Myst and the Magic Shop Part 2 (Patreon)

"Feeling better…" Robin trailed off as the door to the hotel bathroom opened and the clone walked out wearing a white towel around her waist that barely covered everything it needed to and another towel around her blonde hair, leaving her breasts uncovered. "Sorry!"

Myst smirked when Robin turned around so he wasn't looking at 'her' chest, rather amused by the fact that he was keeping track of 'her' reflection on the microwave's door, though he wasn’t sure whether that was because of training or because he was a teenage boy. "Don't worry about it, I'm not particularly modest and I heard you moving around, you're not that quiet."

"I'm perfectly stealthy when I want to be," he replied, sounding offended.

"Enhanced hearing," Myst noted as he pointed at his right ear. "Kinda surprised they have you watching me and I didn't end up with Black Canary or Wonder Woman."

"Diana would have volunteered but she had to fly the magical trinkets some of the villains were using for a ritual back to the Themyscira embassy and Black Canary has a date; she doesn't get a lot of time off, and Batman wanted someone to keep an eye on you that wasn't busy," Robin explained.

"Could be worse, they could have stuck me with Kid Flash," Myst replied as he unwrapped the towel from 'his' hair.

"He volunteered but Superman vetoed it," Robin admitted with a grin, well aware of his friend’s foibles.

"Probably for the best," Myst replied as he tossed the towel back into the bathroom, fairly sure he'd have pranked the hell out of Kid Flash.

"He means well," Robin replied, knowing Wally meant well, he just had some rough edges and trouble keeping his feet out of his mouth because of how fast his brain outpaced its filter. "Let me guess, you're not remotely interested in guys, are you?"

"Not remotely," Myst agreed as he grabbed the shirt that Batman had donated and pulled it over his head. "What made you come to that conclusion?"

"I noticed the way you looked at Wonder Woman," Robin replied as he turned back to look at her directly, figuring it was 'safe' now that she was covered.

"She's a demigod and she's gorgeous, that just proves I have a pulse," Myst argued, fairly sure there were plenty of 'straight' girls that would happily spend a night with Diana.

"You didn't look at anyone else the same way and considering some of the League could be models, that's sort of telling," Robin replied. "Besides, I've met Supergirl, she's bisexual and has been in a relationship with Diana for a couple of years now."

"Fair…" Myst trailed off as his brain caught up with what Robin had said. "What?"

Robin shrugged. "It's not exactly a secret; Superman, Supergirl, and Diana have a friends-with-benefits thing going and their daughters are adorable."

'So much for being in Young Justice,' Myst thought after his brain went to some strange places, mostly trying to picture Superman and Supergirl sharing Wonder Woman between them in a flying sandwich position that would only be possible due to superpowers or zero gee. "I might need to do some research on current events," he said, trying to shake the image out of his head.

"Probably a good idea," Robin agreed as he gestured towards the laptop sitting on the desk. "I already set everything up so you could catch up."

"Including keyloggers and tracking software?" Myst asked with amusement, as he picked up the sweats off the bed and headed for the bathroom. "Give me a second."

"Sure," Robin replied as she closed the door, not seeing a point in denying that he'd set up keyloggers. "How come you're not as… stiff as Project Kr?"

"Different projects. I'm guessing I was supposed to blend in, so I received more social programming," Myst called out from the bathroom as he tossed the towel on the counter and pulled the pants on. 'At least I can lounge around without worrying about figuring out how to wash the solar suit without damaging it.'

Robin frowned as he thought about Batman's text about Speedy's missing arm. "At least we got everyone out."

"Hopefully…" Myst trailed off as he heard someone knock on the front door, wishing he’d figured out how to use his X-ray vision as unlike the show Smallville, being turned on hadn’t done it or he would have gotten a peek through Wonderwoman’s armor earlier. "Were you expecting anyone?"

"No," Robin replied as he grabbed a taser off his belt.

"Don't bother," Kara told Robin through the door, having been watching them with her 'X-ray' vision, "it wouldn't help."

Robin put the taser back as he walked over and opened the door, seeing Kara in her Supergirl outfit. "It's Supergirl," he announced.

"You might as well come in," Myst offered as he exited the bathroom.

"Thanks," Kara replied as she entered and glanced around the hotel room, Wonderwoman following right behind her.

Myst found himself staring at a slightly older looking version of the face he'd seen in the mirror when he checked 'himself' out, surprised that she was wearing a black and white Supergirl outfit. 'Did this ruin date night or is that her standard costume here? How the hell does she keep a secret identity? She's not exactly fully covered and her face is exposed.' He pulled his attention away from her generous bust and glanced down at her short black skirt that only came halfway to her knees then pulled his gaze up to her face. 'Maybe this world won't be so bad.'

"Are you evil?" Kara asked, feeling like it was a valid question after the mess with the Justice Lords.

"Not especially," Myst replied. "Let me guess, you want to tie me up and ask a couple of questions?" he teased, trying to find the humor in the situation and see things from their point of view.

"It would certainly help put some of my fears to rest, since you refused to allow J'onzz to examine your memories," Diana replied as she closed the door behind her, hoping Kara's clone didn't try to run, as she'd already had a long day and had just managed to gather Kara after dropping off the artifacts at her embassy.

"Everyone has the right to privacy in their own mind," Myst replied as he held his hand out. "I'm happy to cooperate, assuming you leave everything I say off of the League's computers and you don't ask questions that aren't your business."

"What's wrong with the League computers?" Robin spoke up, wondering if she knew of a security breach he was unaware of.

Myst gave Robin a less than amused look. "Let's start with time travelers and move on to alien computer gods before we hit ninjas for five hundred. I don't trust that the League can keep everything secure or that they wouldn't turn over old records in the future for various reasons and I don't want time travelers showing up to cause trouble."

Robin shook his head. "You're almost as paranoid as Batman."

"Not even close," Myst replied as Diana tossed the end of her lasso to him and he wrapped it around his hand. "What do you want to know?"

"Do you want to hurt anyone in the League?" Diana asked after making sure Kara's clone was holding the lasso.

"Not that I know of," Myst replied.

Kara raised her eyebrows. "Not that you know of?"

"Just because I want to hit someone doesn't mean I'm going to and I don't think Nabu is part of the League so you’re probably safe," Myst replied.

“Nabu?” Kara asked.

“Dr. Fate,” Wonderwoman replied.

"Why would you want to hurt Dr. Fate?" Kara asked.

Myst briefly considered dropping the lasso then decided to hell with it. "Because he's a body stealing bastard in various timelines. In a possible future or at least a possible future in a similar world, Zatanna puts the helmet on to help fight Klarion and Nabu decides that he's not going to stop using her body because Klarion is still out there. In order to free her Giovanni trades his freedom for hers and gets one day off a year to talk to his daughter as himself, because no one in the League had a fucking spine."

"You're blaming him for things he might do in a possible timeline?" Kara asked, not sure how to feel about her clone accusing a retired hero of body snatching.

"He was getting rather demanding near the end, according to his bearer," Diana admitted. "That's one of the reasons Kent stopped wearing the helmet, Nabu wanted to stay in control for longer and longer each time."

"Lovely," Kara muttered, not particularly amused that alternate versions of her friends wouldn't deal with a body jacking helmet in at least one timeline. ‘Pretty sure even the Justice Lords would have dealt with him.’

"Any other questions?" Myst asked, wanting to finish up so he could look at his treasure boxes.

"Are you working for any villains? Do you want to be a villain?" Diana asked.

Myst shook his head. "No, way too much work on both counts and I don't need the guilt that goes with the lifestyle."

"Do you want to be a hero?" Kara asked.

"Not particularly," Myst replied after a couple of seconds of thought.

"Why not?" Kara asked, surprised.

"Because I'm not willing to risk my life to toss dangerous lunatics in jail where they'll pick up more skills from their fellow inmates and then break out to cause more mayhem. I'm not going to ignore someone getting mugged in front of me or hide if aliens come to take over the world, but I'm not willing to stalk the streets of Gotham at night trying to stop every single crime being committed like an obsessed madman," Myst replied.

"He's trying to make things better," Robin quickly defended his mentor.

"Best of luck," Myst replied, amused that he hadn’t even had to name who he was talking about. "I'm fairly sure Gotham is cursed. If I tried to be a hero in Gotham, I'd end up killing the Joker and sending his soul to Hades in a magically sealed box to make sure it didn't escape, because tossing him in Arkham over and over sure isn't working."

"You can do that?" Kara asked, wondering what skills she’d been programmed with.

Myst shook his head. "Not currently, but there’s enough magic shops and hedge witches around to get it done if you search for them."

Robin raised his eyebrows. "Cursed?" he asked, wondering what he’d been overlooking by assuming that all of the magic users outside the League were scam artists.

"It depends on the world, but Gotham is usually cursed, anything from ancient warlocks that are slumbering beneath the city to ancient curses," Myst explained, not sure if it was actually cursed in this world, but fairly sure it wouldn't hurt to send one of the League's mages to check.

"Are you planning any crimes in the near future?" Diana asked thoughtfully.

"Not particularly," Myst replied, fairly sure there weren't actually laws against using X-ray vision at all and sundry. "I was born in America, last I checked that makes me a citizen, so I can’t even be charged with being an illegal alien, as amusing as that would be. How the actual paperwork shakes out, is something someone else can worry about."

"Do you have any of my memories?" Kara asked, wanting to make sure they hadn’t managed to steal her memories along with her DNA.

"Nope," Myst assured her, "just most of your genetics… where the idiots didn't screw things up because of how finicky Kryptonian DNA can be to work with."

"What are you planning on doing for money?" Robin asked, wanting to make sure she wasn't going to accidentally turn into a villain while trying to make a living.

"I was thinking of selling spices to people for vast sums of gold," Myst replied cheerfully, fairly sure various spices would be worth a staggering amount in most Dungeons & Dragons settings. "I might sell some scrap metal as well," he said, thinking of Dark Sun where steel and iron were worth an insane amount.

Robin shook his head. "No one is going to trade gold for spices."

"Maybe yes, maybe no, it beats flipping burgers and since I'm a clone, modeling seems a bit disrespectful and weird," Myst admitted.

"Thanks, I have enough trouble keeping a secret identity without a look alike showing their body off to the masses," Kara admitted, knowing that she'd have a lot more issues if her civilian identity was in magazines.

"Do you have a name?" Diana asked.

"Sure, you can call me Myst," Myst replied with a grin.

"If Kal can't help, what are your plans for fixing your genetic issues?" Diana asked, wanting to get an idea how far she'd go to preserve her own life, as that was often a good way to judge someone’s character.

Myst dropped the lasso before it forced him to answer. "I'm going to have to ask Robin to leave if you want an answer to that question, it involves things I don't want recorded and I don't trust him not to tell Batman who will no doubt stick them in files that he feels will be safe, but I do not."

Robin opened his mouth to argue, but then closed it and considered the matter for a few seconds. "That's fair," he conceded. "I'll just go grab some soda from the corner store. You want anything?"

"Root beer?" Myst asked, figuring that was safer than letting him pick as there were some weird drinks in DC comics.

"I'd take a root beer," Kara added.

Diana nodded. "Same."

"I'll be back in a bit," Robin replied then left, closing the door behind him.

Supergirl watched him leave then swept the room for listening devices. "He's moving towards the store and there aren't any bugs."

"Sorry about that." Myst reached down and picked up the lasso. "This is not my first life, I remember a lot about my last one, which is where a lot of my knowledge actually comes from, not whatever programming Cadmus wanted to stick in me and I'm fairly sure I have the ability to jump into worlds that the Dungeons & Dragons RPGs were based on. I should be able to find a potion to cure disease or talk a local cleric into casting Heal in exchange for help hunting monsters, pretty easily there. Last resort, I make a deal with a genie or find a ring of wishes."

"Do you have any proof?" Kara asked, wondering if this was something Cadmus had programmed her to believe, as despite the knowledge of League secrets she’d demonstrated, it was a pretty unlikely story.

Myst walked over and opened the bathroom door while focusing on Waterdeep, the magic lasso stretching to follow him. He sighed in relief when he saw a dark cobblestone street where the bathroom should be. "Does this answer your question?"

"How powerful a mage are you?" Diana asked, finding this night to be full of surprises and wishing they’d stopped for a drink or two on the way over.

"Assuming Kara's powers aren't magic in nature… then besides portals I have the ability to summon two mystery boxes, but the boxes are less a power and more a gift." He closed the door then turned to look at the bed and focused on one of his mystery boxes, causing a wooden box the size of a bread box to appear.

Kara frowned as she scanned the box with her X-ray vision and noticed an unfamiliar gaming system sitting in the box. "It's a gaming system, though not one I recognize."

"Weird." Myst opened the box with his free hand, revealing a nice handheld gaming system with a decent sized screen and a row of Final Fantasy games. He blinked when the box and everything in it turned into smoke and sank into his skin, leaving him with a new ability. "Huh, I think I just solved my cash issues."

"What just happened?" Kara asked, before Diana had a chance to.

"It was a magical artifact that lets me play the games that came with it and enter the games as if they were real on the weekends, which means my money problems are basically over, as gold pieces are easy to come by in that world," Myst replied cheerfully as he focused on the other box and summoned it, causing another slightly larger wooden box to appear.

"Where did the boxes come from?" Diana asked.

"A magic shop I appeared in before I got reborn in your world," Myst replied as he opened the box and absorbed it as well. "Same ability, different set of games and console."

"You died in your world?” Diana asked.

"Maybe? The last thing I remember is sitting down at my computer, then I found myself in a magic shop with an old asian guy and fifteen one dollar coins in my pockets. The place had no exits and I was told I had to spend the coins on his merchandise, he implied that we had eternity for me to make my choices. Pretty sure I must have died in my old world, unless I am a clone of myself… stuck in a clone of Supergirl… I think I’ll just go with reincarnated, it’s less confusing. Anyway, I picked the ability to open portals to Dungeons & Dragons worlds for ten then I picked elemental manipulation and the boxes for one each. My last pick was a single-use species/body modification 'token'. I picked Kryptonian after I realized they were dropping me in a world with a Justice League."

"Two dollars got you the ability to be a Kryptonian?" Kara asked in disbelief, feeling like she was being seriously undervalued.

"The coins were more like tokens, I traded two for the ability to be a knock off kryptonian. I was expecting to be a half human clone, I wasn't expecting to be your clone," Myst admitted.

"How much do you know about the Justice League?" Diana asked.

"In theory, a decent amount, in practice? No idea," Myst admitted. "Most of the versions I've heard or read about from my first life don't have you and Kara hooking up."

Kara frowned as she studied her clone's expression. "Do you know our secret identities?"

"Diana Prince?" Myst asked Diana.

"Not exactly a secret," Diana admitted.

"Karen Star? Karen Kent? Kara Danvers?" Myst guessed, getting a wince on the last one. "I could guess at Kal El's identity but I'd rather not. I might be right, I might be wrong, you're just fictional legends and stories on my world and this world isn't exactly like any of the worlds I've read about, which means the names might be wrong."

"Guess," Kara told him, fairly sure she already had a decent idea given her second guess.

Myst shook his head. "No thanks, there might be reporters around."

'So much for his identity being safe,' Kara mused as she studied her clone, wondering what else she was hiding.

"Is that why you didn't want J'onzz to look into your mind?" Diana asked.

"Yeah, I have decades worth of memories of various versions of your world, I know secrets both large and small. I know things that have happened, will happen, and won’t happen,” Myst explained. “I’m pretty sure I have enough dirt on some of the gods that I would get smote for someone peeking in on them and I certainly have enough knowledge of some of our more paranoid heroes that they would see erasing or altering my memories as being ‘for the greater good’. I am not letting anyone in my head for all those reasons and more and fully intend to buy some heavy duty magical defenses to protect it for those reasons and more.”

"How come you know my cousin's identity but you had to guess mine?" Kara asked.

"Because he's almost always a reporter in the stories, you're usually a scientist though you've been a reporter, a teenager, or a writer for magazines. Green Arrow is almost always the same person, same with Batman unless he's retired then it jumps around. Robin could be several people, depending on the order and the number of Robins."

"Is that how you knew about Speedy?" Diana asked.

"I've just been going with what I remembered from stories. Up until Robin mentioned Kara, I thought I was in a particularly annoying version of your world, but that version didn't have a Supergirl or at least she hadn't landed on Earth yet," Myst explained.

"Annoying?" Dianna asked.

"The villains basically kill massive numbers of people and the heroes keep tossing them in prison, despite the fact that they have an alarming tendency to escape or get broken out on a yearly, if not monthly, basis. I'm not saying you should play judge and jury, but there are times when letting the police deal with it would force them to shoot the villains until they're dead, which would keep them from breaking out to murder even more people," Myst explained.

"What about rehabilitation?" Kara asked.

"That's one of the reasons I'm not a hero. I can understand some of the villains have reasons for losing their marbles and could lead productive lives with therapy and or medication, but some of them would be better off dead. Since Speedy ended up being a clone, Ra's al Ghul, Vandal Savage, Lex Luthor, Aquaman's brother, Queen Bee and some lunatic with his brain in a jar are probably part of something called The Light, a super villain group that is trying to destroy a decent chunk of the world's population for various reasons that they all think are noble," Myst warned them, not sure how useful the information would be.

"Prince Orm is a super villain?" Diana asked in surprise, having met him a few times.

"I'm reasonably sure his villain name is Ocean Master and Aqualad's real father is Black Manta or something in the other timeline. You're going to need to deal with Klarion at some point or he's going to kill millions of children in a couple of months when he decides to split the world into a version with adults and a version with children," Myst rattled off as he racked his brain for information that would be useful in the near future.

"Anyone in a car or flying…" Kara trailed off as she considered the death toll that would cause.

"I'm not sure it's going to happen here, but Roy was in Cadmus and the rest of the team lines up with the world I remembered, so I figured I'd give you a heads up," Myst replied. "Speaking of giving people a heads up, in the other world Kent Nelson got kidnapped when he went to New Orleans to talk to a psychic about the helmet by Klarion and Abra Kadabra. You might want to give him a call and touch base. He'll basically end up dead otherwise, which kickstarts the entire mess with Zatanna ending up trapped by the helmet for trying to do the right thing."

"Anything else?" Kara asked.

"Hugo Strange is a villain in most versions of your world, he's probably a shrink in Bell Reeve. Sending the ice villains there is a mistake because they wanted to end up there because of a Light scheme to use a bunch of flying bases to freeze parts of the world. I can't remember if they actually had a reason for the destruction, it's been close to ten years since I've seen most of the early episodes," Myst admitted.

"What does Lex get out of it?" Kara asked, not surprised that he was causing trouble.

"I'm reasonably sure he's trying to keep an eye on the lunatics to keep the costs down," Myst admitted, remembering bits and pieces of the show where Lex just wanted to make sure the world kept spinning, in addition to making an insane amount of money. "He's usually a villain, but how much of a villain depends on the world."

Diana nodded. "What can you tell me about Ocean Master?"

"In other worlds, he's using the pure blood movement for power because he wants to rule Atlantis and he has a magic trident. I was never particularly impressed by the man's schemes or his motives," Myst replied, only remembering the character because of fanfiction and the wiki.

"How are you going to protect your mind from telepaths?" Kara asked, wondering if she had any suggestions.

"There are a couple of magical items that block telepathy in D&D and depending on the world, the Green Lanterns have various methods to deal with it. I'm buying a couple of magical defenses as soon as I find a reliable magic shop and farm enough gold in one of the video games."

Kara frowned as she considered Myst's idea. "I'm not sure giving people conjured gold is ethical."

"It should be real enough," Myst replied. "I'm trading them shiny metal for goods and services, as long as the shiny metal sticks around and I don't flood the economy, it should be fine."

"Can I talk you into buying some for the League or at least some of our more powerful members?" Diana asked, figuring she could find something to trade.

"No worries, I'd rather not deal with a demigod or a kryptonian on a rampage if I don't have to," Myst replied, wanting to make sure The Light couldn't mind control the heroes.

"Do you have a way to deal with kryptonite radiation?" Kara asked hopefully.

"I can probably figure something out," Myst assured her, fairly sure one of the D&D worlds had something that would let him ignore radiation, even if it was accidental.

"Thanks, it's nasty and painful," Kara warned her. "Do you have any questions for us?"

"Is there anywhere I should avoid until I can do something to change my appearance?" Myst asked as he let go of the lasso and sat on the edge of the bed.

"You'll probably want to avoid Midvale, I went to school there," Kara admitted.

"I'll do my best to avoid it," Myst promised.

"What are your plans?" Diana asked.

Myst glanced at the hotel room's clock, fairly sure it was close enough then sat down on the bed and flipped the mental toggle in the back of his head, summoning his Elder Scrolls game system. "It's almost six, that gives me six hours to make a character and generate enough gold to survive a week on the streets."

Kara shook her head. "We're not going to leave you in the cold, you're basically my little sister."

"Thanks," Myst replied as he looked through his options, glad that Kara at least wasn't being overly weird about getting cloned, unlike Clark in Young Justice. 'Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, no online game? That's annoying but probably for the best.'

He started Skyrim and quickly tossed together a mage, not particularly concerned with what his hero looked like, as he wasn't going to be recruiting him and he didn't want to waste the time customizing the character. "I'm also going to need gold to pay a temple to heal me and to buy some basic magic items."

"You should probably learn to use your abilities before you go exploring," Diana suggested.

"I'll have plenty of time over the week if Kara has the time to help?" Myst asked hopefully, knowing it would be a lot easier to pick up the skills with her help.

"I'm waiting to hear back from a friend before I move to the next phase of testing and the research team just finished a project so I'm currently free for a couple of days," Kara offered, wanting the chance to get to know her new sister.

Myst sighed in relief. "Thanks."

Diana walked over and pulled the chair over so she could watch the screen. "What's the game like?"

"It's basically an RPG," Myst replied then launched into an explanation of the RPG game while they waited for Robin to get back with the snacks.