Myst in Worm (CYOA) part 14 (Patreon)

Emily Piggot cursed her inability to drink when a notice popped up on her computer informing her that she had an urgent message that concerned Nilbog and Ellisburg. She opened her email and clicked on the unsigned message. "Emily, you'll want to watch this, grab popcorn!" she read the unsigned message then quickly clicked the video file. 

She scowled as she watched the virus scanner run another check on the file before her media player booted up and she saw six small video windows inside the window showing multiple views of the hell Nilbog had turned Ellisburg into. "They should have killed that bastard when he first showed up..." she trailed off as she saw a series of massive explosions of blue light from all of the windows. "What the hell was that?" she sputtered then stared at the various images of a town transformed into what looked suspiciously like glass.

Emily focused on one of the windows as she caught movement a second before an entire section of glass buildings in the distance collapsed followed by another window catching a blur of movement as another section on the next window collapsed. She twitched as hordes of monstrous creatures poured out of 'hidden' tunnels on the various windows before she caught sight of a flying disk filled with several figures on one of the windows. 

She stared as she watched the other five windows fade to black while the window with the figures on the flying disk grew in size. "Is this a joke?" she demanded as the Deputy Director hurried into the room.

"I just got word from a friend stationed in Ellisburg, the city is gone," Renrick said as he walked over to her desk to look at what she was watching on her computer.

"Maybe you can explain why Will Smith is in Ellisburg using a plasma rifle?" Emily demanded.

Renick walked over and looked at the video. "He's wearing a suit and shades. Is that Clint Eastwood dressed as a cowboy with a BFG?"

"BFG?" Emily asked, fairly sure she could guess what the letters stood for given the size of the man was using.

"Big fucking gun," Renrick replied absently as he looked at the rest of the people on the flying disk that looked like an adult sized playground roundabout. "Bruce Willis is tossing explosives and Arnold is using two beam cannons."

"Someone is obviously messing with us," Emily complained as her phone rang with the Chief Director's ringtone. She picked up the phone. "Director?"

"I don't have all of the information but you'll be happy to know that an unknown number of capes flew in and destroyed the town of Ellisburg and all of Nilbogs creations twenty minutes ago," Rebecca explained, a bit annoyed at being blindsided but glad that he was actually dead as none of his creations would have been that useful against Scion.

"Why do they look like actors?" Emily asked hoping the Chief Director had a better idea who was responsible.

"No idea," Rebecca admitted. "Hero's corpse was taken yesterday by someone that looked like Johnny Depp. We'd assumed a Changer was responsible until we saw the group flying over Ellisburg destroying everything."

"How did they turn the city to glass?" Emily asked warily.

"Obviously tinkertech," Rebecca replied, hoping that she could recruit the Tinker for use against Scion.

"How sure are you that he's gone?" Emily asked, hoping for the best but expecting to be disappointed.

"I've consulted Watchdog, he's dead," Rebecca assured her.

"Good," Emily replied, knowing that she'd sleep easier. "What about his monsters?"

"They're dead, they charged the capes responsible for Nilbog's death and one of the capes set off another glass bomb, catching the remaining monsters after the rest of the capes vanished from sight and our ability to find them," Rebecca admitted, not used to being completely blind against anything other than Scion and the Endbringers.

"Good," Emily declared. "They should have been dealt with years ago." 

"We didn't have a way to do it without causing massive casualties," Rebecca pointed out, trying not to snap at her. "I need you to look into Purity's location, one of the cameras caught three people using tinkertech gloves that created an effect like her blast."

"Are you saying the Empire helped deal with Nilbog?" Emily asked in disbelief.

"No," Rebecca replied firmly. "I'm saying you should pass a message to Assault and have him look into things, Leet might have been able to build the glass bomb and gloves that mimicked Purity’s power."

Emily's smile dimmed slightly as she thought about the Tinker that ran around pretending to be various game characters and wondered if he could have pulled the attack off before deciding that he wasn't that good and it didn't quite fit his MO. "If that's the case, we're lucky they didn't destroy the entire state."

"Or unleash a plague of monsters," Rebecca replied, letting a hint of her annoyance slip through. "If you find anything, let me know. I have to make some calls."

"Understood," Emily replied as the Director hung up on her. "He's dead!"

Renrick nodded, knowing the Director had a less than pleasant history with Ellisburg and Nilbog. "Shall I get the cider?" he asked, knowing she couldn't drink alcohol.

"No, get in touch with Panacea," Emily ordered, as she realized a team of capes had just done what the Protectorate capes had failed to do so long ago and without being bribed or threatened. "I want to have a drink, it's past time I deal with my health issues."

"Understood," Renick replied as he left the room to call Panacea before the Director changed her mind. 

0o0o0

"Is there a reason you're not drinking?" Riley asked Myst as she pulled her attention away from where one of Kayden's inebriated clones was telling one of Sundancer's clones about the 'epic' battle against Nilbog's forces.

Myst glanced up from the spell book he was reading and smiled at Riley. "Beyond the fact that I don't particularly care for the taste?"

"You could always drink cider," Riley suggested as she gestured at her glass of cider.

"That's why I have clones," Myst replied as he absently gestured towards the lawn chair where a version of him was having sex with one of Sundancer's clones while one of the Amy's played with her breasts.

Riley stuck out her tongue at Myst. "You're a horrible priest of a god of alcohol, you know that right?"

"Technically he's the god of fun times," Myst replied with amusement as he conjured a glass of cider.

Riley grinned. "Have you figured out how to pull off a magic girl transformation sequence?"

"Sure, just use an illusion for sparkles then use your symbiote to change costumes," Myst suggested then took a sip of his cider.

Riley pouted. "That's hardly the same. The symbiote doesn't boost my magic to the stars and back!"

Myst shook his head. "You've been watching too much anime."

"Probably," Riley admitted, “but Uber and Leet know the best shows. Speaking of anime, have you finished any spatial rings yet?"

Myst transferred one of the spatial rings his other clone had just finished to his clone that was flying towards Boston then back to his hand and handed the ring to Riley. "Yeah, just put it on, concentrate, and a floating inventory screen should appear over your hand."

Riley quickly slipped the ring on her left hand and focused on bringing up her inventory. She grinned as an inventory window appeared over her hand, showing five empty inventory slots. "I was hoping for something larger."

"It's a work in progress," Myst replied, happy that he'd managed to create the interface that actually showed what people had in storage. "If it makes you feel better I have my clones working on bags of holding and the more powerful I get, the better the rings."

"I'm going to need at least four bags of holding or maybe cabinets of holding," Riley mused.

Myst grinned. "I'll work on it. How are you doing with Bonesaw?"

"We're making a list of memories she doesn't want and we're watching movies to decompress. it's going to take a while before she's stable enough to be around defenseless civilians," Riley admitted. "It's probably for the best that I don't know enough necromancy to bring Jack back just so I can stab him to death a couple of times."

"Or bind his soul to his skull and make him watch an endless stream of children's television?" Myst asked thoughtfully.

Riley took a drink of her cider. "Let me guess, you've thought about it?"

"More than once." Myst shrugged. "I've also seen the Mummy, there's a point where vengeance isn't worth the risk and he's well and truly dead right now, so take some solace in that and move on."

"I'll drink to that," Riley replied as she tapped Myst's glass of cider with her own. "So, what's next on your list of problems to take care of?"

"I have a clone flying towards Boston to copy Accord and a clone flying towards Heartbreaker's general location to make a copy to fix all of the people he screwed over and put him in a grave. I have my clones of Coil working on finding an insane bomb tinker so I can make sure she never hurts anyone," Myst explained as he watched one of the Amys kissing a girl by the pool that he was reasonably sure was Circus but the face wasn't quite the same and her bust was far more generous than the acrobat's normal figure.

"What about The Fallen?" Riley asked.

"I'll probably get around to dealing with them eventually or John will," Myst replied, fairly sure The Fallen would come out of the woodwork if they managed to kill or banish one of the Endbringers.

Riley nodded. "Have you thought about using Leet's portal device to send people to empty worlds?"

Myst grinned at Riley. "It's on the list, but I want to wait until I pick up a cape that can move earth and build structures, which means going after the Yangbang or do some searching on the boards because I'd rather make a town on the other side unless I'm just sending them off to die."

"Are you sure you're a hero?" Riley asked with amusement.

"I'm just a pragmatic hero. I'm fairly sure a decent number of criminals would jump at the chance to avoid spending the rest of their lives in prison even if it meant blazing trails and surviving on a primitive world."

Riley shook her head. "That sounds like an organizational nightmare."

"That's one of the reasons I want to clone Accord. There's no reason we can't open doors to dozens or even hundreds of worlds and let people start a new life."

"You'd have hundreds of millions or maybe even billions of people that would want a fresh start in a world without Endbringers."

"Probably," Myst agreed. "Which is why I'd like to get towns and farms set up first. Not to mention teams to survey the various worlds to make sure we aren't unleashing a bunch of people on innocent natives that are still trying to figure out the best ways to use gunpowder."

"In other words, you're going to dump the problem on Accord and work on learning magic?" Riley asked.

"Pretty much," Myst agreed. "I wouldn't mind offering some gifted teenagers and children magic then relocating them to a new world with their family to see what type of society they come up with, but that's more of a long term goal."

"Strictly voluntary, right?" Riley asked, wanting to make sure he wasn't losing his marbles.

"Of course, wavers and everything," Myst replied.

Riley shook her head. "Any other insane ideas?"

"Do you think Amy could make elves?" Myst asked thoughtfully.

"Hmm…" Riley trailed off as she got several ideas for modifying people.

0o0o0

Myst glanced down at his boots and grinned as the dust was eaten by his symbiote, making it easy for him to present a respectable front which should help avoid problems because of Accord's OCD issues. He nodded slightly to the woman in a gemstone studded masquerade mask and a yellow evening gown opened the door that led into a nicely furnished lounge.

"You're early," Citrine stated as she stepped out of the way.

"By five minutes," Myst replied as he walked inside and glanced around the room. "I'd rather be a couple of minutes early than a second late, it gives Accord a chance to finish any projects and send for me at his leisure without interrupting him by being too early."

Citrine gestured towards one of the chairs. "Have a seat, he'll call you when he's ready."

Myst nodded then walked over and sat in the chair, glad that he was currently more or less invulnerable thanks to Othala's clones and that his super speed would let him grab Accord before he realized he needed to call for security. The next four and a half minutes were rather boring but tolerable. 

Citrine gestured for him to follow her sixteen seconds before the meeting with Accord and perfectly timed the pace so that he'd enter Accord's office at the exact time of the meeting. The sheer amount of OCD was giving Myst flashbacks to a bad college roommate and making him want to screw with the timing or something so that Accord would have a psychotic break.

Myst sighed when Accord glared at him, his wood and silver mask moving to show his anger.

"What are you?" Accord demanded, finding no answers as he focused on the stranger.

Myst focused on Accord and turned him to stone then turned and grabbed Citrine before she could move with a burst of speed she couldn't match. He took a second to look through her mind for the location of Blasto's lab then dropped her into his pocket dimension in an empty cell. "So much for doing things the nice way."

Myst floated over to Accord's desk, not trusting the floor and touched the statue. 'At least he didn't have force field generators and turrets.' He sent the statue to the glass jungle area where he'd tested the bomb then turned and headed out of Accord's office, using Othala's speed boost to leave the building before the rest of villain's minions could leave their posts. 'Screw it, I can always copy them later,' he mused as he ran towards Blasto's base, wanting to copy everyone he needed to before he picked a fight with The Teeth.

0o0o0

Myst gestured at Accord's statue and turned his head back to flesh and blood.

"What did you do?" Accord demanded as he glanced between the strange cape and the wall of fog he could see in the background, unhappy that he couldn't move his body.

"I turned you into a statue and teleported you somewhere we could have a conversation without being interrupted by pointless and useless gunfire."

"Pointless?" Accord asked as he studied the man wearing a suit and a plain white theater mask.

"I'm currently the next best thing to indestructible," Myst explained. "Either way, you're a neurotic mess because of your power and no one will ever use your plans because they're overly complicated and you're nearly impossible to deal with."

"Do you think solving world hunger is easy?" Accord demanded.

"No but even if you could get people to understand the complicated language and care about anyone in the next state over or next country over, you'd have to be able to sell it to the world's politicians as something reasonable and worth doing. None of your plans will work because you can't account for greed. If you put in a number, they'll hit the number and then want more, because if it's working, why shouldn't they have just a bit more?"

"Because they can feed everyone in the world if they follow my plans!" Accord snapped.

"For how long?" Myst asked. "Eventually they'll want the food without working for it. Why bother risking your life to go to the next village to sell food when you can just grow some illegal drug and sell it to make a profit that you'll hold and collect your food? When you have enough people getting food, the entire system starts to fail."

"My plan accounts for that," Accord argued, growing red faced and angry.

"Bullshit! You think your plan accounts for that but your plan comes from a conflict engine, they're designed to spread conflict and misery so people will fight and stress test their powers, your plans will never work because they're not supposed to!" Myst snapped as Amy walked up behind Accord.

"What makes you think I can't keep adjusting them?" Accord asked intently as he started running through various scenarios in his head.

"Because before I ended up in your world and started making changes, you would have had your throat cut in a fight to save the world, as in you were helping fight a god like being that was hours away from destroying every version of Earth it could reach, a number best described in scientific notation. Picture that for a moment, every version of Earth, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, end of the world scale and you managed to destroy someone's life enough that they were willing to risk everything just to kill you personally."

"They sound unstable," Accord replied, not sure he believed the cape in front of him.

Myst sighed as he realized that Accord couldn't understand because of his shard or mental issues. "Never mind."

Amy reached out and touched Accord's neck when Myst turned him flesh and blood then knocked him unconscious before he managed to spin around or grab his gun. "I'd fix his mental issues, but his shard would just keep pushing."

"Probably," Myst agreed as he walked over and touched Accord's neck. 'Calm, collected, fun loving, loyal and sane.' He focused on the requirements and duplicated Accord four times, hoping the clones would be saner than the original.

One of the clones glanced around then looked down at Accord and sighed as he realized that he didn't feel any rage or frustration about the fact that Accord's suit was rumpled and he was sprawled on the ground. "It's like waking up and realizing you spent the last couple of decades in a daze."

"Sounds about right, it’s very disconcerting," one of the other Accords agreed.

"Are we permanent copies?" the other two clones asked at the same time as they looked at the man sprawled on the ground.

"You're permanent creations," Amy assured them. 

"I can make four copies the first time I clone someone and one every day after that," Myst explained, figuring they needed to know that much for their calculations and plans.

"Do we have a better plan than being a sociopathic villain?" another Accord asked as he glanced at Amy.

The last Accord shrugged as the other three looked at him. "I was planning on grabbing something to drink and dealing with it in the morning while suffering from an impressive hangover."

Myst glanced between the versions of Accord. "Which one of you wants to head back to Boston and take care of Accord's criminal empire?"

"Not it," the clone had wanted a drink replied, not wanting to get stuck managing a criminal empire if he could help it.

"That depends, are we going to do something more achievable than trying to end world hunger?" one of the clones asked, not seeing a reason to keep bashing his head against a wall when it was blindingly obvious the various world governments weren't going to listen now that he wasn't blinded by mental issues.

"I'm planning on using a portal device to give people the chance to leave Earth Bet and set up on empty worlds. I figure you're the perfect person to deal with the logistics."

"How much are you planning on charging?" the clone asked as he looked at Myst.

"Charge as much or as little as you want," Myst replied. "I'm planning on sending mercenaries or flying capes through the portal to scout the worlds before I send people through, which shouldn't cost all that much in the grand scheme of things. I'm planning on recruiting some capes that can quickly build cities or at least towns to act as bases and travel hubs. I wouldn't mind setting up a world with magic, knights and nobility and maybe dragons depending on what Blasto can come up with."

"You should probably avoid telling people the last part unless they're nice dragons," Amy suggested.

"You're going to recruit Blasto?" one of the Accords asked warily.

Myst shook his head. "No, I'm going to clone him, my clones are generally more stable than the original."

"Probably for the best," three of the Accords grumbled, thinking about the various things he'd seen the insane Tinker working on.

"On that note, if you want to look different, I can help," Amy offered.

"Taller?" two of the Accords asked hopefully.

"Slimmer?" the clone that was planning on grabbing a drink asked.

"And better looking," Amy offered.

"What happened to Citrine?" the other Accord asked, concerned.

"I dropped her in an empty cell," Myst replied. "I'll send her back with you or I can turn her into a statue if you think she'll cause trouble."

The clone sighed as the other three Accord clones looked at him with a grin and he realized he was going to have to deal with Accord's empire. "Fine, I'll deal with Accord's empire, but to do so I'll want at least one copy of Citrine as well as the original."

One of the Accords nodded. "Which leaves a clone each for the rest of us."

"Fine with me," Myst replied as he turned to the clone that would be taking over. "You should strip the original down to his underwear then I'll turn him into a statue until we find a way to fix his powers without removing them, because I’m sure that losing that would be like losing one of your senses, needlessly cruel."

"Works for us," Accord replied as he took his mask off the original.

'This worked out rather well,' Myst mused as Amy started working on changing the appearance of the other three clones. ‘About time one of my plans came off without a hitch.’

0o0o0

“Why are we suppose to meet Sophia here?” Madison asked as she looked around the closed movie theatre. The cute little brunette nervously chewed on a nail.

“Because Sophia said she wanted to show us something,” Emma asked, bouncing on her heels with excitement. Sophia hadn’t directly stated that she’d discovered a way to grant them powers, but her hints about changing their lives was more than just a subtle clue.

“This place is creepy,” Madison said, eyeing the trash that had collected in the corners of the lobby, where homeless people had camped out and shot up.

Sophia ghosted through the wall, causing Madison to gasp.

“No secret ID this time?” Emma asked with a grin, positive Sophia had found a way to empower them or she wouldn’t have unmasked herself to Clements.

“Nah,” Sophia replied with a smirk, “the time for secrets is past with you two, now we just got to wait for the boss man to get here.”

“He can give us powers?” Emma asked, vibrating in place.

Sophia nodded. “He’s a high level trump. He gave Vista mid level powers in several categories last night.”

“We’re going to get powers?” Madison asked in disbelief, her head spinning as she realized her friend Sophia was a Ward and was looking to get them to join as well. 

“That’s part of the plan,” John said as he melted out of the shadows like a chameleon, his aura absent as his wings were hidden by his symbiote.  

“You can give us powers?” Emma all but begged the teen. The memory of what had happened in an alley a couple of years ago never far from her mind. She would do anything to avoid feeling that helpless again.

John held out his hands. “Take my hands and I’ll fix everything,” he promised.