Myst and the Magic Shop (Patreon)

An: Had an idea that wouldn't leave me alone.

Myst blinked as he went from sitting down at his computer to read a fic to standing in a strange antique/souvenir shop with an older oriential man that looked suspiciously like a certain cartoon character turned real.

"Ah, you are here to buy from Uncle," the old man said as he gestured around his shop filled with strange trinkets that looked like crap sold in tourist traps.

"Right…" Myst trailed off as he reached into his pocket and found his wallet missing and his pants pockets filled with dollar coins.

"You is here to buy from Uncle's special shop, take your time, there is no door," the man said cheerfully.

Myst flicked his left hand with his right middle finger, wanting to make sure he wasn't dreaming despite everything being in focus. 'So much for this being a weird dream.' He quickly counted the coins in his pockets then looked to see what he could buy for his fifteen dollars. "Anything interesting?"

"I have rare talisman that let you change your shape for ten dollars, you no like who you are, be someone else," Uncle suggested cheerfully.

"What else do you have?" Myst asked, curious what else he could find and not sure if the man was full of shit or a dangerous sorcerer or both.

"Tough customer," Uncle mused as he pulled an old dusty boxed D&D set out from under the counter. "What about power to jump into worlds with dungeons and or dragons?"

"Better than shape changing," Myst replied, figuring he might as well get an amusing game out of the money rather than a trinket and it was a better power on the off chance the man wasn't blowing smoke.

"Excellent, what about Doctor Who regeneration, if you don't like who you are, stab yourself and come back as someone new," Uncle suggested.

"Doctor Who?" Myst asked 'innocently'.

Uncle reached over and hit Myst with a fan he hadn't been holding. "You no start that shit."

"Fair enough," Myst admitted, rubbing his head, now completely convinced he wasn’t dreaming, as the man made the fan vanish in a way that was either a nearly legendary sleight of hand trick or something approaching magic. 'Okay, this is looking less like a joke and more like something I should be treating seriously.' He glanced around the shop. "What else do you have?"

"Time manipulation, regeneration on the level of certain loveable Canadian or mystery boxes?" Uncle offered as he gestured towards the various trinkets on the table that Myst was fairly sure hadn't been there a second ago along with two wooden boxes that he was certain hadn't been there a second ago.

"How much are the mystery boxes?" Myst asked.

"Mystery box, only one dollar each," Uncle replied as he pushed the boxes across the counter.

"What do you have for mystic martial arts?" Myst asked, thinking of the old cartoon.

Uncle glared at Myst. "What, you think just because I Asian, I know mystical martial arts, is that it?" he asked sarcastically.

"You also hit me with a fan that you weren't holding, so yeah, I figured it was worth asking," Myst replied with a shrug.

Uncle pulled a book with some type of kanji on the front of it with a large panda on the cover. "Knock off Kung Fu Panda?"

Myst shook his head. "From a book I can't read? I think I'll pass."

"I have elixir that gives people the potential to bend elements," Uncle offered.

"Better than nothing," Myst admitted. "That means I've got two coins left."

"Visual novel and something to fix your face," Uncle suggested as he pushed a makeup kit towards Myst.

Myst gave the shopkeeper a look. "If this works so well, why haven't you used it?"

"Because I'm perfect," Uncle replied smugly.

"And the real reason?" Myst asked, fairly sure there was more to it than that.

"Remember read labels on immortality methods," Uncle suggested. "Some have certain annoying drawbacks. Now you picked everything, where I send you?"

"Home?" Myst asked, not sure he actually wanted the visual novel bit but not liking any of the other choices he could buy for a dollar.

"Not in contract, Star Trek Voyager or strange DC world?" Uncle asked.

"Does anyone ever willingly go to the first one?" Myst asked.

"Only crazy people," Uncle replied with a grin. "Any last words, I mean questions?"

Myst glanced at the tag explaining the uses of the makeup kit. "The body the adjustment package, does that mean I get to pick the humanoid species?" he asked, figuring he might as well ask.

"Eh, don't see why not," Uncle replied.

"Kryptonian," Myst replied, fairly sure it would be vetoed but not remotely interested in being a martian, especially since shape changing was supposed to cost a lot and figuring it was worth a shot.

"Uncle isn't miracle worker," Uncle replied as he glanced over his collection of boxes. "Rather than visual novel, have Venom suit, has physical enhancements."

"You also have to deal with a co-pilot with questionable sanity, can I trade the visual novel token for a species change?" Myst asked hopefully.

"Hmm, trading strength, durability, shape changing and pocket dimension for knockoff Kryptonian powers… Uncle might be able to swing that," Uncle replied as he pulled a smartphone out of his pocket and tapped some keys, pulling up the information he wanted. "Any objections being related Lex Luthor?"

"Would I have his issues?" Myst asked, getting a sinking feeling about the world he was being sent to.

"In that case, we go with other clone," Uncle mused then snapped his fingers, sending Myst into another world.

Myst 'woke up' in a glass tank filled with green sludge in the middle of a firefight, everything sounding like the volume had been turned up to a fifteen and the lights flashing on and off in an annoying fashion while various people in costumes fought people he only vaguely recognized. He stumbled out of the tank when someone tossed someone into the glass hard enough to crack it, causing the sludge to break the glass and spill him out.

"There's another one!" Robin shouted as he tried to dodge the teenager with black hair that was tossing his team around like ragdolls.

Myst reached up and took the breathing mask off his face and blinked the crap out of his eyes, trying to get a sense of what he was seeing. 'White sleeves, small hands, obviously not mine. Freak out later,' he told himself as he glanced between the people in the strange lab, trying to figure out what he was dealing with.

"Kill them!" a man with a ponytail in a lab coat shouted.

Myst glanced at the teen that was wearing something close to what Robin wore in various comics and shows and the teenager that looked like the Flash then dashed forward and punched the scientist in the face as hard as he could, forgetting for a second that he might have gotten enhanced strength out of the deal and shattering his jaw and snapping his neck.

"Stop!" a voice ordered in Myst's head.

Myst saw red as he jumped at the gremlin with glowing horns and kicked his head off, wanting to make sure the telepath was dead before he could be locked in a cell or cut apart for testing or whatever the hell they did to test subjects that misbehaved. He spun around and kicked the cape in armor before he could hit him with a taser, sending him crashing into the wall.

"Shit! Don't kill me!" the female lab tech blurted as she held her hands up and took a step back.

"Enough!" Myst shouted at the teenager in white when he reached out to grab Robin. "Put the hero down!"

Project Kr turned to look at Myst. "Why are you helping them?"

Kid Flash shivered when he saw the dead man looking at him with half his face. "What the hell?"

"Can someone please explain what's going on?" Myst asked as he turned to look at the unconscious teenager that had been tossed through his glass pod and realized two annoying things, the first being that 'he' had decent sized breasts and second that the dark skinned young man had gills. 'Fuck! If I have to deal with the Light, I'm fucking killing them.'

"You're in Cadmus, it's a research lab," Robin explained, trying to keep the obviously dangerous teenager from killing anyone else.

"Lovely," Myst muttered as he walked over, knelt down and checked the dead lab tech for security cards or illegal enhancement formulas, trying not to focus on the fact that he'd just killed someone. 'Deal with it later.'

"What are you doing?" Kid Flash asked.

"Searching for his security cards or memory sticks," Myst replied as he found a memory stick in one of his lab coat's pockets as well as a security card and his wallet. "He was obviously someone important."

"You can't just steal company secrets," the female lab tech blurted before realizing what she'd just said.

Myst turned to look at the woman, giving her a glare. "Are you going to stop me?"

"No but there are laws," she argued.

Myst pulled a weird injector out of the dead man's other pocket, being careful not to touch the part that looked like it injected chemicals into people. "I woke up in a pod, I have no idea how I got there and I don't really give a fuck about your laws right now." He stood up. "The only reason you're not dead is because you don't seem completely unhinged and we might need you to open the doors, am I wrong?"

"No, I can get us out of here," she quickly assured Myst, realizing the best way to survive was to get the unstable clone to the League and let them sort out Desmond's mess.

"Excellent," Myst replied as he turned to look at the dark haired teenager in a white bodysuit that he was reasonably sure was Superboy. "Can you grab the guy in armor, I'd rather not leave him here to activate a self destruct or to get shot in the head if Cadmus decides to clean house."

"Guardian is a…" Robin trailed off, not sure what to call the man right now as he'd obviously been working with Cadmus. "Good idea."

"Do you have a plan?" the female lab tech asked.

"You call off whatever security forces you can, then we leave and turn everything over to the Justice League," Myst replied as he headed for the door to the lab, hoping the security forces didn't have kryptonite because he really didn't want to deal with the shit. 'I really need to figure out how to use my powers.' He grinned when he realized he had a mental trigger that would activate his ability to jump into a D&D like world, provided he had some idea where he wanted to go. It would have been nice if it came with classes but I can probably swing a warlock deal if I get desperate.'

'What about bending? No clue, I'll probably have to talk to a mage,' he mused as he followed the scientist into the elevator, hoping he wasn't making a mistake but not sure how to get out of the building since he wasn't sure how to actually use his powers. He thought about the boxes then quickly stopped focusing on them when he realized that focusing on them would cause them to reappear from wherever the old man had stashed them and he wasn't sure he could make them vanish. 'I'll deal with that when I actually have time.'

"So, you're a clone?" Kid Flash asked Myst, checking out her 'assets' as the elevator went up.

Myst glanced at the scientist that he didn't know or trust and was either a loyal Cadmus employee or worse  "Apparently, can we focus on escaping?"

"Stay whelmed," Robin told him.

"I'm reasonably sure that isn't a word," Myst argued.

"I used it, it's a word," Robin argued.

Myst felt something weird, like something was brushing the back of his neck. 'This is the song that never ends. It goes on and on my friend. Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was. And they'll continue singing forever, just because this is the song that never ends,' he sang the song to himself, fairly sure he'd drive any telepaths that touched his mind nuts or at least make sure they wouldn't want to listen to his thoughts. It also distracted him from Kid Flash's idiotic questions which meant he wasn't paying attention and his brain wasn't coming up with answers to the questions he shouldn't be asking in an enemy base with telepaths wandering around.

Thankfully, either the lab tech was able to convince people to call off the search or with the mad scientist dead, they didn't have a reason to try to contain them as the ride back to the ground floor was actually relatively quick and hassle free, which was worrying from a security standpoint but not something he was going to point out.

He continued singing the song in his head as he followed Robin and Kid Flash out of the building and into the plaza where a decent collection of the Justice League was assembled, more than a bit relieved when he didn't see the Martian Manhunter. 'Stay out of my head, fucking goblins.'

"What happened?" Batman asked Robin.

"We ran into some trouble…" Robin trailed off, knowing they'd screwed up.

Superman frowned as he glanced between Myst and Project Kr. "Did you find any evidence of who was responsible?"

Myst shrugged. "I took a flash drive off a dead mad scientist."

"Dead?" Superman asked warily.

"He was shouting about killing people and I punched him, he was squishier than expected," Myst admitted, not particularly troubled by the lunatic's death.

"Turn over the data," Batman ordered.

"Sorry, no dice," Myst replied, understanding Batman's point of view but knowing the flash drive might have information he needed to avoid falling apart or going completely insane in a couple of weeks or months thanks to their suspect cloning techniques. "I'm willing to share the data with you if you can talk Green Lantern into scanning my genetic code but I'm not giving you the flash drive, I don't trust the mad scientists."

"She has a point," Aquaman pointed out.

"We should probably have The Martian scan her mind," Red Tornado suggested.

"I'd rather grab Wonder Woman's lasso," Myst replied, less than thrilled with the idea of letting a telepath in his head as he didn't want to forget everyone's secret identities.

"And if we insist?" The Green Arrow asked as he walked over.

"If you're going to insist on looking at my head, you should probably check Speedy's head, I'm fairly sure he's a clone that has been programmed to infiltrate the League and share all of your secrets," Myst offered as he glanced at the green lanterns that was standing near Black Canary. 'He's white and he doesn't have an idiotic bowl cut so he's probably Hal, better than dealing with Gardner.'

"Do you have any proof?" Oliver demanded.

"Check the cape and run his DNA," Myst replied as he gestured towards the Guardian. "He's probably a clone."

"That doesn't prove that my apprentice is a clone," Oliver argued.

"Take the suggestion or leave it, I don't really care," Myst replied with a shrug. "I just want the information to make sure I'm not falling apart."

"Could we use the fortress?" Aquaman asked Superman.

Myst shook his head. "I'm not going anywhere near Superman's fortress until we've been checked for explosive devices or bugs."

"You're being paranoid," Kid Flash complained.

Myst glared at Kid Flash. "I woke up in a fucking tube in a mad scientist's lab, I'm reasonably sure a certain level of concern is warrented."

"It doesn't hurt to check," Batman cut in before Kid Flash could say something to cause the girl to snap.

"That doesn't mean there's something wrong with Speedy," Oliver grumbled.

Myst glanced at Green Lantern as he walked over. "How long does it take to check? Five seconds? Ten?"

Hal used his ring to scan the clones and winced when he saw the results. "You're an imperfect clone of Supergirl and the other one is a clone of Superman mixed with human and alien DNA."

"How long do I have before I break down?" Myst asked warily, hoping he had enough time to come up with a solution that didn't result in him turning into a deranged idiot like Match.

"You'll start to notice in three to four months," Hal admitted.

"Plenty of time," Myst muttered as he turned to look at the unconscious cape on the ground, fairly sure he could fix the problem with magic. "Can you scan the unconscious cape on the ground and compare his DNA to Speedy?"

Hal scanned the unconscious hero and frowned when his ring let him know that the clone wasn't mistaken about Guardian. "He's a clone."

Olver stared at Hal. "She's telling the truth?"

"No idea but Guardian's genetics are a nearly perfect match for Speedy's DNA," Hal replied. "We need to scan Speedy to see if he's a clone."

"Do we have any malware or tracking chips?" Myst asked, wanting to make sure they weren't going to explode if they set foot in the fortress.

Hal shook his head. "You're clean physically, which doesn't mean you don't have hidden mental commands."

"Good enough, can you scan the rest of the building? You should find the original Speedy in the building and at least one more Kryptonian unless they have alien shielding."

"I'll run a second scan," Hal said as he ran a more power intensive scan, wanting to make sure that he hadn't missed something. He scowled when he found two matches on the second scan. "I wouldn't have noticed Speedy's clone if I hadn't been looking and if I wouldn't have noticed the Kryptonian clone if I hadn't increased the power to cut through their shields."

"Watch out for the telepathic gremlins running around," Myst suggested, not sure how the genomorphs would react to the League trying to free the test subjects.

"Telepathic gremlins?" Oliver asked in disbelief.

"I'm guessing they're clones of telepathic and telekinetic aliens." Myst tossed the memory stick to Hal. "Or someone really screwed up the cloning process."

Batman turned to look at Hal. "Can you fix the genetic damage?"

"I wouldn't know where to start, I'm not a geneticist," Hal admitted, knowing they'd need an expert to fix the damage.

"Could the Fortress help?" Batman asked Superman.

"It's worth a try," Superman admitted, unwilling to let a couple of innocent people fall apart without at least trying to fix things even if the idea of being cloned made him want to find the people responsible and toss them in the phantom zone.

Hal scanned the memory stick with his ring then looked over the summary. "We're going to have to run some scans on the other Kryptonian, the cloning process was flawed."

"What did you expect from a Mad Scientist?" Myst grumbled, slightly annoyed that the shopkeeper dropped him in a failing body but not terribly surprised since it probably balanced the point cost. 'It shouldn't be that hard to make enough gold or find something to trade so I can afford a greater restoration spell or a cure disease potion.'

"Point," Hal admitted as he used his ring to create a map of the building so he could show the rest of the League where the secret labs were.

"Who do I need to talk to so I can get some identification and a place to crash for a couple of days while I try to figure out how to keep from falling apart?" Myst asked, wanting a place to relax so he could figure out what was in the mystery boxes.

Batman glanced between the two clones. "I have a couple of ideas."

"Hopefully, that includes food because I'm starving," Myst admitted, trying not to freak out about the fact that he only had a couple of months to live before he started falling apart and or going insane. 'Get a grip, it's a comic world, they have scientists and magic users and you caught it early compared to the show.'

"No problem, I'll grab some burgers," Kid Flash offered.

"Go for it," Batman suggested, knowing that it was going to take at least an hour to wrap everything up with the lab.

"Back in a flash," Kid Flash replied then vanished.

"How did you know about the link between Speedy and Guardian?" Oliver asked as Green Lantern and Red Tornado flew towards the building to find the other labs.

"Visions of an alternate future or memories stitched together? My head is a scary place. Either way, I don't think having this discussion in the open is the best idea," Myst pointed out, not wanting to get into things that might lead the League to having one of their telepaths edit his memories.

Project Kr scowled at Myst. "Why didn't I get more information?"

"No clue," Myst replied, not sure what the genomorphs had stuffed in his head.

Oliver glanced at Guardian. "Do you have any other secrets that you'd like to share?"

"Not right now," Myst replied as he turned to watch the building, curious if the heroes would have an easier or harder time investigating things since Desmond hadn't turned into a raging monster with superhuman strength and wrecked the building.

"Leave it, she has a point," Batman pointed out, not interested in spilling secrets in the middle of a parking lot when anyone with a directional microphone could pick what they were saying.

Oliver scowled as he glanced at Guardian. "What are we going to do about Guardian?"

"I'm going to call J'onn," Batman replied, hoping his friend could figure out how much Guardian knew about the company and if the clones were safe.