Reluctant Villainy Part 17 (Patreon)

"Fucking Gotham!" Raven snapped as she dodged yet another blast of dark fire from the lunatic in robes that was floating over the city tossing shadow bolts at her friends and any innocent bystanders he saw.

"Scutum ferunt ex auctoritate Innocentii!" Clark chanted as he raised his hands, a glowing shield of golden energy taking form over the subway entrance that the lunatic had been trying to collapse.

Beast Boy set a woman down on the 'safe' side of the shield then changed from his large gorilla form into something slightly more human looking so he could talk, "Where the hell is Doctor Fate?"

"Dealing with something in Cairo," Clark replied as his shield took a blast that shook the building. "This isn't going to hold for much longer, we need to come up with a plan."

"Or not," Nightwing muttered as Starfire hit the floating figure in the head with the remains of a bus, slamming the man with a deformed nose into the ground.

"Sorry, not sorry!" Starfire called out as she slammed the broken bus into the lunatic repeatedly.

"That's not going to work," Raven muttered as she worked on binding the distracted magic user in place with her magic.

"Better than nothing," Clark replied as he watched Starfire try to flatten the lunatic that had decided to rampage through the city. "Or not," he muttered as black fog spread from the figure in tattered robes and disintegrated the bus, causing Starfire to toss the remains of the bus and fly towards one of the wrecked cars for something else to throw. "Screw it," he complained and unleashed his heat vision on the man, burning through the dark fog that surrounded him and making him scream in pain.

Raven tossed up a shield in front of her teammate, deflecting the man's first blast of darkness into a truck that quickly turned to rust and rot.

Nightwing scowled as he brought his guns up and started shooting the man in the face with blessed silver rounds on the off chance that it helped. "What the hell does it take to kill him?"

Starfire hit the figure with a car then tossed a starbolt at him, causing him to stagger before she was forced to dodge several nasty looking bolts of eldritch energy.

"Do you think any of this matters, I am a god!" Voldemort screamed as he started tossing basketball sized balls of eldritch fire at the so-called heroes that were trying to stop him from getting his revenge. He turned and grabbed Starfire with a stream of lightning and started smashing her into the ground. "Nothing can stop me!"

"Caestus artemque," Clark chanted, causing a glowing gauntlet to cover his hand then blurred forward and punched the man in the face, causing his head to explode and his body to tumble backwards. "I'd like to contest that."

"Is he dead?" Nightwing asked as Starfire floated up and stretched, as if getting slammed into the concrete repeatedly was a mere inconvenience.

"Hopefully," Raven muttered as she watched the body for signs that it was regenerating.

"If he's not, we've got a problem," Beast Boy said as he glanced around at the destroyed street and buildings. "Do you think Zatanna can fix everything?"

Clark took one last look at the hopefully dead mage then let the magical gauntlet fade and pulled his cellphone out of his pocket. "It's worth a shot," he replied as he scrolled down to Zatanna's number and pushed the call button.

"What's up?" Zatanna asked after answering the call and putting the flip phone to her ear, glad that he hadn't called her during class.

"We ran into a psychotic lunatic with magic that ripped a couple of blocks apart, do you think you could help put everything back together before the commissioner reads us the riot act for the collateral damage?" Clark asked hopefully.

"Standard price, see you in five," Zatanna replied cheerfully then ended the call before Clark could argue.

"Standard price?" Xander asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Basically someone on the team other than Beastboy buys me dinner," Zatanna replied with amusement. "How good are your repair charms and do you want to meet some of the local heroes?" she asked the group she'd been hanging out with.

"Decent." Harry glanced at Hermione. "What do you think?"

"Sounds like a good way to buy some good will with the community," Hermione said thoughtfully.

Xander grinned. "I'd love to meet the local heroes."

"Hell yeah!" Dawn squealed.

"Cool. Kralc ot su ekat," Zatanna chanted, pushing magic into her spell and teleporting the group to the street next to Clark.

Clark turned and looked at the strangers. "Let me guess, they wanted to help?"

"Pretty much…" Xander trailed off as he noticed the extent of the destruction. "What the hell were you fighting?"

"Some lunatic with magic started trying to kill people. He was ranting that we needed to give him the witch or he'd burn the world to ash," Raven complained.

"Let's get to work." Dawn pulled her wand out of her pocket and started tagging things with repair spells.

"How much trouble are you going to get in?" Hermione asked as she pulled her wand out of her pocket.

"Technically none," Nightwing replied as he finished sending Bruce a text. "We're covered by the League but I'd rather have everything cleaned up by the time the Commissioner gets here."

"Riaper," Zatanna chanted as she gestured towards one of the destroyed buildings, causing it to reassemble before their eyes.

"You're the best," Clark offered, glad to have the help as his repair spells barely covered small objects like broken glasses or plates.

Harry pulled his attention off the drop dead gorgeous girl with orange tinted skin that was wearing a costume that was little more than a swimsuit and got to work repairing the broken cars scattered around the street, figuring there would be plenty of time later to get the details.

Xander glanced at Wolf. "I'll take the left side if you take the right?"

"Sure," Wolf replied as he turned right and headed for a particularly damaged section of the street. "Broken fragments of dreams once held, reform and restore the dreams anew."

Beastboy smiled as one side of the street repaired itself before their eyes. "Can we keep them?"

"No, you should work on search and rescue in case we missed anyone," Zatanna suggested, then continued casting repair spells on the destroyed buildings, leaving her new friends to fix the smaller bits and pieces.

0o0o0

Myst blinked as he went from having a discussion with Mat, Moiraine, Nynaeve, Mione and both Egwene's in the back room of the Winespring inn to floating above a frozen wasteland with memories of being consumed in greenish fire a bit further down the timeline. "Fuck!" he cursed as he used his Duplication power and created ninety eight temporary duplicates. He ignored the duplicates that promptly opened portals and fled to different dimensions as he opened a portal to the plaza in Rhuidean and grabbed the access keys for the massive sa'angreals.

He scowled as his Precog failed to find the bastard that had killed one of his duplicates in an alternate timeline. He focused on detecting future spatial distortions and portals rather than detecting the assassin. 'Gotcha asshole.' He embraced the source and pulled in a torrent of power through the female access key then spun and unleashed a stream of plasma as a boomtube opened and a man in purple and silver armor flew out. "Whatever he's paying you, it's not worth it."

"Immortality and power, I'd say it's worth it," Lex said cheerfully as he unleashed his beam cannon at the alien.

Myst ignored the man's attack as it washed over him without any effect thanks to his ring that protected him from technology. He reached out with his telepathy and checked Lex's mind, trying to get some information about the 'person' trying to kill him. 'You really shouldn't have left your mental defenses up to technology.' He dropped to the ground and screamed, "Curses, you have found my only weakness!"

"Seriously?" Lex asked in disbelief as the man hadn't been visibly injured by his weapon.

"Nah, that would be copper," Myst replied cheekily as he had one of his duplicates track down the people that had given Lex the mission and alien armor, trying to figure out what he was dealing with and why they wanted him dead. He sifted through Lex's head, looking for banking details and caches of kryptonite. "What type of power did he promise you?" he asked, trying to buy time as his duplicates sorted through the annoying chain of cutouts his would-be assassin was trying to use.

"He promised me control of the world," Lex replied smugly.

"Sounds like a lot of paperwork and hassle," Myst replied as he scanned the armor. "Are you sure he wasn't just trying to distract you from making interesting technology?"

"I'll have all the time in the world to tinker once you're dead," Lex replied as he tried blasting Myst with a beam of concentrated red sunlight and kryptonite.

"Seriously? I'm not Kryptonian," Myst replied as he dark orbed Lex's combat suit off the mad scientist along with all of his clothes other than his boxers, causing him to fall out of the air. He stuffed the combat suit into his inventory to play with later then watched Lex hit the ground with a thump. "That never gets old."

He blinked as a cosmic blast came out of nowhere and left through a portal a fraction of a second before it would have hit him. He turned and countered the next blast, sending it spiralling 'back' into the invisible 'kid' that was flying around.

"Fucker!" Klarion cursed as he tossed his invisibility cloak off before his cursed flames could consume him. "The prize should have been mine!"

Myst focused on the previously invisible lord of chaos that was glowing with divine power and dark magic and swapped his Precog ability for a Specific Immunity to Klarion then unleashed a torrent of balefire at the chaos lord, not particularly surprised when Klarion merely raised his hand and deflected it. "I don't suppose you'd consider a trade?" he offered, trying to buy time as half of his various duplicates swapped their Precog for Exotic Striker powers and their magic immunity to something specific to Klarion.

"I'm afraid not, I'm going to take your power, then I'm going to have some fun with your girls," Klarion replied with a sneer.

"Lovely," Myst replied sarcastically as two dozen portals opened around Klarion and various glowing hands grabbed the warlock turned god before he could react. Myst dark orbed away as Klarion started screaming thanks to the various types of exotic energy tearing through his body and soul.

Myst spun around and watched as a wave of green hellfire ripped through the Blight, obliterating everything it touched. "Fuck," he cursed as one of his duplicates used his Precog to figure out how much the wave of cursed fire would burn and realized it would burn most of the northern countries to ash if it wasn't stopped. "Always a bigger fish in the pond," he muttered as he sent half of his duplicates to open portals and contain the hellfire to the Blight or at least slow the shit enough that it wouldn't destroy everything else.

He stuck the access keys in his inventory then opened a portal to the private dining room in Emond's Field and stepped through, leaving his duplicates to deal with the cursed fire. He closed the portal behind him then walked over and sat down next to Mione. "Sorry about that, I had to deal with something and I didn't want the village destroyed."

"What!" Nynaeve sputtered. "What do you mean destroyed?"

Myst turned to look at Nynaeve. "Some people can sense the weather, I occasionally get glimpses of the future, generally when something needs to be changed."

"You dealt with it, right?" Mione asked warily.

"Hopefully," Myst offered, hoping his duplicates had managed to destroy Klarion in a way that would keep him from coming back or at least keep him from coming back for the foreseeable future.

"Why would someone want to destroy the village?" Nynaeve demanded.

"Your blood practically sings with power and you could take a walk around the Two Rivers and find over a dozen girls with the ability to channel that were the 'right' age to head to the tower and probably a few hundred that were too old for the Tower to accept them. To put it in perspective, the Tower has less than a thousand Aes Sedai and very few of them could match the weakest girl you'll find in the Two Rivers."

"A few hundred?" Moiraine asked sceptically.

"Channeling runs in families," Myst replied with a shrug. "Either way, I'm planning on training anyone that wants the help because the Tower is crippled and they don't want to change."

The older Egwene nodded. "That should help against the Seanchan but you're going to need an army and more than a hundred channelers."

Myst glanced at Mat. "I don't think we're going to have a problem creating an army and I know where to get more channelers."

Lan spoke up, "How are you planning on paying for an army?"

Myst gestured towards Egwene. "Egwene can find ore with the power and create heartstone, I'm more than happy to teach her how to make it in exchange for her making a couple sets of plates and cups that I can sell to various nobles for enough gold to keep everything running."

Moiraine stared at Myst. "You know how to make heartstone?"

"Sure, it's not particularly hard, you just need a lot of strength with Earth which means that most women don't have the right affinities outside of certain bloodlines," Myst explained. "Nynaeve and Egwene have an insane amount of strength in all five affinities which is rare, not to mention high strength in general."

"Does the ability to fly require channeling?" Mat asked thoughtfully.

"No, just magic which means I can't share it with anyone that isn't supernatural without running into problems or giving them magic." Myst had one of his duplicates check how many powers Mat and Lan could get before they went nuts.

"In other words, I'm out of luck?" Mat asked, not sure how he felt about that as flying sounded useful as long as someone didn't shoot you out of the air.

Myst laughed. "Sorry, your entire family can channel and you have magic in your blood even if you can't channel, you've got more than enough magic that you'll be fine."

Moiraine glanced at Lan. "Is the warder bond enough?"

"It's good for one or two abilities." Myst glanced at Lan. "Lan could have a handful before he'd run into trouble and I know a couple of ways to get around that limit."

"Why the difference?" Mione asked.

Myst shrugged. "If I had to guess, I'd say he had the blood of heroes or maybe he's just stubborn."

"What about Rand and Perrin?" Moiraine asked, trying to narrow down which of them was the Dragon Reborn though she was fairly sure it was Rand given his red hair and the fact that he'd been born outside of the Two Rivers.

Myst had one of his duplicates check on Rand and Perrin. "Rand has the ability to grow plants with a song and Perrin has a connection to wolves, which means they have more than enough magic."

"Wolves?" Nynaeve asked warily.

"It's a talent, much like Dreaming which is something we should probably get Egwene some experience with," Myst mused.

"She's a Dreamer?" Moiraine asked in surprise.

"It's basically the ability to manipulate the land of dreams and to get visions of possible futures while you're dreaming," Myst explained, answering Egwene's question before she asked. "The only group that still has the talent with any frequency are the Aiel Wise Ones which means we should probably grab a version of you that studied with them, if only because they have an interesting approach to life."

"That's one way to put it," Lan said, thinking about the Aiel war.

Myst swapped his Immunity to Klarion for Precog and went searching for an interesting version of Egwene that got trained by the Aiel and made it through the last battle without too many mental scars. 'Yeah, vanishingly few made it through with their sanity thanks to Aran'gar's shit. Screw it, let's dance on some butterflies,' he mused as he had one of his duplicates open a portal behind Aran'gar and balefire 'her' the night Egwene arrived, making sure he couldn't cause Egwene headaches and other problems or whatever the hell else the reborn Forsaken had been doing in the rebel camp.

He followed the changed timeline through the last battle. 'That's one way to kill a god,' he mused as he opened a portal to Egwene's room in that world's White Tower and copied her time with the Aiel and bits and pieces of her lessons and struggles dealing with the Aes Sedai and her work with the novices to both Egwenes, leaving gaps where Elayne's brothers fit so that she wouldn't love someone that didn't even know she existed. He filled the missing pieces of their channeling knowledge with bits and pieces from his own skill.

The older Egwene shivered as she remembered a couple of years filled with friends that she'd never met. "Weird."

"Blood and ashes, I'm never signing the novice book," Egwene sputtered, thinking about the idiots she'd had to deal with in the Hall and all of the Black Ajah they'd had to deal with. "They're insane, no one in their right mind would elect a child as the Amyrlin Seat."

"Welcome to the Tower where strength in the power is more important than sanity," Myst replied sarcastically then turned to look at Moiraine. "And yeah, before you ask, Elaida screwed your friend over and got her stilled so she could steal her position."

"Why?" Moiraine asked, not particularly surprised that Elaida would make a play for the position, just curious what she needed to watch out for.

"Mostly because she's an unhinged bitch but she was exposed to a cursed dagger from Shadar Logoth that damaged her already questionable ability to trust people," Myst explained. "Either way, we should be able to avoid that entire mess this time around."

"That would be for the best," Mat agreed, wishing he could forget the dagger he'd grabbed in his memories. "Have you figured out how to cleanse the source yet?"

"I have a couple of ideas..." Myst trailed off in surprise when a folded card and stack of blueprints appeared on the table in front of him in a shower of dark orbs. "Weird," he muttered as he picked up the card and opened it. "I've rebuilt Manetheren, you'll find some ter'angreal in the vault," he finished reading the rest of it in his head, 'that I stole from the Finn. I left you some blueprints of interesting powers and I've been making clones of channelers so you should have plenty of people to train. Also, you really don't want my memories, the Fusion Toad can combine people, it's not pretty and reminds me of Tuvix from Voyager.'

"Rebuilt Manetheren?" Moiraine asked in surprise.

"That's what it says," Myst replied as he stuck the card and blueprints in his inventory, wondering what else he'd been up to that he hadn't mentioned. He checked on the city with his Precog and stared at the beautiful city built into the walls of the cliff and the fantastic grove surrounding the waygate that looked like it had been carefully tended for a thousand years or more.

"Where did he get the designs?" Mat asked, looking forward to seeing if it matched his memories.

"No idea," Myst admitted as he opened a portal to the grove which gave a good view of the city.

Mat practically dashed through the portal and glanced around the grove, shocked to find that it matched his memories almost exactly save for a couple of the flowers. "How?"

Lan glanced at Moiraine then followed Mat through the portal when she nodded. "This shouldn't be possible."

Myst grinned as he followed Moiraine and Egwene through the portal, impressed by the view of the city. "I don't think the legends did it justice."

Moiraine stared at the city 'growing' out of the wall, wondering how many years it would have taken to rebuild the city even with the power. "How?"

"I'm guessing he slipped back through time and scanned it then used his Creation ability to recreate it," Myst explained as Nynaeve and Mione followed the older Egwene through. He turned to look at the invisible channeler he could sense in the middle of the path. "Hello?"

"Welcome to Manetheren," a teenage girl in a green dress with long sleeves announced as she dropped her invisibility and walked towards the group. "The queen is expecting you."

"Queen?" Moiraine asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Eldrene ay Ellan ay Carlan, the Rose of the Sun," the girl replied with a smile.

Moiraine shook her head. "She died two thousand years ago."

"That doesn't change the fact that the queen is waiting," the girl replied with a grin then turned and headed up the path.

Mat laughed then followed the young woman, looking forward to seeing the city with his own eyes rather than just in memories.

"They're clones, right?" Mione asked as they followed the girl.

"Probably," Myst replied, scanning the girl as they followed her up the path towards the city.