Mist of Shadows

Taylor and Marvel Madness Part 9

'Shit!' Taylor cursed in her head as she tossed herself sideways so she'd avoid clipping the edge of the skyscraper as she chased the other duplicate, going fast enough to make race car drivers twitch. 'You're insane!' she complained via telepathy.

'Blame Taylor,' Taylor replied via Telepathy as she used her Flight power to swing around a building and rocket towards the next building on her way towards the area she could feel Victor and Othala thanks to her Power Detection ability.

Taylor and Marvel Madness Part 8

"Do you want me to flip the lights on?" Taylor asked as she walked into the room where she'd teleported Glory Girl and Panacea.

Amy turned to look at the girl wearing white socks, BSU pants, a smiling theater mask and a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled up so that you couldn't see her hair. "It would certainly make it easier."

"Do you have a cape name?" Vicky asked as Taylor flipped the lightswitch and the LED lights in the ceiling turned on.

"I'm working on it," Taylor ...

Taylor and Marvel Madness Part 7

Leet watched the cat themed mech explode after Uber shot its fuel tank with a sniper rifle from halfway across the map. "Are you trying to get banned?"

"What? I wasn't even cheating," Uber replied as he lined up his character's next shot on a particularly annoying guy with a glider.

"There's no way most people could make that shot," Leet replied as he worked on sneaking into position.

"That sounds like a them problem," Uber replied smugly as he shot the man in the glider out...

Taylor and Marvel Madness Part 6

Taylor walked into the firing range and froze when she saw Sophia was being used for target practice. "What the fuck?!"

The duplicate stopped shooting the vaguely person shaped target and let the illusion drop when Taylor looked at her. "What?" she asked as she pulled off her earmuffs.

"What the fuck is wrong…" Taylor trailed off when she glanced back at the target area and realized that her duplicate was just shooting at a person shaped target dummy with a crystal plate strappe...

Taylor and Marvel Madness Part 5

Jessica giggled as she glanced around the PRT lobby, her feet only occasionally touching the ground. "This is so cool!"

"Hell yeah!" Frank agreed, already daydreaming about being a hero.

"It's certainly interesting," Amy agreed, enjoying hovering, but keeping close to the ground since she didn't know how long the flight would last if it turned out to be temporary.

"You should have asked for a force field," Vicky teased as they followed one of the PRT agents towards the door ...

Taylor and Marvel Madness Part 4

Taylor sighed in relief when she finally managed to acquire a permanent version of her Absorption: Slugfest power. "Done!"

"Good," the nymph duplicate said as she set the dented aluminum baseball bat that she'd been hitting the other duplicate with on the table. "Was that twenty seven or twenty eight attempts?"

"I sort of lost track after sixteen," Taylor admitted as she flopped down on the couch. "That covers the basics except we need a power that has an emotional component to gr...

Taylor and Marvel Madness Part 3

"Any luck?" Danny's unenhanced duplicate asked as he walked over to where Taylor was glaring at the computer screen.

"New Wave has a spam filter and apparently claiming to be a biokinetic and asking for help automatically blocks your email," Taylor grumbled, slightly annoyed that getting in touch with Panacea wasn't as easy as just sending New Wave an email.

"They probably get a lot of prank calls or requests for Panacea to heal people," the other duplicate pointed out from where ...

Taylor and Marvel Madness Part 2

"How do I look?" Taylor asked as she walked back into the living room wearing the mask that she'd created using a couple of beer cans, a strap from her mother's sewing kit and an old plastic juice container to line the inside of the mask so her glasses wouldn't get scratched.

"I'm sure you look fine…" Danny trailed off as he glanced up from tinkering with his mask and saw the blood red metallic theater mask that Taylor was wearing. "Are you trying to look like a villain?"

"If I ...

Taylor and Marvel Madness

"Penny for your thoughts," Richard Dawn said as he held a penny out towards the dark haired girl sitting across from him on the bus.

Taylor Hebert blinked when she realized the man in his early thirties with bright red hair was talking to her and was holding a penny. "Not sure they're worth a penny."

He flipped the penny to Taylor, dropping it in the middle of her palm. "Try it, sometimes talking to a stranger helps."

Taylor glanced at the man's almost painfully white suit t...

Tinker of Fiction Part 6

"Did you kill the Simurgh?" Taylor asked as she walked into Myst's room.

Myst looked up from the operating system that he was trying to cobble together on his laptop so he could run a basic version of the Doctor's mobile emitter. "Not that I know of."

Taylor stared at her cousin when she realized his lips were curled up in a faint smile. "Not that you know of?"

"There's always a chance that my math was off and that using a tachyon bomb to slingshot it a hundred thousand year...

Hogwarts Teacher, Myst Style Part 4

Xander glanced up from the standard book of spells that he was reading when someone knocked on the door. "Your turn, I got the last one."

"That barely counts," Myst complained as he glanced over at where Dawn was curled up with a book by the window.

"Cindy tried to talk my ear off, it counts," Xander replied, thinking about the overly friendly witch that had stopped by after breakfast to say hello.

"Fine," Myst muttered as he walked over and opened the door, instantly regret...

Hogwarts Teacher, Myst style part 3

Dawn studied the old fashioned house that looked a bit on the small side. "How many bedrooms does it have?"

"Three if you include the attic," Albus replied as he handed the group their keys. "I was only expecting one teacher."

"We'll figure it out," Myst said cheerfully as he headed towards the door to the wooden house where they'd be staying for the next eleven months. 'Worst case, I'll just upgrade the house.'

"I'll let you get settled in." Albus sighed when the dragon gav...

Hogwarts Teacher, Myst Style Part 2

Myst scowled at the handwritten notes he was trying to decipher. "Say what you want about Crouch's combat ability, his penmanship is almost worse than mine."

Dawn moved her neck over so that she could look at what Myst was working on. "So what you're saying is, you're not writing things on the board?"

"Pretty much," Myst replied as he looked over the list of spells that each year was supposed to know. "I don't suppose you have any spells that will burn knowledge into people's head...

Coughing like crazy

The chapter is going to be delayed (probably tomorrow...) mostly because I can't stop coughing (in general, not in a non stop medical emergency way) and it's making it really hard to get things written but also because a number of things came up like helping my mother install her dishwasher and listening to her vent about well meaning but annoying neighbors.

As for the dishwasher, I have a better idea why people just skip the hassle and let the professionals do it. (mostly because the...

Hogwarts Teacher, Myst style

Myst blinked as his monitor seemed to explode with light and he found himself in a poorly lit stone chamber standing with two men in robes he could barely see because of the spots in his vision standing outside of a pentacle. "What the fuck?!"

"Are you sure you did this right Albus, you summoned a dragon and two people that look like muggles, American muggles judging by his accent," the man with greasy black hair complained as he studied the group they'd summoned.

"And you're a Br...

Dungeon Myst Part 4

Harry waved his hand in front of Petunia's face, wondering if he'd broken something when he turned her into a magic user because she wasn't focusing on his face or responding to the situation in a way that made sense, if only because she wasn't screaming at him.

"You should be outside, it's a nice day," Petunia said, not actually bothering to meet his eyes or even look at his face.

"I just wanted to grab something to eat," Harry lied as he headed towards the kitchen, half expectin...

Dungeon Myst Part 3

Previously:

"Door!" Myst shouted as he jumped off the desk and ran towards the door, glad that Harry was already opening it.

Harry dashed through the door to the hallway and found himself floating in a black void. "What's going on?"

"Reinitializing tutorial," the ethereal voice announced. "Analyzing skill collection, would you like a tutorial for your new skills?"

"Yes," Harry replied without hesitation, thinking about his cousin's tendency to skip the...

Dungeon Myst Part 2

Myst dodged behind the training dummy, planning on using the training dummy for a shield if he could. 'How the hell did the fucking rune summon Voldemort and Harry?'

Harry quickly dove behind the table. "What the hell is going on?!"

"He's a dark wizard! Don't let him grab the bracelet!" Myst shouted, hoping his plan worked and Voldemort got cursed with something that would kill him or at least slow him down.

Voldemort's lips twisted into a smirk as he gestured and levitated ...

Dungeon Myst

"Power, riches, women? I should have known there'd be a catch," Myst muttered as he skimmed over the various options on the translucent screen floating in front of him, trying not to think of the other version of him that 'bought' his life for a couple of wishes or the genie that connected him to a dungeon core because of a badly worded wish. 'Screw it, it's just a tutorial. I have enough mana to create an imp or a goblin spawner or create a crappy treasure chest that will probably get me kil...

Tinker of Fiction Part 5

Taylor looked up from the book she was reading when Mist opened the front door. "How was school?"

"It's still standing," Mist replied as he slipped inside and shut the door behind him. "Ms. Sanders needs her head checked, Romeo and Juliet isn't a tragedy, a tragedy requires you to care about the characters, it's a story about a couple of idiots," he complained as he walked over to the couch and flopped down in front of his laptop.

Taylor shook her head. "Don't worry, you'll probab...

Major Arcana Part 3

Harry tumbled out of the fireplace and rolled to his feet, barely managing to keep his trunk from hitting the ground. He took a couple of steps to the side so he wouldn't be flattened by Hagrid if he came tumbling out of the fireplace and looked around the old fashioned waiting room that he found himself in. 'Stone walls, uncomfortable looking chairs and two doors, one of which leads to a bathroom.' He was slightly disappointed when a hunched over Hagrid merely stepped out of the fireplace be...

Major Arcana Part 2

"You're telling me that I'm the Harry Potter from this world and that you have a secret society of magic users that hide from the normal world? What makes you think I'm this world's Harry Potter, especially since I don't have a curse scar or need glasses?"

"But you used to have a scar," Dumbledore replied.

"Not that I recall," Harry replied with a shrug.

“There is a simple spell that will resolve the matter,” Dumbledore said, pulling out his wand and muttering something ...

Major Arcana

Zip winced when her grandfather walked into the kitchen looking like he was ready to set something or someone on fire. "Bad?"

"Bad man said he was going to beat the magic out of Master Harry," Slappy complained as he stalked over to the cabinet under the sink where their old master kept the firewhiskey.

"Is he dead?" Zip asked, causing the other house elf to stare at her in shock.

Slappy scowled as he opened the cabinet and pulled the bottle out. "Bad man is protected by war...

Tinker of Fiction Part 4

"What happened?" Emily Piggot asked as Armsmaster walked into her office, knowing that he wouldn't request a meeting less than two hours after they'd already had their weekly meeting unless it was important. "Your message was vague."

"That's because I don't want anything on the official record," Armsmaster admitted after making sure the door was shut.

"Explain," Emily ordered.

"A new tinker or possibly a high level thinker reached out to Glory Girl to do some testing on thei...

Tinker of Fiction Part 3

'At least he'll have a chance to calm down before he runs into Alan,' Mist mused as he turned the radio up, trying to avoid listening to the emotionally charged 'discussion' that was taking place downstairs. 'Not my monkey, not my problem,' he told himself as he went back to coding the script he was going to use to make the 3D printer that would let him make a crude replicator that would let him make a decent replicator.

He spent another couple of minutes coding and listening to the ann...

Tinker of Fiction Part 2

"How did you sleep?" Taylor asked when Mist walked into the living room with his laptop.

"I'm awake and mostly conscious," Mist replied with amusement as he walked over and sat down on the couch, wishing he actually liked coffee as he could use some since he'd been up late trying to get some idea of the rules and regulations that applied to parahumans.

"Did you get a response from Dragon about the solar panels?" Taylor asked excitedly as he set the laptop on the coffee table.

Tinker of Fiction

An: My take on a couple of stories I saw that used fictional mad scientists or worlds to fuel their tinkering. The idea wouldn't leave me alone.


Mist blinked as he went from sitting in front of his computer to sitting in a strangely large car parked in front of a house with a yard that had seen better days. 'What the fuck?!' he thought as he noticed the chunky and rather plain looking woman sitting in the driver's seat. 'She's a giant…' his thoughts derailed when he noticed how ...

Harry Potter and the Magical Girls Part 9

Neville pulled his attention away from the full length magical mirror that Hermione had 'stolen' from her magical fashion game and looked at Harry and Hermione. "Can you think of any games or books that have spells or magical items that improve memory?"

"One of my Dad's games has Recall Memory that lets the character recall cutscenes and puzzle pieces but I'm not sure how much that would help with learning magic or information unless you want to review part of a lecture. Pensieves are a...

Endbringers Hate Paperwork Part 30

"You realize this is going to get trashed within a week, right?" Assault asked as he studied the expensive looking entrance hall that looked like it was pulled straight out of a movie about British schools for the filthy rich.

Myst pulled his attention away from where one of the building inspectors was using some type of scanning device on the walls to look at the wiring. "Considering the sheer number of cameras scattered around the school and the fact that this is technically a private...

Endbringers Hate Paperwork Part 29

Mon-El wasn't a vindictive person by nature but he was willing to admit, if only to himself, that he felt a certain amount of satisfaction when he stabbed Darkseid in the chest with the sword Myst had loaned him and he saw the shock, horror and disbelief on his face a second before the life faded from his eyes.

"No!" Granny Goodness screamed when she felt her lord and master die in a way that shouldn't be possible.

Mon-El blurred forward and hacked the insane goddess's head off wh...