Reluctant Villainy Part 2 (Patreon)

Myst was walking by one of the labs when he heard someone say, "Come on, let me play with your pussy." He stopped and turned to look through the door at the scrawny man wearing a Megaman costume that was holding a screwdriver and the teenage girl wearing a blue hoodie, a cloth mask over the bottom part of her face and a dark visor that was holding an orange cat protectively.

"Go to hell," the girl replied sarcastically. "I'm not losing another cat because you have yet another awesome idea that can't possibly fail."

"It worked perfectly," Leet complained.

"Yeah, until it broke the sound barrier and caught fire!" the girl snapped.

"Do I even want to know?" Myst asked from the door, curious what the hell the guy had done.

"Come on, that was last year," Leet whined.

"And my parrot?" the girl asked in annoyance.

"It's hardly my fault that Armsmaster shot it," Leet argued unconvincingly.

"He shot your parrot?" Myst asked in surprise.

The girl gestured at Leet. "He turned it into a flying bomb."

"I might have gotten a bit carried away," Leet admitted.

"And the cat?" Myst asked.

"I had to grab something to drink and left one of my cats in the workshop, this maniac decided she needed an upgrade," she said, gesturing at Leet.

"You were the one complaining about not having a decent power system," he pointed out.

'Power system?' Myst used his power sight on the girl, trying to figure out what was going on. 'Okay, robotic pets, minor telekinesis and multitasking. That makes more sense.'

"Point," the girl admitted. "Still, if you'd asked, I'd have pointed out that I took some shortcuts with the control system."

"Live and learn," Leet replied as he turned to look at Myst. "Why aren't you wearing a mask?"

"Because I'm currently a changer," Myst replied with a shrug.

"Currently?" Leet asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I have a couple of slots that I can flip around, sort of like a knock off Eidolon."

"Can you fake being a tinker?" the girl asked.

"I can acquire an advanced knowledge of electronics and I have a bunch of tinker schematics that were at least partially reverse engineered so eh, sort of," Myst admitted.

"Let me guess, they fell off the back of a truck?" Leet asked with a raised eyebrow.

Myst shrugged. "They were in my inventory when I woke up."

"You have an inventory? That would be so useful," the girl complained.

"I can give you one if you want," Myst offered.

"How?" Leet asked warily.

"Magic? Powers shenanigans? I have the power to hand out three powers per person," Myst explained.

"What do you get out of it?" the girl asked, figuring there was a catch.

"Beyond the satisfaction of pissing off the PRT?" Myst asked with amusement. "Joking aside, I get to make sure that heroes, tinkers, minor villains and rogues get to survive the insanity of living on Earth Bet."

"How do we know your power doesn't have a master component?" the girl asked.

"You don't but I don't actually need permission to give you powers," Myst pointed out.

Leet shrugged. "Fine, hit me with something awesome."

Myst looked over his mental list until he found something that should make his life easier. "Let's go with enhancement, you can improve the functionality of something as long as you're touching it which should keep some of your inventions from breaking."

"That would be awesome," Leet admitted. "What else?"

"Personal movement systems. It would let you make flight belts, jetpacks, hoverboards, personal teleportation devices and various other systems without worrying about your shard trying to kill you for using the same components."

"How do you know that?" Leet asked warily.

"One of my powers and common sense, I've seen some of your videos," Myst replied as he gave Leet the powers he'd mentioned. "That should do it."

"Huh, it's almost like a database of schematics at my fingertips," Leet mused.

"In other words, you don't need permission," the girl said as she set her cat on the table. "I'm Petwork, can I get a name?"

"Myst or Admin when I'm being heroic. Can I interest you in minion creation in addition to an inventory?" Myst asked with a grin.

"What type of minion creation?" Petwork asked, figuring there wasn't a reason to refuse as he didn't seem to need permission to use his power on people.

"I'm not sure, it's different for everyone." Myst frowned when he looked through his list and couldn't find an inventory power, just a more powerful pocket dimension power. 'Yeah, that's more than a little limited.' He swapped one of his power slots to a specific immunity to precog then another slot to a cosmic boost for his shard administration power.

"Can you swap the powers you hand out?" Petwork asked, wanting to make sure that she wasn't stuck with her first choice.

"I can swap them around," Myst replied as he flipped the boost active then went to work tweaking his kingmaker ability so that he could hand out lesser versions of the more expensive powers and combine lesser powers together into a 'single' power that he could hand out as long as it fell into the same cost. He couldn't help smiling as he removed the restriction his kingmaker power had on giving himself powers. 'Nothing like a bit of creative thinking.'

"In that case, go for it," Petwork suggested, curious what she'd get.

Myst gave Petwork a limited version of the pocket dimension power and tweaked it so that it worked like an inventory system using his administration power, rather pleased with the results. "It's not infinite but it's larger than a warehouse."

Petwork grinned behind her mask when she realized that she had a mental switch that summoned and dismissed her new inventory's interface and that she could move it around by concentrating on it. She grabbed Leet's screwdriver and stuck it in her inventory. "Nice."

"Hey, that's mine," Leet complained.

Petwork pulled the screwdriver back out of her inventory and handed it to Leet. "I was just borrowing it."

"I should run some tests," Leet said as he walked back over to his lab bench to grab his scanner.

Myst gave Petwork the minion creation power. "Give it a whirl."

Petwork flipped the new mental switch, not sure what to expect. She stared at the yellow child sized adorable humanoid minion with bright green hair that was wearing overalls and goggles. "Not exactly what I was expecting."

Leet raised his eyebrows when the minion said something he couldn't understand that sounded like giggling but was obviously some type of language from the way Petwork nodded. "Does that make sense to anyone else?"

"Nope," Myst replied with amusement. "Are you a hero or a villain Petwork?"

Petwork shrugged. "Must be a power thing. I'm a Rogue with heroic tendences. I mostly just keep an eye on the docks and report anyone causing trouble."

"We keep trying to recruit her but haven't had any luck," Kid Win said as he walked into the lab, glancing between the minion and Petwork. "Are you making humanoid pets?"

Petwork shook her head. "Humans aren't pets."

Myst grinned as he gave Petwork the power hub ability. "Nah, I'm handing powers out like party favors."

Petwork blinked as she realized that she could sense every cape in the building and that she had mental toggles for all of them. "What the heck did you just give me?"

"Temporary power copying," Myst replied smugly.

Kid Win stared at Myst. "You can give people the ability to temporarily copy powers?"

"I can basically hand out three low to mid level powers to anyone I want. Do you want something useful?" Myst asked.

"I'm fairly sure I'm supposed to refuse," Kid Win admitted.

"Are you sure? I'm sure I can find something useful that would stack with your modular speciality," Myst offered.

"Modular specialty?" Kid Win asked.

"Ohh!" Petwork blurted when she flipped the mental switch for Modular Technology and started getting ideas and schematics that would let her build things that connected to her pets. "That makes sense."

"How do you know that?" Kid Win asked as Leet walked back over.

Myst shrugged. "One of my abilities lets me see powers. Your specialty is basically modular design, you build things that should fit together or at least you should be working with that in mind."

"Huh, that would explain some of my issues trying to finish projects," Kid Win admitted.

"You'll probably have more luck if you focus on components and how they go together," Myst suggested.

"Does that mean you can tell what my specialty is?" Leet asked, curious how accurate the guy's power was.

Myst focused on Leet's power. "Sure, you're basically supposed to be prototyping things but the restrictions on your power suck because they're component based rather than based on the finished product which is probably where the problems started."

"No shit, I've burned a fair number of inventions," Leet grumbled.

"How many of them did you test to destruction?" Myst asked, fairly sure his power hadn't actually worked in a reasonable way in the original story. 'Of course, the original was just a story so there are bound to be differences.'

Leet glanced at Kid Win then sighed. "More than a couple, most of the old ones are in storage in case I can fix them."

"That's half of your problem. Your power doesn't consider the testing finished so it's locking down the components because it's being pissy," Myst explained. "I suggest sending everything that you aren't using to Dragon so that she can stress test it to destruction and reverse engineer it. That would give you a decent source of money and should unlock a bunch of components because you're actually finishing your work."

"That fits," Leet admitted after a few seconds of thinking about the various devices that he'd managed to test to destruction, mostly by accident. The components hadn't caused him nearly as much trouble as some of the stuff tied up in old inventions. "It's certainly worth sending her some of the devices I can't get to work."

"Cool." Myst turned to look at Kid Win. "Can I talk you into accepting three shiny or not so shiny powers?"

"I'd need to send the request up the chain," Kid Win admitted reluctantly after giving it some thought.

"No rush, I'll be here until the end of camp," Myst replied as he headed over to one of the workstations to see what he could find in the parts bin.

"You're a tinker?" Kid Win asked as he watched the stranger look through the bin.

"Close enough," Myst replied, fairly sure being a Builder counted for being a tinker especially when he could use his powers to fake a level of engineering skill that would make the entities cry and had a bunch of tinkertech schematics.

"What are you going to make?" Kid Win asked.

"No idea," Myst admitted as he started looking through the bin and started scanning everything so he could make copies. "Part of the assignment is to make something with the parts in the lab."

"You said you were a knockoff Eidolon earlier, does that mean you could blast the cargo ship blocking the bay?" Petwork asked thoughtfully.

"I could but I have a feeling the local PRT would object, some law about parahumans stealing jobs," Myst replied as he worked on scanning the various parts in the bin. 'Besides, why worry about the red tape when you have duplicates.'

"Yeah, it makes it really hard to make a living as a tinker," Petwork complained as Armsmaster walked in along with several other teenagers in masks.

Armsmaster glanced at Myst then stopped as he realized the young man wasn't wearing a mask. "No mask?"

"No real point, if the gangs want to harass me, a mask isn't going to stop them," Myst replied as he turned his attention to scanning Armsmaster and the rest of the tinkers.

"You could at least make it harder," one of the new girls complained.

"I'm just here for the camp then I'm dust in the wind," Myst replied.

"Meaning?" a fat teenager in a flight suit and full mask asked.

"Meaning, I'm going to vanish and I don't really care about the local gangs so there's no real point in any of you selling me out," Myst replied absently as he started assembling an antigravity unit that might let someone fly if the components didn't burn out.

Armsmaster wasn't quite sure if the kid was insane or just naive but figured he'd talk to him after he had a better idea what he could make. "Everyone get to work, if you need assistance, ask."

0o0o0

Vista glanced up from her phone when Dennis and walked over to her table. "Are you making sock puppets again?"

"Why?" Dennis asked as he sat down with his hamburger across from Vista and Amy, fairly sure she was talking about his tendency to have extra accounts for the purposes of trolling people rather than actual sock puppets.

"Because someone posted a thread trying to extort money from the Fallen," Vista replied as she showed him her phone.

Dennis shook his head after reading the opening post in the thread. "Just because I have a sense of humor doesn't mean I joke about the endbringers and the Fallen are crazy enough to try to track me down, no thanks."

"I'm not surprised they locked the thread," Amy said as she reached over and stole one of Dennis' fries. "There's no way the Fallen are going to pay out for a joke."

"Hell of a joke," Dennis muttered as he dipped a fry in ketchup.

Vista snorted. "Hell of a way to get a new account banned. It's right in the rules, no using accounts for illegal crap."

"I'm pretty sure you have to be crazy to be a villain," Victoria said from the next table over where she was sitting with Gallant and a couple of people from the Boston Wards. "Besides, what type of a name is Rainbow Starstrike anyways?"

"Considering what they pay wards, I'll take my chances as a villain," a teenager with a black ninja outfit and white theater mask piped up from the table behind Vista.

Vista rolled her eyes. "It's still tacky and sounds like something from a Saturday morning cartoon."

"Unless they're serious," Uber said as he sat down next to the ninja girl.

"Still, trying to extort the Fallen like that is a new one..." the ninja girl trailed off when the monitors on the walls started playing the news. "Reports just in, some type of energy beam has managed to hit the Simurgh in orbit."

"Holy shit!" Vista blurted as she watched the clip of a stream of multicolored sparkles striking the Simurgh in the back, ripping through her flesh and wings like tissue paper before the endbringer exploded in a flash of light. "That can't be real!"

The news anchor couldn't help her smile as she watched the clip on the large screen. "We've confirmed the validity of the footage with various government and private sources. While we're still trying to officially confirm the identity of the person or group responsible for destroying the Simurgh, we received a letter an hour before the Simurgh's destruction by Rainbow Starstrike Queen of Destruction claiming responsibility and that she'd destroy another endbringer if the Fallen can't come up with nine million dollars by noon tomorrow."

"What the fuck?!" Vicky blurted, thinking about the locked thread. "She was serious!"

"Who was serious?" Myst asked as he walked over with Petwork and Kid Win.

"Rainbow Starstrike," Ubber said.

Myst sat down at the empty table next to Amy's table. "Weird name but I guess you can call yourself whatever you want when you have the power to destroy endbringers."

"Legit," Uber agreed, shocked that someone had managed to destroy an endbringer with one shot. "Do you think they're the one that caused Scion to vanish?"

"I doubt it, they'd have left a note," Myst pointed out. "Speaking of trouble, who wants extra powers?"

"Extra powers?" Vicky asked with a raised eyebrow.

"He's a trump," Petwork said cheerfully as she sat down across from Myst. "I picked up minion creation, electrokinesis and an inventory," she said, not seeing a point in mentioning the fact that she also had temporary power copying because her electrokinesis power was linked to her inventory power, however that worked.

"Like a video game?" Dennis asked, already thinking of the various ways he could use an inventory.

"Yep, it makes it a lot easier to haul my pets around with me," Petwork said cheerfully.

"What's the catch?" Amy asked, glancing between Petwork and Myst.

Myst shook his head. "No catch or at least no catch if you're a hero or heroic leaning rogue. If you're a rogue or villain, I'm charging 100 dollars assuming they're not complete assholes, if they're complete assholes they can go screw themselves."

"One hundred per power?" the ninja girl asked as she pulled her wallet out. "I can do that."

Myst turned to look at the ninja girl. "What do you want?"

"Force field, flight and an inventory?" she asked hopefully as she pulled six fifties out of her wallet and held them out towards Myst.

"Done, done and done," Myst replied as he gave her the powers and accepted the cash. "Thank you for the business."

"Is that even legal?" Vicky asked, not particularly happy with anyone selling powers to villains.

"Eh? I haven't actually checked," he admitted as he put the cash in his pocket. "I'm assuming it's like safety gear, I'm selling it, people are buying it, what they do with it is their business."

"I don't think it works that way," Vicky argued.

"If the Protectorate has a problem, they can talk to me after the camp," Myst replied then turned to look at Amy. "So, can I talk you into grabbing a force field and flight or regeneration or a changer ability so you can have a secret identity?"

"Do you actually need permission to give people powers?" Amy asked, curious how his power worked.

Myst shook his head. "Nope, but giving people powers without permission would be rude and probably all types of illegal outside of weird cases that I don't care to look up right now."

"In that case, I'd love to have flight and a force field. I'm tired of worrying about some idiot stoned out of his mind taking a shot at me or pulling a knife on me and being able to fly around with Vicky would be nice," Amy said thoughtfully. "I don't suppose you have any trump abilities that you can give out?" she asked, figuring if she was going to get in trouble from Carol, she might as well make it worth it.

"Like temporary power copying? Sure, that's easy enough," Myst replied as he gave Amy a force field, flight and the power hub ability that would let her temporarily copy the powers of everyone near her. "The range isn't particularly impressive but 300 feet is decent enough."

"I noticed," Amy muttered as she tried to sort through all of the mental switches she had.

"I don't suppose I can get a copy of that power?" Uber asked hopefully.

Myst turned to look at Uber. "Sorry, I'm saving the trump abilities for heroes. Talk to me after the camp and I'll see what I can do."

"Sure," Uber agreed, figuring he'd talk to Leet and see what they had that they could trade for something better at the end of camp.

"Does that mean she can copy my power?" Vicky asked.

Myst turned to look at Vicky. "Yeah, speaking of your power, do you want an off switch for your aura?"

"Does that take up one of my three powers?" Vicky asked, curious how his abilities worked.

"Nope, it falls under basic adjustments to powers that I can make," Myst explained.

"In that case, sure, it's annoying to keep it under control," Vicky admitted.

Myst tweaked her power so the aura had a mental off switch. "That should make it easier, just flip it off when you're not using it."

Vicky flipped her new mental switch and relaxed as she didn't have to think about keeping her aura under control. "That's going to take some getting used to."

"Can I get the power copying ability?" Vista asked hopefully.

"Only if you grab the force field ability, I don't need a dead Vista on my conscience," Myst said as he gave Vista power copying and force fields. "What else do you want?"

"How about some type of blaster rating?" Vista asked hopefully.

"That I can do," Myst replied with amusement as he tossed together her third power, adding perfect accuracy, x-ray vision and a ranged knockout ability together. He created a card with the details for her new power and handed it to Vista. "Have fun."

Dennis shivered when Vista read the card and started laughing. "Does that make anyone else nervous?"

"You're not a villain, she was terrifying before," Uber grumbled.

"I'm not sure how well your power will work against brutes or people in armor," Myst admitted.

"That's what testing is for," Vista replied with a grin. "How much will the shield stop?"

"Don't pick a fight with Miss Militia or anyone with anti tank weaponry and you should be fine," Myst explained then started working on eating.

"In other words, don't fight Purity," Vicky mused.

Myst finished a bite of his burger. "Probably for the best."

"Do you have any decent stranger packages?" Vicky asked thoughtfully.

"Like turning invisible? Sure, we can do that," Myst said as he gave her a cloaking ability that would let her turn invisible. "You'll turn visible if you hit anyone but it should help you sneak up on people."

The ninja girl laughed. "I'm suddenly glad I don't live in Brockton Bay."

"Yeah, it might be time to relocate," Uber muttered.

"Or just go legit and file the permits for your shows," Dennis suggested.

"We might have to," Uber admitted.

"Glad I could help," Myst replied with a grin then went back to eating while he waited for Vicky to figure out what else she wanted.

"You!" a girl in blue scrubs with a visor and a black surgical mask declared as she rushed over to Myst and hugged him.

"Hello?" Myst asked, swapping one of his powers to telepathy so he could figure out why someone he didn't know was hugging him. He sighed when he caught a scene in the girl's mind of him rescuing her from the Slaughterhouse Nine just after she triggered. 'I guess I should have expected that.'

Amy glanced at Dr Giggles. "Do you know Myst?"

Riley let go of Myst and gave Amy a smile. "He saved me from some bad people."

"My pleasure," Myst replied as he skimmed over Riley's life, curious what she'd turned into without Jack's constant influence.

"Yep, he's my guardian angel," Riley said as she sat down next to Myst. "What brings you to the camp?"

"I got an invite and figured it was a good chance to talk to a bunch of tinkers," Myst replied with a grin.

"If you want, I'll share my notes, I have a lot of them," Riley said cheerfully, happy to help the cape that had saved her.

"Sounds like a good way to spend a couple of days," Myst replied as he used telepathy to check on Amy's mental health. 'Yeah, you need to figure out a way to blow off some steam before you explode.' He turned his attention to Petwork and felt like kicking himself when he realized she was Taylor Herbert and that she'd triggered at summer camp after her mother died which likely explained her altered powers. 'You're remarkably sane all things considered.'

"That's one of the reasons we have the camp," Armsmaster said as he walked over. "Dr Giggles, it's nice to have you here."

"I wouldn't miss it," Riley replied with a grin that was only mostly hidden by her mask. "I've been hoping to bounce more ideas off Petwork for synthetic skin."

Petwork grinned. "That would be great."

"Can you make me a tinker?" Vicky asked Myst.

"We have a couple of options. You probably don't need personal movement systems considering you can fly. I'd give you hacking but Armsmaster would probably glare at me and you'd have to fill out paperwork," Myst said, looking at the local Protectorate leader.

"I'd rather not do the paperwork," Armsmaster admitted, curious about the trump that could apparently turn people into tinkers and could make a fairly decent flight harness out of the parts the camp had supplied.

"You don't really have the right personality for potion making so let's skip that," Myst mused.

"Right personality?" Vicky asked with a raised eyebrow.

"The potions are temperamental at best and you can screw someone up or kill them with a faulty batch, same with augmenting people," Myst warned her.

"Yeah, let's skip that," Amy cut in.

"Large scale vehicles like tanks and mecha could be fun but Director Piggot would probably hunt me down and shoot me if I gave you something like that," Myst mused. 'Mostly, you just don't have enough money to make it a viable specialty right now.'

"Quite likely," Armsmaster admitted, not particularly happy with the idea of Glory Girl having access to a mech as she was bad enough on her own.

"Drones are probably your best bet, you could probably sell them to the PRT and they'd help you keep an eye on the city," Myst suggested. "I could also toss in a repair ability that would let you repair other tinker devices which would give you some interesting options."

Vicky nodded. "I like it."

Myst added the drones and repair components to the power then tossed in x-ray vision to fill out the last 50 points of components he could cram into the power, figuring it would be useful for diagnosing equipment and for search and rescue. "That should do it, one tinker package," he said as he gave her the package.

"How does your power work if you don't mind sharing?" Armsmaster asked.

"I have a list of components that I can use to build powers as long as the powers are below a certain threshold and I can hand out three of them to anyone in line of sight. I can pull them from any range in case someone starts abusing them."

"What type of powers?" Armsmaster asked.

"Nothing particularly impressive but it ranges from brute to trump," Myst replied with a shrug.

"That would help with endbringer fights, assuming Rainbow Starstrike doesn't kill the rest of them," Armsmaster said, trying not to worry about the dangerous cape that had killed the Simurgh with one shot and be happy that it was dead.

"She's an awesome magic girl, she's going to pound the rest of them!" Riley said cheerfully.

"Hopefully," Amy agreed, not sure what to expect.

Armsmaster glanced at Amy. "Have you noticed any physical changes after he gives out powers?"

"I haven't checked," Amy said as she held her hand out towards her sister. "Let me see your hand."

"Sure," Vicky replied as she grabbed Amy's hand.

Amy checked on her sister's biology, relieved to find that it wasn't any different than before she'd picked up new powers. "There aren't any physical changes."

"In that case, can I talk you out of some abilities?" Armsmaster asked hopefully, wanting to be ready in case the other endbringers went on a rampage now that someone had actually killed one of them.

"Sure," Myst replied with amusement as he looked over his list to see what would suit him the best.

0o0o0

Hero jumped away from the sink when a strange portal opened in front of the bathroom mirror showing a teenage girl with short spiky rainbow colored hair wearing a bright and sparkly rainbow colored skirt with a bright almost eye searing yellow shirt that was nearly transparent save the sections covered in glitter. "What the hell?"

"Keep it down," Myst warned him, doing his best not to laugh at Hero's reaction. "I don't need to cause a damned paradox because someone heard you shouting."

"Paradox?" Hero asked in concern.

"Time travel is a bitch like that," Myst replied.

"Your power lets you travel in time?" Hero asked in surprise.

"It lets me do a lot of things," Myst replied. "I'll give you the short version, you're about twenty minutes from attacking Jack's gang, they have a new cape that is basically indestructible and is nasty enough to damage Alexandria."

"Is this where you tell me I die?" Hero asked warily.

"Pretty much," Myst admitted. "When you died, the world got a hell of a lot darker and your friends are going to need your help."

"What's the plan?" Hero asked, figuring she wouldn't have opened a portal through time if she didn't have a plan.

"I have an associate that can give you the ability to create a projection. If your projection takes your place, you'll survive and you can help smack some sense into your friends once you're here," Myst suggested.

"Smack some sense into them? What happened to Legend?" Hero asked.

"He's got a conscience so they're not telling him shit beyond the basics," Myst replied as he gave Hero the ability to create a projection so he could fake his own death.

Hero flipped the new mental switch and created a projection of himself in a pair of swimming trunks. "It's going to be hard staying close without getting noticed."

"Point," Myst admitted. "Take cloaking and a power that should keep you from being recorded. I'd hate to screw something up because someone got a picture of you."

"What year is it?" Hero asked as he started taking his armor off so he could put it on his projection. "This is going to take longer than we have."

"Time travel is awesome," Myst replied with amusement. "It's 2011, I'll explain everything once you've faked your death."

"I hope you have whiskey," Hero muttered.

"Lots," Myst lied as he created another clone off to the side where Hero couldn't see to take care of rescuing Riley and another clone that would rescue Taylor's mother while he finished making sure everything worked out with Hero.