Myst in DC part 21 (Patreon)

Myst paused as he received a vision from his precog ability, one that for once was not about danger as he looked at the large collection of naked bodies, including three Hermione’s sprawled on various chairs and couches. “I’m fairly sure this constitutes too much fun,” he heard himself say in the vision before the vision faded.

“I’ll leave you to your work,” Giovani said, “I have League business to attend to myself. Guard her well please.”

“I’ll do my best,” Myst promised as the elder magician laid a hand on Tara’s shoulder and gave it a small squeeze.

“I’m leaving you in capable hands, but feel free to summon me if you get into any trouble you don’t think you can handle,” he said with a smile.

Tara smiled. “Thank you, Uncle Zatara.” She wanted to hug him, but shied away as he was a famous hero and she hadn’t met her mother’s brother before everything had happened so didn’t feel comfortable enough to show affection.

Giovanni vanished in a flash of light.

“Let’s start with your general defenses then move onto specifics.” Myst tapped his pendant then boosted her mental defenses well into the supernatural range causing Tara to giggle as the wave of mana washed over her, tickling her skin and making her feel warm and fuzzy.

“What was that?” Tara asked once she’d stopped giggling. 

“That would be my upgrade ability, the more mana I spend upgrading anything, the larger the mana pulse.” Myst smiled when he noticed he could upgrade her demonic blood to provide immunity to charm, mind control, and memory spells. He paid for each of the abilities, sending three decent sized pulses of mana washing over Tara.

Tara giggled as she slipped out of her jacket, feeling a little warm. “That’s an interesting side effect.”

“There are certainly worse side effects,” Myst agreed as he looked at the rest of her latent powers. “So, telepathy, soul gazing, shape shifting, and resistance to mundane weapons and damage, do you want them all?”

“If it’s not too much trouble?” Tara asked hopefully.

“No trouble,” Myst replied as he spent most of his mana ‘buying’ the four abilities, one after another. 

Tara practically melted into the chair as Myst’s mana rolled over her in waves.

Myst smiled at the look of bliss on her face. ‘I’m just glad she’s safe and is immune to memory spells,’ he thought, thinking of the other version of Willow and her tendency to toss around memory spells like water. He looked at her resistance to mundane weapons, tapped into his pendant, and boosted it enough that it would probably cover most types of anti tank rounds, creating a rather large pulse of mana that had Tara biting back a moan as her back bowed before she collapsed bonelessly on the couch.

“I need either some food or a cigarette, and I don’t smoke,” Tara muttered a touch flustered at the lack of touching that went with the tickling, mana, and pleasure.

Myst reached over, picked up the box of pizza that had been forgotten and handed it to Tara. “Pizza and the vending machine has Coke.” He walked over and grabbed a dime out of the change bowl that someone had left and bought an old fashioned Coke while Tara grabbed a piece of the still warm pizza and took a bite.

“Mmm, this is delicious,” Tara said after swallowing her first bite.

“So, how much do you want to push your shape changing and physical stats?” Myst asked, curious how far he could take her abilities.

“As much as you feel comfortable doing,” Tara said as she sat up.

“Excellent, alchemy time!” Myst said playfully as he pulled the alchemy bottle that temporarily boosted Coke out of his inventory then popped the cap as he started humming the opening theme song to Darkwing Duck. 

Tara couldn’t help the smile on her face as she watched Myst pour the bottle of Coke into another Coke bottle that hummed with magic.

Myst pushed enough mana into the bottle to turn the Coke into a temporary strength potion. “Now to boost my strength, so I can boost yours. Bottoms up!” 

Tara worked on eating her slice of pizza as Myst drink the magical Coke. “How does boosting your strength help boost my strength?” she asked once he was done.

Myst put the alchemy bottle back in his inventory then grinned at Tara. “Boosting an ability or feature that is higher than my own increases the cost a lot. Once we get your base strength to a crazy level I’ll boost your demonic enhancements which should stack with the permanent strength boosting bottle of Coke.”

Tara finished another bite of pizza. “How strong are we talking?”

“At least a couple dozen tons after we’ve boosted everything,” Myst said excitedly, looking forward to seeing what she could do.

“I think you might be almost more enthusiastic than I am,” Tara teased, happy that she’d found people to help.

“I like being useful,” Myst replied. ‘That and you’re not going to die to a fucking stray bullet. Note to self: Track down Warren and see if he needs to be interned.’

“Let me finish my slice of pizza before you get carried away, it’s hard to eat while I’m being tickled,” Tara said playfully.

“Sure.” Myst smiled as he watched her eat her pizza, happy that he’d managed to help. ‘Sorry, you don’t need your grandmother’s supernatural charm, you’ve got a charm all your own.’ He turned his attention to his new ring in his inventory while he waited for Tara to finish eating. ‘Slows aging, allows the user to partially phase into a shadowy dimension, rendering them invisible.’ His grin slipped off his face when he noticed the ring’s link to a second ring that would allow someone to control and telepathically talk to anyone that wore his new ring regardless of the distance and the curse where you wouldn’t want to take it off. ‘That’s one way to ruin a perfectly good ring, someone has been reading Lord of the Rings.’

Myst twitched as he considered putting the ring on to see if he could talk to the person or creature wearing the other ring, only to see an image of his magic girl form on her knees before a throne made of dark flames, a chain of some type of dark metal around her neck and a look of madness in her eyes that sent ice through his soul. He felt a shiver go down his spine when the black robed man with glowing green eyes flipped him off and the vision broke painfully. ‘Okay, I’m going to fucking kill you.’

Tara frowned as she noticed Myst looked a little distracted. “Penny for your thoughts?”

Myst shook his head then selected the Weapon’s wheel. “I was thinking about the various monsters we’re going to end up fighting.”

“You mean the demons that are after me?” Tara asked, feeling a bit guilty for bringing him trouble when it wasn’t really his fight.

“And everything Buffy and her friends have to deal with on a daily basis.” Myst reached up and grabbed the long wooden paddle that dropped when the wheel stopped spinning.

Tara stared at the paddle that said ‘Board of Education’ on the side of it. “Are you sure that you don’t have any control over your gacha menu?” she teased.

“Fairly sure,” Myst muttered as he looked at the thick wooden paddle. “I’m almost positive I wasn’t thinking that I needed an indestructible paddle to spank ghosts, even if using it reduces the target’s corruption,” he muttered the last part.

“You can spank the evil out of someone?” Tara asked with a snicker.

“No, just corruption,” Myst replied as he put the paddle in his inventory, grinning slightly as his mind conjured an image of Zatanna spanking a naked Willow with the paddle.

“It might be useful if we run into any naughty demon girls,” Tara said thoughtfully.

“Or dark witches,” Myst mused, thinking about Amy and Willow. ‘Joking aside, both of the girls could probably use a bit of time with the paddle.’ He opened his mental notepad and wrote himself a note, ‘Check on Amy and make sure Rack is dead. Steal the Gem of Amara if you can find it.’

Tara grabbed another piece of pizza and frowned when she realized it was lukewarm. “The pizza is a little cold.”

“That’s what we have microwaves for,” Myst said cheerfully as he bounced to his feet and headed toward the kitchen, absently selected the 2,000 mana Food wheel.

Tara grabbed the box of pizza and followed Myst into the hallway. “Can I ask a question?”

“Go for it,” Myst replied as he pulled one of his invisible drones out of his inventory and ‘dropped it’ so that he could walk backwards and look at Tara while making sure he didn’t trip over anything.

“Why join the youth team when you have a top tier power?” she asked, used to most people wanting to be heroes.

“They needed the help and I’m more comfortable being support staff.” Myst spun around as they walked into the kitchen and caught the plate of fish that dropped when his wheel stopped.

“I can understand that.” Tara inhaled the delicious garlicky scent roasted fish. “That smells good.”

“It smells like roasted fish and garlic,” Myst replied as he looked at the fish with his upgrade ability, refusing to believe that normal fish cost 2,000 mana. “Huh, it makes you immune to all status ailments besides Instant Death and gives you immunity to fire, ice and lightning damage for thirty minutes.”

“That sounds like something from a video game,” Tara said as she grabbed a plate, walked over and stuck two pieces of pizza in the microwave.

“It sort of does,” Myst agreed as he stuck the dish in his inventory. “I’ll have to get some fish later and do some cooking...” he trailed off as he realized that he had a food based creation power that might be able to copy the fish or at least create the ingredients so that he could make a knock off copy. “Scratch that, let’s see how much mana it takes to upgrade my food creation ability so I can swap it whenever I want.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t already upgraded it,” Tara said, wishing she had the ability to snap her fingers and magic up food without it costing more mana than it was worth.

“I’ve been distracted and I haven’t had all that much mana until recently.” He looked at his food creation ability with his upgrade ability. “Fifty mana to drop the recharge time by a day, yeah that’s worth it.” He slid the slider up, noting the change to 100 mana per hour once he reached 24 hours. He snorted and spent the 2,600 mana to drop the recharge rate down to an hour then grumbled slightly as the price jumped to 100 a minute once he was at an hour. “Screw it,” he muttered as he spent the 5,900 mana to drop the recharge time down to a minute.

Tara giggled as she felt the mana waves wash over her, tickling her skin and making her feel warm and fuzzy. “Any luck?”

“Yep, I can swap it every minute if I want.” Myst selected the Hat option for 300 points then focused on the fish dish in his inventory and swapped his food creation ability. He gestured toward the table and conjured a copy of the fish dish that looked more or less the same as the one in his inventory.

“It looks the same,” Tara offered.

Myst blinked in disbelief as he looked at the dish and realized that it was a copy, with all of the abilities which meant that he wouldn’t have to make crappy knock-offs then go through the entire song and dance of upgrading them for the entire team. “The copy has the same abilities as the original, which means I should be able to move the boost to a candy bar then upgrade the bonus to be permanent.”

“Then copy the candy bar?” Tara asked, seeing where he was going.

“Pretty much.” Myst frowned slightly as he realized he still had most of a minute left on his cooldown for his food ability before he could change the type of food. He created another copy of the magical fish dish then pulled up his food ability then tapped his pendant and spent 6,000 mana upgrading the ability so he could just conjure whatever food type items he wanted without having to wait. He smiled as he conjured a bar of milk chocolate.

“Myst Chocolate?” Tara asked in amusement as she read the label on the candy bar.

“Writing Generic Chocolate bar on it might be a little suspicious.” Myst cast his Recettear spell to move the status ailment protection boost off one of the fish dishes, which caused the fish to vanish leaving the plate to fade out a second later. He cast the spell again on the second fish dish moving the elemental immunity to the candy bar. He looked at the chocolate bar with his upgrade ability then focused and created a duplicate of the enhanced candy bar. 

“Does that mean it worked?” Tara asked hopefully.

“Hopefully,” Myst said as he checked the second candy bar. “It worked.” He put the original candy bar in his inventory to use as a template then reached up and caught the green bandana and zorro mask combo that dropped from his Hat wheel. He looked at the hat with his upgrade ability then stared in disbelief. “The hat boosts speed and evasion by a tiny amount and magic defenses by a decent amount. It also teaches the user how to hit people at range and steal stuff by hitting them.”

Tara glanced between the familiar looking hat and Myst. “That sounds like the mug command from Final Fantasy; it even looks like the Thief Hat.”

“Now that you mention it, you’re right,” Myst agreed as he grabbed the last wheel. He wasn’t sure what a fifty point Umbrella wheel would give him but figured it would be amusing.

“Umbrellas?” Tara asked as she looked at the spinning wheel hovering in front of Myst.

“It was cheap,” Myst replied with a shrug. “Besides, it might be an umbrella gun or maybe an umbrella of Feather Fall or a wand. Well, probably not that last one at 50 mana, but it’s probably something.”

Tara snickered as the microwave dinged. “I wouldn’t mind having a Mary Poppins style umbrella even if the flight ring is fantastic.”

“I’m a fan,” Myst agreed as he dropped 2,350 mana into the chocolate bar to boost the duration of the food buff up to twenty four hours. He focused on the upgraded chocolate bar then created a duplicate and checked to see if he’d copied the upgrades. He stashed the candy bars in his inventory then looked back at Tara’s physical stats. “Do you want me to upgrade your flexibility along with the rest of your physical abilities?”

“That would be nice, but could I please get a hug first? I’m sort of getting a bit twitchy,” Tara said. 

“That I can do,” Myst replied with a smile as he held out his arms, fairly sure her need for hugs was psychological, but not particularly worried about it as he didn’t mind giving her a hug. He hugged her with one hand and caught the umbrella with the other hand. He looked at the umbrella with his upgrade ability then glanced at Azar, Cyborg, and Red Tornado as they walked in, noticing that Cyborg looked like he was trying to keep a serious expression on his face yet couldn’t help his lips curving up into a smile. “What’s going on?”

“We get to study an alien ship,” Cyborg said cheerfully.

“The Watchtower detected an alien ship, of unknown origins, crash into Santa Prisca seven minutes ago. We need the team to secure the alien ship or destroy it before the Light can capture it,” Red Tornado explained. “All League assets are otherwise occupied and The Team is familiar with the territory.”

“One second.” Myst teleported to the lounge and grabbed the snow globe, before he teleported back to the kitchen. “Did anyone recognize the design of the ship?” Myst asked as he looked at the globe with his upgrade ability. 

“The ship didn’t match anything in the Watchtower’s database,” Red Tornado replied.

“Large mana pulse.” He tapped his pendant’s mana and spent 30,000 mana to upgrade the globe to be the next best thing to indestructible.

Azar wiggled and Tara giggled when the mana wave washed over them.

Myst set the globe on the kitchen table, placed his hand on the globe, and sent Megan a telepathic message, ‘Megan, we have a mission! Shape shift some clothes, click your heels three times and say ‘There is no place like home.’

‘We have a mission?’ Megan asked as she used her ring to create her normal mission costume.

‘We need to make sure the Light doesn’t get an alien starship and all of the technology on it. I’m going to take the globe with us, so everyone else can stay inside, but you need to fly your ship.’

Megan clicked her heels three times then blinked when she found herself in the well lit kitchen. “Where are we going?”

“Santa Prisca,” Cyborg said as he headed for the hanger. “Let’s go.”

“Hopefully it goes better than the last time we were there,” Megan muttered as she followed Cyborg casting a curious look at Tara, but not having time to talk.

Myst turned to look at Tara and Azar. “I’d love to stay with you, but the team might need my help, do you want to stay in the base or come with me in the pocket realm?”

“Pocket realm,” Azar replied without hesitation. “I want to explore and take an inventory of what we have to work with.”

Tara shook her head. “I’d rather not end up an unfamiliar place with people I don’t know, but staying at the last place the demons found me is probably a bad idea.”

“I concur,” Red Tornado said. “I’m not sure that I would be enough protection as I have little experience with demonic foes.”

Myst smiled at Azar. “In that case, touch the globe and say Hogwarts.” Myst tossed a thought to Megan, ‘We’ll be there in a minute, don’t leave without us.’

‘No worries,’ Megan replied as cyborg and her ran across the hanger.

“Stay safe,” Azar ordered Myst then touched the globe. “Hogwarts.”

“We’ll let you know what we find,” Myst said, before he picked up the globe, wrapped his arm around Tara and vanished with her.