Boosted Villainy Part 2 (Patreon)

Myst was rather happy with his haul, not only had he managed to boost his boots and clothes a couple of times but he'd found a bag filled with old electric engines and wires that he'd promptly stuck in his backpack for later testing, two broken umbrellas, a shoe box filled with rusty screwdrivers, four broken or filthy coolers, five broken plastic recorders, a bag of shock absorbing gel shoe inserts of different makes and models, a bag of worn out gloves, and a small rechargeable fire extinguisher in nearly perfect condition, probably because someone hadn't read the label or wanted to deal with getting it refilled and certified.

Ten minutes of work taking apart the coolers and swapping bits and pieces of them let him assemble a decent cooler and upgrade it with the rest of the pieces to hold temperature twice as well as it should and increase the internal volume of the small cooler. A quick stop at the grocery store to scrub the hell out of it in the public restroom managed to get it clean enough that he'd store food in it, as long as the food was still in containers.

From there, it was just a matter of grabbing some hot chicken soup at the cafeteria in the store and finding the most harried looking clerk he could to break his hundred, mostly because he really didn't want them giving it a second look. Thankfully, either because the bills looked the same or because of the holiday rush, the woman didn't even give the bill a second look before giving him his change.

Myst sat down at a table to eat his soup before it got cold, trying to figure out what his next step was, mostly because he didn't want to get stuck on the street in the middle of the night in December and his cash wouldn't last more than a couple of days at best. He reached over and grabbed a newspaper off the next table. 'Brockton Bay Gazette, Sunday, December 19th, 2010. That means Taylor probably hasn't triggered. Do I want to screw with things and let her know that Sophia's a cape so she ends up with something better? You're screwing with the girl that saved multiple worlds.'

'So?' he asked himself, fairly sure the only reason Taylor managed to pull off a win was because of bullshit plot armor, luck and timing. 'I'm not letting her get stuffed in a locker with shit if I can help it,' he assured himself as he worked on eating his soup. 'You're stuck in Worm for at least a couple of months, you need to stop reacting and start thinking.'

He continued eating as he tried to organize his thoughts. 'Long term, I need to build the most powerful gang in the city, that means dealing with Lung and the Empire. Short term, I need a smartphone or a laptop so I can poke around PHO and do some research. Library? It's worth a shot, my license can probably fake a library card well enough to grab a computer.'

'That means I can probably grab Taylor's phone number and give her a heads up about Shadow Stalker and the locker. What else do I need to look up? Hotels, capes, property the city would sell for cheap if someone would clean it up? Stop thinking like a hero, start thinking like a villain! Can you make a power to steal a base?'

'Stranger power? Master ability? I don't have any energy left today, tomorrow? Okay, better question, what do I need to use my energy pool to create tomorrow?' he asked himself as he finished his soup, knowing he should plan out what to use his power for now that he wasn't in shock. 'Can I make something that decreases the time it takes to recharge?'

'It's worth a shot, worst case, it doesn't work and I waste my energy for a day,' he mused as he stood up and walked over to the trash can where he could see a bunch of other plastic and paper containers through the hole in the top of the trash can. 'Waste not, want not,' he told himself as he focused on his backpack and the containers in the trash and upgraded it, causing the level of trash to drop and his backpack to improve.

He smiled at an older woman sitting at one of the tables. "I'm from out of town, can you tell me where the library is?"

"Five blocks," the woman replied as she pointed at the wall.

"Thanks," Myst replied as he turned and headed for the door. 'I have enough for a hotel room, maybe two if I can find something reasonable. Worst case, I can sign up with the PRT and become a hero for a couple of weeks while I get some training, best case I find a stash house and steal everything without anyone seeing me.'

"Best of luck…" he muttered, trailing off as he realized that luck was exactly what he needed. 'You can enchant things, pull a Scrooge McDuck, lucky dime? Or a lucky penny? Twenty cents to upgrade, five upgrades to a dollar, how many times would I need to upgrade it to have enough luck that I can beat the house at black jack or poker?'

'If nothing else, a bit of luck never hurt,' he mused as he left the reasonably warm store and stepped into the cold. 'I wonder if consuming a bunch of rain jackets would increase the wind resistance?' he mused as he headed towards the library.

He made it two blocks when he saw an artifact of the past at a gas station that made him stop in his tracks, an honest to god payphone and it looked like it had a phonebook. He glanced around to make sure he wasn't going to get hit by a car then hustled across the street and over to the pay phone. He quickly opened the phonebook to the white pages and looked up Danny Hebert's number.

He pulled a quarter out of his pocket and fed it to the machine after checking to make sure it was working and dialed the number, figuring he'd leave a message on the answering machine.

"Hebert residence," Danny answered after the second ring.

"Is this Taylor's house?" Myst asked, wanting to make sure he had the right house.

"Are you a friend of hers?" he asked.

"Close enough, I don't have much time but give her a message, Sophia Hess is Shadow Stalker which is why the school won't do anything about her or Emma's harassment," Myst told him.

"Who? Emma?" Danny asked.

"Emma went nuts because of the ABB while Taylor was at camp, just tell Taylor that Sophia is a cape and that her locker is filled with biohazardous shit and that she should look into homeschooling," Myst told him.

Danny scowled as Taylor walked into the living room. "If this is a joke."

"It's not a joke, I know a precog. Sophia has been phasing through the locker. She's going to lock Taylor in her locker the first day back from break unless things change," Myst warned him.

"Why hasn't the school stopped them?" Danny demanded, not sure what to think.

"Sophia is a ward, which is why the principal is hiding shit, she doesn't want to lose her funding," Myst told him then ended the call, hoping for the best. 'You tossed the first stone into the pond and probably doomed multiple worlds, how do you feel?'

Myst considered the question as he continued walking down the street towards the library. 'Screw it, I'm not going to try to dance on raindrops to avoid changing things, I can't.'

He made it another block before he spotted a pawn shop with a confederate flag in the window. 'Just because he has a flag in the window doesn't mean he's a nazi, doesn't mean he's not either,' he admitted when he walked past the glass door and saw a man in his fifties or early sixties with a shaved head and obvious gang tattoos behind the counter.

'You'd think someone would put a rock through his window. Then again, they have a bunch of capes, it's probably just easier to ignore them,' Myst admitted as he continued walking towards the library after glancing at the sign stuck to the door that displayed the store's hours.

0o0o0

Myst wasn't sure how to feel about how easy it was to print a copy of the city map thanks to the Brockton Bay thread on the PHO boards, complete with current gang markers and warnings about places to avoid. 'Okay, the docks are controlled by the Dockworkers and the ABB, the Empire controls part of the business district but they're a bit less blatant about it and the Merchants are scattered all over, that tracks with what I remember.'

He sat back down and ran a search for the Undersiders, not particularly surprised that he couldn't find much. 'Okay, let's try something else,' he mused as he ran a search for Brockton Bay school technology sale.

Myst grinned when he found an old link about a technology sale which had the address for the school district's outdated technology and electronics storage room. 'Three cheers for lazy public employees that don't clean up websites.' He marked the location on his map then ran a search for closed down businesses in Brockton Bay.

He was a bit surprised that it only took a couple of minutes of poking through links to find a list of failed businesses. 'Abandoned amusement park? I guess it never came up in the story. Closed bowling alleys, restaurants, shops by the dozens, old banks, warehouses, factories and rotting storage units that the city ruined with various laws to fight drug dealers. 'At least it's not Gotham, then again, at least Gotham has Wayne Tech,' he mused as he marked down some of the areas on his map so he could take a look when he had time.

He pulled up another page and ran a search for Brockton Bay city records. He typed in defaulted property warehouses in the search bar and started trying to figure out which locations to hit that might have things he wanted or places he could purchase for a steal once he had a decent amount of money.

0o0o0

"Five minutes until closing!" the librarian called out.

Myst glanced at the clock on the computer, noting that it was actually seven minutes until nine but figured he'd been sitting and taking notes long enough that he wasn't going to complain about leaving a couple of minutes early, especially since he'd swapped back to reading about the local capes and the endbringers, wanting to make sure he hadn't landed somewhere that only vaguely resembled the original story.

He stuffed his map into his notebook then stuffed his notebook in his bag and headed for the exit, having come up with something approaching a plan while he was reading up on the city's capes on the off chance that the world didn't match the story he remembered. Thankfully, or not depending on how you looked at it, the capes seemed to match up other than a couple of low powered independent capes that hadn't shown up by name in the story.

Myst shivered as he walked out of the library and the cold hit him in the face, reminding him that it was towards the end of December and that he really needed to grab a pair of gloves. He stuck his hands in his pockets and continued walking towards the hotel, wanting to grab a room before he grabbed something to eat.

Thankfully, it wasn't hard to grab a room at the three story hotel, mostly because he was paying cash and the manager was more interested in playing some type of RPG on his laptop than doing his job. He wasn't going to complain. He headed over to the Burger King next door and grabbed a meal then headed back to the hotel. He wasn't particularly impressed by the quality of the room but the sheets looked and smelled clean so he wasn't going to try to find something else considering the room had heat and it had only cost him thirty dollars.

He turned on the television, took his boots off and worked on eating his food while he watched the news, mostly because it beat staring at the wall. After he finished eating and listening to a fluff piece about holiday cheer, he started flipping through the channels, looking for something reasonably inoffensive to pass the time until he could fall asleep.

He stopped flipping channels when he saw a busty girl in purple spandex with a ray gun shooting at a teenager in a bright costume that was obviously some sort of tinker or mad scientist from the way he was dressed. "Close enough," he muttered as he dropped the remote on the bed. He glanced at the door then glanced at the chair.

"I don't care if I'm being paranoid," he muttered as grabbed the chair and walked over to the door. He wedged the plastic and metal chair under the handle then walked back over to the bed and crawled in, fairly sure he'd eventually get tired enough to drift off.

He'd almost managed to drift off when his energy pool refilled, causing him to wake up the rest of the way. He glanced at the clock on the wall. 'Eleven fifty seven, yeah, it's probably off by three minutes.'

Myst looked at his gold ring, focused on what he wanted and pushed energy into it, trying to decrease the amount of time it took to recharge his well of power. He stopped when he felt the energy settle, leaving him with enough energy for a few minor enchantments to something else as long as he limited things to minor enchantments. 'This would be so much easier with a heads up display.'

He reached over and grabbed his coat. He fished the keychain out of the pocket and focused on a silvery key and pushed his magic into it, giving it the ability to change shape to match the lock it was inserted into. 'That should make getting into places without breaking things easier.'

Myst pulled a penny out of his pocket and poured half of his remaining energy into it, focusing on making it increase his luck as long as it had it on him. He reached down, grabbed his bag and fished his sunglasses out. He poured half of the energy into improving his bag with weight reduction and the rest of the energy into enchanting the sunglasses to give him the basics of a game system that would put numbers to his power and let him see magic.

Myst put the glasses on and looked at his ring, smiling when he saw the floating text over the ring, 'Ring of protection +4, Decreases daily charge time by 1 minute.' He looked at the penny he'd enchanted. 'Increases luck by a small amount.' His gaze jumped to the key. 'Fits any similarly sized door lock?' He looked at the backpack, not sure how he felt about the fact that it only reduced the weight by a pound. 'I'll just have to keep upgrading them.'

'I should get some sleep, or I could toss my costume on and rob a pawn store,' he mused, wondering if that was how most of the capes felt when they first got their powers. 'Screw it, it's twelve o'clock, it's close to freezing and there's a bar two doors down from the pawn shop, no point in getting into trouble before I have all of my gear set up.'

He set his sunglasses on the nightstand along with the key chain then dropped his bag on the floor and tried to drift off.

0o0o0

Myst was fairly sure he'd drifted off eventually but he couldn't tell you how long, mostly because he'd been drifting in and out. He'd eventually gotten up and decided to hell with trying to sleep because the people next door had started fucking like rabbits or woodpeckers, judging by the way the headboard was banging against the wall. He glanced at the clock on the wall. '4:07, yeah, fucking assholes,' he grumbled as he moved the chair away from the door.

He left the hotel, closing the door behind him and headed down the stairs, making an effort to avoid looking at the only camera that covered the stairs as he left without making it look intentional, mostly by having his head down and sort of walking like he was half asleep which wasn't far off all things considered. Thankfully, there were vanishingly few people walking around at just after four in the middle of winter, probably because it was cold and miserable as it started drizzling, making him consider scrapping the entire plan.

Myst slipped into an alley half a block from his target and slipped his mask and jester's cap on, fairly sure he was crazy and also rather glad that it didn't have bells on it. 'What the fuck are you doing? You should be asleep, what are you going to do if Hookwolf shows up? Ask him nicely not to kill you and hope to fuck he doesn't like the asshole running the shop.'

He checked his slightly worn out gloves then straightened his shoulders and walked back out of the alley, hoping to hell all of the heroes and villains were in bed like sane people. He stopped in front of the shop and focused on the door and the two windows above the door. He boosted the main display window, causing the glass on the door to vanish, then stepped through the door and looked at the security system on the wall, sighing in relief when he noticed it hadn't even twitched. 'Looting nazis is a time honored tradition.'

Myst quickly walked over to the display case that had the rings in it, glad that the track lights were enough to see by. He focused on the case filled with silver rings and upgraded his own ring five times then swapped to the gold rings, upgrading his ring another three times before he ran out of rings.

He glanced between the door to the backroom, the front door and the doors on the ammo closets and upgraded the front door, causing the other doors to vanish. He headed into the back room and grinned when he saw a laptop plugged into a large monitor that looked like a decent gaming system. 'Not your lucky day.' He glanced at the wires coming out of the wall that ran into a security system then walked over and disconnected the system and stuffed it in his bag, wanting to make sure there wasn't any evidence.

He disconnected the laptop and rushed back into the other room and started boosting it, consuming the rest of the electronics on the shelves, including forty smartphones. He put the laptop in his bag then glanced at the rather impressive collection of guns on the walls. 'Sorry, not sorry.'

He selected a shotgun that could hold nine shells and started upgrading it, gleefully consuming the rest of the guns in the shop, wanting to make sure they had less of an armory and wanting a way to deal with Lung and Hookwolf if he ran into them. He pulled the shotgun off the wall then grabbed the nicest handgun and did the same, figuring it was easier than stealing everything.

He checked the pistol for ammo then put it in his bag and hurried over to the section of the shop devoted to biker leather and bulletproof vests and started upgrading a decent set of 'armor', figuring fairly sure that was as close as he was going to get. 'I'm never going to get everything, just get the armor, grab the ammo and check for a safe.'

He spent the next two minutes, boosting his backpack with the purses on the wall and boosting a portable gun safe/carrier to unreasonable levels, leaving two of them that he hauled into the back room. A bit of searching found a safe behind a large mechanic's tool box. He boosted his gun safe, causing the contents to spill out on the floor, mostly stacks of cash but also some rather expensive gold watches that he tossed in his bag.

"What the fuck?" someone asked from the front of the shop, causing Myst's heart to skip a couple of beats.

'Fuck!' Myst quickly left through the back door, carefully shutting it behind him then started running down the alley, glad that he'd upgraded his boots as they were fairly quiet. 'Don't stop, don't stop, just run!' he told himself as he continued running. He glanced around to see if anyone had noticed him and found the street empty. He pulled his mask off and continued running.