Reluctant Villainy Part 16 (Patreon)

Myst glanced up from his surprisingly delicious soup when he felt another magic user walk into the inn. He studied the weary looking woman as she walked over, her unbound hair and expensive looking blue dress and cloak at odds with the local villager's clothes and braids. "Something on your mind?"

"You're not from around here, are you?" Moiraine asked as she studied the dark haired woman in strange clothes a man might wear but were of a make that she'd never seen before, trying to wrap her head around the girl's impossible strength in the power.

"I'm just a traveler," Myst replied with a smile as he gestured towards the opposite chair. "You look like you could use a good meal and a couple of hours of sleep."

"It would help," Moiraine admitted as she sat down across from the two strangers. "Did you see any strange men around?" she asked, thinking about the strange light that had swept the town destroying every trolloc it touched.

"Lots of them, most people run from monsters, they don't grab pitchforks or skillets and start cracking heads," Myst replied with a smile. "It's a nice change."

"This trip has certainly been filled with surprises," Moiraine mused as she glanced at Mione, not sure why she could sense the other girl but couldn't tell how much strength in the power she had.

Myst absently worked on finishing his soup as he used his x-ray vision to look through Moiraine's belt pouches until he found the dark ivory figurine of a woman in robes. 'Gotcha,' he thought as he scanned the figurine, picking up a general angreal pattern and a pattern for her specific angreal.

"What brings a witch to an otherwise unimportant town?" Mione asked, curious about the local magic users.

"You probably shouldn't mention the witch part, Tower witches don't have the best reputation around here," Myst pointed out softly.

"Why?" Mione asked, glancing between Myst and Moiraine.

"Stories and legends and fragments of memory, an Aes Sedai betrayed a nation of heroes two thousand years ago and a nation died as a result of her hubris, stupidity and petty jealousy. Even if the locals don't remember the details or history, scars run deep and a fragment of truth remains," Myst explained.

"What makes you think the Tower betrayed them?" Moiraine asked.

"Because Tetsuan was a piece of shit Amyrlin and hated the fact that Manetheren's queen was a better person and witch," Myst explained as he swapped his ranged blaster power for a Creation power.

"Most Aes Sedai don't appreciate being called witches," Moiraine pointed out, not sure where the stranger had learned things that few outside of the Tower knew about.

Myst shook his head. "I'm just using it as a shorthand for channelers. Eldrene was by all accounts a decent person and an exceptional queen and channeler. Aes Sedai on the other hand are like cats, some of them are reasonable, some of them are feral monsters that like hunting rats and some of them will gleefully torture anything that catches their interest because it's in their nature."

"How many Aes Sedai have you run into?" Moiraine asked, fairly sure the number couldn't be all that high considering word would have spread of her impossible strength.

"I try to avoid Aes Sedai, they have this annoying tendency to treat magical items as the property of the Tower regardless of who made them and when they were made," Myst replied as he gestured towards an empty section of table and used his Creation power to create three copies of Moiraine's angreal.

Moiraine glanced between the three figurines that looked identical to the angreal she had in her belt pouch then stared at Myst. "How did you channel without embracing the source?"

"Drawing on the source isn't the only way to do magic," Myst replied with a grin. "Feel free to test the angreal, I can always make more."

Moiraine reached out and poked the figurine softly, confirming the fact that it was solid and felt like an angreal. "That shouldn't be possible, they were rare even in the Age of Legends."

Moine pulled her attention off the teenager walking out of the kitchen she could sense had magic and looked at Moiraine. "Why were they rare?"

"The records of that time are fragmented at best but by all accounts they were difficult to create," Moiraine explained.

"They were obviously doing it wrong." Myst turned to look at Egwene as she brought a bowl of soup over for Moiraine. "Speaking of magic, how would you like the ability to fly?"

Egwene smiled as she thought about flying around like a bird and being able to visit other towns. "It sounds useful."

Myst waited for Egwene to set the bowl in front of Moiraine then held out his hand and created a flight power sphere in the palm of his hand.

Egwene stared at the sphere in Myst's hand. "Are you an Aes Sedai?"

"No, I'm just a traveler with some interesting tricks," he replied as he handed the golf ball sized sphere to Egwene. "Just focus on absorbing the magic and you'll be able to fly."

Moiraine glanced at Myst then focused on the white sphere the innkeeper's daughter was holding, more than a little surprised when it sunk into the girl's hand and vanished. "How do you feel?"

Egwene hopped on one foot. "I don't feel any different."

Myst used his Skill Management to give Egwene the knowledge of using her flight power. "What about now?"

Egwene blinked when she realized she knew how to fly then carefully floated off the ground.

Mat stared in disbelief as he walked into the room and saw Egwene floating above the ground. "What's going on?"

"She showed me how to fly," Egwene replied enthusiastically as she floated backwards a couple of 'steps'.

"Are you an Aes Sedai?" Mat asked as he glanced between Moiraine and Myst.

Myst turned to look at the young man and smiled when he realized who he was looking at, mostly thanks to the fact that only three people in the area should have anything close to supernatural luck and he didn't look like a blacksmith or have red hair. "You couldn't pay me enough."

"That's not a no," Mat replied as he studied the attractive woman with long black hair.

"Fair point," Myst agreed with a grin. "How's this? I'm not an Aes Sedai nor do I have any intention of becoming one."

"Better," Mat replied, still focused on Egwene who was gliding around the room with a smile on her face. "Why is Egwene flying?"

"Probably because it's fun," Mione offered, rather amused by the entire situation.

"You should probably stop before the council finishes their meeting and someone notices," Myst suggested as he opened a small portal over the table to an alternate timeline where Mat had his medallion and was sleeping in an inn a couple of days after the Last Battle. He used Projection to cover the portal in a silent field so Mat wouldn't be able to hear them then scanned the silver foxhead shaped medallion around the young man's neck.

"Is that a gateway?" Moiraine asked, doing her best to keep her excitement and surprise out of her voice as she looked at the small window floating over the table that looked into an inn where someone was sleeping.

"It's basically a portal to another time," Myst replied as he turned to look at Mat. "How would you like to have a hero's skills without the work?"

"Sure," Mat replied sarcastically, fairly sure the strange girl couldn't actually give him any skills but figuring they might come in useful if she could.

Myst frowned when he tried and failed to scan the other Mat's mind with his Telepathy. 'So much for doing this the easy way,' he mused as he created five foxhead medallions on the table with his Creation power. He swapped his Creation power for a non magical version of Telepathy then went to work sorting through the other Mat's memories and copying the important bits over to the local version so that he'd have the knowledge and experience to be the best general around.

Mat blinked as he realized he was 'back' in the past or at least it felt like it for a couple of seconds before he realized that he'd never actually lived the last couple of years, mostly because he could see out of both eyes and a quick check of his neck assured him that his scar wasn't there. "Bloody ashes!" he cursed as he glared at Myst. "What was that?"

Myst scanned Mat's power wrought spear then used his Kingmaker ability to give him a copy of the Power Hub ability. He unlocked his regeneration so the other Mat could copy it then turned to look at the local version. "Sorry about that, copying memories can be a bit disorienting."

"A bit!" Mat snapped, wishing he had a dagger or his foxhead medallion.

"You wanted the skills of a hero, I gave you the skills of a hero," Myst replied as he grabbed one of the medallions off the table and tossed it to Mat.

Egwene glanced between Myst and Mat. "Whose skills did you get?"

"Mine," Mat grumbled as he worked on untying the knot on the medallion so he could put it on.

"You're a hero?" Egwene asked in disbelief, looking at Mat like he'd grown a second head.

"In another time, in another life, he saved the world," Myst said as he removed Mat's Power Hub ability and closed the portal. 'That should fix his eye and everything else.' He handed one of the foxhead medallions to Hermione then worked on untying the knot on the leather cord on another one so he could put it on.

"Can you do that for anyone?" Moiraine asked thoughtfully.

"In theory," Myst admitted. "In practice, it's slightly more complicated."

"What do you mean?" Egwene asked as she floated back to the ground and walked over.

"Time and events change people, there are countless worlds and paths people could take, in some you stay in Emond's Field, in others you leave for more interesting adventures," Myst replied as he put the medallion on and tied it in place.

"What type of interesting adventures?" Egwene asked eagerly.

"Just about everything from dying screaming of a wasting sickness to living for the better part of a thousand years wandering from town to town helping people."

Egwene snorted. "People don't live that long."

"Unless you can channel, which you can," Mat muttered.

Egwene turned to look at Mat. "I can channel?"

"Unfortunately," Mat admitted, less than happy with the Tower for sending Egwene to die against someone they should have had sent an entire circle to deal with.

Egwene turned to look at Mat. "What do you mean unfortunately?"

"You died fighting a," Mat paused for a second as he tried to figure out how to describe Mazrim Taim without mentioning things they wouldn't believe, "former False Dragon turned traitor in the Last Battle, it was a bloody mess and a waste that could have been avoided if you hadn't been mixed up with the Tower."

"Last Battle?" Egwene asked warily.

"We're in for a rough couple years," Mat grumbled, already thinking about ways to change things.

"Do you know who the Dragon Reborn is?" Moiraine asked softly.

"Unfortunately," Mat admitted as he glanced at the door that led to the back room the village council was using for their meeting. "We can cover that later."

Egwene stared at Mat when she realized he wasn't joking. "You're not joking, are you?"

"I wish I was," Mat admitted, not sure how to explain the entire mess with Rand in a way that she'd accept.

"To get back to your question," Myst cut in before the girls pressed Mat over details that shouldn't be mentioned outside of a warded room. "What type of adventures do you want to remember? What skills would make you happy?"

"I don't know," Egwene admitted after giving it some thought. "Do you have any suggestions?" she asked, glancing between Myst and Mat, not sure where to start.

"Learning to use the power in a fight would be useful considering the sheer number of enemy channelers we ended up fighting," Mat suggested.

"Were you fighting the Tower?" Moiraine asked, trying to get some context for his statement.

Mat shook his head. "Dealing with the Tower would have been a bloody sight easier. Hawkwing sent people across the ocean to create an empire, they chained Aes Sedai using ter'angreal and they've spent the last thousand years solidifying their control over their empire and will be coming back to reclaim the lands on this side of the ocean within a year."

"That's insane, his empire died a thousand years ago," Egwene sputtered.

Mat shook his head. "Only on this side of the ocean."

"No one ever said they were sane or decent, just dangerous and effective," Myst said as he swapped his Magic Immunity for Precog so he could go looking for useful skills to copy.

"What are they planning on doing when they get here?" Mione asked.

"They're planning on scouring the land and chaining everyone with the talent so they can take over and turn everything into a twisted copy of their empire," Myst explained as he used his Precog to start looking through alternate worlds for a version of Egwene with exceptional combat skills that he could copy bits and pieces of memories and skills from.

Egwene scowled as her mind conjured images of an army coming to drag her friends and family away in chains. "Let's start with combat skills."

"Works for me," Myst replied as he found a world where she'd left home with Moiraine and never ended up at the Tower because her and Perrin had taken a different ship and she'd ended up learning from a Sea Folk Windfinder. 'That has potential,' he mused as he followed her life until her death at twenty seven when she'd died of poison because she scared the hell out of the sul'dam she'd gotten assigned to. 'Tragic love, bare breasts at sea and a reason to hate the Seanchan,' he mused as he opened a portal to the hour before her death. He dark orbed her through the portal then closed it, figuring he could always send her back once he healed her up and gave her a medallion and an entire set of defensive ter'angreal.

Moiraine stared at the strange young woman covered in scars that bore a passing resemblance to the innkeeper's daughter. "Who is she?"

"A version of Egwene that ran into more trouble than she could handle," Myst replied as he used his Kingmaker ability to give the other Egwene the Copycat ability. He unlocked his Adaptation and Regeneration powers and smiled as he watched her breathing ease as his powers kicked in and she recovered from the various injuries she'd suffered over the last few years and picked up immunity to the poison they'd tried to kill her with.

"What happened?" Egwene asked warily.

"The sul'dam she got assigned to decided to poison her because she terrified her," Myst explained as he adjusted his Duplication ability so that he wouldn't get the skills or memories of his duplicates. 'Okay, let's make sure I don't pick up any bad habits before I start looking at weaves,' he thought as he created a temporary duplicate of himself behind Moiraine and Egwene.

His duplicate grinned at him then promptly turned invisible and swapped Creation for a Cosmic Superhuman Skill in Wheel of Time magic that covered everything he could do with Saidar and his current talents, picking up an insane number of weaves. 'If you're not cheating, you're not trying,' he mused as he gave Egwene his copy of the minion's skill growth and retention ability then went to work sifting through the older Egwene's memories.

"Ashes," Mat muttered, trying to wrap his head around how terrifying a damane of Egwene's potential would have to be for a sul'dam to willingly poison her. "The Egwene I remember wasn't quite that scary. Can you save her?" he asked, figuring she'd be more useful to have around than a barrel of Aes Sedai.

"The Egwene you remember didn't spend years with the sul'dam soaking up everything she could learn on the off chance that she managed to escape." Myst couldn't really blame her for wanting to destroy the Seanchan's empire given their general treatment of anyone with the spark. "And yeah, I've already dealt with the poison."

Moiraine embraced the source and checked on the unconscious young woman, more than a little surprised to find the poison already fading from her body. "How did you heal her without channeling?"

"Again, channeling isn't the only way to use magic, just look at the Ogier," Myst replied then went back to eating his soup after using his pyrokinesis to heat it up.

'Not bad,' the duplicate mused as he copied bits and pieces of the older Egwene's time on the Sea Folk ship to the younger Egwene's mind, carefully weaving in information from his borrowed skills to cover the gaps in her education.

"Ashes," Egwene cursed as she found herself thinking about kissing Naime and standing on the deck of a ship without her shirt on. "What was that?"

"Memories of her travels and training," Myst's duplicates replied, using his Voice Projection power to make it sound like it was coming from the original. 'Now for the 'fun' shit,' he mused as he started working on giving her a copy of the older Egwene's combat skills and bits and pieces of her training with the Seanchan, mostly going with memories of them hurting other people as they didn't need her broken and insane, just aware of what the Seanchan were capable of.

Egwene shivered as she 'remembered' training with the other damane and the sul'dams' harsh training methods. "You're right about the Seanchan, they need to die," she said as Lan walked into the common room with Nynaeve walking behind her.

Lan glanced between the unconscious girl on the floor and Moiraine. "Problem?"

"Several," Moiraine admitted as Nynaeve rushed over to check on the unconscious version of Egwene. "Nothing immediate though."

"What happened?" Nynaeve demanded as she checked the girl's breathing. "Why did you leave her on the floor?"

"Because putting her on a table seemed weird and I haven't rented a room yet," Myst replied as Egwene's mother came out of the kitchen and noticed the unconscious version of her daughter on the ground in a strange blue dress.

"What's going on?" Marin al'Vere demanded.

The older Egwene sat up and stared at her mother and Nynaeve. "Great, I'm losing it."

"You're not losing it," Myst replied as he swapped his Precog ability for a Power Overload ability keyed to his Power Copying. "You're in a mirror world that happens to be in the past," he explained as he stood up and walked over so that he could help her to her feet.

The older Egwene accepted the help to get to her feet. "How did I end up here?"

"I opened a portal and grabbed you," Myst explained as he activated his Overload ability to boost his Power Copying and used his Power Copying. He grinned when a floating graphical menu opened in front of him, giving him a number of options for copying Egwene's collection of supernatural powers. He quickly glanced over her various powers to make sure there wasn't anything he didn't want then copied them and let go of her hand.

"How are you feeling?" Egwene asked, hoping that her alternate wasn't completely insane.

"Confused," the older Egwene admitted as she stared at her 'own' unscarred and younger face. "Can you take the a'dam off my neck?"

Myst gestured and dark orbed the girl's a'dam to the table so he wouldn't have to touch it. "Better?" he asked then shivered when his duplicate dumped a metric ton of information and weaves into his mind. 'Fuck, that's worse than eating too much ice cream.'

"Much," she replied as she rubbed her throat, more than happy to have the cursed collar off her neck for the first time in years.

"Can someone explain what's going on?" Marin asked warily, wondering why the girl that looked like one of her daughters had been wearing a leash.

Myst pulled his attention away from the information he was trying to sort through and looked at Egwene's mother. "It's a long story," he offered as the door to the back room opened and the town council started walking out. "We should probably get Egwene some food first."

"I could eat," the older Egwene agreed, glad that she wasn't feeling like shit anymore from whatever she'd eaten at dinner.

Myst's duplicate scanned Mione's frog summoning ring then tossed Myst a message with telepathy, 'I'm going to check on the Tower and do some recruiting, do you have any requests?'

'Grab a copy of the ter'angreal that makes fancloth,' Myst replied as he scanned the town council on the off chance he needed to set up a town council.

'No problem,' Myst's duplicate replied as he headed for the door, happy to leave the original to deal with explaining things while he took care of a couple of messy problems that they'd be better off not remembering. He swapped his Superhuman Skill back to Creation as he slipped out of the door and walked around the corner of the stone building. He used his telepathy to check the area then opened a portal to the waygate in the mountains where Manetheren used to be and stepped through.

He let the portal close behind him and glanced around at the stunted trees and the smooth almost glasslike rock cliffs that reached further up the mountain then looked at the waygate in the middle of the wind swept area that had once been an Ogier grove. "Nothing lasts forever," he muttered as he duplicated Hermione's ring with his Creation ability.

He slipped the ring on and smiled as it resized for 'his' slightly larger finger. He focused on the ring and summoned a large, almost pony sized giant toad. 'Yeah, because that's not disturbing.' He walked over and touched the toad and checked it's fusion ability. 'Ability to eat two items and create a combination, yeah, that's more than a little messy.'

He created a duplicate of Missy's cloak then put it on and swapped his anti-scrying ability for Precog. 'That should cover everything,' he mused as he used his Precog to look for the Forsaken, catching images of thirteen people before he focused on the almost supernaturally attractive woman with lustrous black hair wearing an impossibly white dress that was talking to a fade and a woman in a red dress that wasn't one of the Forsaken. 'At least you'll make decent test subjects.'

He opened a portal behind Lanfear and hit her in the back with a stunner then did the same to the woman in red and the fade, pushing a fair amount of magic into his spells to make sure they worked. He scanned the unconscious figures then dark orbed them to the clearing and let the portals close. 'Nothing quite like out of context solutions,' he mused as he hit the fade with another stunner just to be sure he was actually unconscious.

Myst's duplicate walked over and touched the fade's cold and clammy skin, curious what powers he could pick up. "Tainted Dark Sight, Magic Sensing and the ability to teleport through shadows," he mused as he walked over and touched the unconscious Aes Sedai's hand. 'Not a bad collection of talents even if your affinity for anything other than water and air is shit.'

He quickly looked over her available talents to make sure he wasn't about to copy anything negative then copied her talents. He floated the fade over to the giant toad and blinked when the toad opened its mouth, wrapped its tongue around the fade and pulled it into its mouth almost before he could blink.

"Yeah, because that's not creepy," he muttered as he used his telepathy to check the other channeler to make sure she actually deserved death. "Yeah, you've helped cover up crimes and you've killed your fair share of innocents," he muttered as he floated the Aes Sedai over to the toad after stealing her coin purse.

The toad ate the Aes Sedai then spit out a naked twisted pale skinned woman with black eyes with the ability to channel, sense people and see in darkness. 'Could be worse, I guess,' Myst's duplicate mused as he scanned the twisted woman, picking up several patterns that might be useful. "At least we know you can eat people."

The toad let out a loud burp.

Myst's duplicate shook his head then walked over, reached down and touched Lanfear's hand so he could check her collection of talents. 'I shouldn't be surprised that you have a decent collection of talents considering your strength,' he mused as he skimmed over her talents, wanting to make sure he didn't pick up something that would screw him over.

He wasn't particularly surprised to discover the Dark One's mark counted as a magical ability he could copy. "Maybe later," he muttered as he stuffed Lanfear into his inventory after copying the rest of her talents.

He checked the unconscious abomination's talents, surprised that her collection of talents was slightly different. "Weird," he muttered as he copied her untainted talents. He scanned her mind with telepathy then pulled his mental fingers back as her mind was a twisted mess of depravity and insanity. "Lovely."

'Let's try something else,' Myst's duplicate mused as he used his Precog to find the present version of the Eelfinn that had taken Mat's eye in the other timeline then opened a portal, grabbed him by the neck and pulled him through.

"Stop!" the Eelfinn screamed as he found himself in the human world rather than his own.

"No," Myst's duplicate replied as he copied the Eelfinn's strength and durability which basically let them resist damage from most weapons that weren't iron then he hit him with a stunner and tossed him to the fusion toad. He shivered slightly as the toad ate the fox-like humanoid in one gulp. 'Probably for the best that Myst isn't going to remember this,' he mused as he tossed the twisted woman to the toad.

He frowned slightly as the toad spit out a twisted mix of the creatures with open wounds that were smoking with a foul smelling stench. He scanned the twisted creature then tossed a fireball at it, putting it out of its misery and improving his ability to ignore weapons that weren't made of iron.

He let the portal close then used his Precog ability to find the present versions of the various finn that had tortured the other version of Moiraine and started pulling them through portals into the human world and killing them, not seeing a reason to leave the twisted monsters alive.

He spent the next ten minutes killing finn and looting their various caches of ter'angreal and angreal before he managed to kill the last of the finn that had tortured Moiraine's alternate. He glanced at the broken bodies of the fox-like humanoids then opened a portal and dark orbed the broken remains back to the finn's home with a conjured note, 'Hold to the agreements or else.'

He let the portal close then opened a portal to the past of another timeline so he could scan Manetheren and get a copy of the queen and as many channelers as he could before he went back to killing or capturing the Forsaken.