ROBs and Sidekicks Part 2 (Patreon)

"This is going to ruin the story," Hermione complained as Myst walked over and grabbed the bronze lamp sitting on a pedestal.

"I'll put it back," Myst replied as he rubbed the lamp, trying not to think of all of the traps that were scattered around the cave that he'd asked Hermione to take them to.

"Nearly phenomenal cosmic power!" a familiar voice said cheerfully as a cloud of blue mist poured out of the end of the lamp and formed into a blue genie.

"You have…" Genie trailed off as he glanced between Myst and Hermione. "Hmm, you're not who I was expecting."

"We'll try to be quick. Can I talk you into summoning someone?" Myst asked hopefully.

Genie shook his head. "Sorry, you know the deal, no free wishes, no killing people and no wishing for more wishes."

"Fair enough," Myst admitted. "I wish you to summon the girl I'm connected to and supposed to save."

"Done," Genie replied and snapped his fingers causing an attractive teenage girl with shoulder length blue hair in a pink silk night dress to appear out of thin air.

The girl stared at Genie. "Are you a demon?"

"I'm a genie," Genie replied.

The girl glanced at Myst and Hermione then focused on the genie. "Does that mean I get wishes?"

"That depends, are you evil?" Myst asked.

The girl glanced at her silver bracelets. "No but my bracelets are, I'm supposed to take over from a demon lord and rule a country as a tyrant, I'd rather not, it sounds like a lot of paperwork."

"You don't want to be evil because of paperwork?" Hermione asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Duh. Also, heroes cheat. If you make a flying castle of doom, a hero is eventually going to show up and break it. If you have an indestructible pet monster they're going to either find a way to kill it or they're going to toss it a steak. I'd rather be a hero but my bracelets won't let me use my powers for good," the girl admitted. "I don't suppose you can fix that?" she asked the genie hopefully.

Genie conjured a monocle and looked at her bracers for a couple of seconds then tossed the monocle over his shoulder where it vanished. "One wish per restriction removed."

"Excellent!" the girl looked at Myst with hero grade puppy eyes, "Can we get rid of the whole can only be used for evil bit?"

Myst glanced at Hermione then looked at Genie. "Sure, I'll use that for my third wish unless Genie doesn't want to wait for Aladdin to free him."

"I trust him or I will," Genie replied with a shrug. "Just hurry up with your wishes so we don't break the timeline."

"Fair enough, I wish to be the most powerful sorcerer you can make me without wiping my memories," Myst said, figuring that was the only wish of Jafar's that he'd actually gotten right.

Genie snapped his fingers, causing sparkles of magic to swirl around Myst for a couple of seconds. "Done. Your last wish?"

"Actually, do you know what the bracelets let you do?" Myst asked.

"It's supposed to give me unlimited mana, change people's appearance, replicate items, let me teach other people my powers, consume monsters for powers and tricks, give me telekinesis and telepathy and repair things but the chancellor used a ritual to try to steal the powers and screwed everything up," the girl complained.

Myst nodded. "It's been my experience that chancellors are generally untrustworthy."

"Have you actually met any?" Hermione asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Lots of stories have evil chancellors," Myst replied with a grin. "Change of plans, can I wish her to be able to quickly teach Hermione and I everything she can?"

"How quickly?" Genie asked with amusement.

"Like snap fingers quickly?" Myst asked hopefully.

"Done," Genie replied as he snapped his fingers. "You're out of wishes."

Myst handed Hermione the lamp. "You're up."

"I," Hermione turned to look at the girl. "Name?"

"Beth," the girl replied. "Technically, it's Elizabeth but that's my grandmother and she's still alive."

"I wish for the bracelets to work while doing good rather than evil," Hermione stated, figuring that was a safe wish.

"Done," the genie replied as he snapped his fingers, causing the bracelets to glow an angry red for a couple of seconds before going back to their normal silver color. "Second wish?"

"Any other problems with the bracelets?" Hermione asked.

"I can only use them at night, they rotate powers every day and they have an elemental alignment that I haven't figured out yet," Beth admitted.

"Do the problems come with the bracelets or the powers?" Hermione asked Genie, wondering if they could just skip the problems by teaching each other the powers.

"The bracelets," Genie replied with amusement, wanting them to hurry.

"In that case, if you teach us, I'll turn around and teach you," Hermione offered Beth.

"Deal!" Beth replied enthusiastically as she focused, snapped her fingers and instantly taught Hermione and Myst all of her powers, figuring that was a lot easier than dealing with the frustrating bracelets.

"In that case, can I wish for a game inventory?" Hermione asked.

"I'm reasonably sure I know where to pick up a gamer power, so you can probably skip that," Myst pointed out.

"In that case, can I get a copy of Starfire's powers from DC comics?" Hermione asked, figuring it would give them enough durability to survive most of the stuff they ran into without any negative side effects.

Genie conjured a Teen Titans comic. "This Starfire, right?"

Hermione nodded. "That's the one."

Genie snapped his fingers. "Done. One left."

"I can't seem to open a portal home, can you tell me why?" Hermione asked.

Genie sighed. "Sorry love, the demon lord basically spliced you together from a bunch of worlds and made you real, you don't have anywhere to go back to."

"You're always welcome to stay with me," Myst offered without any hesitation.

"Thanks," Hermione replied, not sure how she was supposed to feel about the fact that her world didn't exist and had never existed. 'At least I don't have to deal with Voldemort, kidnap Harry or deal with correcting Ron's assignments ever again.'

Genie glanced down at the watch that appeared on his wrist. "Sorry to rush, but I'm on a schedule, can you make your last wish?"

Hermione sighed as she realized that Aladdin was probably getting close. "Sorry yeah, I wish for the ability to know the distance and location of anything I'm looking for."

"Done," Genie replied. "Now can you set my lamp back on the pedestal?"

"Of course," Hermione replied as she set the lamp back on the pedestal then headed for her portal. "Let's go."

"Wishes?" Beth asked hopefully.

"Later," Myst assured her as he put a hand on her back and led her through the portal back to Tristram, wanting a chance to get to know her before he gave her access to a genie.

Beth glanced around the small town as the portal closed behind them. "Where are we?"

"Tristram," Myst replied absently as he mentally reviewed his new powers. "If I'm not mistaken, we can restore items to a previous state, replicate just about any item, mundane or magical, bestow our skills on other people and we've got a save game feature which should be interesting."

"Don't forget the ability to freeze time around us for a bit," Hermione added as she focused on Myst and taught him her powers. "Did that work?"

Myst blinked as he realized he knew how to fly without magic and open portals. He floated off the ground a few inches. "That's impressive and broken as hell."

Hermione grinned. "It's almost enough to go back and teach Genie the teaching ability so he could teach us his powers."

Myst shook his head. "I'm not Icarus, I'd rather not get stuck as a genie or piss something off that can reach across the multiverse and summon people."

"Point," Hermione admitted.

"Icarus?" Beth asked, not sure what they were talking about.

"He was a character in a story that made wings to escape a tower and flew so high the wax he used to secure the feathers melted. It's supposed to be a mortality story about reaching above your station," Myst explained.

"Do you want to go back into the dungeon or go somewhere else?" Hermione asked, figuring they had more than enough power to finish the dungeon.

Myst glanced at Beth. "Do you have any combat skills?"

"Not really," Beth admitted. "I'm a princess."

Myst focused on his save game power and created a save. "In that case, let's kidnap a gamer."

Hermione shook her head. "We're not kidnapping people."

Myst focused on what he remembered of the Scooby Gamer's story and opened a portal.

Hermione stared at the naked girl in the shower she could see through the portal. "On second thought."

Dawn blinked as she realized someone had opened a portal to her shower. "Is there a reason you opened a portal to my shower?"

Myst forced himself to look at Dawn's face rather than her athletic and naked body. "I'm still working on my aim, are you Dawn Summers?"

Dawn quickly used her equipment page to equip her defensive jewelry then shut the shower off and raised her hands on the off chance that she needed to blast them. "Names?"

"Hermione Granger, Myst and Beth," Hermione offered with a smile. "Sorry about the portal."

"As in Harry Potter?" Dawn asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Basically," Hermione agreed.

"Cool, what do you need?" Dawn asked, wondering what they wanted as they obviously knew her name.

"How would you like more powers?" Myst asked with a smile.

"What's the catch?" Dawn asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No catch, I'll snap my fingers and teach you some powers and then you'll snap your fingers and teach me a copy of your gamer power, then we'll wish you the best and be on our way or we can abuse a couple of magical shrines for power and hang out a bit."

Dawn glanced at Hermione. "Abuse some shrines?"

"No idea," Hermione admitted.

"I know where to find a mirror that reverses the effects of magical items, we've got a cursed shrine that increases a person's knowledge of a particular spell when they touch it while permanently decreasing a person's maximum mana at the same time."

"Which means you can zap the shrine and create something that increases your maximum mana while decreasing your knowledge of the spell," Dawn mused. "Seems like a waste for 10% more mana."

Myst grinned. "Which is where the trick comes in, we can restore the shrine with one of our other abilities and duplicate it which means you'd just have to run around a room touching the shrines to push your magic to an insane level."

"What do you get out of this other than a copy of the gamer ability?" Dawn asked warily.

"Consider it an apology for opening the portal to your shower," Myst offered.

"Fair enough," Dawn replied with a smile. "What are you offering for trade?"

"How about a copy of Starfire's powers and the ability to instantly teach people powers?" Myst asked.

Dawn weighed the consequences of giving someone the gamer power against gaining Starfire's powers and the ability to hand out powers rather than mess with creating skill books. "You're not planning on taking over the world, are you?"

"Nope, way too much paperwork," Myst replied with a smile.

Beth nodded. "We're just trying to survive and save a country from a demon lord."

"Don't make me regret this," Dawn warned them, fairly sure they could get the gamer power somewhere else if they really wanted it.

Myst snapped his fingers and taught Dawn Starfire's powers and the ability to teach powers. "That should do it."

Dawn opened her character sheet and looked at the description for her new powers, a touch surprised that everything looked legit. "Nice." She tapped the icon for her skill teaching power and looked at the user interface. "Do you have a user interface for your skill power?"

Myst shook his head. "No, that's part of why I want the Gamer ability, it makes keeping track of abilities a lot easier."

"Fair enough," Dawn replied as she selected her Gamer ability and Myst then hit accept, hoping she wasn't making a mistake.

Myst smiled when a HUD display appeared, showing him his current health and mana. "Thank you, this should help."

"How long will it take to set everything up with the shrines?" Dawn asked.

"Maybe ten minutes," Myst mused.

"In that case, I should finish my shower." Dawn looked at Hermione with a smile. "Do you want to wash my back?"

"Sure," Hermione replied as she dropped her illusion of wearing clothes and stepped through the portal.

'I need to figure out how to share memories,' Myst mused as he pulled his attention away from Hermione and Dawn, wondering if he'd accidentally opened a portal to a more perverted version of the story.

"I'll watch the portal and make sure no one bothers them," Beth offered with a grin as Dawn turned the shower back on.

"Have fun," Myst replied as he turned and opened a portal to the 'vault' room in the temple in

Xiaolin Showdown. He quickly stepped through the portal and touched the two and a half foot long mirror with a weird symbol on it. He paused when he heard voices approaching that he couldn't quite make out. 'Screw it,' he thought as he ducked back out of the portal and closed it. 'I'm not fighting a crazy match against a bunch of heroes for this shit.'

He focused on his replication power and created a copy of the Reversing Mirror then examined it with his glasses. 'Has the ability to reverse the effects of various magical items or reflect most attacks. At least there aren't any other Shen Gong Wu around to cause showdowns.' He turned around and took a last look at Hermione washing Dawn's back then shook his head and walked towards the monastery. 'I really need to go somewhere with telepathy, maybe Jean would like some extra powers?'

'One step at a time,' Myst told himself as he pulled out his sword and teleported to where he'd left the 'cursed' shrine. He brought the mirror up and zapped the shrine then examined it with his glasses. 'Removes knowledge of Holy Bolt and increases maximum mana by 10%, not bad.' He reached out and touched the shrine and grinned when he got a popup notice asking if he wanted to use the shrine and what the effects were. 'That should keep us from getting completely screwed over.'

He hit accept then focused on the shrine and used his restore state ability to restore the shrine to just before he'd touched it. He touched the shrine and hit the button after checking to make sure it hadn't reverted to its cursed state. He checked his mana total then started laughing when he realized it had increased by another 10%.

'Let's see how far we can push things before something smites us,' he mused as he got to work pushing his already insane mana pool that Genie had given him into the realm of gods, figuring he'd work on it until Hermione tracked him down or he needed to eat.

0o0o0

Beth pulled her attention away from Hermione's behind and the shrine she was poking every couple of seconds and looked at Dawn. "Can I talk you into teaching me enchanting?"

"That depends, what do you have to trade?" Dawn asked, wondering what else she could pick up.

Beth glanced over at where Myst was drinking a magic elixir. "Any ideas for what I could trade?"

"A copy of your ability to speed up time in a circle but Dawn would probably have to toss in a copy of her ID Creation skill to make it fair," Myst suggested, figuring that skill would let him farm the rest of the skills or get close enough.

Dawn glanced between Beth and Myst. "Only because she's cute."

"Deal," Beth said as she snapped her fingers and taught Dawn her Chrono Break skill.

Dawn taught Myst and Beth her Enchanting and ID Creation skills. "Done, you can teach Hermione when she's done playing with the shrine."

"And done," Hermione said as she took a step back from the altar. She slipped Myst's bracelets off her wrists and tossed them to him then replicated a copy for herself. "The armor rating only goes up to 255 but between the bracelets, jester's cap and bikini bottoms, we should be good for armor."

"I'll stick with the bracelets and hat," Myst replied as he slipped his bracelets on and summoned his jester's cap to his head. "Thanks for boosting everything."

"No worries, your hat was a lot better than my tiara," Hermione said, slightly annoyed that she'd gotten a worse head slot item.

"What's your tiara enchanted with?" Dawn asked.

"Disguise self and armor," Hermione replied. "His hat boosts mana regeneration, lets us disguise our appearance and boosts our magic by 50%. How is that remotely fair?"

"Not to mention it counts as armor thanks to the Gloomy Shrine," Myst added, rather happy with the couple of shrines they'd found exploring, especially since it meant he could recreate them later thanks to the Replication ability.

"How long do you plan on staying down here?" Dawn asked, fairly sure she only had a couple of hours until her sister got back from shopping.

"Griswold mentioned the Anvil of Fury when I stopped by the witch's shop to check on her prices and touch some of the magic staves so I can duplicate them. I wouldn't mind grabbing the anvil before we leave…" Myst trailed off as the entire room started shaking.

"Earthquake?" Hermione asked warily.

"Worse, someone killed Diablo," Myst replied as he summoned his sword and teleported everyone back to town. "I'd rather not be in the dungeon in case it collapses."

"How likely is that?" Beth asked as she watched a couple of the glass windows on the monastery crack.

"No idea," Myst admitted as a town portal opened in the middle of town and a warrior in full plate stumbled out of it and collapsed, bleeding from the large red gem shard shoved into his forehead. "I'll never understand how jamming a soul shard into your skull is ever the right choice."

Dawn shook her head. "No clue."

"Shouldn't we help him?" Beth asked, not sure why the group wasn't rushing to help the man as he was clearly injured.

"I can't fix insanity or stupidity," Myst said as he headed back through the portal to his house. "Let's go before something comes through that we can't deal with."

Dawn frowned as she glanced at the portal leading to her shower. "What about my portal?"

"I'll move it, I want to make sure I don't lose your world," Myst replied as he opened another portal to Dawn's world then closed the portal between Tristram and Dawn's world once he saw the second portal appear. He waited for the girls to come through then closed the portal to Tristram as he didn't want any of the demons or angels getting to Earth.

"Thanks, I don't need my sister freaking out." Dawn grinned as she thought about her mana pool and the collection of magical items in her inventory that she was going to reverse engineer. "That went better than I was expecting, we managed to improve our mana to an insane degree and pick up a couple of spell books, including a mana shield book."

"What happened to the guy?" Beth asked, wondering why they'd left him to die.

"The gem stuck in the man's head is a soul stone, it's basically a container for a greater demon's soul," Myst explained. "Even if I fixed the physical damage, I don't have anything to deal with the corruption he's been exposed to or any way to deal with the demon in a useful fashion. We should have a couple of weeks to come up with something before the monsters swarm out of the monastery and burn the town to the ground."

Beth frowned as she thought about the demon lord they needed to defeat. "Any ideas how to fix that?"

Dawn opened her skill teaching ability and added her Soul Recovery skill then added their names and pushed the button. "You'll have to farm some soul crystals for the really nasty things but that should help."

"Thanks. I was thinking about opening a portal to a world with a magical well. Do you want to tag along or would you rather stick around and watch movies before you head back?" Myst asked as he opened his character sheet and looked at his new skill.

"What does the well do?" Dawn asked as she glanced around Myst's backyard, wanting to make sure no one would notice the portals.

Myst grinned as he thought about Tara's magical well. "It upgrades and improves magical items or curses things. Normally I wouldn't risk it but I've got a save game ability which means the sky's the limit after I copy it."

"Could it upgrade my bracelets?" Beth asked excitedly.

"I don't see why not," Myst replied with a grin. "Same with Hermione's bracelets, we might be able to get additional powers and there's another dungeon about five miles away in that world where we might be able to get the bracelets decursed."

"Or we could use another genie," Hermione pointed out.

"We could," Myst admitted. "But honestly, I'm sort of curious what we'd get if we tossed them in the well a couple of dozen times and most genies like to twist wishes."

Dawn grinned as she thought about her collection of enchanted gear that could use a boost. "I wouldn't mind a copy of a magic well."

"How dangerous is the dungeon?" Beth asked warily.

"As long as we don't piss people off, it shouldn't be that bad," Myst replied as he looked at Dawn. "You're going to have to change your appearance unless you want to answer a bunch of questions."

"Why?" Dawn asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Because there's a version of Xander and Tara there and they'd wonder why you're running around by yourself," Myst replied with amusement.

"Fair enough," Dawn replied as she held out her hand. "Can I get a copy of your jester's cap?"

Myst grinned as he replicated the hat and tossed it to Dawn. "Of course."

Dawn put the hat on then activated the disguise ability, changing her face to resemble Hermione with darker hair. "Does that work?"

"Yes," Beth replied with a grin as she glanced between the other two girls.

"Should be fine," Myst replied with a grin as he opened a portal to Tara's dungeon.

0o0o0