna.

“Lift?” Artemis asked Connor, knowing she’d fall behind without help.

“Zoom!” Kid Flash said as he blurred forward and collected the gear then ran toward the parking lot.

‘Thanks,’ Robin sent a text back to Barbara as he sprinted toward the parking lot, intent on saving his mentor.

0o0o0

Myst shivered as he stepped out of the zeta beam transporter into the Batcave and saw the scene from his vision, a trail of blood leading from the batmobile to a suit of bat themed power armor. He spared a glance at the older gentleman in a nice looking suit and white theater mask that had to be Alfred as he ran past Robin, making his way toward the suit of armor that Batman was inside of. “Excuse the abruptness.”

“What happened?” Robin asked as he moved away from the zeta beam device so that the rest of the team didn’t have to step around him to clear the way.

Myst reached through the thankfully open faceplate and used his healing ability on Batman. ‘At least it worked, which means he’s not dead.’

“Batman managed to make it back and was in the process of collecting the appropriate gear to deal with the situation when his injuries caused him to take a nap,” Alfred replied dryly as the rest of Robin’s team filed into the room. He knew that Bruce wasn’t going to be all that happy with him letting people into the cave, but at this point it was the least of his concerns. “Thank you for the prompt assistance, Master Robin.”

Dinah winced as she stepped out of the zeta machine and saw the trail of blood on the ground that looked like a heavily wounded animal had dragged itself across the ground to reach the armor. “Please tell me that he’s still alive.”

Myst glanced over at Cyborg who was looking around at the shiny toys like a man in a candy story. “My healing ability worked, now it’s just a matter of getting him out of the armor and getting any shrapnel or metal pins out of him before they rip their way out of him.”

Alfred winced. “He has a number of pins in various bones. Do you need his chart?”

Myst shook his head. “No. Megan can you phase the metal out of him?”

“No, I am not that adept at phasing,” Megan replied as she carefully phased Batman out of his power armor then laid him on the ground.

“Raven? Zee? I need the metal out of him now,” Myst said as he watched Batman twitch in his ‘sleep’ as the healing ‘slowly’ did its work.

“Connor, hold him down!” Raven gestured and surrounded Batman with darkness. “This is going to be messy.” She waited until Connor pinned his arms then ‘ripped’ the various pins out of him, trusting Myst’s power to heal him completely.

“Peels!” Zatanna said as she gestured toward Batman. “Okay, he should be better when he wakes up.”

“What’s the situation?” Robin asked, keeping his eyes on Bruce as Raven moved him to the surgery table.

“That looks rather painful,” Alfred noted dryly, feeling much more composed as he could visibly see Bruce healing, “perhaps it will encourage him to retrieve the proper gear when dealing with such situations in the future.”

“He’ll need to sleep for some time before he is fully recovered,” Myst told Alfred.

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Robin snorted.

“Perhaps I should rephrase that,” Myst said with a smirk as he pulled out the little pink pillow and slipped it under Batman’s head. “He is going to sleep until he has recovered, regenerated mana etc.. I’d say about six to eight hours.”

“He’s Batman, he doesn’t have mana,” Kid Flash pointed out.

“Actually everyone has mana, it’s connected to their life force,” Zatanna corrected him.

“It’s intertwined with all living beings’ essence,” Raven added.

“Like the Force?” Kid Flash asked.

Myst opened his mouth, paused and then nodded thoughtfully. “Actually, that’s exactly what it is like. George based it on the concept of Chi which pretty much nails it.” 

Zatanna considered the question. “Less insanity for lightside magic users, but close enough.”

“In that case, where is my lightsaber?” Kid Flash asked sarcastically as he looked at Cyborg.

“Do you really want to be running around with a plasma sword?” Myst asked sarcastically.

“Yes, yes I do, are you telling me you don’t?” Kid Flash asked as he turned to look at Myst.

Myst opened his mouth then closed it when he realized he could regenerate limbs. “On second thought, yeah, I wouldn’t mind a lightsaber.” 

“It’s a lot more complicated than you’d think,” Cyborg explained as he pulled his attention off the power armor.

“You’ve been working on it, haven’t you?” Zatanna asked with amusement.

“Of course,” Cyborg replied.

“Focus, we have a villain to catch,” Robin pointed out, bringing everyone back to reality. “What can you tell us about the alien?”

“Just that he’s red and yellow and Batman was investigating a bank heist when things went wrong,” Alfred said, more than a little worried about sending children into a situation where Bruce lost.

“Let’s go find them,” Connor suggested.

“Bank job? We’ll need disguises for the rest of the team,” Artemis pointed out. “We’re supposed to keep a low profile and this is about as far from that as possible.”

Alfred frowned slightly as he glanced between the team members, he didn’t like sending children into a battle but he’d read their files, they should be able to handle it. He glanced over at the costumes from one of the royal flush gangs that were on display. “I believe I can help with that.”

Myst turned and looked at the various costumes on display that he’d been too busy to notice before. “Is there like fifteen catwoman costumes?” He blinked as he noticed the rack filled with costumes from female villains including several from Harley and Ivy.

“She changes her design a lot,” Alfred offered, carefully not saying anything more. 

“Don’t, just don’t,” Robin suggested. 

“Right, gotcha,” Myst agreed. ‘Right, don’t ask about the love life of a guy that dresses like a bat.’