Boosted Villainy Part 8 (Patreon)

Myst knelt down on a piece of cardboard in the mall parking lot and used a touch of his energy to boost the last shock absorber on the RV so that it would absorb impact and help reduce the weight of the vehicle. "That should make the ride smoother. The potholes around here are still insane."

"Wouldn't upgrading the shocks do the same thing?" Taylor asked.

"I'm planning on upgrading the internal volume which means we're going to be putting far more weight on the frame than it was designed to handle, I want something to compensate for that and it barely took any energy. Upgrading it will make it even more effective," Myst said as he grabbed the piece of cardboard and got to his feet.

"Not to mention it's practice, right?" Rose asked with amusement.

"Pretty much," Myst replied as he pushed some energy into another set of work gloves, giving them the ability to repair minor damage to objects. He added a cleaning power then pushed the rest of his energy into boosting his gloves so he could grab up to two powers from a person, using the rest of his energy. "These should let us clean and repair things, once they're upgraded."

"Any idea what I'm supposed to tell my father if I clean and repair everything?" Taylor asked, thinking about the broken step leading up to the house.

"Just tell him that you got into the holiday cleaning spirit," Myst suggested, not particularly worried about Danny finding out that Taylor was a cape.

Rose shook her head. "Most people don't actually notice changes or won't notice the extent unless they're blatantly obvious like new paint or carpet. Just telling him that you cleaned things, should take care of most of it."

"And the lamp?" Taylor asked.

"You ran into a rogue that repairs things at the mall, she only charges five dollars," Rose suggested as she held out her hand. "If you give me five dollars, you won't even be lying."

Taylor pulled her wallet out and handed Myst a five. "Rental for the gloves."

"Sure," Myst replied as he accepted the five. "We can upgrade the gloves after we grab Rose's check and do some shopping."

"Works for me," Taylor agreed. "Did you need to try to copy my other power?"

"Probably should," Myst agreed as he reached out and touched Taylor's hand. He selected mental improvement. "Huh, I can actually grab the mental improvement power…" he trailed off when he noticed that the progress bar wasn't moving or wasn't moving an appreciable amount. He looked at the gloves with his glasses. "Okay, five seconds for the first one, four hours for the second, yeah, I'm going to have to fix that."

"Might as well deal with it now," Rose pointed out, fairly sure she still had enough time to get her check before her ex-supervisor showed up.

Myst walked into the RV and grabbed the open box of gloves and boosted the gloves until he ran out then he opened the next box and boosted them until they didn't improve. "Okay, that lets us copy two powers, the first only takes five seconds and the second takes ten."

"Do you think the third would take fifteen or twenty?" Taylor asked thoughtfully.

Rose laughed. "Twenty, definitely twenty."

"Probably," Myst agreed as he worked on boosting the cleaning and repair gloves, burning through the gloves and improving the gloves until they could repair entire buildings before he reached the point where he'd need to push more power into them or find better things to upgrade them with. "Okay, you should be able to clean and repair entire buildings."

"Isn't that overkill?" Taylor asked.

"No such thing, there's only ‘it's dead’ or ‘I’m out of ammo and I need to reload," Rose said cheerfully.

"Close enough," Myst agreed as he handed the gloves to Taylor. "Let me see your hand for a second."

"Sure," Taylor replied as she held her hand out.

Myst selected the mental improvement power and watched the progress bar fill. "That's not what I was expecting, but it explains why we couldn't grab it by itself. When the shadows die they help the originals overcome any current mental issues they are suffering from and reduce the limitations the powers were given on initializing.”

"I guess that explains why I don't feel smarter, it's not a thinker power," Taylor said.

"More like a trump or blaster power," Rose said as Myst stepped out of the RV and locked the door. "Let's go pick up my check, window shop for an hour and leave."

Myst glanced at Taylor, noticing she didn't look particularly enthusiastic about spending that much time at the mall either. "Don't worry, if it gets too horrible, we'll just leave early."

"Sounds good," Taylor agreed as they followed Rose.

“You guys are no fun,” Rose complained.

0o0o0

"So much for getting here before her supervisor," Taylor muttered as she watched the slightly overweight man argue with Rose from the hallway.

"It was a nice theory," Myst replied. "I wasn't expecting him to be this petty but I guess she did kick him in the nuts."

"Ouch," Taylor said. "Was it deserved?"

"Deserved is such a strong word but he's obviously an asshole so I'm siding with Rose on this one," Myst said.

"In that case, let's make this easier," Taylor said as she activated her power and made a shadow copy of the guy. "What does she need to say to him to make it easy on herself?"

'He's screwing his wife's younger sister and there's probably evidence on last night’s recording of the parking lot," the supervisor's shadow offered.

'Text me that,' Rose’s shadow suggested giving her the number.

"That would be so much easier if I had a cell phone," Taylor grumbled.

"What would?" Myst asked.

"His shadow said that he was screwing his wife's younger sister in the parking lot last night and there was evidence on the security cameras," Taylor replied in a whisper.

"That makes this easy," Myst replied as he headed down the hallway to put a bug in Rose's ear.

"Not sure how that helps…" Taylor muttered as she watched Myst walk into the office.

'Fairly sure he'll just blackmail my original,' the shadow supervisor said.

'That seems a bit unethical,' Taylor replied as she watched Myst say something she couldn't make out and the man's face go pale.

'That's how the world works,' he replied.

Taylor smiled when the supervisor turned around and walked into the back room and came out with a check. 'That was easier than I thought it would be.' She frowned when the manager pulled his wallet out and handed Rose several bills.

'Yep, blackmail,' the shadow said smugly.

'That doesn't prove anything,' Taylor replied as Myst and a smiling Rose headed back out of the security office. "Better?"

"Yep, he was surprisingly reasonable once he realized we knew about his affair," Myst replied once they got back to where Taylor was standing.

Taylor glanced between Myst and Rose. "Did you blackmail him?"

Myst shrugged. "No, he just made a deal with Rose."

"He paid me two hundred and change and I wouldn't tell his wife about the affair," Rose replied cheerfully. "Nothing technically illegal about it."

'Of course the cameras will show him giving money to her which means he'll claim blackmail and slander if she tells his wife,' the shadow offered.

'You have flexible morals, don't you?' Taylor asked.

'The world isn't black and white,' the shadow replied.

'I'm pretty sure that cheating on your wife isn't a good thing,' Taylor replied as they headed back towards the main area.

'She cheated on me with her sister’s boyfriend first, they don't know we know but we figured it was a good way to even the scales,' he replied.

'Doesn't make it right,' Taylor replied.

'Doesn't make it wrong either, they set the rules, we're just following them. Besides, she's hot as hell,' the shadow replied with amusement.

Taylor shook her head. "Where to first?"

"Bank then the toy store," Rose suggested.

"Sure," Myst agreed, not in a hurry and hoping they ran into a cape.

0o0o0

Rose raised her eyebrows when Myst handed her a box of small plastic slinkies. "You realize these barely work, I remember them from science class."

"Not really a big deal, they're technically springs," Myst replied.

"Oh, right," Rose replied as she stuffed the box under her arm. "Put the bouncy balls down, we don't need to recreate the scene from Men in Black."

"It was hilarious," Myst replied with a smirk.

Rose shook her head. "It was chaotic."

"Hilariously chaotic," Myst argued.

"Until someone has to clean them up," Rose pointed out.

"Fine," Myst muttered as he put the bag of bouncy balls back on the table. "You might have a point, they're a bit too random."

Taylor glanced between the paintball guns and the glass cabinet filled with drones. "Do you think we could get a drone that shoots paintballs?"

"Nah, too many liability issues, someone would get shot then sue the manufacturer for encouraging stupidity. Personally, I think they should sue the parents that let irresponsible children have a fun toy but companies generally have more money," Rose explained.

"I might know a guy," Myst said thoughtfully as he wandered down the aisle, fairly sure Uber or Leet would love to modify a drone to shoot paintballs, especially if he boosted the motors and batteries. He picked up two large bags of cheap plastic rings for handing out at parties and stacked them in his basket. "Can you think of anything else?"

Rose glanced at the pack of bubble mix containers. "Let’s get some bubbles."

"You think they'd be useful?" Taylor asked thoughtfully.

"Nope, I just want to play with bubbles," Rose replied as she picked up a six pack.

"Makes sense," Myst replied as he added a pack to his basket. "We need twelve."

"Good point," Rose agreed as she dropped the pack in Myst's basket.

"Shouldn't we get some voice changers?" Taylor asked when she noticed a voice changer on display that was built into a silly plastic generic cape mask.

"That's a set up," Rose muttered. “Gullible new triggers scrambling to make a costume buy commercial products like that without thinking about it, but I can guarantee there are cameras pointed directly at that display and they track whoever buys them. Besides, we'd need to tweak them if we don't want the police to just run a program on any recording they make to unmask our voices."

"Isn't that entrapment?" Taylor asked.

"Entrapment requires law enforcement officers to encourage you to do something illegal, this is just invasive," Rose explained as they continued walking.

Myst frowned as he considered how many times he'd have to upgrade things to get something useful and how bulky they'd be compared to an enchanted mask and he was already going to have to enchant their masks if he wanted them to protect against various types of chemicals and powers. "I'm sure we can figure something out that doesn't involve looking like a knock off armsmaster."

"What's wrong with Armsmaster?" Taylor asked.

"We're supposed to get creative for the costume party," Myst said, subtly reminding her they were in public as they headed for the register.

"Okay," Taylor agreed, easily picking up his hint (even without the shadow of Rose’s former supervisor mentally explaining the reason for cape branding and why they all looked so different) wondering if someone had written a decent guide book for being a cape.

"Do you want to grab lunch here or pick it up?" Myst asked as they stopped at the end of the line.

"Considering the lines when we walked past the food court earlier and how soon it gets dark, we should grab something on the way so we can get to the scrapyard in a reasonable amount of time," Rose pointed out.

“I’ll tag along with you guys if you don’t mind,” Taylor added.

"Sounds good," Myst agreed.

"Speaking of toys, we need to hit Spencer's," Rose suggested.

"They have interesting things there," Taylor said, thinking of the plasma balls she'd seen the couple of times she'd checked it out.

"Sure," Myst agreed, figuring they had time.

Thankfully it didn't take all that long to pay for the toys they'd bought and get over to Spencer's.

"Body paint, nipple rings and fun things," Rose said cheerfully as they walked into the shop, causing Taylor to blush.

"Should I wait outside?" Taylor asked, hoping she didn't run into anyone from school.

'Live a little,' S. Rose told her.

"Of course not," Rose replied as she led them over to the section that had the 'back massagers' that didn't remotely look like something you'd use on your back. "How many of these do you  think it would take to melt me?"

"Pretty sure you only need one, you just need some skill and maybe some extra batteries,” Myst replied with amusement.

“I meant how many would we need to buy and consolidate to create a super toy that doesn’t disappoint?” she explained.

“I’m not sure increasing the power is the best way to go here,” he said with a frown as he tried to figure out how his power would alter it and if it would be physically hazardous. “We may want to hire someone to test it on before you use it.”

'I volunteer as tribute!' S. Rose exclaimed cheerfully inside Taylor's head.

Taylor shook her head, her face going red as she pictured S. Rose using it on herself.

0o0o0

"There were some concerns about our batsaber on one of our previous videos and I was finally able to repair it so I thought I'd give everyone a demonstration," Leet offered as Uber walked into the room wearing a rubber Elvis mask. "My dear friend Elvis has agreed to help me prove that I'm not a crook."

"What?" Uber asked as Leet activated the batsaber and hit him before he could retreat, mostly because the visibility in the Elvis mask was surprisingly bad. "Shit!"

"I am not a crook!" Leet said solemnly as he hit Uber a couple of times. "Don't worry, it's completely harmless."

"Not the face, not the face!" Uber screamed.

"Dude, we're recording," Leet complained.

Uber stood up and dusted himself off. "Right, sorry, I'm an actor. As you can see, I'm perfectly fine after Nixon's unprovoked, unprofessional, and completely ineffective attack."

"Unprofessional? I'll show you unprofessional," Leet replied as he hit Uber a couple more times before he turned the hard light hologram off. "Normally we wouldn't reveal how our tricks are done but the truth is, we paid those nice girls to take a fall."

"If we hadn't, they'd have kicked the shit out of Leet," Uber pointed out.

"That's… completely fair," Leet agreed. "Be kind to your local hookers, you might find yourself in need of local services and they're surprisingly good actresses."

"The fact that they’ve convinced you that your dick isn't microscopic is proof of that," Uber said.

"Excuse me a second. There can be only one!" Leet exclaimed as he turned the batsaber back on and chased Uber off the screen, figuring he'd edit in a technical difficulty screen later.

0o0o0

"Do we have a plan since the place closed down?" Taylor asked as she looked over her 'disposable' cell phone, not sure how she felt about it but glad that she had it so she could keep in touch.

Myst finished chewing his last bite of burger and swallowed it. "I just have to see the stuff which means we're fine."

"Isn't that stealing?" Taylor asked.

"The place has been abandoned, it's more like community service," Myst replied.

"Considering the price of metal or rust, it's not really worth enough to salvage, you can tell because even the Merchants don't bother going in there," Rose pointed out.

"Still feels weird," Taylor said as she put her phone in her pocket. "How many times do you think you can upgrade things before someone notices?"

"At least a couple," Myst replied, planning on clearing out a lot of wrecks since he wanted to make sure his RV wasn't totaled by a cape battle. "I doubt we'll find anything too useful."

"So no forgotten tinkertech labs or bunkers?" Rose teased.

"I doubt it," Myst replied as he looked out of the window at the pile of broken cars he could see through the chain link fence and started boosting the RV, causing multiple stacks of rusted out vehicles to vanish, the various odds and ends that had gotten lost inside them as well as any trash that had been shoved inside, raining to the ground where they had been.

Taylor looked around the interior of the RV, running her fingers along the wall. “It feels… almost the same. The material seems a little more solid, maybe a little smoother.”

“I’m not changing what it is, just the quality of it,” Myst replied as another section of vehicles vanished, opening up a good portion of the yard to view. "That looks like a broken Camaro, you want to repair it?"

"I'm pretty sure that would draw too much attention," Rose pointed out. “When I tried to register it they’d be able to trace it to this suddenly empty lot.”

"I was thinking about a S.E.P. field for a cape car, but it's probably more work than it's worth," Myst admitted as he boosted the RV again, causing the broken and rusted sports car to vanish along with nineteen other wrecks. He quickly went through the rest of the vehicles, only leaving four of them in the far corner. "Any working surveillance cameras should be long gone, let's take a look."

"What do you think we'll find?" Rose asked as they left the RV, after grabbing some plastic gloves to put on.

"Cash, drugs, lighters, luggage, mother in laws, pens and manuals," Myst replied, only mostly joking about the mother in law bit.

"Bodies?" Taylor asked warily.

"Probably a couple, it's Brockton Bay," Myst replied as they 'slipped' through a missing chunk of fencing. He swapped the power stealing gloves for the cleaning and repair gloves as they looked around at the mess scattered about where the stacks of cars had been.

Taylor stared at the collection of odds and ends. "You'd think they'd check what they're wrecking a bit better."

"The people crushing cars were generally considered on the ball if they made sure there weren't any children trapped inside when they crushed them," Myst replied as they walked around, looking for something interesting enough to salvage.

"Found a ring," Rose said cheerfully as she pulled the gloves on.

Myst smiled when he saw a silver plated lighter that had fallen to the ground. "Give me a second." He reached down, tapped the ground and unleashed the gloves' power on the lot, causing everything in the area to instantly repair and clean itself. He stared as the partially damaged boxes and bags reassembled themselves and everything got a lot cleaner, including the dirt, bits of glass, trash, oil and various vehicle fluids vanishing without a trace.

"I don't think I've seen happy meals like this since I was a kid," Taylor mused as she picked up one of the old happy meal boxes.

Rose grinned as she grabbed the silver ring she'd found and dropped it in a plastic bag that looked brand new. "If you find any beanie babies, grab them."

"Ninja turtles too," Myst suggested as he picked up the lighter.

"Just pick up all of the toys," Rose suggested.

"Sure," Myst replied as he glanced over the area at the various plastic lighters he could see and upgraded his new lighter, causing twenty of the newly repaired and cleaned disposable lighters to vanish and the silver lighter to improve, doubling in capacity and reducing the lighter fluid it needed in half. "If you find a decent pen, let me know."

"What counts as a nice pen and why are you bothering?" Taylor asked, surprised he'd care about a pen.

Myst smiled as he spotted a pen with multiple colors in it, fairly sure his lucky penny was influencing things or at least the order they found things in. "It's something to do and it cleans up the trash."

"I should just copy your power so I'd get practice," Taylor said.

Myst pulled the power copying gloves out of his pocket and handed them to Taylor. "Go for it."

Taylor pulled the gloves on then touched Myst's arm and copied his 'Let's Give It a Boost' power, rather happy with her new power when she got an idea what she could do with it. "It's not quite as efficient, it takes four items or thirty similar items but it's useful."

"Knock off powers are still powers," Myst replied as he picked up the pen with multiple colors in it and started boosting it, causing the cheap pens scattered around to vanish and improving his new pen by double.

Rose glanced over at the stack of old batteries by the office. "Do you think you could repair the batteries?"

"Probably enough to use them to boost the RV," Myst replied with a smile, looking forward to seeing how much they could push everything.

"Another ring," Taylor said cheerfully as she picked it up. "What are we going to do with all of the containers?"

"Find some clean luggage and boost them, we can probably find enough clothes to boost our clothes a couple of times which should help with staying comfortable," Myst said as he picked up a silver bracelet off the ground and tossed it in a cloth shopping bag. "I'm going to open the hood and boost the battery a few times. Maybe the fuel tank if I can find some extras."

"Sounds good," Rose replied as she grabbed another ring off the ground.