Boosted Villainy Part 18 (Patreon)

Rebecca Costa-Brown wasn't sure what to think about the cape sitting on one of the officer's desks, mostly because things weren't lining up. She'd only caught wind of his healing spree because she'd set up alerts to notify her of any new healers and because the same report had flagged him as possibly having some tech that could nullify powers. 'This would be easier if Contessa wasn't in Mexico dealing with a cape that could turn into a problem if given enough time.'

She paused when the cape wearing a santa hat glanced her way and froze in the middle of taking a sip of his apple juice, making her wonder if he recognized her despite her different makeup, hair style and the eyepatch she was wearing to conceal her unnatural looking wound or if he had some method of detecting capes because her injuries and appearance shouldn't have resulted in him nearly choking on his drink.

Myst swallowed, glad that he hadn't inhaled his juice when he'd recognized Alexandria. 'Is this luck or does she check out every new healer?' he asked himself as he used Taylor's power to copy her, more than a bit surprised when it actually worked as she was supposed to be sort of time locked. 'Keep your eye on the hispanic girl with the eye patch, let me know if she starts to leave.'

'On it,' S. Vicky replied as she scanned the crowd, spotting the young woman in question after a couple of seconds, mostly because there weren't a lot of people with eyepatches and the only other hispanic looking person with an eyepatch was male and at least fifty.

Rebecca glanced at the female cape sitting on a desk that was in the process of improving a police officer's night vision or at least that was what she was assuming from the writing on the whiteboard behind her. 'Basic and night vision enhancement, improved reflexes, denser muscles, bone enhancement and general tweaks to make you more effective. If this doesn't turn into another Teacher situation, we'll have to see if she'll do the same for PRT agents.'

She glanced at the donation box sitting under a whiteboard that someone had written, 'Donations appreciated, not required!' on. She watched as a man's legs were completely regenerated less than a second after Myst tapped his hand with his right hand. 'There has to be a catch,' she told herself, trying to figure out how his power worked and coming up short. She stepped up, fairly sure that his power would fail, just like the rest of the healers they'd tried over the years.

Myst smiled as he reached out, touched Alexandria's hand and quickly started copying her enhanced memory and flight. "I'd make a running with scissors joke, but that would probably be in poor taste."

"Wouldn't be the first time I've heard it," Rebecca admitted, a bit disappointed that it hadn't worked, until she felt the change washing over her body, leaving her feeling pain free for the first time in years and letting her see light from around the edges of her eyepatch. She reached up and took the eyepatch off with her free hand, shocked that he'd actually managed to heal her despite her powers and that her eye seemed to work perfectly. "Thank you," she blurted, finding her usual composure gone and not caring in the least, if only because she wasn't Alexandria right now, just a young lady that had gotten half of her sight restored.

"You're welcome. If you don't mind my asking, how did you lose your eye?" Myst asked, trying to distract her long enough to finish copying the two powers he thought he could get away with copying.

"Running with scissors," Rebecca lied, not surprised that he didn't seem to believe her. "Joking aside, I had it ripped out by an insane parahuman."

"Sorry," Myst offered and pulled his hand back once he managed to copy her flight.

"It wasn't your fault," Rebecca said as she stepped to the side so she wouldn't be holding up the line. "How long have you been doing this?"

"This is the first time I've done anything this large but I had Panacea check my work to make sure it wouldn't hurt anyone so I wouldn't worry about side effects," Myst told her.

"Always good to check," Rebecca agreed as she pulled her wallet out and stuffed most of the bills into the donation box, keeping a twenty for ice cream and a slice of cheesecake as she felt like celebrating. She glanced at the other Santa hat wearing cape that was improving vision, wondering if she should push her luck.

'Worst case, they figure out I'm a random parahuman that it doesn't work on. Best case, my vision gets better,' she told herself as she got in the other line, wondering if she was being reckless or if she was just ecstatic because the pain was gone for the first time in over a decade.

'We need to grab a mid tier brute so we can hand out durability without worrying about creating warlords,' S. Rose thought as she used Myst's left power copying and granting glove to give the officer she was helping a copy of Lightstar's night vision. "That should do it."

'Do you want me to take a bathroom break and copy the Butcher's durability?' Myst asked, not particularly sure that he wanted to give a bunch of cops a brute package without actually vetting each officer and he didn't feel like sticking around long enough to do the job right.

'Probably not,' S. Rose admitted, knowing that statistically at least a few of the cops were probably crooked or at least people she wouldn't want running around with a brute package as it would just encourage bad behavior.

"Thank you," the officer replied as he headed for the exit, figuring the officers would want some help directing traffic as things had grown a bit larger than they'd been expecting because someone had hired Strider to start grabbing officers from around the country. Sure, they'd probably have to find their own way home but that was a small price to pay for having all of their old injuries and a lifetime of questionable food choices wiped away like they'd never happened.

"You're welcome," S. Rose told him as she moved to the next person, wishing Rose was there to share the experience. 'This is what being a hero is supposed to be like, helping people.'

'Yep,' Myst agreed. 'I'm just glad I don't have to focus on the changes or on making sure I don't make a mistake.'

'It would take some of the fun out of it,' S. Rose agreed as she gave the next cop night vision.

‘Fuck you both,’ S. Amy complained, mentally making a note to have them do something nice for her original self for that thought.

Myst was just glad that he'd decided to wear his sunglasses when he spotted a man in the line that he was almost positive was Accord thanks to the description of his powers, his general height of lack of it and the fact that the young blonde woman next to him also had powers. He used Taylor's power to copy the new capes. 'Why are you here?'

'I talked to the Travelers when they got back. They seemed more relaxed so I called Coil and asked some questions. I figured it was worth trying,' the shadow clone of Accord explained.

'I'm surprised you're not flipping out considering the number of people,' Myst replied as he healed another person that was walking with a cane.

'I used some tinkertech drugs to keep myself calm,' S. Accord admitted. 'Unfortunately it leaves me walking in a daze and unable to get any work done.'

'Makes sense,' Myst replied with a smile as a young girl with half her face covered in burns stepped up holding a stuffed lion in a death grip in one hand and her father's hand in the other. "Hello."

"Hi?" the girl offered as she looked up at the tall cape that was sitting on the sergeant's desk.

Jason smiled at his daughter. "Hold out your hand Becca."

Becca held her hand out. "Will it hurt?"

"Nope," Myst replied as he tapped her hand with his ring and healed her, erasing her injuries and leaving her perfectly healthy. "That didn't hurt, did it?"

Becca looked down at her previously scarred hand and stared when she saw healthy skin and no trace of scars. "Thank you!"

"You're welcome," Myst assured her, then smiled at the girl's father. "Let me see your hand."

"I'm not injured," Jason told him.

"It's free and doesn't require any effort on my part," Myst told him.

"I've seen the chili dogs you eat, give him your hand or your arteries are going to rebel and choke you," one of the officers teased.

Jason held his hand out. "Thanks."

Myst healed him with a smile. "Don't worry about it, Merry Christmas."

"Right back at ya," Jason replied.

"Can I get night vision?" Becca asked hopefully.

"It's free," Myst told her with a smile.

"Sure," Jason said as he led her towards the end of the other line, glad that the cape in charge hadn't objected.

Myst took a second to shift and move his shoulders then went back to healing, wanting to get through the next couple of people efficiently before Accord lost his marbles and they had an incident.

S. Rose smiled at the hispanic young lady that Myst had mentioned. "Dark vision and visual upgrades or just dark vision?"

"Just dark vision," Rebecca replied, not expecting it to work.

S. Rose reached out with her left hand and gave the woman a copy of Lightstar's dark vision, silently counting to five as the progress bar filled. "That should do it."

"How long does it last?" Rebecca asked.

"It will probably get worse as you get older just like normal eyesight, but it should last the rest of your life," S. Rose assured her.

"On second thought, I'll take the vision upgrade," Rebecca said as she stepped over to the other cape's line.

S. Amy frowned as she touched the woman and found that her power didn't let her manipulate her biology. 'Myst, I'm going to need you to zap her. Just give me a minute.' She grabbed her notepad and scribbled a quick note, 'We'd need to nullify your powers for a minute if you want me to improve your eyes, do you want me to remove your leg hair while I'm at it?' She guessed that Alexandria had gained her powers while she had a couple of days worth of stubble on her legs and it had been preserved by the timeless quality that made her invulnerable.

Rebecca read the note, ready to refuse until she got to the part about the leg hair. "How?"

"Tinkertech," S. Amy replied.

"Is it safe?" Rebecca asked, not particularly comfortable with the idea of anyone having the ability to shut her powers down.

"Safe enough," S. Amy assured her as she walked over to Myst's desk.

"What do we need to do?" Rebecca asked.

Myst pulled his remote out of his inventory and subtly pointed it at Alexandria before he pushed the power button. ‘It’s done.’

Rebecca felt a bit weird as moving seemed to take actual effort and her thoughts seemed to be moving in slow motion, much like they'd been before she'd received her powers. 'How the fuck?! Not even Eidolon managed to pull that off.'

S. Amy smiled as she upgraded the woman's vision and took care of all of her body hair. "That should do it."

Myst pushed the power button, restoring her powers. He put the remote back in his inventory before someone decided to steal it and went back to healing people, fairly sure Alexandria was going to have some questions for them.

Rebecca blinked a couple of times as her powers were restored and she realized that her vision was a lot better than it used to be, which was rather impressive considering her vision had been near 'perfect' before she'd acquired powers. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," S. Amy said with a smile, happy that she was getting to do more than merely heal people. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas," Rebecca offered with a smile, surprised to find that she meant it before she made her way towards the exit, bursting with questions but knowing better than to ask in front of a bunch of people. 'Maybe they can fix the case 53's, we'll have to check.'

Myst tapped Citrine's hand when she offered it, healing her. "There."

"Thank you," Citrine said then stepped out of the way so Accord could step up.

Myst tapped Accord's hand and healed him, causing the drugs to vanish from his system along with his OCD and a number of physical issues. "That should do it."

Accord blinked as he went from feeling half asleep and out of it to being wide awake and feeling exceptionally lucid, especially when he realized that being in the middle of a crowd of random strangers didn't bother him anymore. "Thank you."

"You're welcome, Merry Christmas," Myst told him as he recopied him so that he'd have a sane assistant.

Accord dropped a check in the donation box then headed for the other line, feeling fantastic and making a note to send the rest of his people through the line before the capes left.

0o0o0

"I've got to talk to my other self about accepting donations," S. Amy said as she finished counting the eight thousand seven hundred and sixty nine dollars that they'd managed to collect for three hours of work. "Even if we ignore the cashier's check from the rich guy, we got a bit less than nine thousand dollars."

"And that was just people emptying their pockets, imagine actually scheduling things so they'd know ahead of time, everyone there would have probably dropped a couple of hundred if we'd given them the chance," S. Rose told her.

"How do you want to split the money?" Myst asked, less concerned about the money than the fact that he'd managed to help a bunch of people.

"I wouldn't object to sending Amy half of my share if I could figure out a way to give it to her without causing trouble," S. Amy said.

"Stick it in the mail in an envelope with a note that says 'Thanks for the healing, Merry Christmas!' and no return address. As long as it's under a thousand dollars and cash, I doubt they'd go to a lot of trouble to track the people down," S. Rose suggested.

"You'd have to be crazy," C. Squealer said from the driver's seat.

"I'm keeping my share, Vicky has Dean and it's not like we can slip her an envelope filled with cash without raising questions," S. Vicky said.

S. Rose snickered. "That's almost a reason to do it, 'Hey Vicky, thanks for the fun last night!' sounds like the sort of letter that would cause Carol to explode."

Myst shook his head.

"Let's not complicate Amy's life," S. Amy complained, knowing Carol would probably take out her frustrations on Amy.

"Speaking of complicating things, are you going to share Accord's power?" S. Rose asked.

Myst shook his head. "I wasn't planning on it, I don't really trust the boost as it makes you fixate on things. I'd rather just make a shadow copy of Accord and let him work on the project then send the project to someone sane to break it down and figure out how to get a bunch of monkeys to implement it in a reasonable fashion."

"We'd probably need multiple groups to rip the projects apart," S. Rose agreed. "Are you still planning on dealing with Winslow?"

Myst smiled as he thought about destroying the place that would have made Saint Trinians cry foul. "It's Christmas, no one should be there at five something in the morning, it's a perfect time to deal with the blight."

"You could always just repair it," S. Amy suggested.

"I'm not a huge fan of brainwashing people and it’s not the physical condition of the school that’s the problem, the problem is the people involved, besides if it vanished it should give the district time to sort through the teachers and figure something out," Myst replied, fairly sure fixing the physical structure wouldn't do anything to fix the actual rot in the school.

"It just seems like a massive expense the city doesn't need," S. Vicky argued.

"I have a feeling the school board is going to shit a brick when they realize the school is gone but honestly, they had plenty of chances to improve things and they didn't. Having a ward can't possibly net the school enough money a year to matter, not on the scale that Blackwell was pulling shit. So yeah, I find myself less concerned than I probably should be," Myst admitted, fairly sure that he could extract the money required to build a new school from the gangs.

"I'm just glad that Amy goes to Arcadia," S. Amy said.

"Yep," Myst agreed with a yawn. "As much fun as continuously healing myself to stay awake would be, I probably should grab a couple of hours of actual sleep."

"Get in bed, I'll knock you out," S. Amy offered.

"I thought smashing things was my job," S. Vicky said cheerfully, as Myst kicked off his shoes and laid down.

S. Amy turned to look at her sister and realized she was just messing with her. "Have lesbian sex with your twin later, we’re about to vanish as he passes out anyway.”

S. Rose chuckled. “I’d offer to climb into bed with you, but sadly I am just a shadow clone too and thus will pass from this life-”

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” C. Squealer said as she started up the RV, “you guys hang out in his head and get resummoned, it ain’t dying when you have return tickets.”

“I was trying to guilt him into a quickie, stop being a cock blocker,” S. Rose complained.

“I thought it was referred to as beaver damming?” S. Victoria offered.

S. Amy just reached over and knocked Myst out, causing them all to vanish.

“Finally, a little peace and quiet,” C. Squealer said as she turned on the radio and then cranked it to max volume. “Metallica is the shit!”

Myst slept on undisturbed, S. Amy having put him into a deep sleep.

0o0o0

"Are you sure about this?" S. Rose asked as she stared at the school they were floating a couple of hundred feet above.

"Not really," Myst admitted as he pulled his remote out of his inventory, "but there's a certain amount of momentum when it comes to problems like Winslow. Even if I dealt with the administration, the students would take years to change." He concentrated on the type of world he wanted and pushed the button, opening a portal to a ruined city.

S. Vicky frowned when she saw the ruined city through the portal that looked to have been knocked flat in some places and tossed into piles in others. "Leviathan?"

"Probably just a tidal wave considering the endbringers should be limited to Earth Bet," Myst replied as he moved his hand to the right a bit and opened another portal.

"Looks like someone torched Winslow," S. Rose said, looking at the building that looked to have been partially gutted by flames.

S. Vicky shook her head. "You're way too enthusiastic about this."

"You never went there," S. Rose replied, thinking about some of her less pleasant memories of the place.

"I doubt they'll miss it," Myst said as he moved the remote and pushed the button again, revealing a city filled with lights and what looked suspiciously like hover cars floating over the snow covered streets. "Huh."

"Tinkertech?" S. Rose asked thoughtfully, wishing they were a bit closer.

"Not unless they found someone that could mass produce it," Myst said as he gestured at each of the portals and cleaned and repaired the schools, pleased that the latest boost to the gloves had increased their power.

"Is there a reason you're repairing things before you destroy them?" S. Rose asked.

"I wanted to make sure they had enough weight to count," Myst replied as he focused on the school in the last portal.

"We need a countdown," S. Vicky suggested.

"Three, two, one…" S. Rose trailed off as Myst gestured, causing hundreds of desks, books, shelves, computers and miscellaneous equipment to crash to the ground when three of the four schools vanished without a trace.

S. Vicky glanced between the portals and the pit in the ground they were floating over. "It feels like we should be playing taps or something."

"Or something," Myst replied as he pushed the last of his 'enchanting' energy into boosting the remote's menu button so he had the ability to save and load the destination of portals. He saved the destination of the portals then closed them, looking forward to exploring their worlds at a later date.

"Do you think we can make better chemistry equipment by boosting it after we repair it?" S. Rose asked thoughtfully as they flew down to start looting and boosting things.

"It's worth a shot," Myst replied as he glanced around the pit filled with broken desks, shelves and everything that didn't count as the building, which was basically everything you could 'easily' move.

"How long do you think we have before the police show up?" S. Vicky asked as she adjusted her ski mask.

"Anywhere from five minutes to a couple of hours when someone calls it in," Myst replied as he gestured and repaired a broken line of computers, figuring he'd get a couple of halfway decent systems and some lab equipment out of it before they had to leave.

"I’m surprised Amy didn’t want to come along, she always said Winslow was a hole and now it is one," S. Vicky said, surprised that Amy hadn't wanted to help or at least laugh at them while they searched through the wreckage.

"She was working on a card for Amy," Myst replied absently as he focused on one of the computers and used three similar models to boost it. "You can ask her when she finishes."

"Sounds good," S. Rose said as she worked on boosting a physics book, curious if she could improve the quality or at least the organization of the book. "We should buy some science and engineering books from the world with hover cars."

"That's a good plan," Myst agreed as he put the boosted computer in his inventory. "I'm still trying to decide if cornering the market on hover cars or if just sending a copy of the tech to the various car companies and seeing what they come up with is more amusing."

"Considering the legal hassles the companies could toss our way, I suggest making a prototype and sending the information to Ford, Mercedes, BMW and Tesla for free. Just make them sign a contract that states they won't reveal how much they paid and that you had a bad experience with Chevy and getting parts for some foreign cars to justify it then you can watch the rest of the car companies scramble to purchase the tech and Ford will make damned sure they can profit from it," S. Rose suggested.

"Assuming it's something they can build, it's worth a try," Myst agreed as he boosted another computer, not seeing a problem with shaking the auto industry up and tapping into their pool of artists and engineers. "We could probably do the same with the medical industry."

"You'd be better off making a deal with an already existing company, the rules for starting up a drug company are messy and complicated," S. Vicky warned her as she boosted a chemistry book, thinking about things her sister had complained about.

"I'll swing by a law firm and make some shadow copies when I get a chance, they'd probably have a good idea where to start," Myst replied as he stuck the boosted computer in his inventory and boosted the next one, causing another three computers to vanish.

"Less talking, more working," S. Rose suggested as she worked on boosting one of the student desks, mostly because she was curious if she could get a better design.

"Yes boss," Myst teased sarcastically as he picked up the pace.

0o0o0

Amy did her best to ignore the cold gust of wind that hit her face as she unlocked and opened the mailbox. "This could have waited until the coffee was done," she complained as she reached in and grabbed the small stack of envelopes that they'd forgotten to grab the day before then closed the door and pocketed the mailbox key.

She flipped through the letters as she headed back to the house on the off chance that someone had sent her something that made it past the company that Carol used to keep people from overwhelming their mailbox with thank you cards and paused when she found a fat envelope with her name on it. 'No return address, just Amy and our address.'

She opened the envelope and stared when she saw a decent amount of cash and a card. She pulled the card out and stared at the pair of busty nearly naked ribbon-covered blonde ladies that kinda resembled her sister that were tied up with Christmas lights, their arms tied behind them, their legs to the chairs legs and everything interesting covered by strategically placed ribbons and bows. She glanced at the plates of cookies sitting on the end table between the twins and the note by the cookies. 'Dear Santa, we figured cookies and milk weren't enough this year to get on your nice list so you can borrow our older sisters.'

Amy smiled as she opened the card and read the note, 'Merry Christmas Panacea, thank you for all of the healing you've done. No clue on the handwriting, no return address. Yeah, I don't think I'm going to be showing Carol this one,' she mused as she counted the cash, fairly sure she'd insist on her donating it and making a public statement about it. 'Okay, the new Carol might let me keep it, but she'd probably freak out about the card.'

She put the card back in the envelope with the cash then stuck it in her coat and headed back towards the house with a spring to her steps.