Spark of Magic Worm Part 2

"This is going to be awesome!" Greg Veder practically squealed as he put the bracelet that he'd just finished enchanting on his wrist without checking it for glitches. "Status," he ordered, causing a translucent character page to appear hovering over the bracelet, letting him see his stats or at least a description of his stats like he was a video game character.

His enthusiasm took a hit when he realized that he only had two scores above ten. He ignored his low strength and dexterity as they weren't exactly surprising to the nerd and focused on his mental scores. "Seven wisdom and eight charisma. Maybe I screwed the enchantment up?"

He spent a minute checking the magic he could see flowing through his bracelet before he admitted, if only to himself, that the enchantment was probably working as intended. 'Okay, you can fix this, you know a bunch of spells for being more charismatic and getting the girl.'

Greg shook his head, trying to get the image of a pair of half naked dark haired girls leaning against him out of his head. "Yeah, that's not happening," he admitted as he mentally reviewed the collection of enhancement spells that he'd picked up from the strange CYOA that he'd filled out. "Unless I turn myself into a hero," he mused, thinking about the various ways he could boost himself until he was an action hero. "The heroes always get the girl."

He spent a minute enjoying the fantasy of actually being a hero and having girls throwing themselves at him before he realized that he'd need actual mind control for half of his delusions to work, which was a deal breaker as far as he was concerned. 'Take a minute and calm down, my magic obviously works which means I can figure out how to fix this.'

He briefly considered trying one of the breathing exercises the therapist had suggested to calm himself down before he realized that he had a better idea. He quickly cast his Clear Thoughts spell before he could talk himself out of it and sighed in relief when his mind sort of took a step away from his emotions and he started thinking about the situation logically. 'Okay, ignore charisma, I need a trinket that keeps my thoughts clear.'

"No worries, pop a pill and you'll be fine," Greg muttered, less than happy with the idea of basically drugging himself all the time. "Okay, take a breath and make a list, it's just temporary so you can think."

"What do I need?" Greg asked himself, deciding to ignore his mental issues for the moment. "I need to tell everyone about the demon army that's going to destroy the world." He sighed in frustration as he realized that his initial idea wasn't going to work. "No, I need to find a way to tell them in a way that they'll actually believe. Yeah, I can't see that happening without mind control and everyone knows they lock people up for that."

"Okay, if I can't tell people because they're not going to believe me, what can I do?" Greg asked, trying to come at the problem from another angle. "What if I build a team like the Justice League?" he mused, thinking about the old hero team in the comics. 'I don't have the money, or the connections or the charisma to put a team together,' he admitted, unable to get excited about an idea he knew wouldn't work with the spell calming his emotions.

"If I can't make a team, I'll just have to join a team," Greg decided, fairly sure the Wards could teach him what he needed to know about being a hero, even if that meant letting them know he had powers. 'Do I have a choice? I need the skills if I'm going to fight the demons and I'll need the support. Besides, I'm going to need people to turn into magic users and I'm sure as hell not giving a bunch of Nazis magic.'

"Even if I get training, the demons are already coming, I'd need to be Batman or Superman and that's not going to happen…" Greg trailed off as he realized that he'd just given himself a great idea. "Okay, just because I can't be Superman doesn't mean I can't be Batman."

Greg cast his intelligence boosting spells and smiled as his intelligence jumped all the way up to eighteen. He cast Owl's Wisdom, pushing his wisdom up to thirteen temporarily. 'If you ignore Bruce's wealth, his only real powers are his mind and his training. If I boost the amount of improvement I get out of training, I can probably get close to a brute rating, especially if I boost my physical abilities.'

Greg grabbed his notebook off his desk and started writing down ideas as he waited for his mother to get home so he could tell her about his powers and his plans for joining the Wards, feeling better now that he had a plan to start dealing with the demon army. 'Hopefully my rival can come up with something and isn't the type of prick that will watch the world burn so he can win.'

0o0o0

Mist smiled as he used one of Amy's old toothbrushes to make sure all of the backing that he'd scraped off the mirror to create the rune was gone. "That should do it."

"Why did you sandwich six runes between two less than signs?" Vicky asked, taking the chance to ask questions now that he wasn't in the middle of carving the runes.

"They're Kenaz runes, they represent light, knowledge, and creative inspiration. In this case, I'm basically using them as a short hand, knowledge because you're trying to find information about the middle rune's related subjects and light because you're trying to create an image of the knowledge in the mirror."

"I thought you said that you basically used an alien programming language, are you saying the Norse were aliens?" Vicky asked.

"No," Mist replied with amusement. "I'm just using the runes because I'm familiar with them."

Vicky glanced at the list of Norse runes and their meanings on the living room table that Amy had printed out. "Do the runes actually matter or could you use anything?"

"You can technically use anything, you just lose some of the value if you're using something that you don't identify with. For example, I could use an image of an umbrella for a safe fall enchant because of Mary Poppins or I could use it to keep from getting rained on because that's the general use for an umbrella, but using it to light something on fire would be a stretch."

"So, no using stop signs for enhancing a race car?" Vicky asked, trying to figure out how his power worked.

"Not unless I'm enhancing the brakes." Mist smiled as he realized that he probably could use a stop sign to enhance a car's speed, he'd just have to pair it with another symbol to shift the meaning. "On second thought, I could probably use a stop sign and a blacked out stop sign if I wanted to boost acceleration. Though really, I'd probably just use a traffic light as the concept is already built in, you stop on red and go on green. Or maybe a picture of a roadrunner."

"Meep Meep," Amy offered with a smile, thinking about the old cartoon.

"Exactly," Mist agreed. "The runes or images aren't set in stone, they're merely a roadmap while the enchanter is pushing energy into the item they're enchanting. I don't actually need the runes but they really reduce the mana cost which is worth a bit of extra work."

Vicky glanced at the circle of runes around the edges of the small mirror. "How does using a rune for journey, rhythm and the cyclical nature of life help when you're creating a mirror?"

"I'm using the journey aspect of the rune so that she can find paths and destinations and the second Kenaz rune so that she can see them in a way that makes sense," Mist explained. "If everything works like it should, she'll be able to find a decent taco restaurant or the path to an injured person."

"Or find her lost keys or lost pets?" Vicky asked with a grin.

"The Fehu rune probably helps with the lost keys, since it covers material possessions," Amy offered.

"It's also good for making a metal detector that actually finds valuable stuff instead of just bottlecaps. I'm basically linking all of the runes together so that they'll be greater than the sum of their parts or at least that's the theory," Mist admitted.

"Why did you include the Perthro rune? For the unknown part?" Vicky asked.

"It's also a decent way to avoid seeing things you shouldn't because of the destiny and mystery focus," Mist explained. "The mirror is supposed to be something fun, not something that gets you killed because you look at something that puts you in immediate danger because of a parahuman power."

"Good call," Amy said, glad that he'd already considered that angle. "How long will it take you to actually enchant it?"

"Five minutes, ten at the most," Mist replied as he checked the unlined runes again, making sure he had all of the concepts straight in his head before he started.

"That should be plenty of time for the mashed potatoes to finish cooking," Vicky said as she headed for the kitchen to check on the potatoes. "I should probably check that."

"Sounds good," Mist replied. "Do you want to be able to see the mana?" he asked Amy once Vicky left.

"What do I have to do?" Amy asked, curious if he had a pair of goggles or something.

"Nothing," Mist replied with a grin as he loaned her half of the magic he could loan out, giving her a decent sized pool of mana and the ability to see magic. "Just try not to blow anything up."

Amy blinked a couple of times as she realized that Mist's cloak was glowing an eerie blue color and that she could see swirls of magic inside Mist. "Is this how you see the world?"

"Let me guess, my cloak is glowing blue and I have whirlpools of light inside of me that you can sort of see despite the fact that they're inside of me?"

"Yeah," Amy agreed.

"Then yeah, that's how I see the world," Mist replied as he picked the mirror up. "Give it a couple of minutes and you'll probably get used to it."

"Probably?" Amy asked.

"I'm not a fortune teller, I'm a magician," Mist teased. "Joking aside, if you can hold the questions until I'm done, I'd appreciate it."

"Sure," Amy agreed.

Mist started enchanting the first Kenaz rune before he could second guess himself, finding the whole experience like riding a bike after not actually using one for a few years, despite this being the first time he'd actually enchanted anything outside of his scattered memories of enchanting various projects.

Mist blinked a couple of times when he finished enchanting the mirror and realized that the entire Dallon family was watching him, including Carol. "Note to self, work on my situational awareness."

"Vicky told me that you were tinkering, so we came in the back," Carol offered. "Did it work?"

"Good question," Mist agreed, surprised that Carol wasn't freaking out about a strange cape being in her home. He took a couple of seconds to study the magic in the mirror, trying to make sure that there weren't any obvious problems before he used it. "I'll probably have to make some adjustments but it should work."

He held the mirror out so everyone could see it and focused on Vicky, causing an image of Vicky watching the mirror to appear in the mirror. "It's easier if you're familiar with the person you're trying to scry but a picture or blood sample will work as long as you know who you're looking for."

"You have to know who you're looking for?" Vicky as she walked a touch closer so that she could get a better look at the mirror.

"Hopefully," Mist replied as he tried to scry on Leet, causing the image in the mirror to look like what you'd see if it was a normal mirror.

"Did you break it?" Amy asked.

"No, I was trying to scry on Leet but I don't actually know his civilian identity so it wouldn't show him, probably because he's not in costume. Panacea," he said as he focused on Panacea, causing an image of Amy to appear. "I'm not sure if that worked because you're a public cape or because I know your identity."

"Can I try it?" Amy asked.

"Sure," Mist replied as he handed her the mirror.

Amy angled the mirror so that Mist couldn't see it and focused on Gallant, causing a picture of Dean in the Wards room in street clothes with most of the Wards and an unfamiliar teenager that she didn't recognize to appear in the mirror.

"That's a bit of a security issue," Amy mused, wondering who the new ward was. "Kaiser?" she asked thoughtfully, focusing on Kaiser. She frowned as the mirror went back to just being a mirror. "Kaiser's base? Nothing."

"Try something you know the location of or that is a public location," Mist suggested.

"Kitchen?" Amy asked, smiling slightly when it showed an image of their kitchen. “So you limited it to not expose identities if you didn’t know them?”

"Basically, I didn't want to start World War Three," Mist admitted.

"Are you saying you could make something that could find villains?" Carol asked warily.

Mist turned to look at Carol. "Even if I could, I'm not interested in having a bunch of villains and rogues trying to kill me."

"Good answer," Carol assured him. "I'd like to thank you for healing my husband, the last couple of years have been hard."

"That's why heroes are supposed to stick together," Mist picked up the slightly broken plastic cover that made up the rest of the compact that Vicky had broken trying to get it apart. "Can I see the mirror for a minute?"

Amy handed Mist the mirror. "It’s not going to fit, Vicky broke it."

"It wasn't coming apart," Vicky argued.

"I'm aware," Mist replied as he put the compact back together. He held the compact together with his left hand and gestured at it with his right, using one of his repair spells to fix the compact, restoring the case to perfect condition. "Give me twenty seconds to enchant it and we're good."

Amy focused on the compact and Mist, trying to figure out how his power worked since she could see the magic.

Mist focused on the Algiz rune that he'd carved on the inside of the plastic cover and enchanted the plastic to increase its durability. He tossed the mirror back to Amy. "That should keep the mirror from shattering if you drop it."

"Is there a reason it took less time to enchant than the mirror?" Carol asked.

"Enchanting something to increase its durability is a lot easier than creating a complex magical item that does a bunch of different things," Mist explained. "For the record, it's not indestructible Vicky, don't intentionally smash it."

"I wasn't planning on it," Vicky assured them.

"How much are you charging for the compact?" Carol asked, wanting to make sure the girls weren't being taken advantage of.

"Nothing," Mist assured her. "It's a gift because Amy is awesome and she helped me get my healing certification without jumping through weeks or months of paperwork and testing. That said, I'm more than happy to trade magical items for some tweaks with her power."

"What type of tweaks?" Carol asked.

"I'm mildly allergic to cats and I wouldn't mind her checking my genetics to see if I'm prone to any diseases or if there's something my power didn't fix," Mist explained.

"That's it?" Vicky asked, thinking about the various questionable things people had requested since her sister had acquired her power.

"Yeah," Mist replied, not seeing a point of mentioning that he'd love more durable bones or better muscles if she could arrange it as Carol was a bit twitchy in the series. 'Then again, she seems saner than the version in the original, so maybe it's not perfect?'

"I'm fine with that," Amy agreed, not seeing a problem with making some tweaks in exchange for some magical items.

"Let's eat before the food gets cold," Mark suggested.

0o0o0

“I can’t believe they were so…” Vicky’s voice trailed off and she shuddered.

Amy winced. “On the rare occasions when Dad’s medicine has actually worked for him they always got this way, so if his underlying condition has been cured and not just the symptoms, this may be our new normal.”

“Bite your tongue!” Vicky exclaimed wide eyed.

“They’ll probably calm down once they get used to it,” Amy suggested hopefully.

“The fact that they haven’t been in the right mood for so long is probably why it’s hitting them so hard this time,” Mist agreed. “And if not…”

The two girls turned to stare at him anxiously.

“Then you may want to consider ordering some sound proofing,” he finished with an evil grin.

Amy tore a pillow off her bed and hit him with it. “Bad healer! No curing one mental condition just to cause more in others!”

Vicky burst out laughing. “It’s still good to see Dad… present and not just here.”

Amy nodded and tossed her pillow back on the bed. “Yeah, it is, even if the side effects are hitting us.”

“And your Mom,” Mist said, wiggling his eyebrows.

“That was bad and you should feel bad,” Amy told him, trying not to smile while Vicky giggled.

“But seriously, they are middle aged, they’ll probably go back to normal in a week or two once the newness wears off,” Mist assured them.

“Here’s hoping,” Vicky said, crossing her legs and sitting in mid air.

“Okay, let’s see your hand and I can start making some minor tweeks,” Amy said.

“Sure,” Mist agreed, taking a seat at the desk and offering a hand.

Amy sat on her bed and grabbed his hand. “Good condition, no injuries, minor wear and tear… Allergies to cat dander and some pollens…” Her eyes closed as she concentrated.

“Can you feel her doing her thing?” Vicky asked curiously as Mist shifted uncomfortably.

“No… maybe,” Mist said and shrugged. “I think my bones itching is just psychosomatic because I expect to feel something, unless she actually is working on my skeletal system.”

“Why would she work on your skeletal system?” Vicky asked. “Is the allergy section in your bone marrow?”

“I don’t think so, but she could have gotten bored playing with my genes and started doing a Steve Austin on me,” Mist said.

“A Steve Austin?” Vicky asked.

“The Six Million Dollar Man, we can rebuild him, bigger, stronger, faster!” he said dramatically.

“I think you need a Cyborg Tinker for that,” Vicky pointed out.

“I was thinking more along the lines of making my bones hollow to maximize red cell production while lacing them with organic carbon nanotubes or something,” he explained. “Or increasing the amount of fast twitch muscle fiber.”

“All those are horrible ideas without a lot of alterations to support them,” Amy said absently, her shard feeding her some serotonin along with information on how to make it work to encourage her to branch out while she carefully chased down all the histamine receptors in his body and altered their immune response. “You also have to strengthen the tendons and modify the joints to insure you could actually use your increased strength without injury.”

“That actually sounds pretty cool,” Vicky admitted.

Amy’s eyes opened and she released his hand. “Bit more work than my usual stitch work, but you should be able to eat ice cream again.”

“I’ve never had a problem eating ice cream,” Mist said, before realizing she was just messing with him as she let out an uncharacteristic giggle.

“Well now that my food and pet allergies are cured. Want to turn your desk mirror into a scrying device in exchange for… What could I use?” he asked.

“Less nose hair? No back hair?” Vicky suggested.

“What is it with you and hair?” he asked.

Vicky shrugged. “It’s something simple and Amy wiped out all my leg hair when I asked her to so I know she can do it.”

“I did that because you always left our bathroom in a huge mess when you shaved your legs,” Amy said. “Not to mention always using my razors and not replacing them.”

“How about a minor touch up to cartilage?” Mist asked. “I hate waking up stiff because I slept in the wrong position somehow.”

“It’s a deal,” Amy said. “Any way we can get sound on it?”

“It’s a larger mirror so I probably could, why?” he asked curiously.

“So I can watch movies without going to the theater and dealing with sticky floors,” Amy said and shuddered. “It’s like a bacteria factory in there.”

“Is that why you always have a bad time when I set you up on dates?” Vicky asked excitedly.

“No, you keep setting me up with rich twits or dumbasses, often both,” she replied with a shrug.

“Well I will do my best to do sound so you can manscape me,” Mist said, examining the desk’s mirror and finding it flipped around so he could pry off the back. “I need some paper,” he said absently as he carefully pried at the metal staples holding the particle board in place.

“Eh?” Vicky asked, distracted by Amy mouthing ‘Manscape’ in disbelief, before biting her lip to keep from laughing.

“I need to figure out the runes for turning sound on and off, so she doesn’t need to wear ear muffs to shut it up,” he explained.

Amy grabbed a blank notebook off her bookshelf and passed it to him along with a pen.

Mist quickly got to work writing out the runes he’d need and answering what each did as the sounds of a very much in love couple began to float through the wall, causing both girls to focus on his work to try and fail to avoid hearing their parents going at it.

“Ha, got it,” Mist declared as he wrote out the rune set with a smile and got to work.

"We need better sound proofing," Vicky grumbled as she glanced at the wall, less than happy about the fact that she could hear the occasional thump or squeal from the other side of the house.

"Just ignore it," Mist suggested as he continued working on engraving the runes on the back of Amy's mirror.

Vicky turned and looked at Mist. "Did you mean to cause us mental trauma?" she teased.

Mist laughed. "There's nothing wrong with having a healthy sex life."

"There is when they're shaking the house," Vicky grumbled, knowing that she'd probably find the situation funnier if it wasn't her parents that were acting like a pair of hypersexual teens.

"Huh," Amy muttered when the 'magic' that she'd been trying to push into the rune she'd carved into the top of a tack settled into the plastic and it started glowing.

"Huh?" Mist asked as he looked up and stared at the tack that Amy had managed to enchant, trying to figure out if he needed to toss the tack out of the window or something before it exploded.

"I wasn't expecting that to actually work," Amy admitted.

Vicky glanced between the tack that Amy was holding and Mist. "Does that mean she managed to enchant something?"

"Yeah, and it's even stable," Mist admitted as he went back to carving the runes. “I shared my power so she could see what it was doing… and she seems to have the knack.”

"Fantastic," Amy said as she dashed over to the wall and pushed the tack into the drywall next to her door, causing the noise from the other side of the wall to drop to almost nothing. "That's better."

"Way to go Amy," Vicky offered, relieved that she didn't have to listen to the uncomfortable sounds from the other side of the house anymore. "Are you noticing any strange mental effects from using his power?"

"Not that I know of," Amy assured them after a couple of seconds of thought. "I'm happy but I've been in a good mood since he healed me and floating on cloud nine since I started figuring out ways to safely turn people into low end brutes. It’s a lot easier than I thought it would be."

"Do we need to call the lab techs because Miss Snarky White Mage is happy?" Vicky asked, teasing her sister a bit since she was actually in a good mood for the first time in a long time and considering ways to use her power for something other than just healing.

"Fuck you…" Amy trailed off as she realized that she wasn't thinking taboo thoughts about her sister and possibly hadn't since getting healed. 'Is she hot?' she asked herself. 'Absolutely. Would I still fuck her? Yeah, but I'm pretty sure half the school would fuck her if given a chance and she's not interested in me that way so no point in worrying about it. Dean?' she mused, surprised that she didn't feel any jealousy or anything overly negative about the guy. 'He's not perfect but she could do a lot worse.'

"What's up?" Vicky asked, having noticed that her sister had spaced out. "You look like you had a thought."

"I just realized that it's been a while since I've been happy, it's sort of depressing," Amy admitted as she walked back over and sat down on her bed, wondering what she was going to have to do to avoid ending up back where she'd been the last couple of months.

Vicky reached out and tapped Amy's nose. "None of that. Mist healed Mom and Dad, which means he'll be able to keep Mom from getting too stressed which should decrease the general stress around here for all of us and Mist should be around to cover some of your shifts at the hospital which should help even more."

"Absolutely," Mist agreed, not seeing a problem with helping out at the hospital while he figured out why he was going to do next. "Give me a minute of silence, I need to finish enchanting Amy's mirror."

"Sure," Amy agreed, taking the time to try to figure out what other upgrades she could trade Mist for sharing his power with her on a longer term basis.

0o0o0