Reluctant Villainy Part 5 (Patreon)

"This should do it," Hermione said as she handed Myst the scrap of parchment she'd written her wish on.

"I wish you to give Harry and I a significant boost to our magical powers in a way that doesn't hurt innocents or cause us permanent harm or damage," Myst read the paper, not sure how he was supposed to monkey paw the wish. "Is that your wish?"

"Yes," Hermione said, hoping she wasn't making a mistake.

"Wish granted! Just give me a second to do the ritual," Myst said cheerfully as he pulled his blood soaked atheme out of his inventory.

"You're not going to stab me are you?" Hermione asked warily.

"Nope, I just need a bit of my blood to give you power," Myst replied as he set the tip of his ritual dagger against his left index finger then toggled his durability against the dagger for the fraction of a second it took to cut his skin.

"Sorry," Hermione offered after noticing his wince.

"Don't worry, my regeneration already fixed it," he assured her as reached out and gently tapped her nose with his finger, smearing the tip of her nose with blood. "Now I just need a little bit of concentration and a fair amount of magic." Myst put the dagger back in his inventory then pushed magic into his new conversion power and imbued her with magic, giving her several active powers and the rest of his new magical abilities as potential powers that she could unlock with work and time.

Hermione giggled as she felt a sort of static charge run through her. "Now what?"

Myst used his power sense ability to check her powers. "That worked better than I was expecting, you have a talent for scrying and spell casting in addition to four active powers, High Resistance gives a moderate amount of resistance to hostile magic and energy, Literary Manipulation gives you some interesting tricks including the ability to instantly read and understand a book just by touching it, a shape shifting talent that should let you turn into various animals and magical beasts and finally a copy of my reality altering magic."

"I have genie magic?" Hermione asked in surprise.

"You wished for a significant boost to your magical powers, I gave you a significant boost," Myst replied with a grin.

Hermione sighed when she realized the catch. "Without any information on how to use them."

"You could always make a wish or lose your underwear and I'll snap my fingers and share the basics," Myst offered.

'Not like people haven't seen me naked at the beach,' Hermione mused. "For Harry as well?"

"Seems fair," Myst agreed as he swapped his free power that wasn't maintaining his anti precog or magic immunity to give him a national level Superhuman Skill for witchcraft. 'Fuck that's a lot of spells I need to sort through,' he complained as he tried to focus on his Literary Manipulation ability. 'Okay, reading books, editing them, twisting them around and manipulating magical books is easy enough.'

"What counts as the basics?" Hermione asked as she lifted her bra up then spun it around and unhooked it.

"This," Myst replied as he used his skill sharing power to give her the information on her new power, making a mental note to use a duplicate to give himself the basics so he wouldn't need to use the skill boost for the basics.

Hermione blinked a couple of times then tossed her bra on the bed. "You consider that the basics?"

"Technically, the basics wouldn't include all of the tricks but I figured you're the research girl in your group, I might as well go the extra mile," Myst explained as he checked out her breasts. 'Certainly perky.'

"I appreciate it," Hermione said as she slipped her panties off and kicked them onto the bed.

Myst gave her the basics for the shape changing power he'd picked up and everything he had on the Projection power which was enough to keep her from accidently blasting people and let her play with the basics. "That should do it."

"That's a fraction of what you know about magic isn't it?" Hermione asked, wondering how to phrase her next wish.

"I'd suggest not wishing for all of the secrets of the universe," Myst suggested, doing his best to focus on her eyes despite his occasional glance at her body. 'You're an idiot Harry for not asking her to the dance.'

"Let me guess, it ruins the sense of discovery?" Hermione asked.

"It also might cause your head to explode," Myst replied with a grin.

Hermione studied Myst's face. "I can't tell if you're joking or not."

"While I doubt your head would actually explode, you might get lost in the information and that wouldn't be a good thing." Myst was fairly sure the extra knowledge would just bleed away but he wasn't willing to risk it without testing it on someone he didn't like. "Now that you've got the basics, we should probably boost Harry's magic unless you want to make another wish or deal first?"

"If I wished for you to fix the corruption in the ministry, how would you do it?" Hermione asked thoughtfully.

"It would depend on how specific the wish was and how bad the corruption is. I hate dealing with politicians so I'd probably monkey paw the hell out of things unless you just want me to kill a bunch of evil people."

"I thought genies weren't supposed to kill people?" Hermione asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Nah, that's Genie's problem, I just can't bring people back from the dead," Myst replied with a shrug. "But yeah, if I had to fix things, I'd probably start with taking a walk through Fudge's mind to see what type of blackmail he had on people and go from there."

Hermione scowled as she thought about the Daily Prophet articles about Harry. "You think he's blackmailing people?"

Myst pulled his attention back to Hermione's eyes. "It would certainly explain things."

"I'm guessing you'd kill a bunch of wizards if I wished for the general level of intelligence in the wizarding world to increase?" Hermione asked.

Myst grinned. "That would be the easiest method but probably not the most fun."

"Most fun?" Hermione asked warily.

"I have the power to copy people, I also have the ability to open portals to other timelines which means we could flood Hogwarts with insanely smart witches and recruit a bunch of exceptional teachers."

Hermione stared at Myst for a couple of seconds, trying to figure out how many ways she could change the world just by recruiting interesting people. "Could I wish all of the house elves freed?"

Myst shrugged. "Technically but you'd end up with a lot of unhappy house elves and broken families. Besides, if you can fix the wizarding world, you'd have a better chance to improve things for house elves in a way they're actually happy with."

"You realize they're slaves, right?" Hermione asked.

Myst used his precog to check the results of wishing the house elves freed then swapped the power to telepathy. "Do you want me to show you what would happen if you wished them free?"

"Yes, I'm tired of people telling me it wouldn't help," Hermione complained.

Myst shared the various images of miserable and or dead house elves he'd picked up as well as the scenes where the house elves just rebound themselves to their families once they realized something was wrong.

"Why would they do that?" Hermione sputtered, not understanding why anyone would want to be a slave.

"No clue," Myst admitted. "I'm not a house elf. I just know that most of them wouldn't appreciate having their families broken. If you want the house elves to have better lives, figure out how to pass a law so that wizards have to release their house elves if they ask."

"I can't see Fudge allowing that," Hermione grumbled.

"Nothing says Fudge has to remain in office," Myst replied with a grin.

"How would you change things if I wished for the corruption in the ministry to be cleaned up and the general intelligence level of the British wizarding world to be increased by at least 20%?" Hermione asked, thinking of Harry's shame of a trial.

Myst considered the question. "I'd kill or banish Fudge and his cronies to another world and replace them with temporary clones so I could fix the corruption and appoint people that aren't as neurotic or corrupt. The wizarding world has less than ten years before digital cameras are going to be common enough to be a massive problem."

"Cameras have been around for a while, how is that worse?" Hermione asked.

"Within ten years, they'll be small enough to stick in decently cheap cell phones. Cell phones that are connected to the internet which means they can send the pictures or video clips to people with a push of a button before they get their memories erased," Myst explained, fairly sure she'd understand the problem.

"At which point their friend asks them about it because they wouldn't have any memory of sending it," Hermione mused.

"Or worse, they catch the aurors talking about erasing their memory. If I was human and my friend sent me a video clip with my voice arguing with someone that wanted to erase my memory and I didn't remember it, I'd be more than a little disturbed. I'd probably grab some friends and investigate after sending myself a letter with my conclusions on the off chance it happens again."

"Which might cause the obliviate to fade," Hermione mused.

"At the very least, I'm going to post the video somewhere people will see it. Maybe nothing happens, maybe there are thousands of other videos, maybe no one believes us." Myst shrugged. "In the normal course of events, most people aren't going to believe a group of people on the net about magic coming back but there are various people in the mundane world that know about magic for various reasons, all it takes is the prime minister or someone that matters knowing about magic and saying something at the exact 'right' time and everything will come tumbling down."

"Which gets a lot of people killed," Hermione grumbled.

"Pretty much," Myst agreed. "If I was a wizard, I'd want a plan in place for when people learn that magic is real because one of the first questions people are going to ask is how you kept it hidden and they're not going to like the answer."

"I certainly don't," Hermione admitted.

"No one has the right to erase your memory, certainly not because some piece of shit wizard was being stupid or lazy. Of course, having magic doesn't mean you should be imprisoned or forced to work for the good of humanity but honestly, I doubt that would happen these days, they'd probably just toss money at you," Myst pointed out.

"It sounds a lot easier than keeping wizards imprisoned and functional enough to work," Hermione agreed. "How would you explain going into hiding?"

"I'd start by forcing the various schools to include lessons on blending into society. Once you have a couple of years without any major trouble, I'd have people make an obviously magical ship that could fly and make it appear over the countryside and let people learn about strange refugees from another world," Myst explained.

"How does that explain the sheer number of magic users in the world?" Hermione asked.

"It doesn't but you don't need to," Myst replied with amusement. "All you need to do is spin a story about magic flowing into the world through the cracks you left and how it might cause a small percentage of the native population to gain magic. That explains any new muggleborn and gives anyone that wants to come forward as magic users a chance to have some fun."

Hermione shook her head. "Someone would screw it up."

"Which is more likely, that someone accidentally opened a portal from another world or that a group has been hiding magic for the last few hundred years?" Myst asked with amusement.

"Point," Hermione admitted.

"Enough people are going to believe your story that it's not going to matter in ten to twenty years, you'll have established that magic comes from another world and that it runs in families and of course you'll help spread it by being sperm donors. Heck, buy a tropical island and set up a resort, rotate wizards like Bill in to knock up all of the rich tourists so the next generation will be magic users."

Hermione scowled as she thought about Malfoy. "The purebloods would scream bloody murder."

"Let them scream and nash their teeth, within twenty years they'll be a tiny fraction of the population and there will be more mundane money in circulation than wizarding coin. Rich people will pay hundreds of thousands of pounds just to make sure their children get into the 'right' college, can you imagine how much they'll pay to make sure their children have magic?"

"Enough to make Draco green with envy," Hermione mused. "That's almost reason enough to make the wish."

"Now picture what we could do if we stole a copy of Einstein or Nikola Tesla and gave them immortality and magic," Myst offered. "Or recruited copies of your siblings from other worlds or alternate versions of Harry."

"I wouldn't mind having a sister," Hermione admitted, not sure how she felt about changing the entire course of history if things worked out but fairly sure the wizarding world needed to change.

Myst grinned at Hermione. "I'm your genie, you're my master, dare to dream of a better world."

Hermione opened her mouth to tell Myst that she'd find a less problematic wish and paused when she recalled Harry's story about Lucius casually bribing Fudge. "I could spend the next fifty years trying to fix things and nothing would change, would it?"

"If you weren't murdered in your sleep for ideas above your station, I doubt anyone in power would listen. I mean just look at Remus, he's a werewolf, which means he turns fuzzy a couple of days a month. Outside of the full moon, he's not even contagious but he has a hell of a time finding paid work because of various ministry officials and policies. If Albus Dumbledore can't get the ministry to get rid of their idiotic policies, what chance does a muggleborn have?" Myst asked, feeling a bit guilty for being that blunt.

Hermione sighed as she realized he had a point, without someone doing something a bit drastic they'd never change and they'd never be willing to spread magic or give up control. "Fine, I wish you to deal with most of the corruption in the ministry of magic, the Death Eaters and to improve the average intelligence in the wizarding world by at least 20%."

"Wish granted!" Myst said cheerfully as he pulled his wand out of his inventory. He opened a small portal behind Fudge and hit him with a stunner then skimmed through his mind with telepathy, more than a little disturbed by what he found. "Huh, we can scratch saving any of these degenerate fucks off the list."

"Why?" Hermione asked, wondering at the change in outlook.

"Because he's been selling muggleborn children to demons to keep his numbers up," Myst replied, less than happy with the man.

"What!" Hermione blurted.

"He's also well aware that Voldemort is back, he just doesn't care as long as he doesn't cause trouble for him as he's planning on becoming a demon once he leaves office," Myst grumbled as he enlarged the portal so he could step through without any trouble. He turned to look at Hermione and give her the Power Hub ability then let her use his telepathy. "Take a look."

Hermione blinked as she found herself skimming through the sludge that made up Fudge's mind, revolted by the man's depravity. "His mind is vile!"

"Pretty much," Myst replied as he used his power sensing ability to check to see if Fudge had any magical powers beyond the basics, he wasn't particularly surprised that he didn't. "Do you see any reason to leave him alive?" he asked as he lifted the location of the man's blackmail folder from his mind.

Hermione scowled as she tried not to think of the things she'd seen in his mind. "No, he was happy enough to sell children for gold, secrets and promises of immortality, he can rot in hell."

Myst scanned the unconscious wizard, not particularly surprised to get several less than pleasant patterns for his trouble. 'At least this version of Hermione is more practical than some of the ones I've read about.' He reached down and snapped Fudge's neck then opened a portal to the Forbidden Forest and tossed him through, figuring the spiders would take care of the body.

"It shouldn't be that easy," Hermione muttered, staring through the portals at Fudge's dead body.

"Look on the bright side, he can't hurt anyone else," Myst replied as he created a temporary duplicate. "Best of luck with the ministry."

"Sure," Myst's duplicate replied as he stepped through the portal into the minister's office, looking forward to dealing with all of the corrupt assholes that thought they were untouchable.

Myst closed the portals. "Let's work on grabbing interesting people while my duplicate works on cleaning up the ministry unless you want me to grab Harry so we can boost him?"

"Might as well," Hermione replied, forgetting for a second that she was naked.

Myst opened a portal to Harry's room. "Hey, do you want some interesting magical powers?"

Harry spun and stared at Myst then blue screened when he saw Hermione's lack of clothes.

"You did that on purpose," Hermione complained.

"Maybe," Myst replied with amusement. "Get in here before Ron comes back or someone checks on you and they see Hermione."

"Why are you?" Harry sputtered.

"Get over here," Hermione ordered, trying not to laugh at the thoughts running through his mind. 'At least he appreciates the view.'

Myst waited until Harry was through the portal then closed it. "To answer your questions, yes, Hermione is gorgeous, I'm a genie and you're here because she made a wish to give you more magic and to clean up the corruption in the wizarding world."

"Why are you naked?" Harry asked Hermione.

Hermione gestured towards Myst. "Because my genie is a pervert."

"Guilty," Myst admitted as he revoked Hermione's permission to use his telepathy, figuring it wouldn't help for the next part and he didn't really want her looking through Harry's memories without permission.

"You have a genie?" Harry asked in disbelief. "The girl that thinks house elves should be freed?"

Hermione sighed. "I'm working on that part."

"Long story short," Myst cut in to keep things from derailing, "We should be able to kill Riddle now that he doesn't have his horcruxes or soul anchors."

Harry glanced between Myst and Hermione, finding it hard to keep his gaze on her face. "Let me guess, you want me to kill him?"

"Pretty much," Myst admitted. "I could probably do it considering most prophecies are more like guidelines rather than hard and fast rules, but you're here and Hermione wished for me to give you a boost which means we can skip any annoying complications if you stab him and you'll get a decent boost to your magic."

"What do you want me to stab him with?" Harry asked, not really having a moral objection against stabbing Voldemort to death considering the crap he'd put him through in his life.

"Power stealing athame," Myst said as he pulled his blood stained athame out of his inventory and put his wand back.

"This isn't going to corrupt me or cause trouble is it?" Harry asked warily, wondering what the catch was.

"Nah, the ability isn't corruptive or addictive except in the sense that you start looking at idiots as a way to boost your magic, but that's more a function of having something useful to do with them than the power and you're not going to have the power all that long so I wouldn't worry about it." Myst used his Kingmaker power to give Harry a copy of the Power Hub power then let him access his magic immunity and regeneration.

Harry shivered as he felt his bones stretch and grow for a second. "What the hell?"

Hermione stared at her friend that was several inches taller than he'd been. "You got taller and your scar is gone."

"I'm not surprised, I loaned him my regeneration," Myst said cheerfully as he swapped his last Slot Machine slot back to Matter Creation. He covered two sets of black robes, black gloves and smiling white theater masks and handed them to Harry and Hermione. "Considering necromancy is a thing, I'd rather not give them a decent look at their killers."

Hermione quickly pulled the robe on over her head. "You can talk to the dead?"

"Sure, you just need the right spell or a certain stone," Myst replied as he swapped the Matter Creation power to an immunity to possession and let them copy it. 'That should take care of possession which should help when we start killing demons.' He waited for Harry to put the robe and gloves on then handed him the athame. "How do we want to do this, quick and easy or with style?"

"What's the difference?" Harry asked.

"Quick and easy, I just open a portal and you stab Voldemort in the back." Myst grinned. "The other option involves letting you borrow my immunity to magic and Adaptation power and stepping through a portal then stabbing every Death Eater we can find while they toss spells at us."

Hermione turned to look at Myst. "Adaptation power?"

Myst smirked. "Basically, I gain immunity to hostile powers or magic after the first time it's used on me which means we might be able to acquire a decent amount of immunities if I lend you the power. Of course, there's a chance that the immunities won't stick around once you're out of range of the power that lets you copy abilities."

"We should probably test it before we try to kill Voldemort," Hermione pointed out.

"Fair enough," Myst admitted as he changed his possession immunity to a Specific Immunity to dementors and made sure they could copy it. "Actually, I should probably use the ritual to give Harry some of my powers first just to make sure there isn't a complication with the next part." He held out of his hand. "I need my dagger back."

Harry handed him the athame. "Sure."

Myst pricked his finger then touched the blood to Harry's forehead and pushed with his magic, giving Harry the same abilities he'd given Hermione. He used his Skill Management power to give Harry the basics on his new powers. "Okay, that should cover the basics."

"I'm going to have to spend some time in the library," Harry mused, looking forward to reading everything now that he just had to touch it.

"I'm planning on doing the same. Let's have some fun." Myst opened a portal behind a dementor and pulled it through.

"What the hell!" Hermione sputtered, before she realized that she couldn't feel anything from the dementor even though the windows were starting to frost over.

Myst cheerfully stabbed the dementor then handed Harry the athame. "Hold that." He grabbed the dementor's skull and crushed it, frowning when the creature didn't stop moving. "Huh, I guess it's hard to kill things when they're not alive."

"I can't feel anything from it," Harry said in surprise.

"That's because I shared an immunity to them before I grabbed it. I'm crazy, not stupid," Myst said cheerfully as let the portal close then opened a portal to a world where the dementors had been bricked into a room in Azkaban and left to rot without anyone to feed on. He tossed the dementor into the warded chamber to starve until it fell apart then closed the portal.

Hermione turned to look at Myst. "Where did you send it?"

"To a world that bricked them into a room and left them to rot," Myst replied as he looked at his new abilities. "Let's see, Empathy, the ability to drain positive emotions, steal souls and fly, not bad all things considered."

"You can steal souls?" Hermione asked warily.

"For another couple of seconds, yeah," Myst replied as he used his Power Containment and Gifting power to turn the ability to steal souls into a small white sphere. "It's a rather nasty ability."

Harry stared at the sphere of dark power. "What are you going to do with it?"

Myst scanned the sphere, picking up a blueprint for the power and a self contained power sphere. "Nothing." He tossed the sphere at the wall where it shattered and turned into vapor then vanished after a couple of seconds. "I don't need the ability to consume souls or emotions especially since that power comes with a hunger for happy emotions."

Hermione sighed in relief. "Yeah, it sounds like a good way to go insane."

"Pretty much," Myst agreed as he pushed the ability to eat emotions into a sphere and tossed it at the wall after scanning it. "On the upside, the rest of the abilities are decently solid. Do you want Flight?"

Harry bit his initial response of 'Yes!' and asked, "Is it going to turn me evil?"

"Nah, it's just Flight," Myst replied with amusement as he turned the power into a white sphere.

"How does it work when you're not tossing them at the wall?" Hermione asked as she stared at the sphere.

"You basically touch it and wish for the power and you pick up a new power," Myst explained as he scanned the sphere so that he could reproduce it then handed it to Harry.

Harry focused on the sphere and twitched when the sphere turned to vapor and sunk into his hand through his gloves. "Now I just have to figure out how to fly."

"Think happy thoughts?" Myst suggested.

Hermione smiled as Harry floated off the ground. "Are you planning on getting rid of the rest of the dementors?"

"It's a good start and it lets me sell Flight and Empathy orbs. I'm guessing you want both?" Myst asked.

Hermione nodded. "As long as they aren't going to make me go crazy."

"Nah, you should be fine," Myst replied as he swapped his Specific Immunity to dementors for Precog and started searching for crups that were badly trained and needed to be put down or at least have their powers stolen, not all that surprised when it didn't take him all that long to find a couple of crups that liked attacking muggles rather than just harassing them. He opened a small portal to when the vicious terrier-like creature was sleeping and poked it with the dagger, stealing its ability to sense magic.

"Did you just poke a dog with your dagger?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Nope, I poked a vicious crup that a Death Eater trained to attack muggles," Myst replied as he pulled the dagger back and closed the portal. He checked the power with his Shard Administration ability to make sure it didn't cause aggression or anything then turned it into a sphere. "Does anyone want the ability to sense magic users?" he asked as he scanned the sphere so that he could make copies.

Harry held out his hand. "Yeah, it would make things easier."

Myst handed Harry the sphere then opened another portal to a different crup and poked it, fairly sure it would go crazy and try to eat the Death Eater that had trained it. He pulled the athame out of the portal then closed the portal as the dog started yapping. He opened a portal right next to an old dragon with some missing scales in an alternate future timeline that was a couple of minutes away from dying of old age and stabbed it then pulled his dagger out and closed the portal. "Fire breath and a decent amount of magic resistance, that should be more than enough to deal with Voldemort and his cronies."

"What about the death curse?" Hermione asked, fairly sure dragons weren't completely immune.

"Good question," Myst replied as he checked Hermione's collection of powers. "Let's see if my idea works." He flipped the toggle on their ability to copy his Adaptation ability and checked her list of powers again. "That's useful, you don't actually need to keep the Adaptation power in order to keep the immunities which means we should probably take the straightforward approach and let them curse the hell out of us while you're borrowing my magic immunity so we can build up immunities."

"Why would you need to if you're immune to magic?" Hermione asked.

"Because I'm not technically immune to magic," Myst admitted. "I'm using one of my floating powers to cover it which ties up one of my slots I can use to fake different powers. I only have a couple of slots which means if I can cover the really nasty stuff without taking up a slot it gives me a bit more freedom. Plus, friends don't let friends die to death curses if they can help it."

Harry glanced at the bottle sitting on the table. "Could I wish my parents back to life?"

"I can't actually bring people back to life but I could probably save them from dying in the first place or at least make copies…" Myst trailed off as he used his Precog ability to check on Lily Potter and found her in a diner sitting across from a familiar girl that was devouring a hamburger. "Huh, this might not require a wish after all."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, excited that he might get his parents back.

"I mean your mother isn't dead," Myst replied as he checked the diner for cameras. "Give me a couple of minutes to figure out what the hell went wrong." He changed his skin back to something closer to his 'normal' skin color and stuck the athame back in his inventory then swapped his Precog ability to Teleportation and teleported to the diner near their table. "Hey Riley."

"Myst!" Riley squealed as she set her hamburger down so that she could jump up and hug him.

Lily grabbed Riley's arm, ready to orb out at the first sign of trouble. "How do you know Riley?"

"I saved her from a rather nasty gang a few years ago," Myst replied as he studied Lily's face. "You don't look a day over twenty." He checked her list of powers, relieved to find she had white lighter powers rather than something more sinister. "Let me guess, you got your wings after Riddle killed you?"

"Who are you?" Lily asked warily.

"Your son's unofficial girlfriend's genie," Myst replied with amusement.

"How is he doing?" Lily asked, eager for news about him.

"Let me guess, you're not allowed to check on him?" Myst asked, hoping she didn't know about the Dursleys.

"I'm not actually supposed to go anywhere near the wizarding world or Britain until Harry fulfills his destiny," Lily complained. "How is he?"

"Surprisingly sane considering he grew up with your sister," Myst replied, taking a step back when the lights in that section of the diner exploded as Lily's magic went out of control.

"What!" Lily snapped.

"Don't kill the message," Myst replied as used his Projection ability to repair the lights and clean up the mess of broken glass. "He was considering wishing you back to life, I figured I'd check on things which is why I stopped by."

"You can do that?" Riley asked in surprise.

"No but I can grab people before they die or heal them as they're dying," Myst replied. "Unfortunately if she's been running around as a whitelighter, that's probably a bad option considering the innocents she's probably saved."

Lily took a breath and let it out slowly as she tried to calm down. "Same with James. Are you going to help him with Voldemort?"

"He should be dead within the hour," Myst replied with a grin. "Same with the Death Eaters."

"Let me guess, your master made a wish?" Lily asked, not sure how she felt about Harry being anywhere near a genie.

"Yeah, wanted to make sure Harry survived the fight." Myst turned to look at Riley. "Where are your parents?"

Riley shook her head. "They were killed by demons when I was a child, I've been bouncing around the system for a while trying to dodge demons." Her eyes widened as half a dozen demons dressed like bikers walked into the diner along with a man dressed in black slacks and a black silk shirt that was holding a black crossbow. "Crap!"

Myst turned and looked at the demonic bikers. "Let me guess, you're the idiots that have been harassing my friend?"

"Yes!" Riley complained.

"Kill the whitelighter and the spare," one of the demons ordered.

Myst reached out and caught the crossbow bolt the darklighter shot at Lily then tossed it at the demonic leader, causing him to drop to the ground in pain when it ripped through his chest. "I don't suppose you'll tell me while you're after my friend?" he asked as he pulled his athame out of his inventory.

"Her powers are worth a substantial amount," the darklighter replied. "I'm sure we can make a deal, we get her powers and she gets to live."

Myst blurred forward and drove his dagger in the darklighter's eye, stealing his powers and killing him instantly. He stabbed the dying leader then slit the rest of the demons' throats in a blur.

"What the hell are you?" Lily asked warily as she stared at the 'genie' holding the blood stained athame as the demons exploded in flashes of fire.

"I told you, I'm a genie," Myst replied as he stuck his athame back in his inventory and used his Projection ability to clean up the ash the demons had left. "I don't appreciate people trying to kill my friends." He teleported the darklighter's corpse to hell then picked up his crossbow and stuck it in his inventory, figuring it wouldn't hurt to have an extra.

"We should probably get going," Lily suggested, not sure if more of them were going to show up.

"Find James and let him know that you should be free to visit in half an hour." Myst looked at Riley. "Ready to go?"

"Yep!" Riley said as she grabbed her burger.

"You can't just…" Lily trailed off as he vanished with her charge. "Shit."