Myst in DC part 31 (Patreon)

Myst kept half his attention on the presentation as he looked at the Mayor with his upgrade ability, vaguely surprised that he had less than a dozen demonic deals that would drag him to hell in the event of various contract breaches and a deal that gave him longevity in exchange for not interfering with certain groups collecting souls in his town. ‘Huh, that explains why he hasn’t moved against Buffy, nothing in any of the deals covers him moving against the Slayer just certain demons under certain conditions and if she happens to kill any of the greater demons he’s contracted with, he walks away with the power free and clear.’

‘How the hell is he planning on avoiding a karmic backlash?’ Myst nearly coughed as he noticed that one of the Mayor’s deals shielded him from any supernatural karma in exchange for hunting rights. ‘Right, that’s the same section of town he gave the other demon clan hunting rights to, twenty says they hate each other.’

“And that is why it’s better to leave the peaceful demons alone,” the Mayor said as he set the laser pointer on his desk. “Rating?”

“At least a 9 out of 10,” Myst assured him.

“Not a 10?” the Mayor asked, slightly disappointed.

Myst shook his head. “I would have given you a solid ten, but I think you’ve missed an obvious source of energy to help balance the scales without losing tax paying voters.”

“Oh?” Wilkins asked, curious what he’d missed.

“Magic users, they naturally generate magical energy which sounds like it would help increase the pressure on this side of the seal.”

Wilkins shook his head. “The Hellmouth tends to drive new magic users a bit insane unless they use common sense on a regular basis, you can see where that is a problem in the modern magical world.”

“Fair point, on the other hand, I could easily bring in a large number of magic users and I have a paddle that removes corruption, which would certainly help keep things from exploding.”

“What do you want In exchange?” the Mayor asked, curious where the young man was going with his idea.

“The city has a number of condemned or repossessed buildings, I’d need a suitable location for a school.”

Richard scratched his chin. “Crestwood College went bankrupt due to some unfortunate issues with their board of directors and one of their fraternities being associated with a cult. I’d be willing to arrange the transfer of the property in exchange for reopening the college and bringing in a decent number of magic users, you’d of course have to cover the operating capital.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Myst replied, knowing he could make billions off his ability to create advanced tech, to say nothing about upgrading it to make sure it’s stable.

“In that case, I’ll have the paperwork drawn up, it should be ready by tomorrow,” Richard said, rather happy that he’d asked the young mage into his office.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” Myst said, rather surprised that he actually meant it.

0o0o0

Puck Granger glanced over at where Sabrina and Crow were distracting the museum curator then focused on the sword in the case, making sure his back was toward the room’s only camera. “Gemino,” he whispered while flicking his wand at the ancient magical sword. He sighed in relief as his spell duplicated the blade and the grizzly humanoid arm that functioned as a sheath. ‘You’re up,’ he said through the mental link Sabrina was maintaining as he slipped his wand back up his sleeve.

‘One second,’ Sabrina replied as she teleported the sword in the case to the bookstore where Crow was waiting. She teleported the duplicated blade Puck was holding into the case. ‘Okay, we’re done.’ She dropped the spell that was freezing the camera image in place then glanced down at her watch. “Crap, we’re late, sorry we’re got to run.”

“Don’t worry about it,” the curator replied. “It’s nice to see young people taking an interest in history.”

‘Package accepted,’ Crow said over the mental link as she stuck the sword in her bag of holding.

Puck glanced at the duplicate sword, feeling slightly guilty for swapping it with a fake despite knowing it was for the best. ‘Shouldn’t the American Ministry have dealt with the sword years ago?’

‘You’d think,’ Sabrina mentally complained as she gestured for Puck to come with her. “Let’s go.” She smiled at the curator. “History is great but we’ve really got to run or we’ll be in trouble.”

“Don’t let me keep you,” the man smiled as the kids left, happy that he could brighten their day.

‘How long do you think it will take Myst to make a working knock-off?’ Crow asked as she headed for the exit of the bookstore.

‘It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes, hopefully he can scrap the idiotic pure heart requirement,’ Sabrina sent as they left, mildly annoyed that there weren’t any aurors popping in to check on the magic used in the musuem.

‘Where are we heading next?’ Crow asked as she headed toward the museum.

‘To the local magic shop, Zatanna is going to call in a couple of minutes, letting me know that she needs some ingredients for her spell to find Elsa’s sister which means shopping and yes I’ll buy you the yellow book,’ Sabrina teased.

Puck snorted. ‘I’m not sure which is worse, seers that give vague as shit prophecies or precogs that are annoyingly accurate.’

“Seers,” Crow said as she walked over. “Where is the shop?”

“It’s not too far, the Arcana Cabana curio shop should have everything Zatanna needs for the spell,” Sabrina explained as she turned and headed down the alley, knowing they’d run into a girl that needed their help if they took the shortcut. “This way, it’s a shortcut.”

“Right,” Crow said as she looked at the dark alley they were walking into.

“Do you think Artemis and Megan had any trouble with Harm?” Puck asked as they made their way through the filthy alley.

“Without the sword, Harm shouldn’t last more than thirty seconds, less if he annoys Megan.” Selena slipped to the side as a metal tiger arm flew past her head.

“Sorry!” Donna called out as she tossed the metal lion that was trying to kill her at the insane shirtless man wearing a stupid looking buffalo hat.

Puck drew his wand, not quite sure who he was supposed to be targeting.

Sabrina took advantage of the man’s momentary distraction as he tried to slip out from under the statue to dart forward and rip the talisman off the man’s neck. “That’s enough!”

“Don’t kill me!” the man shouted then started coughing as he felt several broken ribs shift.

Donna glanced between Sabrina, the man on the ground and the suddenly lifeless statue. “I’m not going to kill you.”

Sabrina glanced at the cursed talisman then stuffed it into her inventory. “Crow, see if you can put the man back together, the talisman was cursed and possessed him.”

“Sorry, about the arm,” Donna offered, feeling slightly guilty now that she knew he was just a victim.

“Don’t worry about it, it wouldn’t have done anything even if it had hit,” Sabrina replied as she reached down and picked up the coup-stick the man had been using to animate the statue. She twitched as she got a flash of precog of the group dying as a little girl tore them apart. “Fuck!” She reached out and teleported the group to just outside of the Arcana Cabana curio shop. “Sorry about that but there is something nasty coming to kill you Donna,” she explained as she put the stick in her inventory.

“How do you know my name?” Donna demanded.

“I’m with the Justice League, I know all of the major players. We need to get inside before Devastation finds you,” Sabrina said as she picked the injured man up and headed for the shop. “Now!”

Donna sighed as she followed the group into the strange antique shop, hoping she’d get an explanation once they had time.

Balthazar looked at the group then gestured and flipped the sign to closed. “Welcome to the Arcana Cabana,” he said as he brought the wards all the way up, sensing something rather nasty in the area. “What can I help you with?”

“I need ingredients for a locator spell,” Sabrina explained while Crow went to work healing the man’s broken ribs and internal damage. “Give me a second and I’ll have a list,” she said as she pulled her phone out. She flipped it open when it started ringing and hit talk as she brought it up to her ear. “Hey Zee, you have the list of ingredients for the locator spell, right?”

“Yes, I have them. Precog or did Myst call?” Zatanna asked.

“Precog,” Sabrina replied. “Speaking of, we sort of need to hurry, so can you give the shopkeeper the list of ingredients so we can get out of here before a rather dangerous villain tracks us down and kills everyone?”

“Wait, what?!” Zatanna blurted.

“We don’t have time right now, give the shopkeeper the list, then I’ll explain while he’s looking for everything,” Sabrina said then handed the phone to Balthazar.

“Fine,” Zatanna grumbled, trying not to freak out about her friends being in mortal danger.

“Do you have the list?” Balthazar asked, knowing his wards should keep trouble from finding them now that he’d actually raised them.

John Ravenhair sighed in relief when the purple haired girl finished her spell and the pain faded. “Sorry about my grandfather, he was a bitter old man.”

“Don’t worry about it, my father is worse,” Crow said as she helped him to his feet.

“Sorry about the statue, I thought you were a villain,” Donna admitted, feeling a bit sheepish about the whole thing even if he’d been trying to attack people before she’d stepped in.

“No, just possessed,” John grumbled, rather pissed at his grandfather for trying to steal his body.

Sabrina turned to look at Puck as Balthazar wrote out the list of ingredients. “Can you call Myst, I need to let him know that we’re going to need some help.”

“Sure,” Puck replied as he pulled out his phone and selected Myst’s number. He pushed the button then handed the phone to Sabrina. “How screwed are we?”

“She’s nasty enough to kill Donna, we’re going to need the League’s help or a miracle if we want to stop her,” Sabrina said as she put the phone up to her ear.

Myst glanced at the caller ID on his phone as he left City Hall. “What’s up Puck?”

“Sorry,” Sabrina said, “We’re in a bit of a jam, we ran into Donna Troy on our way to a magic shop, Devastation is on her way to kill us and we’re screwed if she gets to us, we’re going to need help to deal with her.”

“Refresh my memory, Devastation?” Myst asked, fairly sure he already knew the answer, he was just hoping that he was wrong.

“She was created by the Titans to kill Wonder Woman,” Sabrina offered.

“Fuck!” Myst rubbed the bridge of his nose, wishing that he’d been wrong. “Any weaknesses?” he asked, hoping she knew something because his best idea involved luring her to another dimension then leaving her there.

“A decent amount of her power comes from the Titans, if we can get her off world, we might have a chance to stop her,” Sabrina offered.

“That lines up with my idea for dropping her in another dimension and hoping the Titans can’t get her back. Where are you?” Myst asked, figuring his trip to the high school to check the seal could wait.

“We’re in New York collecting ingredients for Zatanna’s locator spell, we’ll be heading back to the island as soon as we’re done,” Sabrina said as she glanced at Donna, hoping that she could talk her into taking a vacation until they deal with Devastation.

Donna shook her head. “I need to grab my sister before we leave, I’m not leaving her alone.”

Sabrina sighed. “We’ve got a slight detour to make first, Donna isn’t leaving her sister alone in the city which means we need to pick her up before we can leave.”

“Do you need me to teleport to New York?” Myst asked as he opened his upgrade menu and dumped all of his mana into boosting his durability. He started jogging toward the magic shop, knowing that he was going to need to stop playing around if he wanted to fight someone at Wonder Woman’s level.

“No, we should be in and out in less than two minutes and back to the island, I just wanted to let you know that we’re going to need help.”

“I’ll call Wonder Woman and get some help,” Myst promised. “Stay safe.”

“As safe as I can,” Sabrina agreed as she ended the call and tossed the phone back to Puck. “Thanks.”

“No worries,” Puck said as he put the phone in his pocket.

“That should be everything,” Balthazar said as he handed the cell back to Sabrina. “What exactly are you running from?”

“A rather nasty golem that the Greek Titans brought to life to kill Wonder Woman and all of her friends,” Sabrina replied as she brought the phone up to her ear.

“This is going to suck,” Zatanna grumbled. “We’re going to need to call Constantine and Diana.”

“Go for it, we’ll meet you on the island,” Sabrina promised then ended the call, not wanting to waste time.

“You’ll need something to slow it down,” Balthazar said as he pulled a pair of shackles out from under the counter, "this might hold her for a few seconds.”

“How much?” Sabrina asked.

“I’ve known Diana for years, don’t worry about it. Now get out of here before they track you back here and they wreck my shop.” Balthazar doubted he could stop someone on Diana’s level, at least not without wrecking his shop and the surrounding area and he had too many dangerous magical items in his shop to chance it.

Sabrina turned to look at John. “Can you make your way home from here?”

John nodded. “Yeah, I’ll just call a taxi.”

“Cool,” Sabrina focused on Donna. “Can you think about your house and sister so I can get a location?”

Donna focused on her sister and their apartment.

Sabrina lifted the location from Donna’s mind then teleported with the group, leaving John with the shopkeeper. She figured it was safer to let him make his own way home and it wasn’t his fault that his grandfather went nuts.

Dawn Troy jumped as her sister and three strangers appeared in the living room out of thin air. “Don’t do that!”

“Bug out bag, now!” Donna ordered, causing Dawn to roll off the couch, grab her save card out of her game station then bolt for her room. She headed to her room to grab her trunk, everything else was replaceable.

“How much time do we have?” Puck asked warily.

Sabrina shivered as she focused on the future and realized that they had less than two minutes before Devastation would rip through the apartment’s wall and try to kill them all. “Shit!” She reached out and teleported the rather nice entertainment system and all of their games to the island then teleported everyone to the island as soon as Donna and Dawn ran out of their rooms with their duffle bags and trunk. “Sorry, we had less than two minutes before the crazy bitch found us.”

“What crazy bitch?” Dawn demanded as she looked at the strangers. “What’s going on?”

Sabrina pulled her League identification card out of her inventory and handed it to Dawn. “Please stay calm. My name is Sabrina Shadows, I’m with the Justice League.”

“Does telling people to stay calm ever work?” Dawn asked as she glanced between Crow and Puck.

“There’s always a first time,” Puck replied hopefully. “I’m Puck Granger, my friend is Crow, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Start talking, who is the crazy bitch and why is she looking for us?” Dawn demanded.

“The woman’s name is Devastation, she’s basically like Wonder Woman...” Sabrina explained as she sent a text to Kara that she’d need help.

0o0o0

Myst had barely hit the button to spend another hundred thousand mana upgrading his mana pool when he got punched and sent tumbling across the street like a rag doll. He crashed into the ground then bounced and rolled into a brick building, slamming into the brick before he could even think to fly or stop himself with telekinesis. “What the fuck?” he muttered as he picked himself back up, wondering what the hell had just hit him.

“I want my key!” Glory snapped as she advanced on the creature that hadn’t died when she’d hit him. “You have power enough to know where I can find it!”

Myst glared at the familiar looking blonde hell goddess stalking toward him. “I’m seriously not in the mood Glory.”

“You know who I am? Good, that makes this easier. Tell me where my Key is!”

“I’ll make you a deal, if you strip and do a naughty dance, I’ll tell you where your Key is,” Myst offered, mentally adjusting the settings on his precog so that he’d have a chance to dodge.

“You’re a disgusting fleshy mortal!” Glory complained.

“Is that a no?” Myst asked then teleported out of the way as she blurred forward. He punched her in the back of her head as hard as he could… to absolutely no effect.

“Don’t touch my hair,” Glory ordered as she tried to backhand him which caused him to teleport across the street. “Stop moving so I can kill you!”

Myst lifted Glory up off the ground by her neck with his telekinesis. “No.”

“Let me down!” Glory ordered finding it impossible to get any leverage as there was nothing to grab onto.

Myst conjured a bottle of reem’s blood enhanced Coke. “Why do you want the Key?” he asked as he poured mana into the bottle of Coke, increasing the amount of supernatural strength it would give the drinker.

“I want to go home!” Glory complained.

“Let me guess, your fellow hell gods stabbed you in the back and banished you then locked your dimension,” Myst said as he started walking, floating Glory in front of him as he walked towards the magic shop.

“They are cowardly bastards,” Glory complained, doing her best to ignore Ben, as she could feel him struggling in the back of her mind to try and regain control. “Where is my Key? The monks told me they sent it to the Slayer to keep safe.”

“And you believed them?” Myst asked with amusement, fairly sure he would have noticed anything that powerful in Buffy’s house and casual conversation with the Summers hadn’t revealed any additional children. “You were going to kill them, why would they tell you the truth?”

“They lied?” Glory asked with disbelief, sounding a bit hurt, as if she was a small child that had just been told that Santa wasn’t real.

“Pretty much,” Myst replied as he dropped another 100,000 mana into the bottle of Coke, sending a tidal wave of mana through the town and increasing the magic swirling around the liquid to the point he was starting to worry about the bottle containing it all. The way it shivered, as if it wasn’t sure whether it should be a solid or a liquid, certainly didn’t point to stability. He quickly drank the upgraded bottle of Coke as he held the hell god in place with his telekinesis, rather happy that she couldn’t fly.

“What are you?” Glory asked as she watched the wave of mana roll over everything. “You’re not human.”

Myst finished drinking his Coke. “I used to be...” he trailed off as Glory changed into a familiar looking man in a dress. He was slightly annoyed that Ben was tall enough to reach the ground so he wasn’t strangling him, but only a little. “Oh damn, she escaped. Do you know where Glory went?” he asked dryly.

“What are you talking about?” Ben asked, playing dumb and worried that the spell that should prevent people from connecting the dots wasn’t working.

“You’re Glory’s cage, which means in order to kill her, you need to die, sorry,” Myst replied as he reached out to stop the man’s heart. He scowled as Sabrina’s mental voice reached him, ‘She’ll be able to find us in three minutes, it doesn’t matter where we try to hide, she’ll fly our way.’

‘Have you given Donna an anti scrying amulet?’ Myst asked.

'They’re not going to stop just because they can’t find her, the Titans knew where she was and they’ll send her to the island to wreck shit,’ Sabrina replied mentally.

“Stop! We can make a deal,” Ben pleaded.

‘Fine, I’ll be right there, I have a crazy idea that might help or make things twice as bad.’ Myst looked at Ben, normally he wouldn’t even consider making a deal, but he knew that Glory could be teleported and that space was vast. Besides, he was fairly sure that he could convince Glory that Devastation wanted her Key for one reason or another. If nothing else, it wasn’t like teleporting her to the ass end of nowhere took a lot of time. “Fine, if Glory can destroy a particularly annoying villain, I’ll do my best to send her home so you can die later rather than kill you now.”

“Both of those plans pretty much result in my death,” Ben complained.

Sabrina tossed Myst their location as she dialed Wonder Woman’s number, wanting more backup.

“It’s more like certain death now or possible death later, it’s not a great improvement but it is an improvement.” Myst teleported with Ben then winced as he spotted Dawn standing next to Puck, chatting.

“Why did you bring us a crossdresser?” Dawn asked, as she looked at Ben.

“He’s a meatshield,” Myst replied, glancing over at where Sabrina was talking to someone on the phone.

“Are you sure you’re with the Justice League?” Dawn asked doubtfully.

“Help, he’s planning on killing me!” Ben exclaimed sensing an opportunity.

“He has an evil goddess trapped inside of him that is planning on destroying the world,” Myst replied.

“Like anyone would believe that,” Ben complained.

“I would,” Dawn said at the same time as Crow.

Puck glanced at Crow then looked between Myst and Ben. “Right, so meatshield?”

“What the hell is wrong with you people?” Ben asked in disbelief.

“The Titans have put out a hit on us, other than that, life is pretty good,” Dawn said thoughtfully.

Donna shook her head. “You realize that killing him will probably just cause her to be dispersed for a time?”

“We’ll probably get a decade out of it,” Crow offered as she tried to get a feel for the ‘meatshield’s power level.

Ben shivered and then changed back into Glory. “Where is my Key?” she demanded angrily.

“Yeah, meatshield,” Donna said, relieved to have confirmation about Myst’s claims.

“Right, so the godling that is showing up wants to destroy your key, if you defeat her, I’ll do my best to send you home so that you can kill all the hell gods in your dimension,” Myst offered, trusting in his precog to give him enough warning if she decided to side with Devastation. “If you don’t agree, then I’ll do my best to deal with you before she gets here and destroys your key.”

“Fine,” Glory agreed, considering the amount of power the humanoid had been tossing around and the possibility that he might be telling the truth. If he wasn’t… well he had many limbs to pull off as she devoured his brain. “I will destroy this so called godling and then you will send me home or return to me my key so I may find my own way home!”

“Agreed,” Myst said. “Prepare yourself, she should be here shortly.”