Myst in DC part 27 (Patreon)

Myst looked up from reading the book on vanishing charms that the girls had picked up as Xander and Willow walked into the great hall with a large unstained wooden cabinet floating between them. “Did I lose track of time or did you cheat?”

“Zatanna transfigured the hinges and the Shape Plant spell did the rest,” Xander replied as they walked over and carefully set the cabinet down next to the vanishing cabinet they’d bought from Borgin.

“I couldn’t even get the corners on my box straight,” Willow muttered.

Myst grinned as he got to his feet and walked over to examine Xander’s work. “If you ever need a job, you could sell these professionally.”

“I have a feeling people would get suspicious about the lack of joints and seams,” Xander replied as he ran his fingers over the smooth wood.

“Just tell them you’re a metahuman or you carved it from one piece.” Myst grinned when he noticed the celtic knots around the edges of the bronze hinges. “If I wasn’t trading a magical snow globe, I’d think I underpaid.”

“I’m more than happy with the trade,” Xander replied with amusement as he walked over to the table to get a better look at the six snow globes in various styles and sizes that contained swirling blizzards. “Are they supposed to be filled with blizzards?”

“Probably. They’re like the magical girl amulets, the first person that touches them creates the location from an image in their subconscious,” Myst explained as he studied Xander’s cabinet.

“In other words, no mass producing copies of Hogwarts?” Willow asked, a touch disappointed that they didn’t have more control over the process.

“Not without a lot of research and an alternate enchanting method,” Myst replied as he turned his attention toward the globes. “Best of luck.”

Xander reached out and poked the globe with the pewter dragon’s claw base. He smirked as the globe cleared, revealing a tropical island with a large skull themed castle. “That’s better than a cabin in a frozen winter wonderland.”

“Assuming it doesn’t have giant murderous animals of doom,” Willow mused as she glanced at the rest of the snow globes.

Myst reached over and touched the globe with his finger. “I don’t sense anything monstrous or evil, you’re probably fine.” He gestured toward the globes. “Care to try your luck Willow?”

“Sure, what’s the worst that can happen?” Willow asked as she reached over and touched the globe set into the top of a circular tower. “Neat, it’s an adventuring town…” she trailed off as she started putting everything into a mental map and realized it was her favorite town from her game world. “Solaris!”

Xander blinked as Willow turned into motes of red light and flew into the globe. “You realize she’s going to want to keep it, right?”

“Trade?” Myst teased.

Xander laughed. “Not a chance, I like my Skull Island. She’ll just have to figure out her own way to bribe you.”

“I can’t say I blame you.” Myst gestured at the new cabinet. “Gemino!”

Xander glanced between the two identical cabinets. “That’s cheating.”

“We’re magic users, we’re supposed to cheat.” Myst focused on the vanishing cabinet as he poured mana into the duplicate cabinet, changing it into a knock-off vanishing cabinet. “How many magic users are there in Sunnydale?” he asked as he checked the new cabinet with his upgrade ability.

“Enough that we have two magic shops, The Dragon Cove and Uncle Bob's Magic Cabinet which means there are probably a decent number of magic users running around or magic using demons. I know five magic users personally, well four, Amy sort of got turned into a rat from a reflected curse.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Myst asked, trying to figure out what Amy was like in this version of the world.

“Bad, Willow has been trying to change her back but hasn’t had any luck. One of the demons she was trying to curse, reflected her spell and she ended up stuck as a rat.”

“And Giles couldn’t break the curse?” Myst asked.

“No…” Xander trailed off as he realized that Giles had been injured and they hadn’t asked him for help. “How the hell did we forget to ask Giles for help?”

“If I had to guess, magic. Either that or you just decided that leaving her a rat was a good idea which seems wildly out of character.” Myst was fairly sure that Willow’s ego wouldn’t have prevented Xander from following up on it, unless she’d unconsciously enspelled him, which meant it was probably outside interference or at least that was what he was going with because the alternative was depressing and annoying. ‘Either way, I should probably find her a decent magic teacher and talk Xander into spanking her with the board that removes corruption on a regular basis.’

“Hopefully there isn’t any long term damage,” Xander muttered worriedly, recalling the girl they’d grown up with, before high school had pushed them into different social groups.

“I’ll check when I swing by Sunnydale, I want to check on the spell that makes people ignore anything demonic and weird, not to mention take a tour of the area in case we have to help on short notice; it’s better when someone can say two blocks from the Bronze and have that actually mean something when we’re pressed for time.”

“That would be great. It would be nice to have someone we can call for emergencies or translations for the really obscure languages.” Xander shivered as he thought about some of the nastier demons they’d barely managed to kill over the last couple of years.

“Can’t you just scan the pages of whatever you need translated and email them to the Watcher’s Council?” Myst asked as he gestured toward Xander’s cabinet and duplicated it.

“That would certainly help, but they have rules against scanning books because a number of old books have demons trapped inside of them, we sort of learned that the hard way.”

“You realize there are probably spells to detect that, right?” Myst asked as he poured mana into the new duplicate, creating another knock off.

“Giles never mentioned them,” Xander said with a frown. “Of course, he probably didn’t expect us to get to the new books before he checked them.”

“Probably not,” Myst agreed as he checked the new vanishing cabinet.

“Can you duplicate money or computers with the duplication spell?” Xander asked.

“I’d have to run some tests. Do you have a dollar?” Myst asked as he held out his hand.

Xander pulled his wallet out of his pocket and handed over a dollar.

Myst looked at the dollar with his upgrade ability. “Huh. I’m guessing someone in the treasury department charmed or enchanted their printing presses to prevent magic users from casually duplicating any of the currency.” He handed the dollar back. “As for computers, no idea. We’d have to run some tests. On that note, I’m going to need one of the wand users to actually link the cabinets the first time.”

“You can’t use a wand?” Xander asked in surprise.

Myst shook his head as Xander walked over to look at the book on vanishing cabinets. “No, I just copy their spells, the incantations are basically useless.” He smiled as Buffy and one of Willow’s twins walked in wearing tiny green bikinis.

“Complete gibberish,” Buffy agreed as she walked over with Danielle. “What are we talking about?”

Myst grinned at Buffy, glad that this version was reasonable, unlike the stressed out mess she’d turned into on the show. “I was saying that I need to talk to one of the wand users to link the vanishing cabinets.”

“Are you planning on setting up a cabinet in Santa Prisca?” Buffy asked hopefully.

“That would be nice, the water is fantastic,” Danielle said as she walked over to look at the various magical items scattered on the Slytherin table.

“Someone needs to keep an eye on things.” Myst smiled at Tara, Zatanna, and Sabrina as they walked into the great hall. “Any luck?”

Zatanna smiled as she held up a duplicated page from an old journal. “The Mists of Avalon spell should keep anyone with hostile intent from sailing to the island, but it won’t keep people from flying to the island.”

“No but we can probably set up a series of intent based wards at the airport to deal with most of the problems and it gives our telepaths a lot of experience,” Sabrina pointed out as she glanced between the cabinets. “Nice work on the cabinets.”

“Thank you,” Xander said as he walked over with the book on linking magical items. “Do you care if I try?”

“Knock yourself out,” Myst replied, knowing that he could just recreate the cabinets if Xander’s usual luck with magic did its thing, plus he was curious as to how it would screw things up.

Danielle turned to watch Xander. “You can do it,” she said encouragingly, cheering him on as Willow was wont to do.

“Colligation!” Xander said as he gestured between the new vanishing cabinets.

Myst looked at the cabinets with upgrade and blinked as he realized that Xander had linked them together and nothing had exploded nor had either one decided to link to The Phantom Zone or Mount Olympus. “You’ve been promoted to Vanishing Cabinet guy.”

“That’s it?” Buffy asked, more than a little surprised that Xander’s spell had worked and there hadn’t been any fire involved.

“You were expecting sparks?” Danielle asked with amusement, having seen Xander cast a number of spells recently without a problem.

“Maybe a little,” Buffy admitted, knowing Xander hadn’t been working on his magic for all that long.

“What can I say, I’m awesome,” Xander replied with amusement, relieved that his spell had actually worked.

“Seemed pretty straightforward to me,” Tara said as she glanced over the blizzard filled snow globes on the Gryffindor table.

“What’s the range on the cabinets?” Danielle asked, as she read the tag on an enchanted flyswatter that protected the person holding it from bunnies.

Myst shook his head. “I couldn’t find a range, you just step through and 2.5 seconds later you’re in the other cabinet.”

“What’s the difference between your knock-offs and the original?” Zatanna asked, knowing his knock-offs were always weaker.

“About two seconds, the original took half a second to teleport to the other cabinet.” He wasn’t all that worried about an extra two seconds transit time as long as people didn’t lose bits or transform into bizzare human fly hybrids.

“How come the Wizarding World stopped using the cabinets?” Buffy asked.

“The cabinets are point to point while the floo network allows you to basically jump to any connected fireplace,” Zatanna explained. “Well, that and the family who held the secret of them charged quite a bit for a pair.”

“And probably didn’t leave notes when he died,” Myst muttered. “What do we need to cast the Mist of Avalon spell?”

“Normally? Permission of the ruler of the area, a few dozen spell casters, an anchor for the spell, and a long ritual. With the necklace? A rather short phrase, an anchor, and permission of the ruler of the area you’re concealing,” Zatanna explained as she walked over to look at the snow globes.

“You know, we could just make the island unplottable and screw everyone over,” Sabrina suggested.

Myst shook his head. “I’d rather not screw with Google’s warlocks, they scare me.”

“They have warlocks?” Xander asked in disbelief.

Myst managed to keep a straight face for a couple of seconds before snickering. “Not as far as I know, but the look on your face was amusing.”

Xander laughed as he flipped Myst off. “Joking aside, how are we going to set up the network of cabinets?”

“I’m leaning toward setting up a room in one of the globes with intent wards and age lines, as well as wards against seeds and pests. If we place all of the cabinets at the end of hallways, we shouldn’t have a problem with cross contamination. I’d rather not end up with some of the annoyingly stupid magical pests showing up because someone got a seed stuck to their clothing.”

Zatanna had a feeling they’d have to increase the security eventually, but it was a reasonable start. “It’s a start. Why are some of the snow globes filled with snowstorms?”

“They’re like the magic girl amulets, they don’t choose a form until someone touches them,” Myst explained as he walked over and touched the globe on the back of a turtle statue.

Xander watched as the snowstorm spun down and vanished, revealing a massive sprawling theme park with a familiar looking castle in the center. “Nice, no lines.”

“Exactly,” Myst agreed as he studied the magical Disneyland in his globe with a smile on his face.

“You realize you’re going to have to hire a small army to take care of everything, right?” Buffy asked.

“Let him have his moment,” Sabrina teased. “Besides, we can probably automate a lot of it with magic.”

Buffy twitched slightly as the globe on a tower shot out red sparks that turned into Willow. “That’s a bit disconcerting.”

“You have to see Solaris! It’s just like I imagined it!” Willow squealed excitedly, not bothering to take a breath.

“Sweet!” Danielle exclaimed as she dashed over to look at the globe.

“Your adventuring town with the magical dungeon?” Buffy asked warily, recalling being bribed to join in role play with her two friends when they’d first met and having been disappointed to learn they had meant with paper and dice.

Xander rubbed his nose. “Please tell me it doesn’t actually have the dungeon to go with it.” He recalled many a character that had gone down in flames thanks to her specially designed dungeon.

“Not yet, but I’m sure we can fix that,” Willow said excitedly as she glanced between Zatanna and Myst with her best puppy-dog eyes look.

“Opening a portal to a monster infested dimension sounds like a horrible idea,” Zatanna said, fairly sure she’d be grounded until she was eighteen if she opened a portal just so they could go monster hunting and her father found out.

Buffy shook her head. “We have enough problems in Sunnydale.”

“I’m not even sure where you’d start,” Xander said, a touch sad that he couldn’t watch Buffy murder everything in the dungeon, but mostly relieved that Willow’s town hadn’t come with the dungeon from her game world.

“Don’t look at me, I don’t know any spells to create dungeons,” Myst replied with amusement.

“I’m sure we can find something,” Sabrina said ‘helpfully’, fairly sure they could figure something out to create an interesting challenge for adventurers.

“On that note, let’s check out Willow’s island then we can grab the rest of the gang and check out Skull Island,” Xander said cheerfully, looking forward to walking around a piece of Willow’s imagination.

“Let’s go!” Willow giggled as she placed her hand on her snow globe. “Solaris!”

Danielle snickered then placed her hand on the globe. “Solaris!”

“I’ll send a note through,” Sabrina said as she floated one of the linked vanishing cabinets over then touched the globe. “Solaris.”

“Can I have a globe?” Buffy asked hopefully.

“Sure, I’ll give it to you as thanks for keeping the Earth spinning,” Myst replied cheerfully.

“Sweet,” Buffy replied as she quickly touched one of the globes, causing the storm inside to fall to the ground revealing a massive space station.

Myst stared in disbelief, trying to figure out why The Death Star made sense for Buffy.

“The ultimate mall,” Buffy said in awe. “It was in Star Wars,” she said, recalling having glimpsed it while playing on her phone while sitting through the boring old film in class.

0o0o0

Myst pulled his attention off the wave of fog that was rolling out to sea when Megan touched his mind with a telepathic finger letting him know that she wanted to talk. ‘What’s up?’

‘Cyborg called, Lex Luthor is on the island with his assistant and a lot of grunts, harassing the mayor,’ Megan replied as she studied the well trained ex-military thugs Luthor had brought with him. ‘He’s demanding to talk to the leader of the island.’

‘I’ll be right there. Stay out of Lex’s head, you’re not the first telepath he’s dealt with.” He turned to look at Zatanna and her twins, annoyed at the interruption but relieved that he’d had the chance to watch Zatanna, Tabitha, and Selena cast the Mists of Avalon spell on the island. “As much as I want to stay and enjoy the view, Luthor decided to show up and harass the mayor.”

“Weren’t we going to stick the mayor in prison for corruption once things settled down?” Tabitha asked.

“Kara pointed out that working with Bane had required a certain set of flexible morals and that he deserved the chance to clean up at least some of the corruption.”

“Best of luck,” Selena said, glad that she didn’t have to deal with Luthor.

“Let us know if you need help,” Zatanna offered, knowing that she needed to stay out of sight as her father was a known member of the League.

“Hopefully.” Myst shifted to his magic girl form then teleported to the mayor’s house. She glanced over the four large thugs that were looming over the fat middle aged mayor and focused on Lex Luthor and a woman she was fairly sure was Marcey Graves as the thugs turned their attention and weapons toward her. “You wanted to talk to the leader of the island, here I am.”

Lex Luthor studied the attractive blue haired young lady in a black dress that had appeared out of thin air. “You are in possession of an alien ship.”

“Yes and I don’t want to sell it at this point in time,” Myst replied politely.

“I’m sure we can come to an arrangement,” Lex offered.

Myst reached out with her telepathy and skimmed the surface thoughts of one of Lex’s guards that was pointing his gun at the mayor. ‘You want to chain me in a basement and not in a fun way? Yeah, that’s not happening.’ She kept part of her attention on the walking deadman as she skimmed the thoughts of the rest of the goons. “Say I was willing to entertain the offer? What are you willing to offer?”

“What are you looking for beyond money?” Lex asked.

“Answers, I’d like to know how a man that is at least moderately intelligent, considers making deals with Ra's al Ghul, Vandal Savage, Queen Bee, and Brain reasonable when none of them are remotely trustworthy?”

“I’m a legitimate businessman with many interests.” Lex scowled when he felt someone’s fingers on his mind, rifling through his memories. “You’re a telepath!”

“You’ve already made a deal with Desaad, even knowing who and what he is, you think he’ll stick to the deal? What the fuck is wrong with you?” she asked, not sure what the hell was wrong with this version of Luthor.

The mayor pulled his gun and pointed it at Myst, his hand shaking badly. “If they kill you, I’ll be in charge.”

Myst turned to look at the Mayor, more than a little surprised that he’d found a backbone. “It’s so hard to get good help these days. Fine, if you want to be in charge that badly, take your best shot.” She used telekinesis to nudge the mayor’s aim just enough that he’d miss her and hit the rapist then squeezed his trigger finger causing the man’s gun to fire and the back of the rapist’s head to explode with an overly loud crack of thunder in the enclosed room. She wasn’t surprised when two of the remaining guards gunned the shocked looking mayor down. “My apologies, I’ll make sure my future employees have better aim.”

“You’re not at all worried are you?” Lex asked, feeling like he’d just gotten played.

“Not in the slightest, I have a state of the art force field,” Myst lied as she reached out and locked the door with telekinesis. She didn’t need the few honest cops the island had to rush in and get shot which was looking like a distinct possibility. “Either way, I’m going to have to ask you to put your weapons on the ground and surrender when the police get here.”

“You expect us to surrender?” Otis asked in disbelief.

‘No but it would be nice,’ Myst thought as she focused on Otis. “What was it Lex said? Something about a legitimate businessman, this was obviously self defense. You’re free to leave the island empty handed, don’t come back,” she said giving them one more chance to leave despite her better judgement as she didn’t want to have to deal with the fallout from killing a man of Luthor’s influence.

“Kill her,” Lex ordered, knowing she’d seen too much in his mind.

Myst ignored the three goons with handguns as Mercy’s right arm changed into some type of high tech weapon and she got a precog flash informing her that she hadn’t boosted his shield enough to stand up to the beam of energy she could fire. She rapidly teleported Mercy’s cybernetic arm into the back room along with all of Lex’s clothes and everything on him, leaving him naked. Normally she would have left the man with his underwear but he was still Lex Luthor, even if he was a defective version.

Myst blocked Mercy’s front kick and hit her with a stunner as Lex bolted for the door. She hit Lex with the next stunner then teleported the three goons that were still trying to shoot her into the ocean a hundred miles north of the island and a thousand feet deep. “You are the second worst Luthor I’d ever seen.”

‘Are you okay?’ Megan asked in concern, glad that the gunshots had stopped.

‘Just a bit of a misunderstanding with the mayor trying to kill me. Feel free to assure everyone that everything is fine. I’ll be done talking with Lex in a few minutes,’ Myst assured her as she opened her inventory and pulled out a notebook.

‘I’ll do my best,” Megan said cheerfully then dropped the connection.

Myst spent the next couple of minutes using her telepathy to dig through Luthor’s head, making notes of where he’d stashed his account information and all of the various passwords as well as other interesting secrets.

She put the notebook back in her inventory and pulled out the GMC Alternator 9000. ‘This would have been so much easier if you’d actually had a reasonable plan.’ She pointed her blaster at Lex and pulled the trigger, causing a beam of blue light to strike Lex. He frowned as Lex vanished only to be replaced by the lunatic from the old Superman movies.

“What is going on?” the man demanded as he looked around.

Myst scanned this version of Lex’s surface thoughts then gestured and hit him with the most powerful obliviate she could, “Superman.” She flipped the reverse switch on the blaster and shot the man, sending him back his to universe and recalling the naked Lex. “Let’s try that again.”

She flipped the switch back to normal operation then blasted Lex sending him to another world and bringing forth a man that looked a lot like the Lex from Smallville which was at least somewhat promising compared to the version from the old Superman movies.

Lex blinked as he glanced around the room that looked to have been shot to shit then focused on the attractive young woman in front of him. “What is going on and what is that?”

“This is my GMC Alternator 9000, it swaps people in different dimensions. I’d like to ask you a couple of questions before I send you back,” Myst said, hoping this version of Lex Luthor was better than the idiot that would make a deal with Desaad.

0o0o0