Once you've arrived, you get a happy Kate in your face, pretending to scold you over bringing so many drugs back they had to store the stuff inside the drug lab and workshop for now until you can move it out.
Workshop and lab are currently unavailable
With that out of the way, you have to headpat a sulking Cupcake over the fact that she can't work right now and thoroughly fuck Squealer to distract her from her inability to tinker.
Once that's all done, you go find your laptop to look at the digital clock. Huh. Apparently all this took far less time than you'd have thought.
You have two actions left tonight
Going out of your way to ask Kate to have the others see about expanding into another warehouse soon, just to have more space given the expansion of your operations this load of drugs will hopefully fuel, you disappear back down into your room.
Ignoring the conked out Sherrel lying in the pillow corner, you settle in and start... to train.
You spend the rest of your night in quiet contemplation, first spending a few hours going over the blueprints of your fusion cells, the original version, both versions of the laser muskets, the turrets and actually everything you got from that postapocalyptic world.
You'd like to have some comparisons to Earth Bet engineering, but it can't be helped. Nevertheless, you think you've actually understood how everything fits together. Neat.
You can now use the blueprint to make fusion cells
With that done, you try to focus on something you'd noticed earlier. You just... suddenly knew how to do things. You'd actually tried to concentrate on this sudden influx of skill (and it is skill, not knowledge), which is why you realized you actually started to know more bits and pieces every time you ate someone.
This needs more investigation, so you proceed to try to mentally locate the mechanism doing this and get it to work via your conscious input, but it's a slow process. You think.
This is actually not that easy.
Shawn Interlude
Shawn, or rather Dauntless right now, sighed internally as he finished up his preliminary report on the new cape he'd encountered. He was sure everything he had to say would already be known anyway, but he still had to actually write the report.
Looking over it again, he supposed there was quite a bit to unpack from the brief interaction he had with the man. First of all, his costume, or rather, lack thereof. It wasn't every day that you encountered a naked cape streaking through the streets like nobody's business, after all. Or anyone, for that matter. The only thing covering him at all had been his shoes, covered in blood, and the weird shadow across his face. Power or tinkertech? He couldn't say, though he'd put his money on power so far.
Not that anyone knew what his power actually was. The only thing they knew for certain was that he had a shadow covering his face as a mask and the temperature manipulation as described by witnesses of the cafe robbery, as well as the deadly striker power as shown by the autopsies.
Not much to go on, which made direct confrontations extremely dangerous, as the several dozen corpses lying in the morgue could attest to, as well as the handful of corpses he seemed to be controlling. And that was certainly a surprise, though it could've been the work of another parahuman entirely, with this 'Cain' bluffing his way into obscuring his gang's cape lineup.
He'd been unsure if those random gangbangers he'd called over to intimidate him really had powers, given they were neither masked nor in costume, but a look over the crime scene told him he'd made the right decision to retreat and wait for backup. The way several corpses were completely smashed apart, with several wounds made by what seems like a hot knife or dagger, according to the autopsy reports...
If facing one cape with an unknown powerset was... suboptimal, facing several different capes would be disastrous. His powerset was strong and versatile, but all it took was one hard counter to him and he'd be one for.
This was only exasperated by the fact Cain clearly knew what his power was, as well as how to work against it. It was a fact that he was vastly weakened with every piece of equipment someone managed to wrest from him, and while he took great care to make this as hard as possible, his opponent seemed confident he could do it.
In general, his precise knowledge of his power implied he'd actually researched the local heroes and possibly villains, too. A prepared, coolheaded foe was honestly the last thing the Protectorate needed right now. The ongoing hostilities between the 'Crypts' and the Merchants (not that anyone even knew how they called themselves until he'd made contact) had stirred up the hornet's nest- while the ABB and E88 were completely content with letting the Merchants hold useless territory, their weakened state meant it may be worth the minimal effort to take over what they had.
Though Shawn would eat his -metaphorical- hat if Cain didn't have plans in place to keep them out of what he was clearly planning to claim as his territory. His demeanour suggested a meticulously prepared, confident individual, though he could always be wrong in his judgement. In fact, the short talk they had had greatly impressed upon Dauntless that this cape, while open to reason and downright humorous in the right circumstances, was dangerous beyond compare.
As if the warehouse full of dozens of corpses wasn't enough to convince him.
The same went for the fact that his favoured way of killing seemed to be a bite that drained the blood of his victims. Honestly, the very fact he killed so easily set him apart from most other villains around.
Completely at odds with the way he joked around and talked down Dauntless, but whether that was because he wanted to avoid the heat of fighting a Protectorate member or because he genuinely was a nice person when not being a mass murderer was beyond him.
Bad news either way.
Similarly strange was the casual sexual harassment directed his way by several of his henchwomen. While he would not draw conclusions from what little he'd seen of his work relationship with them and the fact he was naked at the time, the first reaction after seeing their (at least nominal) leader conversing with a hero shouldn't be telling them to 'kiss already'.
How did this fit into what he'd seen of the man? It seemed to be a regular occurence, from what he'd said afterwards.
Regardless, it was out of his hands now. The Protectorate and PRT employed Thinkers and analysts exactly for things like this, after all.
Now, he only hoped he didn't overlook anything in his report...
Shawn sighed. He'd have to reiterate most of what he wrote in the next meeting anyway.
Taking a moment to look inside yourself as usual once morning has come, you're pleased to see that time is going significantly faster inside than normal, giving you some extra time should you wish it. Directing your (metaphorical) eyes towards the tree, another pleasant surprise awaits you as you've got two ripe fruit waiting to be eaten hanging from it.
Immediately going inside, you first have a maid teleport you over and eat them.
Taking a moment to think back on what you did lately, you realize how a big part of defeating your first parahuman was noticing a key detail of his power and capitalizing on a weakness it revealed.
Deciding you need to become better at things like this, you start going over memories of things you did since you rose from the grave, trying to figure out details you didn't think to note at the time. Your perfect memory helps you a lot here.
You're convinced you've nearly figured out a new way of doing this when you realize just how much time you've spent on this already, so you get out of your soul palace reluctantly and get back to figuring out how to revisit realities.
You make great progress, and soon you're sure you can pinpoint target any place you left.
It is around this time that Kate comes in, leading most of the gang and carrying a laptop. At your quizzical look, she explains that "We really, really need to plan where to go with this whole gang business, so I went and got everyone together."
Well, you'd have liked to do this at night, so you could've gone out and done it elsewhere, but needs must, you think to yourself as everyone takes a seat in your pillow corner.
"Okay, first question," you begin once everyone's settled in, "the drugs. Specifically, the enormous amount of drugs we stole from the Merchants. Don't get me wrong, it's great we stole them, but how do we get rid of them in a productive manner?"
"Good thing you're asking that, because it ties directly into the first topic I wanted to discuss." Kate smiles. "We were planning to recruit a bunch of people in the coming days, mainly to expand the scope of our overall activities, but this new development kinda forced our hand. Now, while we simply could stamp out the Merchants and take over their guys, most of their guys are filthy, worthless druggies. I was originally thinking of hiring trustworthy people and putting them in charge of the rabble, but fortunately, Cupcake told me she has a way to get them to behave." She says as she looks over at said member of your gang.
"My name is Addy! And yes, we, and by that I mean me and the boss' projections, have managed to find a way to create addictol. Immediately purges the body of drugs and addictions like nothing else. The effectiveness of going cold turkey without the usual problems that doing so actually entails."
"Thank you, Cupcake." Kate says, ignoring her protests as to her nickname. "Using this stuff, we're going to salvage what we can of the Merchants in combination with my original plan. The only issue will be actual Merchant loyalists, but that's what we have you for, Gabe."
Grinning, you note "Just tell me where to go and whom to kill, I'll take care of the rest. How have your efforts to gather trustworthy people been going so far?"
"Pretty nicely, actually. There's been rumours out on the street that we were the next big thing, and the way you brutalized that last group of Merchants and then told Dauntless to fuck off, successfully, only fanned the flames, so to say."
"Good, good. Oh, before I forget, there actually was a cape in that warehouse. I ate the fucker, so if you wanna interrogate him after death, just say the word."
You would say Kate couldn't be happier, but you know for a fact that she'd look happier if you railed her hard right now. It's a near thing, though.
"On a more general note, some of the projections I got by now have powers for some reason. If anyone asks, they're totally actual capes."
"Totally." "Yup." "Of course."
With that cleared up, you continue along "On that topic, though, any news on the cape recruitment front, Kate?"
Grimacing, she shakes her head. "I've been stretching some feelers out, but nothing so far. There's one girl that can do something with fire, I think, but she doesn't want anything to do with the mass casualties we're causing regularly."
Huh. Good point, actually, some people have issues when it comes to mass murder. Ah well, that's her prerogative.
"Aside from that, any news from the other gangs? Empire been making trouble or anything?"
"Nah, it's mostly calm on that front. E88's been sending a few probes into Merchant territory, but I'm pretty sure they're just trying to stir shit up and see what happens. They won't do anything until we officially claim territory.
Actually, on that matter, we really oughta figure out a gang tag to make it clear where the other gangs had better piss off of."
Ultimately, this is the suggestion you settle on after a one-hour drawing contest. It's simple enough the average thug should be able to recognize and replicate it, while still being distinctive enough to be recognized from afar.
There's a variant one with a crowned tombstone, with the crown sitting just a little sideways and the basic one drawn onto it. It looks pretty nice, actually, though you expect it'll take cardboard cutouts to put it anywhere.
You make a note to suggest trying that one out with different colors for the crown, while you're getting fancy anyway, but yes, this will do.
"Oh, and before I forget, Gabe, if you could get on those laser weapons and shit you mentioned, that'd be great. Would also help with our image."
With those last words, the gathering dissolves and everyone starts making their way out of your room. Nora stays for a bit longer to chat with you, though.
Taking Kate's words to heart, you decide to spend the day sciencing the fuck out of your workshop. Arriving there to the pleasant surprise of a mostly cleared workspace (though one of the storage rooms is still filled with cocaine), you go to find both Sherrel and Lea.
Asking them both to come with you, you tell them you're going to build a few things, and they are to observe what you're doing before you teach them the blueprints and everything they need to know about it.
It's honestly just to let them get an idea while you're being productive beforehand, though if they got any burning questions, they can ask them.
You spend the next several hours building several turrets and explaining to Lea and Sherrel what you're doing on occasion. Of course, you start out with gathering the necessary materials from storage, in great enough quantities you won't have to go again for some time, and point out what parts are going to be used where.
Of course, then you get to the fun part; assembling the actual parts, integrating the gun and then welding together the frame, followed by the stand it will be deployed upon.
Squealer asks if the stand could be shaped differently, to which you reply in the affirmative. Just gotta make sure it can swivel around to aim. You show them how to connect the whole thing so it can actually fire on anything hostile it spots thanks to the swivel.
After several hours, you have assembled three turrets and are overseeing them making their own, stepping in when they make mistakes occasionally, but mostly just observing. Ultimately, they have both finished their own turret, putting you to an overall output of five turrets, as well as hopefully having taught them something.
With all of that done, you clear away the stuff you took out of storage, carry the turrets a little to the side, and get a new batch of raw materials. Time to start arts and crafts class.
As in, sawing together the wooden parts of the laser muskets you're about to make. When asked about why the design looks different, you remark that you've figured out how to make the fusion cells smaller, so the muskets can have more space for the actual weapon and/or future upgrades to the design.
It takes a few hours again, but you and your little apprentices have put together two dozen of the basic laser muskets. Honestly, the biggest challenge was getting enough appropriately formed glass and focusing the lenses correctly, as they had to be adjusted for every single one, due to being shaped differently, but you've done some decent work, if you do say so yourself.
Now all you'll need is a lot of fusion cells and you'll be set for the near future.
The sun is up, but you just stay inside the workshop. Luckily enough, the actual work areas don't have windows through which any suspicious sounds could be heard, so you're fairly safe in here.
"Okay, next off, we're-" you begin, only to be interrupted by Lea.
"Boss, we've been awake and at work for over twelve hours now. We need sleeeeep."
"Alright, take an hour or two to nap, but then you have to test out that coffee machine Kate had you install here."
In the meantime, you may as well get to making the fusion cells- not like you can have too many of the things, after all.
Once your two techmonkeys are awake and coffeinated, you reflect on your naive thoughts. Looking over the enormous mountain of fusion cells amassed next to your workstation, you sigh.
"Well, at least the two of you can disassemble a few as I explain how they're put together, I suppose..."
Spending the rest of the day on trying to 'lengthen' the metaphorical chain connecting you across different dimensions, you eventually stop when night falls.
Taking a glance inside you, you grimace at just how slow time seems to be going in there right now. Taking a quick excursion to eat a single fruit anyway, you swiftly get to and eat it before getting out again.
With that done, you return to your earlier project.
Getting done with your original target fairly soon, you then get back to your earlier discovery of your strange feeding mechanism, successfully switching it from automatic to manual control... you think.
This isn't an exact science by any means.
With all that done, you realize you have yet to tell Kate about the enormous pile of turrets, laser muskets and fusion cells to use as ammunition for the latter, so you go do that, leading to an excited squeal, a hug you're fairly sure would actually leave bruises on a normal human and a quick blowjob.
You can practically feel the love, really.
Nevertheless, you send her off to receive her new toys while you wander off to find Nora, who is currently engaged in a cat video marathon. She seems rather happy, so you just sit yourself next to her, throwing an arm over her shoulder so she can cuddle into your side.
A few minutes (and a few hilarious cat related accidents) later, she speaks up. "You know, I never thought I'd ever have this again. Just... actual civilization, people I can talk to, functioning toilets... Am I a bad person for wanting to stay here?"
You mull that question over for a bit. "I don't know, are you going to? I wouldn't particularly mind either way, though I'd have thought you'd want to at least find your son or what became of him first."
With a faraway look in her eyes, considers "Yeah, you know what? It's not like staying here for a bit means I lose time over there. I kind of want to rebuild civilization, really lay into what you and Preston have begun, but there's no rush."
It is half an hour later and with Nora sitting on yout lap by now that the silence between you two gets broken again.
"Thank you, Gabe."
