Population Boom, Hogwarts part 17

"Is there a reason the knock off Item World power isn't more expensive?" Mist asked as he bought the power granting candy that would give him the power in question, wondering if he'd missed something in the description or if the people running the list didn't value anything you had to work for.

"Yeah, it's basically a trap for stupid agents because the demon that created the power is a sadistic bastard," the agent complained. "In addition to the risk of permanently losing the powers you invest into your avatar if it dies in the monster-invested maze, using the candy to acquire the power binds you to a magical contract. If you tamper with the power or the curse or if anyone manages to copy the power, you'll lose the power and your magic."

"That's a nasty contract," Mist complained, making a mental note to avoid using the candy himself.

"It gets worse, the contract jumps every time the power is copied," the agent warned him.

"Let me guess, the demon gets any powers or magic that you lose?" Mist asked.

"Ding," the agent replied as she tapped her nose with her finger.

"Lovely," Mist muttered, making a mental note to avoid using the power himself as he went back to eating his food and skimming over the list.

"Yeah, I'd be a bit more concerned about it but he's fated to die in a couple of centuries when he tries to kill a version of Constantine," the agent replied with a grin.

"Time travel?" Raven asked.

"Nah, that particular version was cursed with Immortality," she replied with a grin.

"I can see that," Raven said thoughtfully, "most people that have spent any amount of time with John have considered cursing him."

'Observe?' Mist mused as he quickly checked the description of the power, hoping it was something useful. 'This broken power allows the user to identify creatures and objects, use is limited to common magical items and creatures.' He finished chewing his last bite of the delicious steak then pointed at the item on the datapad. "Is there a reason the Observe power is listed as broken?"

The agent checked the entry with her technopathy power. "Yeah, a lot of gamer style powers have a decent amount of protection against copying built into them or they only work because a spirit or a god is helping them. This particular power was crippled when the specialists stripped it of outside connections. It works, it's just not particularly impressive."

"Gotcha," Mist replied as he bought the power in question, figuring it was worth grabbing since it was cheap and he could hand it out to the clones.

"What happened to the person?" Starfire asked.

"It doesn't say but I doubt they enjoyed the process, the reason for his capture/processing is listed as burning down a brothel with the girls inside," the agent explained.

"Lovely," Mist muttered sarcastically as he continued looking through the list, wondering if he could assemble a halfway decent gamer system.

"Do you have an actual plan to save the other world?" Raven asked Mist.

"I have a couple of ideas but most of them involve…" Mist trailed off as he found two powers right next to each other that looked promising. 'Pyrokinesis:(Gamer):Mana? This particular version of Pyrokinesis requires mana but acts as a training boost for all types of fire manipulation and comes with an interface to track your progress.'

He glanced at the description of the Upgrade (Limited:Mana Pool) power then promptly bought it before someone else found it. He glanced at his remaining balance then bought the Pyrokinesis power, figuring it would help with his Black Flame ability. "And I'm just about out of points."

"You realize that power only helps if they have less mana than you, right?" the agent asked, wondering if he'd even read the description of the power since he'd grabbed it so quickly.

Mist covered his mouth as he yawned. "I noticed but my current method of increasing people's mana involves giving them enchanted underwear and dragging them monster hunting."

"Sounds fun," Starfire said cheerfully.

"Depends on the monsters and if Beast Boy is around," Raven admitted, knowing he'd make things weird.

"If I survive saving the world, you're welcome to come monster hunting with me," Mist told the attractive girls.

"Don't worry, we're pretty good at saving the world," Raven assured him.

"As friend Robin would say, we need a plan," Starfire stated.

"Hold that thought," the agent told them as she reclaimed the datapad and quickly finalized Mist's purchases, giving him the new powers and sticking the power granting candy in his inventory. "Okay, let me know if you have any nose bleeds or anal seepage."

"How often does that happen?" Mist asked warily.

"The nosebleeds? Only occasionally. The seepage? Almost never but it's funny watching the expression people make," the agent replied with a smirk. "Any problems?"

Mist mentally called up his interface for his Pyrokinesis, causing a blue window to appear in front of him with numbers and graphs that reminded him of a computer game. "At least everything appears to be in English.'

"That's good, it's always annoying when they glitch," the agent said, glad that she wouldn't have to call tech support.

Mist focused on a salt shaker and used his Observe power, causing a small blue window to appear over the glass salt shaker labeling it a 'glass salt shaker', something which was readily apparent. 'I'm going to need to figure out a way to adjust powers. Worry about it later.' He mentally closed the Pyrokinesis menu and pulled up his Alchemy interface. He glanced over the interface to make sure nothing was obviously glitching then closed it. "Everything looks good."

"Cool, mission accomplished," the agent said cheerfully. "I had the system drop the book and the candy in your inventory, was there anything else you needed before I clock out?"

"Does the company sell phones that can call people across dimensions?" Mist asked, figuring he needed a way to get a hold of the company that didn't involve grabbing a towel and waving it around like an idiot or using smoke signals and hoping someone was watching.

"Sure, you have enough points for a basic model," the agent said as she pulled one of the basic agent phones out of her inventory. "It has unlimited text and voice and it should recharge off the ambient mana in the air, worst case, you can always feed it mana. It's nearly indestructive but you should probably avoid tossing it into any naturally occurring volcanoes; some of the enchanters have a warped sense of humor,' she explained as she used her Technopathy to add her number to the phone's contact list and set Mist up as a freelance agent with the company. "If you have any problems with your powers, feel free to call me, I put my number in your phone. I also registered you as a freelance agent for our department so you have access to the low level missions in case you want to earn more points."

"Any responsibilities or hidden fees?" Mist asked, wanting to make sure they weren't trying to screw him over.

"Nope, no hidden fees or responsibilities," the agent assured him as she handed him the phone. "Some of the jobs have penalties if you take them and can't complete them but that's generally because there's an opportunity cost and that sort of stuff should be clearly labeled. If one of the clients tries to pull something, let me know, the boss loves killing people that pull that sort of shit."

"That seems pretty reasonable," Mist admitted, not seeing a problem with taking the occasional job.

"Cool, in that case, I'll see you around," the agent replied then teleported back to the office.

"So, what exactly are we dealing with?" Raven asked as she pulled her phone out of her shadow, figuring she'd have to call in some backup. "I need to know how much backup to call."

"Lots," Mist replied with annoyance then proceeded to explain what the entities were, prompting Raven to start making calls and them having to take the discussion elsewhere when people started paying attention now that the agent was gone, which made him wonder if meeting the girls was a setup.

0o0o0

Sabrina pulled her attention away from the screen in her office that was showing a certain diner and picked up the office phone. "Director Morningstar office, how can I help you?" she asked in a sugary sweet voice.

"One of your fucking agents is fucking with our territory!" a male voice snapped, sounding rather annoyed.

"Language," Sabrina complained as her sister walked into the room with her girlfriend.

"Don't fucking language me bitch!" the voice snapped.

Sabrina held her hand up, letting her sister know that she needed a minute. "Do you have the number of the agent that was trespassing?"

"No, I don't have the fucking number," the voice replied.

"If you don't have the number, how do you know it was someone from our department?" Sabrina asked.

"All of your agents stink of sin and lust," the voice complained.

"Look, I'd like to tell you that none of my agents have gone anywhere near your territory but that would require me to know your name and honestly, you're just not that important," Sabrina replied in a condescending tone.

"I'm fucking Adam, the one and only!" the voice snapped.

"I didn't need your dating history," Sabrina replied dryly, causing the asshole to grind his teeth in frustration.

"Look you fucking whore, if you don't get your boss on the line, I'm going to come down there and mutilate your corpse!" Adam shouted into the celestial communication device he was using.

Sabrina turned to look at her sister, who was giving her a look of concern as she'd probably heard the idiot's shouting. "Charlie, do me a favor and run down to legal and get Vash up here, we have a breach of contract."

"Sure," Charlie replied as she dashed back out the door.

"Fuck your legal! Do you know who I am?" Adam demanded, not used to having to put up with shit from demons.

"Yes, you were nice enough to give me your name," Sabrina replied as she reached out with her magic, grabbed the asshole by the neck and teleported him to her office, shattering the wards of the asshole's pathetic version of heaven.

Adam sputtered as he realized that he might have made a mistake as none of his powers seemed to be working and the girl's eyes started glowing with divine lightning.

Sabrina glared at the angel that she was holding off the ground by his neck. "Let me make something crystal clear, politeness is a virtue, it costs you nothing. You threatened to kill someone that was just doing their job because they asked a couple of reasonable questions and you're a prick. So yeah, you have my full and undivided attention, for about two minutes while my sweet and adorable little sister gets back with the lawyer. Because nothing says, you screwed up like being buried in demonic contracts and paperwork. So, let's try this again, which agent pissed in your cornflakes?"

Adam laughed as he realized she didn't have the balls to do more than threaten him. "Fuck you, Heaven isn't going to put up with a demon thinking they can dictate terms."

"Fuck, I'm going to need a 679 form," Sabrina complained as she reached up and put her other hand up on the stupid theater mask the so called angel was wearing and used her divine lightning to rip the information she wanted out of his mind, causing his soul to ignite and his corpse to turn to ash.

"What is a 679 form?" Vaggie asked her girlfriend's sister, trying not to freak about the fact that she'd just casually turned a powerful angel to ash.

"It's company policy, every time we kill someone from the other side, we have to fill out paperwork," Sabrina complained as she snapped her fingers and levitated the angel dust into a jar on her desk that was half filled with dust.

"Does that happen a lot?" Vaggie asked.

"More than it should," Sabrina replied with annoyance as she walked over to her desk and grabbed the required form. "Thankfully, my agent didn't actually cross the line and the idiot threatened me, so we're in the clear."

Vaggie stared at the thick form, fairly sure she'd seen novels that were thinner. "Are you still good for lunch?" she asked, knowing Charlie wanted to spend time with her sister.

"Yeah, we're good," Sabrina replied as she snapped her fingers, filling out the entire form and sending it to the main office. "Since we have the time and Charlie isn't here, I want the details, have you fucked her on the piano yet? Or the lounge, there should be plenty of people to watch."

Vaggie shook her head. "What was your agent doing anyway?"

"She sort of pointed an independent contractor toward a doomed world to save a bunch of worlds," Sabrina replied as Charlie and Vash walked into her office. "The angels are pissy because they want to wait for a hero to save everyone so they get credit."

"That's insane, what if the hero dies?" Vaggie asked as she looked at the blond haired lawyer that always made her think of a cowboy for reasons.

"That's the problem, they're already dead, they tried to kill one of the Class D problem solvers one of the other branches of the Company sent and they got wrecked." Sabrina focused on the head of her legal department. "I had to file a 679 form and I'll need the paperwork for claiming a shard filled section of the multiverse since an independent contractor is going to deal with Scion which means the angels will lose their claim."

"Shouldn't the contractor get credit?" Charlie asked.

"Unfortunately, this particular group of angels are vindictive bastards, so it wouldn't help because they'd just kill him and we'd be back to square one. I'll toss him a world if he actually pulls everything off but it's safer for everyone if he stays off their radar for a bit."

"That sucks," Charlie complained.

"Generally," Sabrina replied as her girlfriend walked into the office wearing a nearly sheer red silk dress with her hair done up in elaborate braids. "On the other hand, there are certainly perks."

Hermione flashed her girlfriend a smile then turned to look at Charlie and Vaggie. "Are we about ready?"

"Yeah, I was just finishing up a couple of things," Sabrina replied.

"Go, have fun, I'll take care of the paperwork," Vash offered.

"You're a saint," Sabrina teased, then walked over and offered Hermione her arm.

"Perish the thought," Vash replied with amusement as he watched Hermione and the boss leave.

Charlie smiled as she took Vaggie's arm and followed her sister.

0o0o0

"What do you think?" Clark asked Diana as he glanced between her magical lasso and the teenager that had just told them a crazy story about a creature that could destroy a number of worlds best described with scientific notation.

Diana glanced at Constantine who was smoking on the balcony just far enough that the smoke didn't linger but close enough that he could hear the story. "I think the gloves are going to have to come off."

"I'm not Batman," Clark replied, knowing that sometimes doing the most good meant dealing with aliens and creatures that no prison could hold in a permanent fashion. "I'd rather not have to kill people but I'll do what I have to if it means saving innocents."

"I'll deal with the Nine, if you deal with Leviathan," Diana told him, fairly sure she could deal with most of the Nine easily enough.

"I'll help with search and rescue," Barry offered.

"That would be appreciated," Mist assured him, knowing the Flash would make a difference since the agent had mentioned Leviathan being a problem. "I might be able to deal with the Nine myself but there's a good chance that I'd end up dead. I don't want to die but I don't want to be responsible for failing to save untold trillions of worlds either."

"You're not going to die, I have a plan," John offered with a smirk as he put the stub of his cigarette out. "From what I can tell, the scroll will drop us in Brockton bay the first time you cast it, after that, it's a bit random. Once we're in the Bay, we can use the big red button to get to Panacea and then I can use a parahuman's blood to open a portal to Scion's hiding spot."

"At which point we're dead," Zatanna piped up, not liking any plan that involved going near a continent sized creature that could destroy planets.

"Unless we cheat," Constantine replied as he pointed at Raven. "We've got less than two hours before her father rips open a portal and tries to destroy our world."

"Being in another dimension might buy her time," Diana mused.

"It's possible but I was thinking about letting Trigon and Scion kill each other," John replied with a smirk. "Scion doesn't have any magical defenses, but he's massive on a scale we rarely have to deal with. If I use some sympathetic magic, I might be able to get Scion to think that Trigon killed Eden, at which point he fights to the death to kill him. Trigon wouldn't tolerate the threat and if we curse Raven's blood we can probably keep Trigon from opening another portal to leave, at least for a couple of minutes."

"Which might be enough time for Scion to kill him," Diana mused as she turned to look at Raven and Starfire. "What do you think?"

"It's worth a shot," Raven admitted. "If Scion can seriously injure him, we might be able to trap him."

"I'll protect you friend Raven," Starfire assured her friend.

"Sorry to spring this on you," Mist told the group, glad that he'd gotten a competent version of the Justice League and not a version of the Justice Lords.

"Don't worry about it, you call the moment where your life changes because the world fell apart the worst day of your life, we call it Tuesday," Zatanna joked.

"It's actually Wednesday," Clark pointed out.

"Good, I'd hate to die on a Tuesday," Zatanna replied with a grin.

"Let's avoid dying," Barry suggested.

"Always a good idea," Constantine agreed, curious to see if he could kill a god.

0o0o0

"No one is going to save you, your friend is dead!" Jack called out, his voice taking on the tone of someone singing a nursery rhyme as he swung his pocket knife and used his power, causing a spurt of concrete dust as a small gash appeared in the concrete pillar that the healer was hiding behind.

'Fuck!' Amy screamed in her head as she dodged out of the way as the Siberian simply walked through the pillar that she'd been using for cover.

"Rip her hand off," Jack called out then promptly got hit by a heavily damaged car and splattered against an old and partially rusty van causing the Siberian to turn and stare at the strangers that had just killed Jack.

Raven raised her hand and summoned black chains that wrapped themselves around the naked woman with tiger stripes when she sprinted toward her friend, glad that Mist had given her a brief rundown of the Nine since Jack had been involved in trying to end the world. "No."

The Siberian lurched to a stop then vanished and reappeared three feet from Starfire. "Die," she whispered as she reached for the cape that had just killed Jack, planning on ripping her heart out before finding Riley so she could fix Jack.

Mist gestured at the old van that had heavily tinted windows and unleashed his black fire on the person in the driver's seat, hoping he wasn't making a mistake. He relaxed slightly when the Siberian popped like a soap bubble. "That's a hell of a lot easier to deal with when you know the trick."

"We need to leave!" Amy shouted, knowing the Siberian would be back.

Starfire blurred forward and grabbed a chain with a hook as it shot out of the darkness and tried to skewer her friend. "No! Bad robot!" she shouted as she flew over and started ripping the robot apart, wanting to make sure it couldn't hurt anyone.

"Star…" Raven trailed off as she realized that telling her friend that the man wasn't a robot wouldn't be productive at this point in time.

"Die!" Burnscar shouted as she tossed a wave of fire at the capes that had killed Jack.

"Exstinguere," John Constantine said almost lazily as he stepped out from behind the truck where he'd been waiting, causing the wall of flames to die. "Somnum," he chanted, causing the crazy looking woman with cigarette burns on her face to fall unconscious. "How much time do we have?"

"Amy isn't dead and Jack is a corpse, maybe five minutes before Scion finds his friend and the destruction starts," Mist warned him, not actually sure since he'd half expected to get dropped into the middle of Scion's rampage.

"I'll be done in four," John replied as he pulled a piece of chalk out of his pocket and started drawing a runic circle on the concrete, happy to be dealing with things that didn't have a clue about magic for a change.

"What's going on?" Amy asked as she walked over.

Mist shrugged. "A certain blonde agent sent us to rescue you."

"Red and blue tails?" Amy asked.

"That would be the one," Mist agreed.

"Can you deal with Leviathan?" Amy asked hopefully.

"No but we brought someone that can," Raven replied as they heard a sonic boom far above the city that was probably Clark dealing with the so called Endbringer.

0o0o0