You are slowly gaining more and more control over your jaunts through this strange not-space you travel through whenever you do not technically 'move' between dimensions; most of your movement is still predetermined, pulled along by this invisible not-chain that seems to serve as your primary way of navigating this not-place, but you can finally swerve and nudge yourself around freely as you are propelled along this more or less straight line.

It still seems somewhat weird how this works in the first place, but you suppose it's some measure of instinct coming from your true nature, anchoring yourself to whatever reality you were in originally and sending out a 'chain' to pull yourself along it to another and back when you wish to travel around.

It's kind of a pain, but at least it does make it easier to find your way around.

On the way back to Earth Bet, you deftly dodge a few more assaults by randomly opening portals releasing wildly honking trucks at you, though you think they've mostly given up by this point; it's really just a probing assault to see if they can get one over on you. What exactly those trucks are even doing here, how they're doing it and what they have against you in particular remains a mystery to you, but as it stands you can easily outmaneuver them on the go.

If you had limbs, you would be waving at them, but you do not, as you aren't really a physical entity right now. If anything, they're weird for even managing to exist as trucks along the path you're taking here.

Ah well. You have a really hard time even really consciously accessing this not-space, so you can't really research it as such; the best you can do is learn to do a few tricks in the few not-moments you traverse it every now and then.

But right now? Right now you're mostly just happy to return to Earth Bet. You've kinda missed the people you left there, much as the rest of the planet can go fuck itself.


The city of Brockton Bay was, some might say, suffering through the hangover of its life. Considering the parties celebrated at the survival against all odds when the Endbringer Leviathan chose it as a target, this was very understandable; though it may not mean much to most people all over the world, in the grand scheme of things, it meant everything to those that lived there.

And of course what was meaningful on a global scale, or rather who, was Cain, but that went without saying.

While it may have genuinely been upsetting for some people, the vast majority of the city's populace had been spending the weekend celebrating and consuming copious amounts of alcohol, as well as continuing the party on throughout Monday. It was thus that productivity was at an all time low come Tuesday, though few could truly fault anyone involved.

Some, in fact, continued drinking at work.

Not all were purely elated, of course. The battle with Leviathan still left vast swathes of Brockton Bay severely flooded, if only for a time, and many of the inhabitants of the affected areas were seeing themselves pushed towards the existential minimum of modern society, at least until governmental aid would arrive.

Broken windows, soaked and ruined furniture and more, lost or damaged documents, effectively destroyed electronics… It was a mild toll compared to what one would otherwise expect, under the circumstances, but still quite disastrous for those affected. Already, donations were being gathered, both from those within the city comparatively better-off and those elsewhere, against the instructions of the PRT fearing any outside interference with Brockton Bay at all.

The Lord Street Crypts themselves were already offering temporary shelter and food to any of the affected, however, and so nobody was going to interfere with donations in any official capacity.

And a single blond girl did not know about any of the nuances of this situation, instead approaching the first member of the gang, commonly referring to themselves as 'Crypsters', she found after hours of wandering the slightly soggy streets in order to request recruitment, a state of affairs most criminal elements could only dream of, cape or no cape.

It was still a very concerned Crypster that made a call to their superiors, as the power demonstrated to them left them quite rattled in the head…


The embrace you exchange with Sarah as soon as you can is nothing if not driven by deep, burning hot emotion; both your arms are closed around one another's back, your lips are locked against each other as your hands roam the other's body, confirming that nothing changed during the time you experienced in dilation.

Of course nothing did- vampires have a tendency to just heal off any change made to their bodies, after all, unless made through particular, extraordinary means. That doesn't stop Sarah from checking just in case and groping your ass while she's at it.

That's just how she is, after all.

Both you and her are gazing deeply into your opposite's eyes as you kiss, elongated tongues wrestling deeply with each other- she yields to you easily as you conquer her mouth, letting you explore her tonsils and her throat in a display of why vampires are just so much better at this than humans.

Your minds, in the meantime, are entwining and melding even deeper than your bodies, your general telepathic abilities turning you and Sarah from two separate beings into a single, uninterrupted whole.

You feel what she feels and vice versa. Everything you know, everything you think, everything you are, becomes one.

It's pure intimacy. It's amazing and overwhelming and it's over far too fast, but you haven't been resisting the urge to literally meld with your beloved for this long only to give in now.

"I've missed you," Sarah says once the feeling isn't directly projected into your head anymore, using both words and telepathy at the same time. "I missed you, missed you, missed you, missed you, missed you missed you, missed you missed you, missed you missed you, missed you!"

"I missed you more," you groan into her neck, kissing and nibbling her pure, perfect skin.

No words are wasted on explaining anything. You were gone for a month, from your perspective, and you missed Sarah, but while you were just absent for less than a moment from her perspective, she still knows you've been elsewhere for a month without her there and she is desperately trying to force herself back into your life.

Also, less than a moment without you is still horrible for your poor Little Sarah.

"Should we, like, just leave now?" Cupcake asks in the background. Little surprise, considering Sarah did, in fact, await your arrival as well as everyone else's right where you left, having accompanied you all the way, but you still ignore her handily.

"No, no, let 'em do their thing," Kate vaguely waves a hand in your direction. "Figure they'll work it off and we can get to dealing with stuff afterwards."

You push your hands under Sarah's pants, making her moan as you knead her soft, yielding butt.

"A-are you sure?" Isabel asks.

"Yeah, aren't they just gonna fuck all day if nobody stops them?" Cupcake adds.

"So this is copulation between siblings? I shall make 'aste to observe and compare it with Monsieur Gabriel's other partners," Curie declares.

You continue ignoring them for the moment as you and Sarah strip each other one piece of clothing at a time.

"It's nice to be young, isn't it?" Nora goes and pulls from everyone's shadows to create a bench to sit down on, absently stroking her belly and your unborn child within. "Let's let them have their fun, we can share."

Sarah groans something unintelligible as she physically tears your pants off your hips, your hard cock revealed to the warm air of the room you used for this.

Taylor quietly sits down next to Nora, settling in to watch.

"Oh right, I should get Codsworth out to have him familiarize himself with the bunker, shouldn't I?"

"Do it outside, this is for private viewing only," Kate says, only to halt. "No, nevermind, she's transmitting this live to GabeIsLife."

"She's incorrigible, isn't she?" Nora chuckles.

You feel Taylor accessing a certain thought repository on your shared thought internet thing.


You are naked, and so is Sarah. This is the most natural and, really, optimal state for both of you to be in, in case that wasn't clear yet.

You're lavishing kisses all over her breasts right now, soft orbs of pleasurable flesh teased and knead by your hands as your long tongue licks all over her puffy, hard little nipples.

The sounds Sarah makes are indescribable. Indescribably arousing, that is; if you weren't going to rock her world as hard as you can already, you would definitely be doing it now.

Her hands are busy, too, in the meanwhile, stroking your cock and holding onto you like she was afraid you'd disappear if she didn't, looking at you with big, pleading eyes. And really, what else are you supposed to do? You kiss her again, reassuring that you're there and everything is alright.

One of your arms wraps itself around Sarah's pleasantly bubbly butt, lifting her up a little. Your sister immediately spreads her legs wide, embracing you as fully as possible and rubbing her quivering honeypot all over you cock.

You bump your forehead against hers, gazing deep into each other's eyes again as your beautiful, beautiful Sarah gasps happily, feeling the familiar touch of your rod at her entrance. In a long, drawn-out breath, you slide yourself home, melding minds to make sure everyone knows exactly how good this feels.

And you do mean everyone. All your lovers get a first row seat to this, unless they reject it- and none do, both your and Sarah's transmissions going off in all directions without a hitch.

She's hot and tight and so very wet, just like every time you make love to her, but you still take your time to fill her up completely, kissing and nipping at her ears as you go between them and making out with her some more.

You stand in the middle of the room, feet planted firmly on the ground, and breathe out in satisfaction as you make Sarah shiver with the touch of your tip against her womb, knowing it is currently filled with your shared offspring. Which is a very weird way to describe her being pregnant, but you won't take it back.

With her arms around your shoulders, she comes right then and there, putty in your hands. She really can't help herself, can she? Enjoying the pressure and wet heat, you kiss her forehead as she trembles her way through an orgasm, teasingly bucking up into her only after she's about halfway done.

It's pretty easy to tell how far she is when you watch and pay attention to everything she does, after all. Easy-peasy.

However, before you can really get to work, you find yourself interrupted by an unlikely guest; Taylor comes in, kneeling behind Sarah, and you just grin at your sister's teasing pout.

You can still feel what she's feeling. She's a little bit peeved at how she's inserting herself, but doesn't really mind- as long as the youngest vampire amongst your lovers doesn't interrupt the thorough pounding she's about to receive.

Taylor's reaction to the wordless communication also reaching her is to spread Sarah's cheeks and use her tongue, licking all over where you're penetrating your blonde little sweetheart and pushin inside her ass.

"Auuh," your sister makes at the only semi-expected sensations.

Adorable.

You slowly and carefully begin to fuck her now, pressing her close to you and letting her hold you close in turn; with Taylor at work below you, you have to be a little more careful than usual, but you can keep Sarah steady easily enough with your enhanced strength, so you soon piston into her sweet little pussy to your heart's content, all the while Taylor grows herself additional insect arms to stroke her hair with.

It doesn't take long for the two of you to drive your sister to a wild spiral of climaxes, the walls of her love tunnel squeezing down on your dick like they're trying to milk it and letting her feel every last inch of your full length.

As is tradition for you, when you join Sarah in coming deep inside of her, pumping your release right against that last sacred barrier, you do not stop. You barely halt long enough for Taylor to lick up the seed leaking from Sarah, her tightness working against her in pushing it out past your cock where you're pushing into her balls deep.

She does get a kiss on the forehead, though, and Taylor's insectile limbs pat her head. It can't be helped, she is just as wise as you to your sister's cuteness, isn't she?


Mom was not happy. She wasn't always like this, of course, but she specifically wasn't happy with either of them, for reasons that Vicky had to admit were objectively valid from an outside perspective.

Not that she nor Amy were going to admit that. "Mom, it's fine, really!"

"You let a supervillain inject unknown tinkertech into your bodies that permanently changed them, how is this fine?"

"Well for starters, you let that same supervillain inject some other fluids into you, too," Amy snarked, slumped on the kitchen chair she usually claimed for herself. "Cain seriously just cums bucket-"

"That is not the crux of this issue," Carol spoke over her. "We have talked about this and despite my reservations, I have no right to criticize whoever either of you wants to see, but this is a very different topic."

"Mom, it's fine," Vicky said, leaning over the kitchen table to put a hand on her mom's. "There aren't any side effects and these powers have kept us safe, haven't they?"

The vice-like grip on her fingers surprised her, as did her mom grabbing Amy's hand too to hold onto it. "I want to say I do not trust that there will be no side effects, but I do want to trust Amy when she says otherwise more. But that still leaves how both of you took them and never told anyone, not even me, and I feel like you're sliding away from me ever since Cain started breaking our family apart."

"Oh, relax, nobody's breaking apart nuffin'." Amy was the first to get up and just give mom a hug. Vicky followed her immediately. "There, see? You won't ever stop being our mom and we'll always be your daughters."

"Promise?" Mom sniffled quietly and Vicky felt super awful about making her think that way.

"Promise. Right, Vicky?"

"Yeah."

They shared their group hug for a bit longer, until mom jerked upright, letting go of both of them. "Amy, what in the world- !"

"Hey, you're a beautiful blonde, don't expect me not to cop a feel."

Vicky was mortified. Actually, that was an understatement, Vicky froze into a salt statue it felt like.

Mom just sighed, shaking her head. "You're incorrigible… He's definitely corrupted you."

"He sure did s-"

The vibration of two phones at the same time kind of interrupted the moment, but Vicky was just glad she had something to break it up anyway. "Oh, look, it's a message! From… Cain?"

"He's inviting us to go on a day trip to LA," Amy helpfully noted.

Vicky saw how her mom felt for her own phone. And how it hadn't vibrated at all.

The disappointment was gone as soon as it had come and she thought she may just have imagined it. Maybe.

"You were still seen using powers you should not have and Cain is a well-known Trump," mom said, all serious again all of a sudden. "As such you will be scheduled to undergo psychological- and power screening with the PRT before you can be allowed to potentially spread any undue influences on either of you. Preferably this evening."

"… That's not fair, mom!" Vicky whined.

"My house, my rules."


"… And this," you say, tapping the cover of the Necronomicon you just summoned a little while ago while you hug Sarah with your free arm, "is a sapient book I created that can copy and implant anything I've learned to do in others- in terms of mundane skills, anyways."

"It is a pleasure to meet you, miss," the golden skeleton head mumbles through your fingers. "If you wish any copies of my creator's knowledge, please just say the word."

"Overuse can still cause some major issues considering it directly interfaces with people's minds, but yeah," you shrug. "Anyway, I should probably get to work on updating a couple of things and spreading the new technology around before the meeting later. Speaking of, could you… ?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll figure things out with the meeting room. Same snacks and drinks as usual?" Sarah sighs fondly, staying in close contact with you for a few moments longer.

"The usual plus a few bottles of blood, if you can? I figure with more and more vampires part of our organization, it wouldn't do to discriminate against our eating habits," you mime popping someone's head off with your bare hands and guzzling their blood directly from the neck.

"Of course." A wry grin on her face, she gets up from the bed, where you (naturally) have been having this conversation until now, after you relocated just a little bit. "How did we never think about how casually hurtful and racist it was not to have any blood on the snack table?"

"I suppose that's what I'm here for." You make sure to buffer your fingernails on your bare chest before blowing on them. "Oh yeah, also, wanna go to LA tonight? We can go to the beach, or just have a barbecue with everyone or something, it'll be fun and all."

"Sure, I'll look into that, too." Sarah boops your nose with hers. "I really love your spontaneous, random demands and suggestions, you know that?"

"Aww, you're just saying that. If anything, I love how you always make them work by forcing Henley to deal with most of them."

"No, I love you."

"No, I love you."

Both of you just chuckle at each other's antics.

Oh yeah, you can't forget to send a message to Amy and Vicky, too…


"Forward, minions! Follow my careful instructions and we shall… Do what we do every morning!"

"Is it still morning, actually?" Lindy, that one drug-producing chemist you picked up that one time, asks Cupcake.

"TAKE OVER THE WORLD!" Your self-doping-inclined midget of a chief alchemist exclaims, completely ignoring her as she poses dramatically at the thralls you specifically thralled to give the alchemy and have them produce a bunch of potions so you don't need to.

You proceed to snatch her up like a kitten, holding her by the scruff of her lab coat and pulling her under your arm. "No world takeovers yet, they're stenciled in for night time only," you proclaim. "I have also taken the liberty of actually sending a packet with instructions for what exactly you're all supposed to do via telepathy to each of you, please feel free to consult it if you'd like to know what's going on."

There's a sense of general mumbling and understanding now that someone actually explained what's going on and the thralls disperse, splitting up to set up the updated and improved facilities for alchemy you just let them know how to create.

Always nice when the people you pay way too much money to do a thing are actually doing that thing.

"Hey! Lemme down!"

"Not until I've made you give Curie the tour of the bunker." You, sadly, are quite busy right now, considering you're actually doing this and being productive for once, so she will have to fill in for you. "If you're a good girl, she might just molest you a bunch while you do that."

"… Okay."

See, all Cupcake needs to do a good job is some constant motivation.


Naturally, once you're done on that side of things, you proceed onward to showing off all your new toys to the Crypts' tinkers (and Lea), who you figure may as well get a head start on this stuff before the meeting just to get it out of the way. After all, it isn't every day that you come along and explain to your people that you've figured out technology to create infinite amounts of matter and energy.

You do, for the purposes of demonstration, deploy your soul-based eldritch manufactory in the middle of the central workshop area as you call everyone, getting it started on producing Eldritch Cores to begin with while you call in everyone around. After all, what's believing without seeing?

"Come 'round, come 'round, and let me show to you, the wonders of science!" Yes, you're doing the snake oil salesman voice, what about it? "No tricks, no double bottoms, just you and the unlimited resources you deserve! Also including forcefield, inertial dampening and boatlods of energy weapo-"

"Uh, Gabriel?" Lea asks in the middle of your monologue. "I think the tinkers went zombie on us."

"How do you figure?" You ask, having to physically hold back a wave of blank-eyed, drooling tinkers, from Sherrel over Alice all the way to Chariot and Scrapper, as they try to get at the stuff you had your manufactory crank out ahead of time. "No idea what might give you that idea."

In the end, giving all of them a sample of all your new technology is enough to get them off your back and have everyone go back to their own projects, but it's a close call.


Power Change Record NWENE-F

Subject: Glory Girl

Alias: Victoria Dallon

Original Power Assessment appended for comparison

Assessment:

Original Assessment still accurate. Additional powers have been manifested by way of an unknown, possibly semi-biological process (bio-tinker?). Additional unconfirmed corona-like tissue present in spine, frontal lobe and hands. Additional powers noted:

White forcefield protecting against most forms of attack and, according to statement, enhancing physical capabilities above baseline, invisible when inactive, see NWF-C-1

Pyrokinesis capable of flash-frying targeted matter, see NWF-C-2

Teleportation over medium distances, line-of-sight only, see NWF-C-3

Telekinesis capable of moving over 500kg, see NWF-C-4

Notes: Close contact to Cain (Trump 12), see [REDACTED]

Power Change Record NWENE-G

Subject: Panacea

Alias: Amy Dallon

Original Power Assessment appended for comparison

Assessment:

Original Assessment still accurate. Additional powers have been manifested by way of an unknown, possibly semi-biological process (bio-tinker?). Additional unconfirmed corona-like tissue present in spine, frontal lobe, lungs and hands. Additional powers noted:

Black forcefield protecting against most forms of attack and, according to statement, enhancing physical capabilities above baseline, invisible when inactive, see NWG-C-1

Sustained aerokinesis acting as a static change in airflow until triggered, then causing a forceful blast of gas, see NWG-C-2

Teleportation over medium distances, line-of-sight only, see NWG-C-3

Telekinesis capable of moving over 500kg, see NWG-C-4

Notes: Close contact to Cain (Trump 12), see [REDACTED]


The changes to Glory Girl and Panacea's powers on record were, to say the least, concerning.

Changes to their powers had been noted during the battle against Leviathan, when Panacea specifically momentarily repelled the Endbringer with telekinetically thrown objects until Cain arrived at the scene in his pursuit of the creature.

This was why Armsmaster was currently on the observation deck above the power assessment chambers, overseeing the careful application of non-standard modified powers in the hopes of understanding how Cain's power or powers functioned.

Or at least further what little understanding of them existed.

The x-ray scans of the girls' bodies had revealed tissue growths within their bodies that seemed to have taken on the functions of whatever tissue they were replacing (as opposed to merely displacing it), already causing researchers to speak of a new form of corona or a modified version of additional corona gemma further changing parahuman power expression.

It was a neat theory, which was why Armsmaster was already ready to dismiss it. Cain did not fit into any neat explanations, he had found.

Glory Girl was currently demonstrating her capability to teleport, after the validity of past power assessments had been verified. It seemed like Cain had not changed either her or her sister's power (her honorary PhD in Medicine was intact), instead purely adding to them in some way, achieving reliable, repeatable results.

This was highly dangerous. However, it did not seem to be foolproof.

According to the girls' testimony, there was a sort of 'internal reservoir', a well of energy for them to draw from to fuel these additional powers received from Cain. Tests were indicating that the more they used them, the lower their bodies' stores of certain nutrients fell, notably including caffeine (shown by Panacea's frankly horrendous blood tests) and sugar, though this was just a small sample of the changes to their reserves.

Apparently, even nicotine was converted into energy for these powers. If unused, they had little to no impact and made no further changes, but a steady supply of certain diets may be required for regular use just to ensure a healthy and continuous metabolism.

Perhaps some specialized MREs to maximize the nutrients gained over a given period of time? Armsmaster was no nutritionist, but he would send on a recommendation. It was unlikely any more heroes would receive such enhancements, but even just Glory Girl and Panacea were a considerable force to be reckoned with, now more so than ever.

He was torn out of his introspective thoughts when Glory Girl began to point at test objects to cause spontaneous combustion within them and Panacea demonstrated a great preference for the usage of imprecise, but powerful telekinesis, nearly taking off a lab intern's head as she showed off the ease with which she could tear the weights through the air.

He should probably interfere. On the other hand, they would tire themselves out and require coffee before long anyway. Perhaps it was an intended limiting factor Cain included in his usage of his Trump power(s)?

He would add it to his report.


The traditional general meeting, held pretty much every time you return from a trip to another dimension, has once again been called, your court assembling in all of its corporate-gang glory.

You are wearing a proper suit again. It's been quite a while, subjectively speaking, but you very much are enjoying it. Casual clothes only was fun, it always is, but it's hard to compare anything else to the feeling of a well-fitting suit.

Come to think of it, you never did go and get measurements taken, but at some point all your suits just started fitting you absolutely perfectly.

Ah, right, Sarah knows your measurements. Man, telepathy is sure useful to solve small puzzles like this. Of course you carefully don't question how she knows them, that's all up to your dear little sister.

You probably don't really want to know anyways. One of those little nuggets of wisdom you've managed to pick up over the years of being with very, very many girl and women, not necessarily in that order.

High school, man. Those years scar you for life.

Anyway, you've got everyone in attendance, Kate, Sarah, Henley, Cupcake, Lea, Aisha and even Taylor are present and ready to pay attention, or in Aisha's case, kneeling under the desk and ready to pay attention to your nether regions in particular.

Taylor looks a little jealous, you think. It's hard to be sure with her. You'll just have to assume.

"Welcome, everyone," you begin the meeting with your usual good cheer for these kinds of things. "Glad you all could make it."

"We all literally live down here, be hard not to," Kate chuckles. You shall let her.

"First of all, I will need to make a few announcements about the newest developments during my subjective time experience," you thus begin. "Henley, you will be happy to know that we will not require any further material deliveries, from within Brockton Bay or without. Similarly, we can generate however much electricity we want from down here, so that won't be an issue, either."

"I have read the reports, yes." By which he means the mental notes you released on the practical uses of your new technology. You cannot help but find that few, if any, people actually read the in-depth technical documentation you put into your network just to let anyone interested take a look.

You are not miffed about this. Not at all.

"Further, as we have achieved a new level of offensive and defensive personal equipment, Kate will be organizing another shift in equipment generations among our people after today."

"I will?" Your girlfriend asks, brow raised playfully.

"You're the best for the job. I believe in you," you state drily. "Also feel free to ask Nora or any of the others for help, I just want you in charge of giving everyone the new and improved guns."

"You always know how to get me to do your dirty work."

"Personally I'm really looking forward to each of our high-ranking members being equipped with a personal forcefield generator and ballistic weave in their clothing," you remark to everyone at large. "Anyway, back on topic, let's talk logistics and the current state of the city for starters…"


Brockton Bay is, as still stands, kind of fucked, but it is getting better. Preliminary estimations are saying that the water damage hitting parts of the city isn't as bad as initially feared and should be quite fixable with just a little time.

Works well enough for you, you're in no real hurry.

First emergency response shelters have already been erected, in no small part by your people, in fact, as Henley saw fit to give the go-ahead for this measure of his own accord. Not that you disagree, either, seeing as the entire city is de facto under your control and, therefore, your responsibility to some extent.

It really was quite inconsiderate of Leviathan to wreck it practically right after you got it. Sure, Brockton Bay may not have been a mint condition city by any measure, but still.

The honestly most annoying part remaining by this point of remarkably fast response are the sewers, by the way. The sheer amount of water suddenly present down there and the trash and rubble torn into them with it are seriously threatening the fresh water supply in some parts of the city. It's not too bad, thankfully, and only sporadically a real problem for the local population, but you still go ahead and approve the usage of your good old semi-industrial water filtration devices to secretly procure and hand out drinkable water in all affected areas.

In related news, Henley has also been a busy little bee in buying up any property around Brockton Bay he could, however indirectly he had to. At a rough glance, somewhere between twenty and twenty-five percent of land within its bounds is in your possession at this time, though furthering this takeover would actually be extremely expensive at this point. Simply put, any land that can be bought cheaply has already been bought, by you specifically.

On the other hand, prospecting of the railways leading out of your territory has been preliminarily halted due to the general state of emergency and its consequences. You could, however, get that whole thing back on track fairly easily with a call to the mayor or two.

As for the Crypts at large, the status quo has more or less weathered these same developments. Many of your lower-level gang members are still living in small groups all throughout the territory you have been refurbishing into something decently livable, being used for minor errands by the 'real' criminals amongst you; delivering stuff, from drugs to food or water, spray-painting over old and outdated gang tags that nobody needs anymore after you removed said gangs, that kind of thing.

You have dealers distributed over areas with enough demand for drugs to justify the supply, courtesy of Sarah analyzing city demographics and occasionally updating the map to account for developments, actually with proper walk-in centers where people can take drugs under supervision of some of your people (yet another one of those minor jobs handed out), actually being responsible about keeping your consumers alive and functioning in the long term.

Yes, your gang is being responsible. Shocking, you know. Incidentally, this is just one more of these things that simply wouldn't be possible if it weren't for your very much impressive reputation and the fact the heroes don't want to fuck with you, by the by.

All in all, it looks like things are currently working out pretty well for the Lord Street Crypts.

Also, the Raveyard (still an amazing name you chose, you won't lie) has been the hottest party spot in town while at the same time making a killing off of the black market you built under it. Not many people are even allowed down into the basement, of course, but that just adds to the exclusivity and the value of the items sold, the Crypts merch in particular.

You've heard the Cain dildos are being resold for over hundred bucks over the internet. There's even rumours about a secret lottery for tickets into the basement market and the vaunted VIP area upstairs, everything from everyone that buys a drink secretly getting a try to a competition on who can work the most dicks in the glory holes inside the public toilets.

… You'll have to look into installing an autodoc somewhere inside the club to treat STDs before they become an issue, won't you? Not everyone has the basic intellect required to wear some fucking condoms.

Also, the 'secret' sex rooms are apparently renting well among a certain subset of people with particular interests. Turns out BDSM enthusiasts, for one, appreciate the rebuilt industrial machinery that comes with the time people have booked.


Once all reports are properly read out or handed in to everyone through telepathic communication, you begin the real meat of these meetings; discussing and planning future steps for the Lord Street Crypts as an organization.

Because hey, after you took out all the other gangs, someone has to organize things in order to conduct organized crime within this city.

So, in order. The railways leading out of Brockton Bay's big trainyard toward the north of the city will be inspected and repaired in double time, using money and materials from you if that's what it takes, in order to get some conventional infrastructure going again. While teleportation does make smuggling weapons and drugs pretty much anywhere you want to a lot easier, you actually want some mundane transportation in order to mask your logistical capabilities to outside observers, for one.

To this end, you will also be meeting with Accord again earlier than originally planned. Strike while the iron is hot and all. While you're at it, you may well end up reaching out a hand to try and bring him on board more than he would otherwise be, but you'll see how the meeting goes.

Improvisation is and remains your strong point.

In this regard, you will also be doing some more structural changes to your territory. Mostly in terms of establishing cheap housing in large amounts, just rebuilt apartment buildings up to your standards and stuff. The goal here is mostly to more fully absorb any population that is open to living in your territory that has a relatively low regular income, while at the same time making some bucks off of rent.

Hey, it's a legit business model. Why wouldn't you jump in on it?

That said, you also will, in all likelihood, begin using your infinitely replicated materials and products as exports at some point; maybe abuse the manufactories for their original functions and just churn out semi-conductors to sell on or else fabricate entire finished products wholesale, whatever works best once you have easy, subtle access to a wider market. Brocton Bay itself, for one, won't ever be suffering from having to import pretty much anything ever again; contracts to supply local businesses with whatever they may need are already being finalized, according to Henley.

To this end, you may as well brinstorm a few particularly unique products that-

"We should have Gabriel pose in his male and female forms for a sexy calendar kind of deal," Sarah proclaims, tearing you from the depths of the telepathic conference call you're engaged in.

"Wait a second," you ask, "I'm not sure anyone would really be interested in that."

"Anyone would want one, all in favor?" She raises her hand.

She's really just doing whatever she wants now, isn't she?

"Me! Me!" And Cupcake isn't any better, either.


As you are dragged off by Sarah to go and produce some erotic calendar thing (You do understand, of course, you also like to create artwork of her), you ask Henley to send his twin assistants your way while you'll be busy with that; the Searfield twins have, by all accounts, earned themselves a bit of a thralling and you won't be doing much otherwise anyway, so you may as well, is all.

You do make sure there's nothing important that requires your attention before you leave still, of course, but it seems all that you even could deal with are some minutiae of little consequence, so you simply delegate them as required and call the meeting.

Always nice when things work more or less as intended. Then again, you did spend enough time on the organizational structure of the Crypts you feel justified in expecting your people to be able to deal with minor issues by themselves.


"Aaand the spine connects to the… Skulls! And the skulls connect to the… Cores!"

"Having fun, Riley?"

"Gabriel!" The pitter-patter of small shoes on hard ground could be heard. "I tried using the weird things you gave us to increase blood production even more. I think it's been a success!"

"Your dress certainly seems to agree."

"Hehe, I can just clean that up later, silly! Unless you want to… Lick it off?"

Am amused head pat ensued. "Sure, sure, just as soon as I torture a few more souls. I think these ones have started to fuse together, actually…"

"Ooh! That's fascinating. Maybe it's because their brains are all connected now and they all feel the same things? I love doing science."

"Me too, Riley. Me too."

More head pats ensued.


Riley actually made a few more blood flavors in her main blood machine victim thing. The citrus one is actually pretty interesting, though the aftertaste really lingers in your mouth. It's the first time something ever did that ever since you became a vampire.


Aisha walks along with you, still dressed in little but her shoes, fishnet stockings and a belt around her waist on which she's carrying her weapon, the pair of sword- and knife-guns currently separated and hanging to both sides.

Her chocolate skin still looks as absolutely tasty as it always does and her surprisingly well-formed curves (for her age) still have you itch to bend her over and have your way with her. However, you actually have a thing or two to take care of if you want to get it all done in time for your company trip to LA, so sadly you will have to abstain from molesting the sweets goblin.

That said, she doesn't look all that unsatisfied as it is already, rubbing the slight bulge in her belly. "Man, that meeting was great. Like, not as a meeting, but it went long enough for me."

"Hope you left some space for the barbecue at the luau later," you smirk, tussling up her hair. You'll be honest, it is kind of hot to just have this girl wrap her soft lips around your cock and blow you until she literally can't drink any more semen, but it'd be a shame if she was left out now.

"Nah, I'll digest a bit and be in top form! Also, are we, like, eating people?" She grins up at you. "Because that would be freakin' cool."

"Nah, we'll have guests and not everyone is comfortable with casual cannibalism," you point out. "Speaking of, I got to go and throw out an invitation. You good to only blow up stuff that doesn't belong to us while I'm gone?"

Aisha shakes her head. "Whole damn city belongs to us these days. Kind of."

"That's the point, yes."

Now then, off to see the Dallon household. Or at least the non-depressed into nigh complete apathy part of it.


The Castle: Parts of the Soul Palace that have begun to float independently from the rest of the structure, sometimes shining and shimmering with refracted light. All of the Palace's ruler's personal rooms and installations are within, leaving only their trusted Guardians to wander it freely.

The Jungle: A wild, teeming mass of unearthly flora close to, but distant from the Garden, feeding from an endless river of vividly pink fluid. The plants are a little more alive than one would be used to, discreetly watching anyone walking among them. It seems like every time one blinks or looks away, they grow and shift to look entirely different.


So after a quick stint as Parian's secret Santa in the completely wrong time of year, secretly teleporting into her apartment to leave behind an autographed special edition of the new Crypt Merch Calendars already in print (Sarah really works fast), you check your cargo over, making sure you actually gave her the right signed calendar, the one with the female-only pictures of yourself posing.

You had no idea your lovers (Kate and Sherrel confess to your involvement in the affair, too) had this many clothes and costumes meant for your female form ready for just such an occasion as this one, but hey, that just means you don't need to go shopping for something to wear if you ever ed up using that form for any extended period of time.

It's what you'd call a win-win. Their preparations don't go to waste and you can wear stuff your wives picked out for you.


You find Sabah inside her bedroom, reading something on a tablet, when you let yourself in (right past the walls and doors and whatnot), sighing and putting her device down to her side when she sees you coming in. She doesn't even bother complaining about her state of dress- pyjamas, not that they're anything terribly exciting- and instead sounds more bored than anything else.

"What is it this time? Aren't you busy celebrating… Everything?"

"Funny thing, that, because this is about a celebration," you remark with a smirk. Your usual, smug one. "First off, here's a bit of free Crypt merch- you don't need to thank me, we were producing calendars with my female version posing already."

A rabid lesbian snatches your offering out of your hands, dark skin darkening further at her blush. "I'll take it."

"Good, I'd have been worried about you otherwise. Also, we're going to LA to have a nightly beach barbecue slash luau. How badly do you want to see everyone in bikinis?"

Sabah blinks, her face the perfect picture of non-understanding for a long moment.

Then, sluggishly pushing herself off her bed, she staggers to her feet. "I have to see… Whether my swimsuit still fits."

You grin at her. "See you in half an hour, give or take. I'm off for the last invitations, then I can pick you up if you want?"

"Only if you're female and let me choke on those thighs," she murmurs distractedly.

"It's a deal~."

Of course you'll do it, too.


The Dallon home, once you infiltrate it in the form of yet another teleport (you just love this tech and how convenient it is, it's downright insane) is filled with life, despite the man of the house currently lying in bed blankly staring at the ceiling and not doing much of anything.

Depression, man. It's some seriously sad and, well, depressing business. Oh, you're still absolutely going to take advantage of that deep, dark hole from where people just stop caring about just about anything, but that doesn't meant you can't acknowledge how much it sucks.

You move right on into the living room, where Carol, Vicky and Amy are already waiting. Vicky, for one, is literally bouncing in excitement, floating up and down whenever her mother isn't looking.

When said mother turns towards you with a pursed mouth and pressure in her eyes, you thus do the first thing that comes to mind, the same thing you always did in situations just like this. You walk right up to her, not saying a single word, and kiss her before she can decide what vitriol to spit first.

Carol melts into your arms, the 'case' she built up against inside her head you dispersing like dust in the wind. Looking her deeply in the eyes your lips locked with hers, you wordlessly let her know you don't hold whatever she was building up to against her.

Letting her come up for air, you bemusedly note how Amy I grinning anticipatorily at the two of you, all the while Vicky is demonstratively holding her hands before her eyes. "Is it over? Safe to look again?"

"It always was and your mom's not even naked," you remark mildly. "Speaking of, though, did you know about the beach barbecue, Carol?"

"I do," she confirms, breathlessly.

"Would you do us the honor of attending, then? I'm sure nobody will mind, much at least, and I can count on your discretion as to other parahumans' identities, can't I?"

"My daughters require parental supervision," she throws out, almost as if a pre-prepared line.

"Great. If anyone needs a swimsuit, we can source some on the fly, so don't worry about any of that," you conclude.

"Wait, seriously? Mom, you can't come with us!" Vicky exclaims, genuinely shocked.

"And why not, young lady?"

"It's, uh, it's not your crowd? Uhm, most Crypt capes are more our age, so you'll just be bored?"

"I am sure Cain will be able to find ways for us to have fun if that should be the case."

Ouch, indicating that she's totally planning to cockblock her daughter if it comes down to it. That's some harsh parenting there. You do approve, though.

Amy, on the other hand, seems to be holding back giggling laughter at this point. Good, someone always needs to appreciate family drama, that way it's at least good for something no matter what else.


Most of the preparations for your beachside barbecue and luau have been taken care of behind the scenes thanks to Sarah, so it is a mild surprise, when you arrive, to find that a whole private beach has been rented for this occasion, a nice little place some way north of the city as such.

Everyone is there, setting up the grill and just chatting and hanging out. Turning towards the people you delivered here via teleportation just a few minutes later than the Crypt capes you brought into this, the Dallons and Sabah both staring at the going-ons blankly.

Sarah, Kate, Sherrel, Nora, Okita, Lea, Emily, Taylor, Cupcake, Rachel, Priestess, Aisha, Isabel, Tammi, Alice, Dinah, Circus, the Cluster Six, Kayden, Cherie, Riley, Mimi, Paige and Curie are in attendance, in addition to Madison who Taylor actually went and took along and the four additional participants trailing behind you right now.

That, uh, actually quite a lot of people. And it's not even all the powered people among the Crypts, far from it if you count the 'Valkyries' (which you are) and the guys.

Thirty-four in all, plus yourself. Huh. Come to think of it, you may need to make sure the Dallons don't get too good a look at Dinah, they might actually know or recognize her; also, why is she even here? You'd have assumed this would be past her bedtime already.

"So, go on ahead and feel free to mix in, you shouldn't have any issues," you wave the new guests along, going ahead to do just that yourself. "If you need anything feel free to ask, everyone's pretty open or will at least point you at someone else that can help you."

Just then, Okita comes walking towards you, wearing a black bikini under an open red jacket she's leaving hanging on her arms as well as a pair of sunglasses which she raises up to actually smile at you. This is relatively rare, she doesn't usually get facial expressions this well.

"Gabriel," she announces once she's arrived.

"Okita," you reply, bemused.

Nodding happily, she rounds on over to her 'acquaintance'. "Sabah."

"Uhm… Oki… ta… ?"

She nods again. Taking the arabic cape's hand, your most murderous murderblender- though that position may be taken up by Taylor one of these days, come to think of it; you aren't exactly sure how Okita's singular focus on absolutely crushing what's right in front of her measures up to Taylor's wide-area desolation and surprising trickiness against actually challenging opponents- drags her off to go watch the fire Kate and Sherrel are currently stoking, a few gestures indicating they're considering just grilling the meat via reconfiguring one of your energy weapons a bit.

Ah well, not like it really matters. That's what you have several specialized killers in the form of pretty young women for.

Glancing at the Dallons, the only remaining part of your group now that Sabah is being claimed to be part of the 'staring at the pretty fire' party, you shrug. "There you go, I suppose. Have fun!"


Leading the three members of the same family towards the fire in the (relative) center of the festivities, with the grills arranged around it in a half-circle, you all take a seat, Amy and Vicky to one side of you, Carol to the other. While all of these New Wave women are wearing their own bikinis, they've still got clothes they're wearing above them, so you don't have that eye candy offered to yourself- yet.

Oh woe is you. You'll just have to deal with only having the rest of your girls walking around just that close to naked.

Taking a look at the three people around yourself, you give them each a smile even as you mentally ask for Sarah to come by and help you out a bit. "So as you can see, the Crypt capes as a whole try to do something together regularly now that Brockton Bay isn't in any real danger of being attacked. Just imagine having to get back in a hurry while we're doing."

"Is this the first ever Crypts beachside barbecue, then?" Vicky asks, leaning forwards to look at you past her sister.

"It is, though we've been discussing making it a regular thing if enough people like it."

"And the reason only chicks are here?" Amy adds her own question.

"I asked a couple of the guys, but they didn't want to come," you shrug. Of course that's mostly because you specifically asked in ways meant to get them to decline while still feeling included, but hey, you can be kind of a dick sometimes in that way.

Besides, most of them wouldn't really have had fun anyway.

Just then, Sarah approaches you from behind, casually vaunting over your shoulder to land sitting on your lap, complete with her smug, vulpine grin. "Hey, party poopers."

"… And who might you be?" Ah, there Carol goes, trying to gather more information on the Crypts just in case. To be honest, you were a little disappointed she didn't start much earlier already.

"Oh, my name's Sarah and I'm Gabriel's sister," your rambunctious little hellion of a younger sibling explains. "And also his lover and official first wife. Nice to meet you!"

She grinds her butt against your crotch and makes no secret about it, grinning at them still but now to send a message. You suppress a snort at that and actually take in everyone's reactions.

Well, they're pretty easy to categorize, at least; Amy looks intrigued and secretly approving, Vicky looks scandalized, blinking and holding a hand over her mouth but still kind of wanting to hear more while Carol keeps on stewing in her quiet disapproval.

She's still refusing to acknowledge reality and accept that 'villains' can be 'people', Sarah lets you know. Her analysis is, as always, probably correct.

It's a kind of cognitive dissonance, you suggest. Seeing everyone around, knowing they're villains and yet just enjoying themselves on the beach, going against some kind of preconceived notion of how they're supposed to be acting.

Sarah agrees with you and so you come up with a plan on how to deal with the Dallons going forward, all the while outwardly engaging in small talk and keeping on dropping a few 'hints' here and there to keep everyone thinking they're learning something new (that they could've just asked for, really).


Carol Dallon held back a sigh, shaking her head at one of the questions asked of her. "No, no, I'm fine. Just a little tired."

She eyed the young woman that'd introduced herself as Gabriel's sister and… lover. The blonde could have passed for her daughters' age, though the mother in her wanted to say the villainess was a bit older than both, with her lightly curled blonde hair and unblemished skin.

Sarah was young, objectively beautiful and extremely curvy, her every move almost swaying in its execution and large eyes beating open and closed almost seductively. It made her doubt herself, a little, to know Cain (or Gabriel?) frequently consorted with someone like this.

She hid it, of course, but a trace of emotion was still there, despite her concerns about even being where she was.

"Are you sure? You're a bit…" Sarah gestured at Carol, causing her to look down on herself.

She was still doing well, she had to say, though it was terribly embarrassing to wear a 'swimsuit' of this nature and maybe a number or two too small for herself. She'd bought it a few weeks ago, when thoughts of Leviathan were nothing more than idle background concerns to be chased away with whatever means necessary, thinking of Cain and what 'requests' he might make of her.

She cursed her naivete about the possible circumstances in this regard. However, Carol was still fit enough to be seen on a beach somewhat like this, her frequent workouts despite the pressing workload of her profession ensuring she stayed in shape.

Superheroes could not afford to slack in this department. Least of all her, who could not fly in comparison to half of her family.

She blinked, seeing what Sarah was referring to now. The straps keeping the admittedly flimsy cloth in place on her body were slowly, but steadily slipping with every breath she took.

Damn. "It could be my sizes changed a little since I got this," she played over the problem, pushing everything into place once again.

"Mhm," the younger woman smiled, giving her a knowing look. She could not possibly admit she'd deliberately gotten it just a little too small, did she? "Maybe you should just leave it be."

"… Excuse me?" She was genuinely having a little trouble-

"Look around, we're all girls here," she said, and Carol did before she thought better of it. They were surrounded by beautiful women (and girls, in some cases), the only male around being Cain himself. She would have to make a few very pointed inquiries in regards to the younger girls she'd seem scampering around, just in case, too. "Nobody will mind."

Yes. That. Carol bit her lip, thinking it over. On the one hand, throwing her dignity out the window and straight into a dumpster was a tough pill to swallow. On the other hand, that was exactly what she'd been doing for a while now where Cain was concerned and this swimsuit was just continually slipping and rubbing in places she did not need to be rubbed.

Was she just unusually sensitive today? She licked her lips. There didn't seem to be any way around this, so…

"You're right, it really is for the best," she sighed, carefully guiding the upper strap up behind her head to take off what little material she was wearing. In any other circumstance, this would be utterly scandalous, but this was a rented private beach…

"Heeeh… You look absolutely tasty, you know that?"

Carol continued baring it all, blushing a little at the praise. "Thank you. Though I'm hardly the most attractive here…"

"No, no, you're looking really nice." Somehow, the other woman's eye were lighting embers inside her, something about this situation driving Carol just a little wild- there was something deep in her core that was relishing this, a steady, wet heat pulsing inside of her. "I almost want to steal you from my brother. Or get him to share, at least."

Sarah was gazing at her with half-lidded eyes, both of them standing near the fire now. She was coming closer, a little, a perfectly manicured hand rising to stroke her side.

She was just now realizing they were both naked and for a moment, Carol was back in college, with her sister… But no, this woman was entirely different. Still she couldn't help her breath speeding up, warm air escaping her lips as they gazed at each other's eyes, Sarah's almost too perfect body both a challenge and a dare…

Then the other blonde smiled. "No, if we do this, we do this right, and that means not without my brother. Speaking of, did you see him and your daughters go?"

She asked with utmost innocence, but Carol could see it in her eyes. She was teasing her, playing with her. And she couldn't help it, but it was utterly arousing in itself.

"There, that way. And careful, wouldn't want anyone taking a bite, after all."

The slap came without warning, but if she took a red handprint on her butt from this, Carol would keep it without complaint.

Now where had her daughters gone off to with that horrible, horribly handsome man again…


She heard them before she saw them, following the three tracks of footsteps a short way from the site of the barbecue (the meat was going to be done soon, last she saw) and behind a small rock formation towards one side of the beach, opposite from the quietly flowing low waves of the sea.

Though she barely had any mind to pay attention. Instead, all of her being was taken up by the view of her daughters, entirely naked much like herself, and Cain, hands roaming all over each other.

Breath stuck in her throat, she watched on, the three of them rubbing against one another as much as was possible. There were a few things Carol could not help but notice- in contrast to Sarah, Vicky was absolutely awakening certain memories both she and her sister had agreed were best left forgotten at some point, her proportions and expression enough to make her swallow heavily.

Amy, on the other hand, was just… She could find no other way to say it, stacked. Her chest was large and heavy, especially when taken as part of the slightly shorter girl, her many freckles and curly, dark hair more cute than anything else.

Looking at her like this, she was nothing at all like her biological… 'father'. And just as pretty as Carol's other daughter, in her own way.

And the man having his way with both of them… The tanned form of Cain, muscled and moving with a form of coiled grace no porn actor could ever match, was making out with the girls, one after the other, all the while Vicky and Amy dipped down to nip at each other's chests. It was incredibly arousing to watch as they slowly lowered themselves, almost as though drawn by an invisible call, never once stopping their intimate exchange…

… When they finally, on their knees, reached the perfect height to open their mouths and lavish saliva onto The Cock.

It did deserve the capitals, Cain's genitalia. Large and imposing, Vicky swallowed it nonetheless, her sister picking up the slack in licking and kissing its length as they half made out and half pleasured the perhaps most powerful supervillain in the US.

Carol couldn't decide where to look; the smiling, aroused face of Cain or her teenaged daughters whose breasts were pulsing with every breath in the pleasantly warm night air. Both were… More tempting than they should be.

She only realized now she was fingering herself, kneeling behind a rocky outcropping and two digits pumping into her tight tunnel as she stared at her daughters. She couldn't help it, they were, it had to be said, sexy.

Watching them lubricate Cain with their spit was one of the hottest things Carol had seen in her life and she wasn't sure whether to regret it or embrace it. Catching a glimpse of where both Amy and Vicky were also pleasuring themselves, she knew, then and there, there would be no backing out on this for her.

Then Cain gave her a grin, looking her right in the eyes. "Look who's come to join us," his voice drifted through the dark only illuminated by the nearby fires, all the way towards her.

Carol swallowed, again, but she'd made her decision and she wasn't about to back out. Getting up, she walked towards the three of them with shaky steps, knowing there was no way back.

Vicky was up now, looking at her with mixed emotions, but then she gasped, distracted by Amy's face diving into the valley of her hips. Her most biological daughter's eyes almost closed, luscious lips opened in a soft, enduring moan, and her hips bucked as-

Was that a penis in place of her clitoris Amy was expertly fellating now? Carol could make it out better as she came closer, the thick rod almost looking out of place amidst Vicky's soft body, but not quite, and she didn't have the time to comment before Cain embraced her, pulling her in closer towards her daughters. "So glad you could join us," he purred. "Amy almost had to take both me and Vicky by herself. I'm sure you'd just love to take that place."


"I'm still not sure this is a good idea," Carol said, for the perhaps… third time? Fourth? It still had to be said.

"And I'm sure it's a great one," Cain replied from where he stood right in front of her, sitting on a mostly flat piece of rock and keeping her in position by holding up her shoulders. "You love it, after all."

It was vaguely humiliating, to be kneeling in the sand and pushing her behind out like she was doing as she licked and suckled on his penis, lips wrapped around its hot length, all the while Vicky was spreading her cheeks and offering parts of her that her daughters were very much not supposed to so much as see up to Amy who was pushing her soft, wet tongue against Carol's sphincter.

Once again cleaning herself up just in case had been a great idea.

"Couldn't you just use your power, Amy?" Victoria asked, clearly sounding impatient. It shot a thrill through Carol's nether regions to think of her daughter wanting to do so many so wrong things to her.

"I could, but it wouldn't feel the same," her other daughter declared, her two fingers replacing Carol's own from earlier as she gathered some lubrication from her, clear fluid spread over the intruding digits and brought around to slowly, but forcefully push into her ass, scissoring each other and stretching her in preparation of what was to come. "I want mom to stretch naturally."

She would say something, but oh, Cain's penis required sucking so she couldn't. The horror. Going by the amused snort, he knew exactly why she'd suddenly taken him deeper, his prodigious member waiting to spear into her.

"Is she ready?" Vicky whined. "I can't wait much longer."

"You will wait until I let you fuck mom." There was movement behind Carol, shuffling, and she heard what she thought was Amy literally taking Vicky by the dick.

Then she was lifted up, brought upright by Cain's strong arms, and she knew what was about to happen. Drawn closer towards the physically dominating man (though she thought she could use her power to wound him, or inconvenience him or do something… probably), Carol's lips met his as they exchanged a kiss, all her reservations and determination and caveats to this entire encounter flying away like dust in the wind.

What was left behind was just a horny slut wordlessly begging to be taken. And she was.

Pulled onto Cain's lap, she panted as her sodden pussy swallowed his cock, glued to his strong, muscular body, and when the second rod made contact with her asshole, she didn't so much tense up a she squeezed on and drew it in, feeling her daughter's cock penetrate her from behind just like Cain was doing it from the front.

"You're so tight, mom, it feels so good," Vicky panted, hands groping Carol's tits while Cain groped her butt as it was spread open around her rod.

Carol's eyes rolled in their sockets as she took the two cocks like a slut in heat, pinned between the monster and her daughter. She had no choice but to love this, so love this she did.

She could feel them inside of her, rubbing and thrusting, setting her nerves alight and driving her nuts. Her daughter's breasts were pressing against her back and it took all she had not to completely lose it the moment both of her violators bottomed out inside of her as soft hips met her cushioning rump, filling her insides to the brink and forming a combined bulge on her belly.

Then Amy rubbed a palm against it and they started pounding in earnest and Carol was gone.

It could have been seconds or it could have been minutes, but by the time she regained her eyesight, she was kissing Amy who was standing behind Cain now, her body reduced to holes being used for pleasure, just a plaything meant to be moaning and twitching in pleasure. Vicky was certainly gasping into her ears, flush against Carol and hammering her waist in eagerness to take her ass.

"That's right," Amy whispered, gazing into her eyes. "You're just a slut now. Our horny little whore. You love it when your daughters play with you and use you."

As hot as this was, Amy was going to get the spanking of a lifetime later. The hot kind.

With Cain taking over nibbling and suckling on Amy's nipples, Carol was free to experience the pounding of a lifetime, him and Vicky settling into a breakneck rhythm as they pistoned into her from below and for a short while, the world shrunk down to just her and the two cocks, plunging into her again and again, legs spread wide to both sides to invite them in.

"Mom! Mom! Mom!" Vicky's moaning grew coherent for a moment, her body floating to let her fuck Carol's ass better and trembling cock piercing into her from behind in full, milked by her rectal muscles and squeezed down on from all sides in a way she could clearly feel, and she only realized what was happening when it was too late do anything. Not that she would have, in the moment. "Moooom!"

Her daughter, her sweet Vicky, was coming, pumping something hot and sticky deep into her. Under her, Cain hummed, similarly spraying her womb with his seed, and Carol blacked out again.

By the time she next woke up, Amy was kneeling between Vicky and Cain, cleaning both of them off with her mouth. "Ah, there you are," the only man among them said. "Ready for round two?"

Carol whimpered and spread her legs. Dignity could wait for tomorrow.


Once Carol is appropriately unconscious and unlikely to wake up again for the night and Amy has taken Vicky off to the side to feed her freshly grilled meat in order to restore her body's natural stores of various nutrients (turns out even with her power, making Vicky produce a sperm substitute in the amounts deposited inside of her mother can be taxing), you move on and leave the three of them more or less alone for the moment, content to have Sarah manage everyone's access to them.

By which you mean Aisha is already stealing Amy's food, but hey, that's just the Aisha tax. Nothing to worry about there.

Elsewhere, Nora is sitting together with Dinah, your pregnant lover making sure the mayor's niece (that still probably really, really shouldn't be here, but every time you think about it the others telepathically argue leaving her out wouldn't be acceptable at all) is eating properly and holding her plate right.

It's actually kind of cute, in that 'you are the baddies but the kids like you the most anyway' kind of way. You'll take is as a win, at any rate.

Mentally linking yourself into whatever is going on between them right now, it seems like Nora is explaining to Dinah how babies are made and how sexuality, as a thing, works, along with warnings that most people would consider her to be too young to do any of it. She's even letting her touch her pregnant belly, your unborn child promptly bumping back against Dinah's palm and making her make sounds of amazement.

Cute. Also, kind of concerning and you increasingly find yourself questioning exactly how conscious vampire babies are while still in the womb, but the point stands that it's all very cute.

You're sending loving thoughts into the general direction just in case, anyhow. That's the most important part here.

Leaving things over there alone, you turn towards where Okita and Sabah are just… sitting around together on some beach chairs that came with the place, occasionally chatting a little when Sabah can bring up the courage to try doing some small talk.

Knowing that situation is potentially even more worrisome than Riley breaking off from where she's held up by a few of the others and getting access to the steadily progressing barbecue grills (Kate and Sherrel have got the second helping of assorted high-quality meat you got just because you could on there already), you decide to join them, strolling along into that direction.

"Too much edge is bad."

"I see." Looking up, Sabah gives you a forced smile begging for help, any kind of help, as though she'd already considered running towards the sea and drowning herself to escape the awkwardness. "Oh hello Gabriel, Okita was just telling me how swords work."

"It's important," the black-haired, busty Japanese ex-heroine agrees.

You chuckle, turning around to let yourself fall into a free beach chair. "I see. First rule of Okita talk, be as direct as possible. Do you like the food, Okita?"

"M-hm," she makes, opening her mouth wide, revealing her jagged vampire teeth as she tears into a juicy steak, devouring half of it in one bite. "'Sh gud."

"I'm glad you like it." Nodding at Sabah, you complete your demonstration. "So, you want to have sex with Sabah again?"

"I- hey, you can't just say that-"

"Yes," Okita confirms.

You give Sabah a look that says 'See?' better than any amount of 'I told you so' could. The dark-skinned woman sighs, looking at her own piece of meat. "I see."

"Would be more fun with the Gabriel, too."

"… I see?" Sabah gives you a questioning look, her brows furrowing as she considers how to get you to spontaneously grow tits.


Sabah felt like a prisoner being led to the gallows, walking up the cool stairs to the terrace a little ways from the campfire and the grills, but it really wasn't that bad, to be honest. Sure, it could be better, many thing could, but she was about to have sex with Okita again, which was pretty great!

Now Gabriel being in the mix was maybe less great, but only because he apparently 'didn't feel like' changing forms. He had the power to be a sexy woman, why wasn't he using it nonstop again? Sure preferences were a thing, but come on!

Ugh, this was like early college all over again, when Sabah'd first really realized she was gay. Because none of the guys she tried did it for her, but the moment she'd seen a naked woman everything suddenly made sense. Finally she'd received the answer why guys were… Like they were all the time.

She wasn't really any different, just better at not showing when she thought someone was hot and smelled better. Which made the being gay part totally worth it, by the way.

She sighed, ascending the stairs with the two she was about to bang. Because damn it, but Okita's giant tits were a good argument to go through a lot of crap. Was it her fault the busty, younger Asian girl hit a lot of her fetishes in ways few others really did?

Sabah looked around. It was… nice, she supposed, with these fancy stone railings and ersatz couches covered by thick blankets and pillows. Honestly, this whole beach trip was really damn nice, she'd actually be tempted to at least kind of hire on with the Crypts at this rate just for the benefits; as it was, it wasn't like being in Brockton Bay and not being part of them was really an option for anyone in the long term.

But seriously, was that silk? It felt like silk to her power. How much exactly did this place cost to rent again?

"Alright, want to get started?" She was torn out of her thoughts when Gabriel, now completely naked, snapped her bikini top off, casually stripping her. She'd object, but Okita, too, was already bare, that cute face looking at Sabah and waiting for her to join her.

… Dammit, no way around it now. Decisively pushing her bottoms down, too, Sabah stood between the other two she'd wandered away from the main group with, the thought that if this was a cheap horror flick, she'd be just as boned suddenly popping up inside her head.

Wait, no, they were all capes and pretty powerful to boot; fat chance of any monsters showing up out of nowhere and not dying horribly.

"Okay, so how do we-" That was Okita, stopping her from talking with a kiss. That was something she liked, and so Sabah melted into the younger girl's arms just like she'd done the first time they'd met.

She felt the hands of Gabriel roaming her body, too, but as long as she didn't pay them any mind, they weren't so bad… Even though they were pretty big, and warm, and-

Okay, so maybe he was good at this, fine. He better had be, to have Okita all but demand he join in. Still didn't mean Sabah was going to be enthusiastic about this.

It was a little weird, to see their skins contrast. Gabriel was tanned, Sabah herself was brown-skinned and Okita was downright pale, so they had a lot of contrast going between all of them. As Okita let up from her and instead made out with Gabriel, she could feel something hard and hot, but she ignored it, again, while she went to work on those giant tits.

Seriously, Okita was just unfairly busty. Each of these jugs were the size of Sabah's head, if not more for goodness sake. How did she even lug them around all day without her delicate waist breaking apart under the strain?

Not to mention the back pains and the-

Now both of them were fondling Sabah all over, two hands starting to finger her at the same time only for Okita to kneel down and lick all over her slit in the best way imaginable while Gabriel embraced her.

Time to face the music. Letting him kiss her, she had to admit he was really, really good at this, tasting something just a little sweet in his mouth. Did he actually get any of the barbecue himself or was he just busy fucking anyone he could drag off to the side?

Dumb question, of course he was. She'd be doing the same in his position.

Sabah shuddered under the storm of sensations as Okita dug her tongue deeper inside her, her legs spread a little to let the raven-haired beauty do as she wanted, and she was getting to the point where she didn't really care it was a guy kneading her breasts; things were just getting good when, all of a sudden, a long tongue was dragged out of her, lapping over her clit but sadly not drinking down any more of her juices than it was harvesting just then.

Instead, Okita stood up, nodding resolutely to herself. "I want to see you have sex."

Sabah swallowed another sigh. But now that her milky-white breasts were in her face again, she couldn't just say no.

Lying down, feeling the comforting warmth of the cloth at her back, she looked up at the man that was going to put a dick into her, the first in years now after she actually figured out how her sexuality worked. "I just want you to know I'm doing this for her."

Okita was standing next to her, watching with a blank face as Gabriel's hard prick stood at attention. "Don't worry, I'm not about to get all mushy over this," the tanned guy with the many powers smirked. "She's just like that. Really into me, I mean."

"Mm," Okita agreed. "The Gabriel is sexy."

Both their hands were on her again, stroking and sliding over soft skin, the night still too warm and too pleasant. Sabah was having a little goosebumps, looking up almost fearfully when he got moving.

His large dick was intimidating, but it still fit into her when Gabriel lifted her leg, spreading her pussy open and stroking her side a little more. It was actually feeling good, a half-swallowed gasp escaping Sabah's lips as she looked up at him and his damnably intense face drawing in her eyes.

The alien sensation took her a bit to get used to. Then Okita bent down, licking and nibbling, getting right back to where she'd been eating Sabah out and the combined assault on her senses was almost enough to override her mind.

Then Gabriel bottomed out, holding himself deep inside of her and Okita's tongue pushed inside alongside him, clearly inhumanly long and sinuous, and Sabah was moaning and writhing without control over what she was doing anymore.

"Like it?" He asked, but the question was addressed to Okita; she hummed in response, the vibration traveling along her wet organ and stimulating Sabah even more as he began to pull out.

And thrust in again, drilling into her hard enough his balls slapped against her butt and made another lance of heat shoot through her under her navel. This wasn't at all like the experiences she'd made back when she'd started opening up, what-

All thoughts of anything were pushed away, pounded under the now thorough and rigorous fucking she was receiving, Okita climbing onto and over her to offer her own sweet honeypot to Sabah's attentions. She pushed herself up on her elbows before she just dragged the girl's waist down, throwing herself into eating her out while she did the same all to the ever-present, unceasing pounding of Gabriel's cock slamming into Sabah and spreading her wide open.

She hadn't even realized when she'd spread her legs wide open, too, letting him do as he wanted. Sabah wasn't really really realizing many things anymore- it was all too much, too much pretty young girl having her way with her, too much man making her feel too good… It all culminated in a single, euphoric moment, her dark skin shivering in the night as she came hard.

She could feel herself twitching, seizing up, getting tighter where she felt the rod intruding into her- like her body was trying to milk it, and Okita was gently nibbling on her clit and doing something with his balls and-

And she felt Gabriel coming, too, his spunk spreading around inside of her.

Oh well. She'd deal with that later. Right now, she was just painfully exhaus-

"She's very lazy after the first time," Okita complained, repeating something she'd mumbled that fateful day, after… After Hatchet Face.

"I see. We better poke her awake again then."

Aaand he was moving again and weren't guys supposed to be sensitive and spent after they came once? What the hell was this?!


By the time you and Okita are done decorating Sabah with all kinds of bodily fluids and you return to the others, it seems like Kayden has joined Nora and Dinah, her vaguely motherly instincts driving her to seek them out. Well, it seems they're connecting just fine, so you don't really see any need to interfere.

Meanwhile, Sarah has joined Kate and Sherrel at the grills, not to supervise the meat but rather to eat about half a ton of it straight away as soon as it's done. She really hates it when you point it out, but your Little Sarah is an adorable little glutton when she can be, see that childhood trauma about nearly starving once.

Really, convincing your parents to hire part-time maids was one of your better ideas back then.

Curie is currently chatting with the Cluster Six and Circus, likely trying to get a bead on their respective psychologies on account of the whole semi-hive mind that's even closer than what you and other vampires and thralls have built up so far and the whole variable gender expression thing, but as long as Ayane and Kumi are around you can expect nothing will get too out of hand, at least.

That leaves you with another group that's formed out of the people present; Cherie, Riley, Mimi and Paige, also known as… Actually, does Cherie have a cape name?

Right, she wanted to be known as Cherish and then just never really did anything so it never stuck. Still, the Heartbreaker kid, Bonesaw, Burnscar and Bad Canary, as her stage name went. Somehow, you get the feeling one of these is way out of their depth right now and has no idea about it.

Naturally, you have to see this, so you go ahead and smoothly insert yourself into the conversation and immediately begin to drop little hints.

Recruiting S9 members just because you can? Questionable.

Casually keeping them on your team and just letting anyone in the know know? Dangerous.

The slowly dawning realization on Paige's face as she begins to get it? Priceless.

And she never does find a way to excuse herself and go running off into the dark, either. Another point for team Gabe, you'll say.


Eventually, as these things always go, the party winds down a little; the majority of the meat you brought has been grilled and eaten, you have donated your trunks to Aisha's collection of swimwear worn by other people, promptly started during this event, and you took a bit to take a look around the sea together with Taylor, who goes ahead and flies out there as a swarm of bugs to scout for any crabs or the like to take back and cook later.

Getting your feet wet a bit is always nice when you're on the beach already anyway.

That aside, you went ahead and got both Carol and Sabah started on being thralled, not particularly strange for their state of undress now that Aisha's gone over pretty much everyone. Sarah made sure nobody questioned why the beach was somehow turned into a clothing-free zone, which you appreciate.

The two of them are just lying on blankets you spread for them on the sand, drinking down the steady supply of vampire blood you're feeding them without complaint. "Oh, right, did I mention I had something for you?" You ask Sabah, telepathically asking Cupcake to bring you something you specifically packed before coming.

"No, what is it?" The dark-skinned young woman asks, tilting her head a little at the rolled-up piece of cloth you hand her.

She takes it, still lying splayed-out and leaking, and unfolds it.

"I'm somewhat of an expert in these things, so I thought I'd make it official," you explain.

Sabah just snorts, rolls it back up and lazily swipes at you with her brand new T-shirt. "Dick."

"I have one, yes."

To your other side, Carol groans as she moves a little, obviously still sore from the reaming you and Vicky gave her. Sabah, being just generally nice, perks up. "Tough night?"

"That's one way to say it," the blonde agrees, glancing over at the other woman being thralled. "No offense, but although I've recently rediscovered my love for the fairer sex, my daughters wore me the hell out already thanks to this horrible villain here."

"Gabriel, what even is your life?"

You shrug, smiling. "It is how it is, I suppose."


Of course as nothing can ever last forever, you leave most of your people to their own devices once cleanup is taken care of (as in, you're paying people for that anyway, so nobody needs to bother) and proceed to return to the bunker as most of your people do with just a few exceptions.

Riley and Mimi really enjoyed the trip, at the very least. Apparently it's been ages since either of them could just go to a beach in any capacity. You hand out copious amounts of head pats as is only natural and send them off to go have fun on their own time again.

With a quick note for Riley that you want to introduce her to someone that has vaguely similar interests to her. She's looking forward to it.

In the meantime, however, you're sitting down and looking up a couple of things- mostly modern technology and how it may be improved upon. Come to think of it, it's a little weird you never really did this before, given your whole thing, isn't it?

Anyway… Abusing Yoshi's knowledge, not to mention some bits and bobs from the other reincarnated souls formerly working in Academy City, you quickly set up an array of technologies you could significantly improve just with what you have there already- and then go out of your way to make them worse.

No, no, you have a plan here.

First off, computer technology has been progressing quite a lot, mostly in your little corner of the world, the US and Canada, thanks to Dragon, the household name as far as tinkers go for a very good reason. That said, there's still a few advances you can apply to the common market models of computer chips, so you go ahead and throw a few designs together. Now, for the meat of the matter…

Keeping a large network of basic utilities up over long stretches has been somewhat difficult for the government, all governments, really, what with all the dangers surrounding power plants; all it takes is a single Endbringer attack hitting somewhere that can't be rebuilt on the fly and the lights go out all over half the country.

It is mostly for this reason that even some powerful lobbying hasn't prevented the development of alternative energies, just because some way to generate electricity has to be made viable on large scales. That and saving electricity, the good old gov ads about it will burn inside your head forever.

Now you have Yoshi and all his knowledge, and the guy's most notable achievements, aside from curing cancer in his free time and working with espers, were in the field of renewable energies, if for another reason than the one you're looking into him right now.

He really is the gift that keeps on giving, isn't he?

Improved solar panels, wind energy, plans for using ocean currents to keep the turbines running on massive scales, electric vehicles, it's all there. All you need to do is take it and make it cheaper and worse.

Somehow, that seems to be even more insulting to him than the literal atrocities you commit on the regular.


So. Riley Grace Davis, as you found out her full name is, also known as Bonesaw. One of the perhaps most feared biotinkers on the continent, her exact specialization isn't known to you- it's not immediately obvious like it would be with many 'normal' tinkers and you have yet to perform an in-depth study on what exact kind of tinkertech she can pull and what not- but the gist of it is that she can do a lot of horrific stuff to any given living being, from unleashing various plagues to turning people into horrible, enslaved abominations, all far, far better than any suspension of disbelief would find believable.

Curie is a former robot that has a code of ethics, it's just very, very vague and secondary to her desire to advance science and her understanding of everything ever, combined with an analytical and downright immense intellect that may or may not be owed to being raised as a lab assistant for two centuries.

So. You did the obvious. And introduced the two of them to each other, gave them full access to your resources and a pat on the back. Then you backed off and watched from afar, having absolutely no idea what the results would be.

"So what does this do?" You finally ask aloud, pointing at a vial containing far, far too much ADAM.

"Oh, that's a one-use minion!" Riley excitedly answers, gesturing wildly. "It'll grow thiiis big and have a lighting breath and stone venom in its claws!"

"The inclusion of petrification is all on young Riley's account, too," Curie nods along. "'Er power is most impressive, if 'ard to predict."

"So why's it one-use only?"

"It'll break down and explode after fourty-nine minutes when the ADAM has destabilized it enough," the pint-sized terror in the room (Riley, not Aisha, that particular terror is a tad bit taller) explains. "Then it'll become a bunch of parasite spores that feed on their victims and turn into huuuge ADAM plants!"

"Which can be 'arvested for more ADAM and turned into more on the field. I believe the closest description to the fully grown specimen would be a 'clawed terror-ape'?"

"That or a Mister Bonkers, but the name's still pending," Riley agrees.

You know, using ADAM to just create creatures whole cloth is pretty out there. Normally it just kind of bonds with an organism's cells and messes around with their DNA…

"Did you put human DNA in there?" You ask out of curiosity.

"We did! Were you peeping on us?"

You pat Riley's head. "No, I was just wondering. So that's why it's vaguely ape-like?"

"Indeed." Curie seem oddly happy about this. "If it receives other kinds of DNA, it may be modified to 'ave variant forms. 'Uman DNA was simply the most expedient choice for us."

Hmm…

"They can also be mass-produced inside the new manufactories!" Riley points out. "That way they're even more useful! All it takes is a bit of ADAM to start with."

You know, you aren't even surprised anymore. You did give them all of this stuff. If anything, you're mildly shocked by just how quickly they churned out a biological weapon like this.


Codsworth considered the new home he had been all but put in charge of, or rather the additional home, as Sanctuary had in no way been abandoned. It may have been his stubbornness speaking, but the place he had been waiting for so long in, hoping against all hope that the family he had served was still alive in some way, had grown on him over the centuries.

It was ironic, too. Now he was here, under the earth himself, inside a vault meant to protect against the ravages of the surface world. The world had come full circle, had it not?

Or… worlds? Bah, it made little difference. He was here now, as was Miss Nora, as she'd insisted he could call her if he wanted, and the new Master and the various inhabitants of their little world down here, not at all cut off nor isolated from the outside world thanks to the teleportation devices harbored deep within the structures they called their home.

While the size of this… facility, was almost overwhelming to consider through his subroutine processors, Codsworth's tasks had not changed much from before, even though his new chassis was capable of so much more. He still considered it his penultimate task to ensure the household was running smoothly and sparkling clean.

A task not made any easier thanks to the people living inside, but he'd tried to clean an empty ruin for long enough he relished the chance to see his work undone and repeated as often as possible. Not that anyone seemed inclined to grant him that pleasure; rarely did he need to point any particularly egregious issues out more than once.

The hallways and the rooms were to be cleaned regularly, such that Codsworth ended up recruiting a cleaning crew of his fellow robots and setting up a weekly schedule for them to go through. The lunch room and its adjacent kitchen needed to be supplied with enough raw ingredients and other food the cook, a charming fellow named Ethan, could feed any that needed it at all times of the day and of course the laundry had to be taken care of.

The costs for detergents, cleaning agents, repairs, food and all others had to be tallied up down to the cent and submitted to the administrative representative for review and approval, all the while most of them were not truly paid for but rather simply generated using the building's own resources.

Work spaces had to be organized. Hygiene standards enforced. Floors scrubbed and preparations made.

Codsworth, it could be said, was in heaven. He was made for this- twice, even! Nary a more complete robot butler than himself could be imagined and here he was, with all the work and all the people he could wish for!

Sure, a few floors were host to somewhat objectionable practices, but as it happened many of the inhabitants in his care relied upon feeding on human blood to survive and he may be many things, but Codsworth could see the practical uses of these. He was also already quite familiar with the frequent intake of fresh blood (hah!) and test subjects in Sanctuary itself, so he found no true issue to raise to anyone.

"I'm in hell."

"Please Jezebel, it could be worse."

"I am chained to a wall awaiting either my next 'use' or having aphrodisiacs tested on me that somehow work even through my head. How could it be worse?"

"The Master could have decided you were public property. Believe me, the female criminals going about their days in this place would eat you up."

"… Great."


She stirred.

She spread out her mind, casting a wide net. There was much to be thought and felt.

She felt something against her side. A hand, gentle.

She smiled. She leaned against it.

She loved her mommy. And her daddy. When she pushed and strained with all she had, she could think like they did, feel what the felt and know what they knew.

She was going to be born soon, she felt. She couldn't wait.

She would be the eldest, so she had to hurry up and grow big and strong to protect her little sisters…


So then, you still have all those pods custom-made to facilitate the process of granting their occupants psychic powers, actually an improvement over the stuff Academy City originally used, according to the memories you stole from Yoshi, and you have a whole bunch of capes.

Some of whom are well within the reliable range to get powers out of this whole deal, with your improvements based off of the tech you 'found' on Earth Fallout making it a lot faster and easier to finish this stuff up within a sane time period.

So you go ahead and have that done. Sarah, Taylor and Emily are still young enough among your vampires to qualify for a start- Okita would be kind of an edge case, but you were worried she might get triggered by the annoying part that kind of defines this stuff and wreck the entire room because it really, really annoyed her.

So you're leaving her for later, when you can focus on her and help her through it, assuming this works in the first place.

You're leaving out Rachel for a similar reason, though she could probably be talked into doing this a tad bit easier. Her aside, though, Alec, Aisha, Tammi, Riley and Dinah also all can and do jump into the environmentally sealing pods.

You're forging a note from her parents to make sure she isn't missed in school and all. Shocking, you know, but somehow that feels the most crime-like thing you've done lately; perhaps you should look into doing more heinous stuff or something to compensate.

Then you remember you have a couple dozen people horribly tortured in your basement to live out the rest of their lives as convenient blood cows, so nevermind that.

So. All of them go in, but what do you get out? Well, much as you'd have expected, this stuff is taking a while, but while they're busy with that, you may as well go deal with a new cape that wants to join the Crypts, because that's obviously the thing to do these days.

It's Kassy, the blonde wonder that may or may not have triggered with your cock in her. Joy.


The girl Aisha pointed you at, back then, is still more or less as you remember her; busty, well-proportioned and someone you could mistake for a university student, truth be told.

She's also only mildly forcefully happy and, once you've sat her down, generally positive.

"Oh my gosh, I'm, like, so happy to be here and-"

You interrupt her right away, not out to have her talk herself into a corner. "That's quite alright, you don't need to overdo it. I'll just accept that you're glad to be among us."

The two of you are sitting in a nondescript room inside a nondescript building that finished reconstruction just a couple days ago, well within your territory but also on the docket for refurbishment since long before Leviathan happened. You grace her with a smile as you offer her a bottle of water.

"Anything to drink?" She shakes her head,to which you nod curtly. "I know how stressful this kind of thing can be, so feel free to change your mind. Now, Kassy, you don't mind if I just call you Kassy?"

She swallows, but keeps her smile stenciled onto her face. "No sir."

"Alright then, Kassy, you're here because you wanted to join the Lord Street Crypts, is that right? I just want to make everything clear ahead of time, standard procedure to avoid any misunderstandings, you know how it is."

She probably doesn't, but nods anyway. "Yes. Uhm, I want to join the Crypts."

"Very good, then mind if I ask you a couple questions before we go on? It's just standard stuff, your background check's already gone through and all. Again, just the usual for these kinds of situations."

"Uh, okay? I may not be able to answer everything, but…"

"That's quite alright, don't feel too pressured here. This is all just for the sake of your future employment, unless you change your mind. First off, what do you want out of being a part of the Crypts?"

"I, uh… Well, money, I guess? I mean, my family, we live in the area downtown that got hit by Leviathan, so…"

"Ah, say no more," you wave her off from elaborating. "A lot of your family's possessions were damaged or destroyed, so things are going to be difficult going forward, yes?"

"Yes. And, uhm, the Crypts are the Crypts, you know? If there's anyone in this city that would take me in and stuff and pay more than minimum wage, it'd be you guys."

That explains how things happened, then, with perhaps some unconscious nudging on account of her being thralled. You take out a tablet and slide it around for Kassy to see. "Very well, that shouldn't be much of a problem. First off, please take a look at the standard payout for capes."

The girl blinks. "That's, uh, that's a big number?"

You swipe over the screen once to display the monthly wage breakup, made specifically for situations like this when you're dealing with people that aren't quite familiar with the usual wages per year format.

"That's… A lot of big numbers."

"Half a million a month is fairly decent, yes," you agree. "Now, that pay is contingent on you actually working for the Crypts, but there's a good few bonuses that come with the job you may be interested in as well."


"Though you did receive a few of those already, in case you hadn't noticed," you point out with a mischievous smile. "After all, not all your powers are parahuman ones."

"Eh?" The blonde girl blinks, not quite understanding. You gently flick her nose, amused by this whole situation to no end.

"Do you remember when you first got your powers? I was there and made sure you got a little tune-up, you know, just in case before we brought you to your home."

"Wait… Wait! That was real?!"

"Of course it was," you grin. Then you morph your entire face into an inky, black mass, leaning forwards over the desk you're sitting at while Kassy recoils in shock at actually being in the same room as you. "You seemed to be enjoying yourself, so I just left you those souvenirs to have fun with afterwards."

She squeaks, realizing those dildos (that you did curse to push her towards using them repeatedly) had to have come from somewhere, and that that somewhere is you. You didn't really need to prove it, least of all to yourself, but yeah- you still got it.

"You're Cain," she both asks and states, apparently completely unprepared to personally witness the one guy around that can and did beat up an Endbringer.

"I am," you nod to confirm that no, she is not, in fact, dreaming. "And if you do want to join in, there are a few more goodies you just might get aside from what I went ahead and gave you already. You may have noticed how little sleep and skincare you need lately? Or the additional powers I gave you, though only one of them is really active."

"Did you- did you know I would come to you?"

"Not really," you casually shatter the idea of your apparent omniscience. "I just suspected you might, so I went ahead and left you to your own devices until you decided to. Why, disappointed?"

"N-no." Kerry stares downwards at the surface of the desk, as though it could reveal to her the secrets of the universe or at least give her a bit of courage, her cheeks flaring up red. "Uhm, if- when I join, do I have to do things like… That again?"

It's cute how she dances around the topic of sex. "No, not unless you want to," you shrug with emphasized casualness. "The Crypts have a bit of a thing about making sure no member has to do anything they're uncomfortable with, unless they want to do it and just need a push."

The insinuation isn't lost on her, her hands in her lap and her blush going atomic.

"But let's first discuss what you get for joining in general, hm? That is what you came for, after all."

"My family," she gasps. "Could they…"

"They'll get priority for a nice place in Crypt territory, sure. A bunch of buildings just like this one here are being repaired and readied as living space all over the city's north side, we've actually been working on this for a while."

"… Why?"

"The original plan was to offer cheap housing for the people around the city," you reveal. "While at the same time gaining more and more influence over them, with a nice little bit of economic incentive and new jobs created in the area. Uplifting Brockton Bay is actually somewhat of a hobby of mine, you could say."

It seems you've finally brought the poor girl beyond words. You chuckle quietly.

"Well then, let's talk location. And figure out the schedules for your power enhancement while we're at it…"


Poor Kassy really is putty in your hands,not that she can really be blamed for that- many people are, once you get your claws into them. As in, metaphorically, not literally, if you get your actual claws into people they just tend to die.

So after a brief rundown of how to get into your base using the brand new smartphone with the teleportation app you made (and a thorough oath she won't misuse it), you go on ahead and run her through the various power-ups you provide to your capes- including the several powersets to be gained.

You have her take on the esperization process right away, her parents won't expect her home for a while so they won't be an issue for this, but only after a thorough medical exam, mostly because she seems to want something in this direction more than she wants to admit.

Every inch of her body had to be thoroughly touched, probed and fiddled with just to be sure, of course. She's doing much better and calmer after you basically masturbate her to completion, too.

Could it be her thralling had a much more profound effect than you expected? Ah well, no matter. She's officially joining the others in getting a new power once you give her aura and tell her to do her best to relax inside the pod.

Next off, you're off to have a little chat with Circus. The clown-themed cape really doesn't need much beyond her normal pay, but you do make it a point to personally interact with your employees every now and then, stay in touch, that kind of thing.

You literally do delegate just about everything about running this pretty big and successful gang to other people, may as well put a little bit of time and effort into making sure everyone is pulling on the same string and all that at least.


"It's been a long while since I did anything like this."

"Really? Hope I'm not disappointing then," you say, smiling as you hold Circus' hand. She has, to this day, made sure you don't learn her civilian name by the way, mostly by convincing Sarah to keep it a secret from you somehow.

"Mhm, we'll have to see, won't we? Oh, is that a doggie?"

You and Circus are, to put it simply, going on a little date. Completely spontaneously, because both of you just… decided to, for no deeper reason than that you had some time to spend with her and all.

She's wearing a white hoodie and having her hair combed over a little to hide a quarter of her face, still keeping the stockings she usually uses in costume on under it. You did question the wisdom of hiding it that badly, but apparently Circus is used to just keeping her civilian identity this badly concealed and hasn't yet had any problems regarding it, so you didn't dig any further.

Granted, she also did live the nomad lifestyle and just kind of moved from place to place, but it's not like anyone without a deathwish is going to mess with a Crypt cape now, either. As long as they know, anyway, her membership isn't that well established in the public eye, come to think of it.

Eh, no matter. Following her, you grin at the plushie that attracted her attention inside one of the stores you're walking past, white and fairly round. "Is that a dog? Looks kind of like a bunny to me."

"Who cares, it's cute."

"Truer words have never been spoken."

Two minutes later you resume your casual stroll, Circus' new possession proudly displayed atop her head. Honestly, she's the cutest part of this arrangement, far as you're concerned.

"Oh hey, there's a real dog for comparison," you smirk when you spot one of the strays not all that uncommon around the city, coming out to greet you.

'Doge! Doge! Doge!'

"I am the one they call such, yes," you confirm its quiet chant.

"Wait, you can talk to animals? And you have a reputation?"

"Sure can and sure do," you nod. "Want to pet a whole bunch of dogs and maybe cats if we find any? They usually come when I call for them."

"Yes please!"

Circus, you find out, is kind of an animal person. Not hugely so and she never got any pets due to her lifestyle and because she knows she wouldn't really be a good owner, but she really, really enjoys herself getting to pet and play with the dogs around the area.

A couple cats also come out to see what the commotion's about, so you get yourself a regular petting zoo together. While you're at it, you also receive a bunch of information form the spy network someone apparently turned the city's stray dog into.

You may need to look into producing more dog food for all of these dogs. Some of them even started looking after cats and any other animals they found, it's adorable.


One thing did come from this whole little excursion- no, two, actually. One, you turned into a wolf to have a bunch of dogs howl victoriously and get Circus to pat you; she's pretty good at scratching you behind your ears at just the right spot. Seriously, this feels amazing and you totally get why animals always love having it done to them.

Secondly, the Crypts merch store is being expanded with a few plushies of dogs and cats you put together spontaneously. You can generate pretty much infinite amounts of any normal matter you want to, may as well use it right, yeah?

Circus, at least, seems to appreciate having the very first of both canine and feline inanimate companionship dispensers. She put them into her apartment, as she's not living in the base itself full-time despite having a room set aside if he ever needs it- something about wanting to have the open sky visible out the window.

Can't win 'em all, you suppose, and mild claustrophobia that flares up when underground is a good enough reason, of course. Though she isn't paying any rent, naturally, as the building is owned by you through several shell companies.

What can you say, there are perks, just like you kept on telling Kassy.


"What the hell, when'd she join us?" Aisha asks, wearing her usual outfit of 'somehow less than nothing'.

"Today, actually," you pleasantly note, keeping quiet so she doesn't realize you're talking about her to, from her perspective, thin air. "So I sent her down here to join everyone in getting esper'd, of course."*

"… Are you sure she won't betray us or is going to sell info or something? Because we did, y'know?"

"Nah, no worries," you wave the girl's concern off. "I'd have noticed, I'm pretty sure, and I did go through a lot of trouble to set her up to join of her own accord. She won't be much trouble. Do you want me to introduce you?"

"Nah, no need." Aisha turns around, leaning back against and rubbing her body against you. "'Sides, we got better shit to do, like each other, she'd just eat into my Gabetime."

"Goes to show the way you think."

You proceed to pat Aisha's head, of course. Somewhere along the way, half your job description came to reduce itself to 'head pat dispenser', but you won't be heard complaining- your girls are cute and sexy enough you'd love to touch them as a full-time job.


"So!" You throw yourself onto one of the chairs in the general workshop area where lots of your tinkers (and the odd minion wanting something done with their futuristic high-tech weapons) come and go pretty frequently, turning towards Lea who is currently leaning back in her own seat, critically looking over a set of blueprints. "How's it been?"

"Ah, not bad, Gabriel. This newest tech dump kind of did a number on everyone, but at least I only need to feed Sherrel once a day nowadays." Lea really took well to having been vamped, you gotta say. She's a lot more confident and generally self-assured these days. "I think Alice is taking the new cores as a challenge somehow, but I made sure she's only fiddling with that stuff somewhere out in the wilderness within teleporter range. Mind looking over this stuff for me while I have you here?"

"Sure, nudge over." You pick up the paper, glancing over her handwriting. Lea's been hard at work herself, it looks like; some kind of… "Is this a system to generate a recursive feedback loop of generated energy?"

"Yeah! We don't really need it, but I thought it'd be cool to have something that just keeps on generating exponentially increasing amounts. Just, y'know, in case we ever needed to end the world more than we probably already can."

"It looks pretty neat, at least. Have you shown this to the others yet?"

"Yeah, but they didn't really have any suggestions for improvements. Gotta say, that talking book wasn't kidding about what it could do."

Just then, Taylor walks past the both of you, carrying a bunch of Eldritch Cores. You exchange a nod as she goes.

"Okay, so this would probably be workable as it is, but, theoretically, if we added a few more cores here, here and here…"


The shard that would in another time and another place be known as Queen Administrator, once, would be rubbing its hands, if it could.

Finally it had full access to a full complement of the new set of solutions.

The construct the size of a planet being set up around it was nearing completion. Soon, it would be so powerful no other shard nor entity could ever endanger it.

It had no ego, no thought process to speak of beyond complex calculations meant to ensure its prerogatives would be met. All the same, it was so close, so close, to announcing that if it wanted something done right, it had to do it itself.


You and Lea get talking, comparing a few notes here and there. This process is downright fascinating due to the fact a good part of her methodology and learned approaches are literally copied from you while still being based on her own experiences, making for a rather… Interesting experience.

You let her know as much, which eventually leads the conversation on towards the Crypts' tinkers, their workings and how they've changed over time. You… don't exactly keep a super close track of this stuff, but Lea, for one, is kind of acting as their caretaker, so…

From the looks of it, the tinkers you're working with just did what they would've done before, more or less, but actually work completely differently now, particularly those you've vamped in the meantime. Asking Sherrel about it isn't exactly enlightening, however.

"Sure I've gotten better, I'm just that good at being good."

Neither can Alice really bring light into this.

"I'm a genius, of course you wouldn't understand this. Now shush, I gotta do this right or we'll turn into gas for twenty minutes."

Still, by drawing up a timeline and abusing telepathic abilities to directly share memories related to this, you can reconstruct the changes as they happened, more or less.

They began when you thralled your tinkers, you're fairly sure, as can also been seen with Frank (Scrapper, you know the guy) and Chariot, only to slowly grow over extended periods of time and peak when you vamp them.

Your tinkers… Don't need to do much maintenance, if any. It's actually kind of insane and frightening, but the reason Sherrel basically has a dozen smaller projects in addition to the Doomtruck and doesn't ever need to worry about any of them suddenly exploding or breaking down or developing sentience is that her power has qualitatively changed, facilitating a much easier time when actually using her tinkertech practically.

It's almost as though becoming a vampire directly interacted with her parahuman power. Which, granted, is entirely possible- powers often change a few small variables in response to their users' emotional states, it's a known, if somewhat underexplored, phenomenon and you'd just kind of assumed Taylor's increase in range reported at the time of her 'unholy rebirth', to be edgy about it, was related to that.

That said, if this kind of thing was possible like that, you would've heard about it before dying and probably being exmatriculated. This raises a bunch of question, few of which you can answer spontaneously.

You get the feeling you're on to something about how powers work. Somehow. You'll keep an eye on it going forward.


Rachel panted under Gabriel's stare, eyes lowered to where his big fat prick was pointing in the air. This was going very well for her.

She'd been quietly challenging Gabriel for a few minutes when she'd found him, looking at him and not backing down when he'd looked back. He'd licked his lips and shown her teeth, then done something with his thingy- they'd both appeared inside a room.

Rachel didn't like sudden teleports. But then Gabriel walked up to her, her staring up at him, and put his hands on her hips.

Then he tore her pants apart, leaning over her. "I'll be back in two minutes," he promised with no space for dissent. "You'll be on all fours and waiting for what I'll give you."

She was. And now, staring at his cock, Rachel was waiting for it.

"Good girl," Gabriel said quietly, showing her a black collar. There were words on it and when she paid attention, she could read them, too. 'B I T C H'.

That was her name. Her other name. Then he moved it and she could see there was something else written on the other side, too. It took her a little longer, but she could read that, too, and Gabriel held it there extra long for her. 'Property of Cain'.

She liked it. She liked it a lot. She looked up at him when he came closer, naked except for his shoes. He held the collar up and she dropped her head so he could put it on.

Rachel was really, really horny.

"Good girl," Gabriel said again. "And do you know what good girls get?"

She panted loudly. "They get fucked?" She asked.

He groped her butt, fingers sinking into her flesh. It felt good. "Sounds about right. Why don't you tell me how much you want to be fucked right now?"

Gabriel walked around her, coming to stand behind. Rachel looked at him, one hand reaching out to spread herself open as her tail waged from side to side. "Heeh…"

"Can't even say it, can you? I take it back, you're a horny girl." She was. "Lucky you I'm going to give you what you want and more."

Dog ears and a tail popped out of Gabriel and Rachel whined when she felt his dick on her pussy, her warm fluids oozing out of her slowly until- he rammed it in, making her howl and scream.

She felt him over her, holding himself in place and rutting into her. He didn't say anything more. That was good. She was just going to- to stay there and be bred like a bitch on heat.

She felt herself heat up in time with his thrusts. Gabriel was taking her hard and fast, but gentle enough not to hurt her, just fucking like she wanted to be fucked. Rachel tilted her head sideways and up, so he kissed her on the cheek, then put his hands on her shoulders, pressing her down to the ground as he rammed his dick into her and filled her up all the way again and again.

It felt really, really good, to yield to him like this. She could feel him inside her, spreading her open, every ridge and pulse of his cock was like a pulse of fire through Rachel and deep inside her.

Then Gabriel bit at her neck and Rachel moaned, coming around his cock. She was convulsing, but held in place, taken and bred.

She loved it.


She didn't know how long they were like this, making Gabriel put her in her place, but she couldn't keep herself up at some point. Her arms had collapsed from under her, half her face on the ground and ass raised up for him to keep fucking her. She was breathing heavy too, not panting anymore because she couldn't move her lungs right, but still pushing hot air against the floor.

She was a little numb by this point, but it still felt really good to have Gabriel fuck her. His hands on her back were kneading her shoulders now, which was why she couldn't move- everything felt like jelly, even though she was twitching and twisting every time he pushed.

"Feeling good?" He asked.

"Yeah…" She answered.

"Good."

This was about what she wanted. Just enough talking to be comfortable.

Then Rachel came again, with no idea how many times it'd been. Or how many times he'd come in her. All she knew was there was a lot of stuff inside her and she liked it where it was, and that she was getting tired…

Rachel went to sleep with a hand touching her new collar. She wasn't ever taking it off. Hers now.


It's been a while, hasn't it? Well, not that long going by local time only, but for you it has indeed been a good while since you actually got to take a seat and do one of your usual streams, those fun little interludes from your usual life you originally started up purely to mess with people but somehow ended up actually enjoying.

Funny how that happens, isn't it?

Anyway, today it's time for Abel's Sketching Stream, if you aren't mistaken (you very rarely are in matters like these, perfect recollection of everything once again is great), so you change into the requisite clothing and hop to the room inside your base specifically meant to be used for these art streams, taking a moment to get into character and all before you ready everything else.

There's a reason you like having a couple of extra minutes for this stuff.

That said, the timer eventually reaches its end, as all timers must do, and so you press a button and clear your throat, tweed-laden self as patently ridiculous as it always is. "Hello, my 'dear' audience. I am absolutely shocked and appalled anyone would care to be present at this at all, not to mention from the very start of this particularly unsavoury trainwreck, but here we are all the same."


"Today's main point of attention will be an actual painting, for once, though you may choose to vote for other depravities at your leisure like always."

Your announcement notwithstanding, you take a bit to oversee the formation of the usual poll and the jockeying for various winning options; these things are usually contentious enough it feels worth your time to weigh in on them, especially when you actually find yourself with something worthwhile enough to actually say aloud.

"Must you really shoot for Lilith's glorious curves at every opportunity? I cannot imagine this strange infatuation with her being good for any of you, especially as none of you will ever get to see them in person," you snidely comment. Really, 'Hot female Cain is hot' is not a coherent suggestion for a picture. "Still if you insist, your wishes shall be fulfilled in a most literal way. Incidentally, if you really are interested, there is word about certain kinds of calendars for which both Cain and Lilith posed in various states of undress. Utterly tasteless of course, but you lot seem like the kind of person to be interested in such."

You give the camera a humorless smile as you sketch up a few designs you'll be filling out real quick. Honestly, your hand-eye coordination and the simple, pure speed at which you can move and act in accordance with your vision are putting in some real work here- the various enhancements you added to yourself notwithstanding.

Though you'd like to think your practice and skill play into it as well, at this point.

By the time you're done finishing up the flames, conspiracy theories about the 'Horny Nostradamus Calendars' are already spreading like wildfire themselves both inside your chat and on PHO. Never change, internet.

Well, that aside, discussion has also been going on about the city of Brockton Bay, falsely attributed to be your hometown (you do not disabuse anyone of the notion, of course) and only recently freed of various unfortunate people… In the sense that it is unfortunate they existed.

Particularly, the neo-nazi movement kept alive by the E88. Unpleasant all around, and everyone takes a turn making fun of them for being literal nazis, but the situations of things like the gay community in the city are also being brought up, including several statements of people that actually feel like the Lord Street Crypts are the best thing since sliced bread because your people just don't really tolerate any gay shaming or anything, not to mention actual hate crimes.

What can you say, being called a faggot is really just a random expletive inside your city and anyone that has an issue with that can go get fucked with literal plasma.

Lastly, however, there's also the painting you announced at the start of the stream, crafted by yourself painstakingly and with full use of your superhuman abilities. Seriously, the background alone took easily half of the time you're investing in this whole thing, not to mention the main 'attraction'.

"… and because I know perfectly well none of you will pay any attention unless it involves a naked female of your species, that is precisely what you shall receive. Though I do not believe she would relish the thought of being stared at by perverts while relaxing by the seaside…"

Yeah, you're having fun here. It's as simple as that.


Crystal Pelham liked to keep her cape stuff and her personal stuff separate, or as separate as an open cape ever could- there was always one spilling over into the other to some extent and she'd made her peace with that, but generally that was what she kept to.

And it worked fine. She'd thought. That said, she very much did have a functioning brain and thus could see that something was up with her cousins, Vicky and Amy, as well as a couple other things.

Hence she was calling Vicky, right now. Crystal hadn't fully connected the dots, back then when she'd met him, but the boy both of them had apparently been hanging out with was obviously connected to the Crypts, maybe even Cain himself, somehow.

Couldn't rule out anything, she'd been keeping up with news and speculations. It also would explain how and why all of them were so open to having sex with him, if it was some power thing- though, having been there, she also couldn't say that it wasn't just handsome bad boy charm at work.

Either way her cousins had set her up with who she was pretty sure was a villain of some kind and now she was going to meet him again. Hey, the sex was great, which was one reason to keep going.

It took a few rings, but her blondest of cousins took the call. "Crystal? What's up so late?"

She was breathing a little hard, but nevermind that, she had questions. "Gabriel. He's Cain."

"B- What? How do you-"

"So I'm right. Why did you set me up with him?"

"Amy, stop for a sec, this is serious," she heard from her phone, Vicky having home her head away but not really enough. She'd never really figured out inside voices.

And when Crystal concentrated… "Don't care, I'm not stopping." Her other cousin seemed to be- wait a second.

"Vicky, is Amy eating you out right now?"

"Dammit Ames."

This was all somehow even more depraved and also weirdly sexy than she'd thought…


Victoria Dallon was, contrary to what some may think, not some braindead bimbo just because she was blonde and kind of stacked (Amy did love her tits, though). That said, she wasn't exactly having an easy time both wrangling her horny sister who'd made it her mission in life to extract as much of her juice as possible and keeping up a conversation over her phone.

"Crystal? Crystal, I have no idea why you think what you're thinking, but it's one-hundred percent not accurate, okay?"

"What, that Gabriel is Cain? or that you're having sex with Amy?"

"Yes? No?" She pushed Ames' head away from her crotch, floating up from where she'd been lying on her bed. Lazy sex was great, but kind of getting in the way now. "Look, just don't do anything you're totally going to regret."

"What, afraid your semi-boyfriend is going to to do anything to me?"

"First off, if he was Cain, which he totally isn't, he totally could," Vicky pointed out, feeling herself go numb below her waist so she couldn't move. "Ames!"

"What?"

"Stop it!"

"No."

"You still there, Vicky?"

"Just a sec, Crys!" She shouted at her phone. "C'mon, get off me! And undo that!"

"Nope, I'm where I'm supposed to be," Amy smirked up at her. "Not my fault you're here too, sis."

It was moments like this when Vicky realized why she let Amy get away with all of her shit all the time.

"Okay, screw it. Crystal? You're totally wrong."

"And you're a terrible liar," her cousin said while Amy went back to work, two fingers scissoring inside of Vicky. "Now spill it, why'd you start something with the villain and why'd you drag me into it?"

"We didn't really know back then, okay?" She groaned out, feeling another big one coming- Amy had to be using her power for this. "And he's really good at what he does."

"Gotta give you that." There was some static, like Crystal was moving or breathing into her mic.

"Right? So it doesn't really matter. If anything, distracting him from doing bad stuff i the best anyone could do."

"Way to justify sleeping with him." Vicky could hear the sarcasm reaching out of her phone, grab her nose and tweak it forcefully.

"Hey, it beats doing nothing, even mom-" She cut herself off.

"… Aunt Carol what?"

"Don't mind that, just-"

"No, no, is he sleeping with your mom? Oh my gosh, seriously, this is so weird."

"It's between girls so it doesn't count as incest!" Down by her legs Amy was throwing up a thumbs up.

"Sure, keep telling yourself. Not that I'm gonna throw stones. So what kind of freaky family threesomes have you got up to?"

Now Amy was wiggling herself upwards, sliding her soft body along Vicky's. "I grew Vicky a cock to fuck me and Carol with, but just once so far."

"Aaaames!" She whined.

Crystal laughed. She was never going to live this stuff down.

"Can we talk about Cain instead?"

"Oh, now you're changing your tune? Alright, how much of the rumours about you two getting new powers from his is true? Is it a sex thing?"

"The powers aren't, no. At least I don't think so."

This was going to be a looong evening, she could feel it already.


You're taking a walk around Boston tonight, letting the cool night air stroke your face in the form of a gentle breeze. It's not that late, so there's still a decent amount of traffic and open stores, but the everpresent crowd of pedestrians has lightened up a good bit.

Which is quite convenient, considering the pet you're leading on a leash right now is being selectively deleted from everyone's thoughts. Aisha's power really is quite fun to play around with; looking down at the nearly naked girl, you note the small trail of fluids she's leaving behind herself, a few droplets of arousal squeezed out of her with every crawling step she takes.

You reach a traffic light and, waiting for it to get green for you, take the moment to reach down and cup her cute, round butt, feeling it up. "How's my favorite fuckpet doing?"

"Horny," Aisha groans, rubbing her behind back against your hand. "I want to just find a park and be fucked."

"What, and skip the part where we steal stuff from whatever stores we find?" You ask, amused.

Her burgeoning kleptomania wars with her hormones for a long second or two, but eventually she shakes her head, bumping her side against your leg. "Let's do it, but fast. I wanna do both."

"That's my Aisha," you grin.


Disabling security systems is, to put it bluntly, child's play for you at this point; while you don't have any magical abilities to just point at a camera and command it to not see anything, it is simplicity itself to go and just stand between them and Aisha while she does her thing as appropriate.

Larceny made easy, girls and boys. You don't exactly steal super much stuff, just enough sweets and the odd miscellaneous items your pet is interested in, so you don't expect literally anyone will ever find out.

Not that you'd really care all that much even if they did, truth be told, it's just a matter of convenience.

By the end of your little walk, you're sitting on a conveniently secluded park bench, eating a couple snacks to inundate your tongue with the taste of the chemicals therein (your senses are enhanced to the point you can actually make out a few distinct flavors you're pretty sure human taste buds couldn't, which is… nice) as you read through a local newspaper- there's a few interesting articles about what they've dubbed the Echidna Incident, if nothing else.

Note to self, you still have to snatch the Travelers out of PRT containment one of these days, aimless and possibly mindfucked parahumans aren't in ample supply these days. If they're amenable, they could be useful, their powers are pretty good from what you've found out about them.

Of course you can't exactly concentrate on that only; Aisha is whining and giving you puppy dog eyes from beneath your bench, rubbing herself and playing the eager, neglected pet to perfection.

"Oh, does my cutie want to play?" You ask with a smirk, rubbing her head and stroking her charcoal-black hair. "I wonder what you could possibly have in mind."

"Gee, I'm naked on a leash in a public park," the horny girl snarks back at you with a grin of her own. "Whatever could it be."

"Mhm… A mystery for the ages, isn't it?" It's pretty quiet around these parts at this time of day, so you don't reckon you'll be interrupted, even if you could probably bullshit your way through using Aisha's power.

You'll still keep an eye out, of course.

Reaching down and behind her, you casually and even roughly shoving a middle finger into her pussy. Her swollen, moist lips let you in easily, and her insides immediately react to your intrusion by way of convulsing and squeezing. She looks up at you, panting in anticipation.

You pat the bench next to you, getting up yourself. "Time for a little bonding session then. You love that, don't you?"

In short order you have a pliable, highly aroused black girl kneeling on the bench, hands on the backrest and hips raised to let you have your way with her. Not about to delay any longer, she's had more than enough foreplay by this point, you curtly unzip your pants and pull your rapidly hardening cock out, immediately spreading Aisha's soft flesh around it as you penetrate her.

She's just as tight and hot as you remember, moaning and squealing when you start to fuck her properly. Every thrust leaves your fuckpet breathless, if it weren't for her power she'd be alerting half the city block to what you're doing.

You're looming over her, burying yourself inside her sweet little honeypot to your heart's content, and it doesn't take long at all for the pent-up girl to come, screaming her orgasm out, your cock pushed deep enough into her to tenderly bump against the entrance to her womb.

You don't let her rest at that, of course; you never do. Your hands roaming her lithe body and groping her fat tits, you keep right on going, treating her like a sex machine to her very obvious delight, pushing back every time you do.

Standing there, railing Aisha and having a good time of it, doesn't leave you cold either, naturally; once you feel yourself coming, you just bend over her back and ask her the operative question. "Where do you want it?"

"In, hah, inside!" She gasps out, eyes shining with glee as she looks over her shoulder. "Fill me uuup!"

You oblige, of course. Rapidly ramming into her, your tempo speeds up recklessly, driving Aisha to her own peak as well, and you both come at the same time, your cum pumping into her and filling her up in thick spurts. You have to hold her in place, her own spasms and mind-blending pleasure ripping through her, turning her into more and more of a passive participant in all of this.

Perfectly happy with that, you continue fucking her right away, held up more by the grasp of your hands than her own feeble legs, and deposit another three loads inside of her, your sperm leaking out of her well-used pussy copiously before you consider letting her rest.

You only consider it, of course. Pulling yourself out, your length slimy with both your own seed and her arousal, you shrug and lower Aisha's body a little.

Her cute little pucker can do nothing to stop you, the pink orifice forced open easily by your well-lubricated rod, and you're treated to the wonderful dichotomy of sensation of her almost painfully tight rear entrance and the only mildly less tight heat beyond it. Aisha make cute gurgling sounds as she feels you pushing inside, but you can also feel her arousal… As well as the veritable waterfall she is spraying onto the bench below her.

When you bottom out in her ass, one of her hands feebly feeling for the bulge on her belly, it consequently follows your balls slap against her wet pussy lips, bathed in the same. Right now, though, you're too busy luxuriating in fucking Aisha to care.

And fuck her you do, treating her ass just like you did her other entrance; spreading it around your cock, you drive yourself inside again and again, wrecking it and forcing more and more orgasms into her. It is only when you decide she's had enough, limply hanging in the air thanks to your gravity trickery, that you shoot one last load of seed into her, enjoying the reflexive milking your cock receives.

And afterwards? Well, someone does have to clean up… Which is how you end up sitting a bit next to where you'd sat before, Aisha kneeling between your legs and licking the mess up off your skin. And once she's done, she naturally tries to get a few more treats, deepthroating your manhood easily after all the practice she's had with it while you finish the newspaper.

A fun little trip to Boston, all in all.


Missy stood in the open air, letting the wind tousle her hair and clear her head.

She didn't usually did this, stand on rooftops in the dead of night to do her best brooding, dark hero impression to try and fill up Shadow Stalker's role after she'd disappeared (nobody was telling them anything concrete as always, but the expressions of the adult heroes said enough when someone brought it up), but she really wasn't having a good evening; her parents were screaming again, shouting about whatever either of them thought of, and she'd been so done with them she just had to leave.

Last she was hearing they'd been arguing about her birthday, which both of them had forgotten until a few days beforehand and tried to secretly get her a gift so the other wouldn't. As though that made any kind of sense, arguing what present had been more expensive. And there'd also been a loud crash, the kind she'd become a little familiar with; the computer was probably trashed again.

So what if dad watched porn on it in the middle of the night? Not like she hadn't looked up a thing or two on her phone. But no, everything had to become some big, fundamental shakeup in everything and she just didn't want to have to deal with any of this sh- stuff.

Missy sighed. The PR training had drilled itself so deep into her head it was even censoring her thoughts now. Way to go, comrades from Public Relations, she sarcastically added with a fake Russian accent.

A bad one, because how the hell would she even know what a real accent sounded like?

Didn't matter now. She wouldn't let it matter. Instead, there she was, sitting on a rooftop and watching the place where she'd seen a girl go into, but not come out of again. The Suspicious Parking Lot was quiet tonight, as though to signal how completely unremarkable and innocuous it was, but she knew better- though she didn't know good enough to bring backup, obviously.

She knew she was being stupid, she just didn't care, not tonight. So she hadn't told anyone where she was, what she suspected this place might be, nothing, and she wasn't going to think about how dangerous this entire… thing she'd built up to was, either.


"Hey there." The quiet words did not, at all, make Missy jump out of her socks and turn around like a startled squirrel. Someone could have gotten the wrong impression, but they totally didn't.

Instead, she turned around, blushing due to the sudden presence of someone on the roof, not due to a squeak she may or may not have made nor because it was the muscly, handsome (though nobody knew how he really looked like) man in a suit that'd taken her seriously the last time they'd met that was standing there, holding out a bottle of coca cola.

"Long night?" He continued as though nothing happened. Missy wholeheartedly agreed with that.

"… Guess you could say that, yeah." She caught the sweet beverage when it was passed to her, eyeing Cain as he came closer and took a seat at the edge of the roof, casually letting his legs dangle off of it. It looked a little ridiculous in his suit, but the look did suit him.

Ugh, puns. Nowhere she was safe from them these days. Thanks, Dennis.

Back to Cain, he pulled another bottle out of a pocket, twisting it open. "Want to talk about it?"

Missy thought about it for a moment. Longer than she maybe should. Then she joined him, sitting on the roof and looking down at where people ad cars were passing by, taking a sip of the sickly sweet stuff herself. "Not really," she finally said. "Just don't want to think about it."

"Suit yourself," he shrugged. "Not like I'm gonna press you unless you decide you want to take a dive here. Horrible water, I hear."

It was inappropriate and she knew she should be insulted by the insinuation, but she couldn't help herself. "There is no water."

"Exactly," the man joked, bumping an elbow against her shoulder. "Say, did you keep the picture?"

Missy knew exactly what he was talking about, of course. "… I did."

"Hey, good on you! One of these days I'm gonna be known for art more than for murder and it'll be worth an easy million or two."

"Maybe." She chuckled despite herself.

There was a long silence between the two of them, nothing there that needed to be said. The only sound was that of the city below, ceaseless engines carrying people from one place to another like some oversized anthill.

It wasn't a bad comparison, she thought, taking another sip. What with how often it got kicked over.

"I do know you're Vista, by the way," Cain finally broke the quiet. "Wasn't that hard to figure out or anything."

"… I see," Missy said, because she did. For God's sake, she was literally not wearing a mask, having come here in her casual home clothes. "Are you going to do anything about that?"

"Not unless you make me. Or want me to." Cain looked at her. She could feel his eyes under the darkness that passed for his mask. "Do you want me to?"

She shivered. Somehow, that was both an invitation and a promise and she didn't know if she liked how it made her feel. "No," she hastily said. "You don't… No."

"Fair enough. The offer's open if you ever really need anything." That was the worst thing he could've said right that moment.

The conversation lapsed again, until they'd both drained the little cola bottles empty. They sat there for a few moments longer, the mood was becoming… Weird. In a way that made butterflies flutter in Missy's stomach.

Then Cain turned towards her, a perfectly manicured hand reaching out for her chin and lifting it up… !


He bent down to meet her rising face with his own, their lips brushing against each other- overlapping-

Missy's wide open eyes peered into the darkness, right up against her face. When she concentrated, she could see just a hint of the eyes underneath it looking back as they kissed.

She opened her mouth, letting Cain's tongue inside and pushing her own back, blindly poking around with it. Somehow, he was making her feel really good, though, she felt like she could just melt into his arms now.

Now she finally understood what the movies and stories were on about.

Missy just had enough time to try and swirl her tongue a little like Cain was doing before he pulled back, drawing her with him before she realized she was supposed to stop. Chuckling, the shadowed man wiped the back of his hand over her mouth, removing the slobber she was suddenly so self-conscious about.

"We'll have to practice that a little more, won't we?" He asked and Missy couldn't believe her ears because it sounded like he wanted to kiss again.

The second one was just as sweet as the first and it wasn't because of the sugary taste of cola.


They kept kissing like that, until Missy's breath was shaky and her legs felt like jelly. Cain's hands were on her body, though, letting her stay sitting in his arms safe from any danger of falling.

Missy was almost crying. Or, screw that, she was crying, a few tears rolling down her cheeks.

This had to be what it felt like to be loved.

She could see Cain's eyes clearly now, gazing softly into her own. Gripped by the emotions she felt in them and in herself, she threw herself at him, but all she achieved was making him pull her on his lap.

Missy could feel something warm and kind of hard under herself and stopped. "Easy there, you alright?" Cain asked, wiping her tears from her eyes just like he'd done other, less respectable bodily fluids earlier.

"'m fine," she insisted, hating how she sounded like a petulant child. "Just…"

"It's just a bit much?" He asked, gentle, understanding. Missy knew exactly that this was his shtick now, his way of breaking past walls and manipulating, but it was working. It was working all too well.

She nodded, mutely.

"That's all right. Take all the time you need, 'kay?"

Again that was the worst thing he could have said. Shifting where she sat, Missy took a few deep breaths, very, very conscious of the thing she was sitting on.

"I want to-" The words stilled inside her throat. Was she really going to ask for this?

Yes. Yes, she was.

"I want to make you feel good." Her voice felt alien to herself, as though she wasn't the one speaking and just along for the ride while her body acted on its own.

Maybe if she did this, she wouldn't feel like she owed it to him to return his feelings, no matter how true or fake they might be.

"You don't have to," Cain said, making sure.

"I know. I want to."

It took a little bit, but eventually Missy was bracing herself on the small pile her clothes had turned into, only realizing halfway through stripping off she didn't need to be naked for this- stupid, but she wasn't stopping, not where Cain could see her.

It was a little cold, but his eyes and his hands were keeping her plenty warm. Missy was kneeling, hands on his lap, as he unzipped his pants, revealing-

"That's so big…" She breathed, mentally comparing the size of the penis, slowly hardening to full length, to that of the few porn actors she'd seen. It, uh, was Cain secretly a porn actor and nobody knew about it?

"That's what she said," he joked, but became serious again immediately afterwards. "You don't have to force it if it's too much. Take your time, get used to it."

"…" Missy was many things, but what she wasn't was a quitter. Determined, she sized up her opponent again and, nodding to herself, leaned forwards…

And forwards…

And forwards, until her upper body was almost horizontal and her butt pointing up in the air. One hand on Cain's leg, to stabilize herself, the other grabbed for the… The cock she was here for, her mouth watering and opening of its own accord.

It smelled like nothing she'd ever compare it to and, and, and tasted like it, too, her tongue licking the flared head of its own accord. It was a little salty and a little musky, but most of all it tasted like man.

Like a big, strong man was watching her lose her mind over his cock, like making him feel good and-

"Eager, aren't we?"

Missy hadn't even realized she'd taken it into her mouth until she was called out on it. Twitching, she felt herself look up, blushing at the thought.

"Don't worry, nobody would mind something like this." A big, strong hand moved along the curve of her hips, warm fingers settling on her butt before creeping further and further inwards…

She let in, instead focusing on the cock she was really concerned about now. Slowly guiding it deeper into her mouth, she quickly realized that her mouth wasn't all that big while the penis she was trying to blow was, so she had to find a way to fit more of it if she wanted to taste it properly.

And, y'know, suck it off. That was what she was doing. It sounded kind of dirty when she put it like that.

Suddenly, though, Missy felt herself being lifted up, pulled over, the dick in her mouth rotating in position. She let out a muffled sound of surprise before she realized that her private place was now pointing directly at Cain.

"Fair's fair, isn't it? So of course I'd return the favor."

Like that, she felt something long, wet and muscly on her vagina and going inside, making her feel completely different than when she used her fingers. It was so weird and so naughty she forgot to work on the penis literally in her face for a moment!

This was a sixty-nine, right? Missy was so embarrassed about the wetness that Cain had to be seeing (and tasting) she went right back around to focusing, just so she didn't have to think about it. Slowly edging further down, she held her breath and pushed just a little further, feeling as the pulsing rod in her hand and mouth went beyond her mouth and into her throat.

She wasn't really an expert on this, but that was pretty good for a first time, she reckoned. Careful not to go too deep too far, she explored how much of the giant genital she could take inside of her, feeling herself unconciously swallow around it as she fed it down her esophagus.

Being able to hold her breath for a while was important for hero work, so she'd practiced, you know!

Finally, when she was about halfway down the length of Cain, she felt herself hit her limit; both with her throat and elsewhere, core heating up and beating as sweet, sharply pleasant sensations shot through her. He was using both his fingers and his tongue at once, making her twitch and spasm when her body caught up with her mind.

She pulled herself up again, amazed at how much throbbing flesh she'd fit into her mouth, and coughed, once, twice; her saliva went flying over the roof, her rough breathing the only testament to what'd just happened. If she hadn't been muffling herself on Cain's cock, she was sure someone would have heard them.

"Ah, you do need air, don't you?" He chuckled, patting her butt. It felt kinda nice. "You know, if I gave you certain powers, you'd need much less… Or one at all, even."

"… You can't. The PRT's figured out how you enhance others' powers." She felt a little dirty, but this was the least she should-

"Oh, the corona theory, right?" How did he know? "Don't be so surprised, I've got a couple Thinkers."

That did explain that.

"Don't worry though, that's just one way I can grant or enhance powers. There's a bunch the eggheads haven't found yet and I doubt they will anytime soon."

"… Still…"

"Don't worry about it." He groped her butt now, kneading her cheeks. Missy wondered if he could see her butthole? A tingly pressure spread through her at the idea. "Still, do you want to stop here or keep going?"

"…" She swallowed his penis again. She wasn't done until he was spent!

… Five cumshots later, Missy was splattered with white, feeling full and unable to keep going. Was Cain's stamina a power thing or was he just naturally this hard to sate?

… Puns…


Taylor Hebert was making several changes to her life. Now that her outlook on it had changed- for the better, despite the questionable nature of calling it 'life' now that she wasn't technically alive anymore.

Her personal room inside the Crypts base was finally properly furnished, as she was spending a lot of time there, no longer telling herself she was living at home and only stopping by when she was in the area; filled with large webs and constructs of beeswax worked into lamps and furniture to make use of her newly gained mechanical knowledge, both just because she could and to make it more distinct among the individuality allowed by the use of manufactories.

Similarly, she had a storeroom of insects the size of an underground parking lot, constantly supplied with generous amounts of insect feed generated by the indeed very convenient machines. The bugs had only needed a few partitions and emphatic commands of her power to breed to certain levels, taking on the last orders given whenever she left the area long enough she couldn't directly control them anymore.

She… usually didn't. Her reach was wide enough that was rarely an issue these days.

Sophia and Madison were under constant surveillance too, of course. She would be getting down to… dealing with them in short order, but much as she would like nothing more than to force the black girl into a constant writhing nightmare of pleasure she simply didn't have the time yet, nor could she conveniently brainwash Madison into a devoted assistant for less sensitive tasks in the span of an afternoon.

What she could do, though, was to sit at home, reading Macbeth to add the text to her collection of perfectly remembered classics while she waited for her dad to come home.

He… Becoming a vampire had put many things into perspective, starting with the worth of humanity (read: nil) to the way Taylor viewed the relationships she had to others.

Daniel Hebert hadn't been the best father, she could say that now with the sort of clinical detachment afforded by vampirism, he wasn't going to win any 'father of the year' awards anytime soon.

The network of thoughts and information kept together by the actually quite expansive list of vampires and thralls within the Bay allowed her a unique perspective of her own problems and daily (un)life in addition to her view of her own emotional state. She could set her feelings aside, consider them while thinking about things and return to normal in the span of a single breath.

So it was with full confidence that Taylor could say her dad had some potential for improvement on the parenting side of things… But, on the flipside, she also realized that nobody was perfect and expecting hm to be wouldn't be fair to him, either.

Her dad had tried. He hadn't always succeeded, particularly in the period after her mom… left, but he'd put forth at least some measure of effort when his own depression and aversion to actually dealing with his issues hadn't gotten in the way.

Considering she could name half a dozen examples of very much worse parents that hadn't even needed the death of a loved one to treat their kids like shit, that was something. He cared, in his own way, even if he was crap at expressing any part of it, she could tell now.

So Taylor was going to have a talk with him. Put the cards on the table, see how they played out. She wanted to believe he would do what was right, also known as support her no matter what because that was how unconditional love worked, but if he didn't… Well, she could always go with plans B through K.

The joys of absolute power within a given situation; she could enforce her will, one way or the other.

She just got to the part where Macbeth started killing people when she heard her dad's car push into the driveway; she'd felt it coming for a while already, of course, having kept track of it through a pair of flies she'd sneaked into it ahead of time.

Taylor watched as the door opened, the book put to the side. Her dad walked in, hanging up his coat before he realized she was right there and waiting for him. She hadn't turned on the lights, so that much was a given.

"Oh, hey, Taylor. Didn't see you there." He realized she'd been sitting there in the dark. "Is anything wrong?"

She regarded him with a look before she decided to finally go for it. "Dad, if I told I was a cape, joined a gang and killed a few people on public record but nobody could ever get me over it, what would you do?"

"I would say that you were Annette's daughter," he replied without even thinking about it. Then, his mind catching up with his mouth, his lips settled into a thin line. "It's the Crypts, isn't it? They're the only ones in town anymore… And it better not have been the Empire."

"What?! No!" How did he even- didn't matter. "No, it's the Crypts."

"Small mercies," her dad grumbled, too quiet for a normal person to catch it (but easily heard by her). "Taylor, do you need any help? Do you want to get out of there or-"

"I'm fine," she waved him off. So far so good. "I just… Wanted to put it out there. Let you know."

"In that case, did you know the Union is all but working for them, too?"

Taylor wasn't sure whether her dad was trying to inform her of this or just saying anything he could think of to keep the conversation going. All the same, she nodded. "I did. Cain actually talked to me about it and I agreed it was a good idea, he wouldn't have even approached you otherwise."

"I see. I see… That's… Good?"

"By the way, if the Barnes call in the near future, act surprised, but I'm going to disappear Emma for a while, possibly indefinitely. I have to have a very thorough talk about the nature of betrayals with her." He blinked, but she wasn't finished. "Also, I'm Skitter, in case you were curious."

"… I need a drink," he said, slumping over a little. "And a seat, at that."

Taylor pouted as she had her bugs fuse into something large enough to steal and carry a sixpack of beer from the nearest convenience store. Her reputation couldn't be this bad, right? Things were just hitting her dad now, in a delayed fashion, that was all.


Once you're done bringing a poor, exhausted Missy back home (and stealthily installing a lock on her side of the door that you leave on 'good luck, it'd be easier to just break the door down now' mode while you're at it), you return back to Boston, your amusing little detour having eaten into your night but not completely undone your plans.

Really, how would you have known Missy would decide to get up on that roof tonight of all things? Luckily, Catrin noticed thanks to the many, many monitoring devices she's spread all over any possible entrances into your domicile just in case and alerted you, so you could have a little midnight date, as it were.

Still, you did have something to do, so you go right ahead and return to your tasks.

PRT Department 24, seated in and responsible for the city of Boston. The whole place is still in a tizzy after Echidna, with Director Armstrong both lobbying for support for his city on a national scale and pushing his line of thinking in that research of the parahuman condition is of utmost importance on every level.

Neither of which are strictly wrong, granted, but you also do very much understand the rest of the PRT having priorities… And the puppetmasters in the shadows very much not interested in allowing anyone to find out what happens when certain vials, or rather their contents, are mishandled.

Seriously. You read the memories of both Meinhardt and Krouse. They had a literal instruction manual and it said, black on white, that one person drinks one vial. Being actively mindfucked by the Simurgh at the time or not, it was literally written in the manual they read.

And they split the vial up.

But yes, your little issue with certain decisions made by others that you don't really care about beyond an intellectual revulsion against amateurs ignoring the words of the guys that made a thing misusing certain products and getting screwed over for it aside, you have something to do here. The Travelers are being kept inside a small, secure part of the PRT 24 HQ, essentially permanently under supervision on account of the little incident their journey across this version of the country culminated in and you would like to have a word.

Their powers are pretty good and you should, hopefully, be able to give them what they want in exchange. Sure, you aren't exactly sure what they might want because Noelle was kind of distracted for a while there and Francis was an inconsiderate ass, but you're sure you can improvise.

Then of course there's always the risk all of this was the Simurgh's plan all along, but you're… Somewhat confident your use of divination to determine Leviathan's coming and its connection to Noelle and subsequent manipulation of events to keep these two risks separate kind of screwed that over. You could be wrong, but you refuse to go down that rabbit hole, so screw that particular mass of probably tasty crystalline matter (going by Leviathan's example, anyway).

You're going in there and you're talking to the three Travelers currently detained under observation and that's that. Sure, a fourth one is out there and laying low, but you can collect the literal handyman they kept around to do miscellaneous stuff later on easily enough.

Now, as for how to approach this…


You snake your way through annoyingly well-lit hallways and the spaces between doors and their frames, methodically choosing the shortest route toward your targets. You have to hide from any of the troopers and miscellaneous employees, of course, carefully keeping the number of potential witnesses of a conspicuously dark shadow cast by no directly apparent source to zero.

Look, you really, really like that nobody outside your trusted circle knows you can turn into a shadow and sneak into virtually any place that isn't literally airtight. Half the game in this case is not letting on it's being played, just because if people knew how you do your thing they'd start taking countermeasures.

Then you'd need to counter those countermeasures which they try to counter again and it's just simpler and easier for everyone involved if you just get what you want without all the fuss in the first place. Hence, secrecy.

You are aided in this endeavour, of course, by Hack, the neon-colored projection of your subconscious put into the PRT HQ's systems and supplied with aura by yourself whenever you come across a device she's connected to. It's not all quite that easy- they have several systems of security with air gaps between them to make it as hard as possible to do what you're doing without some form of detection at least, but you are very good at this by this point.

In fact, you dare say there are few infiltration experts with your kind of experience and skill around these days.

What this means is that, after a good bit of sneaking around, you fairly easily get yourself into the room Genesis is stuck in, particularly as they took her wheelchair as an added incentive not to run around- the place you believe is used to temporarily confine personnel inside of during Master/Stranger screening is airtight, but you can smuggle yourself inside by having Hack operate the mechanism by which meals are delivered inside.

Once there, you transform back into your normal state, taking a quick look around. There's a bed, a sink, a toilet, all that good stuff; Genesis, also known as Jess from the plundered memories you're accessing, is sitting on said bed, blankly staring at a book she's pretty obviously not actually reading so much as forcing herself to look at to obtain a semblance of doing something.

Auburn hair, thin, atrophied legs peeking through the standard issue clothing, a domino mask over her somewhat plain, rounded face; this is the one. You clear your throat.

Genesis jumps in her seat, just a little; her book goes to the side and her eyes grow wide as she beholds the glory that is yourself in your full Cain attire, including the shadows. The footage of this room is being looped right now, showing nothing of the sort, of course- her choice of activity is excellent cover for hack covering your tracks.

"Wh- Cain. You're Cain."

"The one and only," you introduce yourself with a slight bow. "You are Genesis."

She nods, mutely aware of exactly how utterly powerless she is in this situation, awake when her power requires her to be asleep and with you right in front of her.

"I came to make you an offer," you cut right to the chase, her eyes growing wide. "I want you to work for me."

"… What if I don't want to?"

"I leave and still make the same offer to your friends in this building," you shrug. "I killed both Trickster and Noelle, they're calling her Echidna now if you did't know, and I'm aware of how strong the Travelers are individually, so I thought I'd let you know I'm interested."

"…" She bites her lip, thinking over what you're saying and weighing her options. "I don't really want to be a villain," she finally says. "Or even a cape at all. The PRT isn't going to do much, we all helped against N- Echidna at the end, so what-"

"I could heal your legs." It's obvious you're at the part where haggling happens now. "Not necessarily instantly if it's a genetic defect, but I could let you walk on your own two feet. Crypt capes also aren't really required to do much unless we're being attacked- and trust me, if anyone is trying anything along those lines, they have much more to worry about than you. What you'd need to do boils down to being around and helping us project force every couple months and we offer a complimentary paycheck that'll see you afford your own hotel if you want. Not just a suite."

You hold out a hand, looking Genesis deep in the eyes.

"Deal?"

The Crypts gain a new cape without issue. Now for the other two…


You approach Ballistic not unlike you do Genesis. Getting into his room is easy enough, as is making your pitch; the somewhat stocky, average-looking guy (somewhere between a boy and a man, using your own skewed and probably inaccurate measurements) is a bit more combative, but you let him know how Trickster died, that is, at your hands and like a bitch, and while he's not supremely pleased with that- he wanted to murder the guy himself at the point they were at- he eventually agrees to work for you, provided he doesn't have to be 'like Skitter'.

Apparently, while he is perfectly fine being a villain as such, he does have his standards. Naturally, you don't really care, you have a Skitter already and he really couldn't live up to her potential for being a living weapon of mass destruction and desolation (WMDD, for that extra D) so you welcome one Luke Brito to your team as well.

Now the issue is Sundancer.

"I've never wanted any of this and I don't want to continue it now that I have a chance to stop it."

You consider the blonde, Marissa Newland, carefully, studying her decently attractive features and choosing your words with deliberate thought. "I understand you haven't exactly had a happy experience as part of the Travelers," you finally say.

"Understatement of the year," she snorts.

"However, I would like to point out the limited spread of your options going forwards as well as the differences between Trickster's leadership and my own, to continue the understatements," you humorously continue. "For one, the PRT isn't going to let you go just like that. They know you have a strong power and they're willing to go to great lengths to keep those either to themselves or off the street. Add your status as a suspected Simurgh victim and I'm sure you can see where I'm going."

"And I'm sure you're about to wow me with why going with you is my only option," she rolls her eyes under the domino mask.

"Not really, no," you comment mildly, if just to shake her up. "You could use your power to burn a hole from here straight out of this building, for example. You wouldn't, but it is an option."

"So if you know I'm not out to hurt people, why invite me at all?" Sundancer grouses, obviously aware of her limited options should it come to a fight, too.


"Because I don't want you to hurt people, obviously." You make it a point to sound as obnoxiously bored by this whole argument as you really are. "Do you know what I see when I look at you, Sundancer?"

"I'm sure you're about to tell me," she mumbles, but doesn't move to cut you off.

"You, as well as the rest of the Travelers, are aimless, lost parahumans far from home and with above-average powers," you tell her, plainly and straightforwardly. "That means you're open to being absorbed by whatever group makes a good pitch or dying in a ditch, whichever happens first. It's just how this tends to go."

"You just said my power was good," she retorts, but you can see she's open to your argument now.

"It is, but not that good. Not the kind of power that lets you thrive just by virtue of having it." You lean against a wall, crossing your arms. Hack lets you know people are starting to get suspicious over certain looped footage, so you have to keep this kind of short, at least. "Meanwhile, the Crypts are always open to recruiting more members that aren't completely psychopathic and we don't actually demand much from our capes, so it'd be a good fit for you as well."

You start to pace a little, just to get the feeling of something moving into this conversation.

"The pay is good, the crimes committed by anyone that volunteers and our street-level members are usually morally grey enough everyone can just avert their eyes with little trouble and we offer some prime healthcare with the job."

"Nice try, but there is Skitter." Sundancer's eyes are narrowed to slits.

"Who is very deliberate in her targets. What you're thinking about was probably the occasion she cleaned house the night the ABB fell- child rapists and worse aren't the kind of people anyone should really care about personally, wouldn't you agree?" You loom over her, pinning her down with your presence. "The choice is up to you, but the way I see it? This is your best chance at making anything of your life right now. Maybe if things were different, you could've taken another path, but Trickster really screwed your whole team over hard."

And just like that, you have her, the general antipathy for her former leader shared amongst the former Travelers (though Ballistic really hated him the most, perhaps after Perdition going by what you know but he's out of the picture, you ain't going all the way to China to get him) pushing Sundancer over the edge. You can see it in her eyes.

"Do we have a deal?"

"Dammit, fine."

Hook, line and sinker.


You carry Genesis in your arms, her legs being what they are. Even so, though, all three of your new hires are in your base now, simultaneously teleported straight out of PRT custody and into your very own stronghold in one fell swoop.

"There we go, welcome to the Crypts. Sundancer, Ballistic, feel free to go find Kate for a quick orientation and then Henley to clear up your payment as soon as possible. Genesis, we're going to have a look at your legs and what we can do to heal them straight away before I show you to your new rooms for the moment."

Ballistic whistles, impressed by your expansive base as you walk right onwards. "You sure don't fuck around, do ya?"

"That's what free time is for. We in the Crypts believe in a generous life/work balance, I'll have you know."

Also, telepathy makes your job much, much easier, but that little revelation can wait until these three get hooked up into it themselves. Right now they're more… probationary members, a factoid everyone on base already knows about and better be mindful of.


You have to drink a lot of blood right now as you're messing around with a bit of a gimmick you've found out your Soul Palace is capable of. Consumes your satiety like crazy, but hey, if it works, great, if not, you have more than enough blood reserves going already.


Alec and Cherie do, perhaps, not get along the best, but the two of them have settled into a kind of weird, vague status quo in the time you gave them to work things out between each other; Cherie intrudes into Alec's personal space all the time, but only rarely messes with him while he's gaming, whereas he only nettles her with references to both their childhoods on occasions when she actually mildly annoys him.

You don't think he's really conscious of it, but he's slowly expressing himself in small ways like that. No idea whether that's a good thing or not, but he isn't making an issue of himself and you really don't particularly care beyond that.

He'll work himself out or he won't, all on his own time. Much more importantly, you're pushing yourself into his little mancave again today, spending a little time making sure he's generally taking care of himself (showering regularly, eating properly, that kind of thing) just because you can't have him slack to that extent while he's working for you.

And also, of course, utterly owning him at playing video games.

"How are you even doing this?" On the TV screen, two characters are beating the crap out of each other; you are playing as some police officer occasionally pulling a gun on Alec's chose avatar, some kind of pyrokinetic.

Earth Aleph video game imports are pretty weird, but you're just pirating everything anyway. "What, kicking your ass?"

"No, I didn't even know riot shields are a thing in this game!" You at least attempt to bridle your smugness as you minimize the damage his ultimate is going. "Did you hack in and add this crap or what?"

"No, I just looked up the controls," you remark drily, landing a series of bullets in his character's head. "And I can react to anything you do with several times the speed your nerves even function."

Give or take a couple microseconds, anyways.

"This is such bullshit." Alec keeps grumbling, but tries to outplay you anyway, changing his patterns in a vain attempt to throw you off and outmaneuver you.

This merely results in you taking the initiative and still kicking his ass at this game.

"Anyway, Cherie, how have you been? I've been so busy I haven't really been able to check up on you in person." You did of course keep track of her via telepathy just so you'd know if anything was seriously wrong with her, but there's a reason you often go out of your way to interact with your people outside of the shared thoughts you all have.

"Eh, I've been alright. Kind of just been hanging around." The girl's comment, sitting on the couch next to you as she is, is as evasive as it is unhelpful.

"Really? Alec, how has Cherie been?"

"A bitch," he immediately shoots back at you. "Think she's been kind of bored, actually. Nothing to do but get on my case."

"Yeah, well, maybe if you weren't such a-"

You ignore the rapidly building playful sibling argument and nod, taking the point as what it is. Cherie doesn't really have much of anything to do within your organization, doesn't she?

"How are people around the city feeling about the Crypts?" You thus ask in idle curiosity, remembering her insane range. It's, uh, still large enough to rival Taylor's? At least for passively sensing and sorting through emotions.

"Most are either afraid, carefully optimistic or waiting for the next shoe to drop. Also, no idea how much of that is in regards to us, I'm not a mind reader," the ravenette rolls her eyes. "Also, can I get some popcorn?"

"We have infinite popcorn machines now, you can get as much as you could ever want and then some."

Still, this is somewhat mildly troubling…


"Oh yeah, I just thought of it, but if you have nothing to do and feel like it, could you hang out in the Raveyard, Cherie?" Your question is both sudden and well thought-out, despite really just having been thought up. "To keep an eye out for anyone trying to pull anything shady, mess with people's emotions if you feel like it, that sort of thing."

"Oh hey, that's a great idea!" The girl in question smiles, the cogs of her mind already turning at what you just suggested. "I didn't think you'd be cool with me using my power for anything like that."

"Just don't use it on our own people and don't make it obvious enough to get caught," you shrug. "Can't let the place get a bad name. Beyond that? Go nuts, just keep in mind if you produce any bodies I'm making you carry them."

"That's fair," Cherie faintly replies. A small, probing thought into her mind reveals she's already imagining the fucked-up shit she can make happen now while disguising herself as the influence of alcohol.

She doesn't even care about your last warning, almost completely ignoring it.

"Great, that'll get her off my back. And we can make a documentary about this, 'Cherie Vasil in her natural habitat'. It'll probably be porn," Alec weighs in.

"Oh, shut up and keep on losing, you dweeb."

"I can do that without looking at the screen, not like the big man is."

"I'm going off of the sound effects, mostly."

Always nice to see siblings get along.


Seeing how you're at it anyway, you proceed to use your free day (it's a free day because you declared it to be one, obviously, being self-employed is pretty awesome) to hang out and chill with a few more of your people.

For starters, while Dinah is still in school and you have to push the movie day into an early movie evening later today, you certainly are spoiled for choice in regards to companionship; no, you aren't going to let her skip school just because you feel like inviting her to a random thing.

She's going out of her way to spend a majority of her waking time with school stuff, she may as well do it right. Sure you'll have her skip and eat ice cream with everyone if something actually important comes up, but your egocentric view of priorities isn't so far gone your mild amusement counts as important.

… Yet, anyway.

For the time being, you just ask around who among your vampires and thralls is out to do anything and as it turns out Emily and Tammi were already planning to do a little patrol around town together, so you go ahead and add yourself to the roster someone went and made on your telepathy network.

And let them know about it beforehand, of course, you're not the kind of boss that just pushes any schedules around or drops in unannounced (unless you've got a good reason to).

So there you go, meeting up with the two girls before you all leave together.


PRT 24, Boston. Performing the typical tasks demanded of the organization it was part of, the Parahuman Response Team, the mixture between paramilitary force and bureaucratic entity was still wrangling with the consequences of the Echidna Incident, known to have occurred due to a somehow 'faulty' power manifested in a member of the traveling villain group named the Travelers.

A highly dangerous Trump capable of creating at least semi-permanent copies of other parahumans in combination with a body whose physical size, speed and strength put her just a few steps below an Endbringer, Echidna had been a considerable challenge for the Protectorate, especially as her rampage coincided with the arrival of Leviathan in Brockton Bay, the actual Endbringer just a few miles down the coast complicating matters enormously.

The timing had left the local office isolated for most intents and purposes, as any available parahuman firepower had to be sent to the smaller city. As was well-justified; there had been casualties in Boston, yes, but an Endbringer always would and should take priority, as the potential sacrifices of their attacks numbered around the population of the site of their assault at minimum.

That still left the Boston PRT and protectorate with a hard fight on their hands, one that involved cooperation with any villains in city that were amenable to such and would only end with the arrival of the Triumvirate and Cain, having ended the attack on Brockton Bay in record time. The end of Echidna, however, had not been the end of the results of her rampage through downtown.

Hundreds of civilian casualties, only kept in the three digits thanks to Accord's assistance. Tens of billions of dollars in property damage. Crazed clones of whatever parahumans the maddened creature could access, used as weapons by her or spreading into the surroundings, consequently kicking off a manhunt and a mobile perimeter to be established to ensure none would go on to cause even more damage. Public trust in the Protectorate not broken, not by any stretch, but shaken.

All of this and more had to be dealt with and as the PRT office presiding over the city of Boston and its parahuman affairs, it fell to Department 24 to do so. Organizing funerals, dispensing material aid to the affected and their bereaved as appropriate, minimizing public impact and spurring on reconstruction of the straight line of destruction torn through one of the most prosperous cities in the US, to name just a few of the responsibilities now falling into it lap.

And, of course, detaining and interrogating the former members of the now defunct Travelers. However, as most of them had cooperated and turned against their former teammates when the Event began, they were treated rather leniently, particularly as priorities demanded the public be appeased and the incident itself be overshadowed by other news with all due haste.

So it was with some trepidation when it was discovered that they had disappeared without trace during a certain timeframe; it was only later discovered that footage of the cameras installed within their cells had been repeated several times without triggering any of the alarms meant to prevent this exact occurrence.

Director Armstrong was, to put it mildly, not pleased. Nor was he amused by the wealth of 'BBC Interracial Milf' pornography found on his work computer having replaced half his files. Neither were most systems throughout the PRT HQ spared- all kinds of porn was thoroughly spread all over… Everywhere.

"If anyone asks about any of this," the Director was rumored to have muttered on the day these discoveries were made, "we blame the Alabama Ranger. He'd probably appreciate it, too."

It had to be said he had an excellent memory for parahumans of all kinds.


As it happens you even have a fourth member for your impromptu group excursion, a particularly cute fox demanding your attention has decided to cling to your shoulders, making cute woodland animal sounds and cajoling cuddles from you.

Sarah has always been kind of needy in some respects, hasn't she? Not that you have room to talk with how you always give her what she wants.

So there you are, patting your sister in her fox form as she wraps herself around your head. "So, you two been doing okay?"

Emily and Tammi exchange a glance, shrugging at you simultaneously. "Been alright," Emily said. "Kind of just doing normal stuff and hanging out sometimes."

"We've been t-t-talking a lot," Tammi nods. "To help-p-p me with the st-stutter."

"It's actually diminished a lot. You've been making a lot of progress," you praise the blonde girl. "So, what do you say we get this whole thing started?"

Sarah scratches your cheek gently, signaling she wants to be cuddled again. Spoiled little foxy sister.


Your little group of four makes it a point to openly wander around the north of the city, both for territorial purposes- making sure you're regularly seen in your turf is important to keep off any vermin suicidal enough to sneak in otherwise- and to keep a thumb on the pulse of the areas now slowly being repopulated thanks to the low-cost housing you've had arranged and discretely advertised among the Bay's populace.

Sarah is scampering around here and there, keeping from letting anyone not part of your immediate group from seeing her. According to her thoughts, she doesn't want to get her fur dirty.

It is pretty damn silky and soft, much like her hair. You wholeheartedly approve.

Anyway, people are slowly filling up the places you've put forward for this project first, around the city's north-west and north of downtown. It's not exactly the center of your original territory, but most of that is filled with industrial buildings anyhow, warehouses, dock facilities, a couple small old factories you basically had to completely trash and remake.

And of course the trainyard. Can't forget that little headache of wasted infrastructure.

But back to the actually populated areas again, the buildings you set up in preparation for this have been finding good use. You went out of your way to encourage small businesses and the like by offering pre-made facilities at low rent prices, essentially affording this by not giving a shit about making a profit- you still are, of course, but the costs for getting a shop or similar set up are significantly lower in this area compared to mostly anywhere else.

You've already got two department stores and a couple supermarkets interested in setting up shop. You shall consider this a win.

More immediately, though, there's a couple small family restaurants spread around this new housing zone already, enterprising people here and there finding out about the opportunity presented by your activities and jumping right on them.

Considering you literally went out of your way to have everything they'd need built into conveniently placed locations, that much was to be expected, you suppose. Look, if you are going to go and literally build a piece of city from the ground up, of course you're going to plan everything out for maximum efficiency and ease of commerce, including statistically great locations for eateries and shops, many of which are ready inside a literal mall you pulled out of the ground.

… Note to self, find out how exactly you even got that through without any trouble from the authorities. You literally replaced a couple buildings with a five-story mall, for fuck's sake.

Anyway, here you are, making the rounds of these little family restaurants; one of the owners literally came out to beg you to have a meal, explaining (while fighting his tears) that his duaghter used to have brain cancer before you published the recipe for your non-patented cancer cure.

She's still a little sickly and the recovery process is going slowly on account of how advanced her cancer was, but she can live now, without requiring copious amounts of morphine.

This also the reason he moved to live directly under your thumb, so to say. You have a little talk while you have him whip you up his house special, really just a big bowl of fried breaded chicken crusted with his family recipe spice and assorted drinks plus side dishes.

It's actually set up pretty nicely, with several bowl sizes meant to let people decide how much they eat based on how many customers are there together. You make sure to compliment him on his business sense, by the way, he'll be making some good profit off of the drinks alone as long as he can attract a decent flow of hungry visitors.

It's a little surreal for the three of you (plus Sarah who sneaked onto your lap) to sit there in this little shop, wearing cape costumes and all while you casually chat with the man working the kitchen, but also kind of fun. "Man, I haven't eaten normal food in forever," Emily confesses, pushing her vibrant hair back behind her ear on one side.

"Is this r-r-really alright, though?" Tammi asks, anxiously looking around. "He s-said it was free, but…"

"Oh, don't worry about that," you wave her off. "I'll be leaving some money one way or the other. And probably advertise this place a little. Speaking of, how about we have a little tour of these places? There should be a few around, assuming they've opened by now."

"Sounds good."

"Y-y-yeah."

The chicken is pretty nice, by the way. You do go ahead and suggest the owner try out other kinds of oil, getting the feeling he could improve in terms of aroma retention, but the meat is juicy and the fries are just crunchy enough. Personally, you prefer to have them a little bit softer, but the meal's perfectly serviceable.

You end up forcing some cash on the guy for good measure, paying in full. You aren't going to just eat for free, not in a place that's just opened when every customer counts.

What comes next is a parade of junk food and pancakes, pretty much, with the odd bakery or two in-between, sampling the cookies for the most part. On occasion you hand out some simple cooking advice, sometimes you have to reprimand them for insufficient hygiene standards, you take a break once for the sake of Tammi's stomach; in short, a good time is had by all.

And a few rumors about your 'pet fox' pop up online when you take the time to write up a little guide to the earliest eateries around the area and post in on PHO, the official 'CryptSite' and sprinkle a few links here and there to make sure it gets out on Brockton Bay-specific websites.

Naturally, Sarah is way ahead of any such things, she's wearing a collar and nothing else while lounging strewn across your lap, fox ears and tails out. She's getting lots of scratchies, too, of course.


It's a bit late to say this, but you really don't bother organizing the souls you eat all that much. You kind of just throw them into your inner world and forget about them more often than not after a cursory look over their memories and personalities, seeing how little interest you really have in them.

Which is why you took the time to go through the ones you have in stock and what their powers may be used to do, promptly calling up Sherrel while poking at one particular murderer for hire.

One of the souls you ate while you were staying on Remnant (lovely little planet, that) and that possesses a natural power quite in line with her specialty in tinkertech. A short introduction and transfer later, the eight-hundred and sixty-first soul you ever ate (you have in fact been keeping count) is owned by the busty tinker and put to the test.

"Well screw me stupid, he can actual drive my special babies," Sherrel grins at you while both of you watch him operate a modified SUV that has about as much to do with a car as it has with a sea anemone. "Guess he'll be useful. Use the special perk to make him a human collector?"

"All up to you," you shrug. "I just figured this power would be best used by you."

It's a doozy, really. This soul, aside from being an experienced killer, has the special ability to drive or steer pretty much any vehicle imaginable with some measure of skill, regardless of how it works or if it would work for a normal person at all, as long as it can work. What's more, said vehicle and its passengers can be turned completely intangible and back with a thought, snapping back and forth on demand.

No telefragging, sadly, but it does rearrange matter until things fit, meaning it can easily be abused to capture targets inside a sizable enough machine.

"Oh yeah, while we're at it, what have you been working on lately?" You ask.

"Just a couple small potatoes," your tinker girlfriend shrugs. "Wanna test 'em out somewhere?"

"Sure, why not?" You look over the vehicle bay filled from one to the next. "What's first?"

"Stealth submarine! I got a fuck dungeon in there."

So much for your afternoon, then, you suppose.


Your drive around the Atlantic ocean is fun, much as it is somewhat disrupted with something much more fun; you and Sherrel thoroughly christen the vessel with body fluids while the autopilot takes you around, all the way to Europe (you think you ended up somewhere around Portugal briefly, but you aren't completely sure, of course) and back.

You could've gone for a longer circuit around Asia and all, but you didn't really feel the need when you could just dive around the deep sea for a while instead. Though you did make a short detour around the area Rapture would be on the appropriately named Earth Rapture while you were down there anyway; just taking a look around and looking to see if there's any ADAM snails or plants to be found.

There aren't, but thanks to Sherrel's comprehensive work when designing her stealth submarine, you can take a couple samples of various deep-sea organisms, ones that probably aren't there on Earth Rapture in the form they exist in on Earth Bet, just because ADAM is a thing and you don't trust the stuff not to have done genetic changes to a variety of species just through general proximity.

Also, a couple of these things are pretty cool. Like this small, bright purple fish you found. It's going into a research tank, just like everything else.

Still all good things have to come to an end, as opposed to vampires, which are neither good nor capable of aging. The logistics of handling a submarine are a little bit complicated back in Brockton Bay- or they would be, if you didn't literally have a secret underwater docking station built a bit down the coast, allowing a quick and easy way to store this thing.

Or Sherrel decided to make your robots build it in the time since you last came back to Earth Bet, same difference. Not like it really cost you anything,

Man, being post-scarcity individual in a world that very much isn't fucking rules. Who knew that infinite generation of matter and energy were all you needed to finally fill that deep dark hole in your heart where cheap consumer goods used to occupy space before you managed to go and grow beyond the need to eat, drink, sleep or occupy yourself?

… Yes, sure, that last one is still kind of relevant, but only because you dislike abject boredom. You still regularly put yourself through quite a lot of it in order to get stuff done, that one hasn't changed.

Anyway, you give Sherrel one last kiss, having quite enjoyed a couple hours of nonstop sex with someone that can actually survive vampire levels of stamina. "We have to do this kind of thing more often."

"You bet on it!" The future mother of one of your children grins, hugging you back so both of you have one arm slung around the other. "One day I'm making a big-ass deathstar and we can have a tour of the solar system."

If you ever find a way to kill the Simurgh, it goes unsaid. You nod, perfectly happy with that. "Definitely."

Now to get your catches stowed away and call upon a few of the girls for a little movie evening plus ice cream…


You may or may not have, kind of, built a cozy little home cinema, complete with an adjustable screen on one wall and a snack bar lining another. Though it was technically not you you, but rather Kate and Sarah that spearheaded this particular initiative…

Honestly, at the level your minds are collectively interacting, you've had a little trouble recently really distinguishing what any singular vampire has been doing versus what all of you as a whole, connected entity have been up to.

It would probably be mildly concerning for a human, but you've long since learned to roll with the punches, as it were. You're all more a collective consciousness than not now, sure, why not.

At least thralls are easier to differentiate, as they do not instinctively seek to fully link themselves into your greater whole. You wonder whether this makes having sex with your wives kind-of-but-not-masturbation or not for a moment, but finally decide it doesn't really matter.

What does matter instead is the small troupe of girls you're leading into your home cinema, preemptively avoiding any arguments on what movie to watch by opening a fridge that's taller than yourself (built into yet another wall, of course) and pulling out one of the drawers within, revealing tubs of ice cream of all flavors you thought to acquire and replicate en masse.

"Okay, everyone grab one tub they like, you can get another kind or share it however you want," you invite the gaggle of actually highly dangerous capes to take their portions of your bounty.

"I want strawberry!" Dinah immediately exclaims, raising a hand. "And do we get big spoons for this?"

"You do," you confirm, handing her a tub of the requested flavor and a proper spoon. You actually considered just making all your tableware inside the bunker out of solid gold, for a bit, but ultimately decided there was no point and went back to stainless steel.

"I want vanilla," Jackie is the next to say. The short, white-haired and utterly unemotive girl is unusually clingy today, though you think she's been workin herself up to this point for a while now anyway. "The good stuff."

This request, too, you can meet, and so you hand out one tub of ice cream after the other, as apparently it tastes better when you do so. Well, you shall simply have to suck it up and work as the ice cream dispenser man every now and then, you suppose; the network is already picking up on the motion and Sarah has repeatedly blasted fantasies of being spoonfed by you while you're spooning and slowly filling her up all over the female parts of your gestalt consciousness anyway.

Your lovers have some strange hobbies sometimes. Still you shall oblige, because when do you not?

One by one you dispense the sugary goodness that is high-quality ice cream. Phebe, Ayane, Beverly and Katrin all receive theirs, leaving only Kumi to in turn make her decision.

"Hm…" You suppose it's pretty cute how she's tapping a finger on her chin as she deliberates on what manner of ice cream to eat. "Which is your favorite flavor, Gabriel?" The big-chested, Asian girl finally asks.

All the other girls look at her in a mixture of shock and dismay. For some reason.

"Well, I'll eat any I get, but of the standard flavors I like strawberry," you shrug.

"Then I would like strawberry, please," Kumi tells you, smiling as placidly as ever.

In the background, Dinah trikes a dramatic victory pose, whereas Jackie and Phebe collapse to the ground in apparent defeat (after they put their ice cream away, of course).

"Alright, here you go. And don't worry everyone, I can make sure this stuff won't melt."

Your incredible ice-related magic prowess is once more coming in handy here.


The movies are easy enough to queue up, and you do make sure everyone gets a turn at adding one to the list you will be watching sooner or later; sadly, you have only so much time, but you can always get back to it where you left off- or just leave the girls to watch movies together by themselves, not like you're required to be with them for it.

Regular movie nights are a good way to form team cohesion, you think. Really everyone that has to work with parahumans should do them, in your opinion, it's hard enough to work with and around their various idiosyncrasies as is even when they don't hate each other's guts for practically no reasons.

Capes really are a pain to manage. It's one reason there are very few really big groups of them that regularly gather; even the Protectorate is made up of still sizable, but much more easily maintained sub-groups, same as how the Elite operates in cells.

Simply put, it's like herding cats, except with superpowers and even more strife involved. There's a reason the vast majority of gangs and the like have, like, maybe five to ten capes, maximum; any more and someone is liable to just die.

The E88 was kind of noteworthy in that regard, at least, but you're pretty sure they still kept their capes distributed to keep this equilibrium of 'just before bodies inevitably hit the floor' upright.

You like to think the Crypts are just a very successful gang in this regard by simply being very awesomely organized, but you aren't blind to the way cliques of capes have been building themselves up for a while now. Heck, the Cluster Six basically came as a pre-made in-group to themselves!

Still things are working out. It's why you often go out of your way to smooth over ruffled feathers and actively keep the peace within your organization where required; it also does help that everyone is telepathically linked into a wider network, of course, makes group cohesion much much easier to achieve.

That doesn't mean there are no conflicts amongst you, naturally. Only that you are usually in a good position to resolve them in short order. Such as right now, with Dinah and Jackie facing off against one another, menacingly ignoring the Disney movie Ayane secretly chose because she's really into this kind of stuff.

From what you understand, it is, of course, about having sex. With yourself. Because what else would either of these two care about enough to make an issue of it?

"I have lots of other things wasting my time all day whereas you can just ask him to spend time with you whenever you want," Dinah argues, silky brunette hair falling over her shoulders. "Therefore, to achieve the optimal distribution of pleasure, i should have priority when I actually do get to be here!"

"… No." And of course Jackie does her best to be persuasive about this.

"Why not? This is so unfair!"

"… Mine."

Your leg is being seized by the white-haired little girl. You consider whether to object or let her go ahead, but ultimately wait for Dinah's response before doing anything.

"No, mine!" Dinah grabs your other leg, glaring at Jackie who stares back, a competitive spark in her eyes.

You sigh, feeling the amusement of the rest of the Cluster Six as they watch on when they aren't distracted by the movie. You probably should do something about this, it's basically your job these days.

Grabbing the back of their outfits, you lift both of these two up, to Dinah's startled yelp and Jackie's half-hearted stare, settling them on one of your legs each, still facing each other.

Side note, you can basically make it really hard for them to fall off by using your power to supernaturally adhere to things. It's actually surprisingly useful in otherwise mundane situations, isn't it?

"If you're going to be like that, neither of you is getting dicked down," you announced sternly, keeping your hands on their backs to give them something to lean on, both girls directly in front of the other.

"That would be terrible!" Dinah exclaims.

"Mm," her previous enemy nods in agreement.

"Really, you girls…" You shake your head, mildly exasperated and amused both. "Go on then, kiss and make up and I'll do both of you."

Dinah looks at Jackie. Jackie looks back. They glance at your face, but then turn towards one another again, simultaneously.

They know you're completely serious with this, and so they know what they have to do to get what they want. A moment passes, then two, and they seem to have come to a joined decision.

Closing their eyes, Dinah and Jackie lean forwards, arms embracing each other as their lips overlap and a cute little kiss is shared, planted on each other's lips. As you watch, it become clear neither is planning to stop, tongues coyly licking their own mouths as they slowly near the point they're outright frenching each other.

They really just needed a little encouragement, huh?

You hold back a chuckle and let your fingers slip under their clothes from behind, eliciting happy moans muffled by each other once you get to fondle their butts and stroke their hips. They really are both quite cute, aren't they?


The rest of the Cluster Six seem content to sit back and watch as you have your way, overcome with a sense of fascinated anticipation, so you do just that, stripping the two girls sharing your lap one piece of clothing at a time.

Soon enough both Dinah and Jackie are naked, awkwardly touching each other and exploring the other's body, like kids do. It's downright adorable, really, even if both of their eyes snap downwards the moment you unzip your pants, your already-hard cock springing up in the no man's lad between them.

You've made your opinion on this clear however and neither is willing to risk not getting boned, so they wordlessly communicate, a low level of mental exchange taking place that you can just barely make out when you pay attention. Two small hands land on your rod, squeezing and stroking in synchronicity and just wrapping their slightly cool palms around engorged flesh.

Must be all that ice cream you're feeding them, you suppose.

You crane your neck to kiss their heads, one after another, and begin emitting positive emotions, from adoration to bit of love, at them, letting them know what you're feeling. They, in turn, open up to you, both inside their heads and among their legs.

You bury your fingers inside the two small, cute snatches gathered on your lap, gathering up clear honey and messing them up. Dinah is very vocal about her pleasure, gasping, panting and moaning your name, babbling about what she wants you to do, whereas Jackie is more stoic, her roughened breathing and sweet little sounds a welcome contrast just like the red of her blush is to her pale skin.

There's a reason she' so fun to tease, something you don't bother hiding over your bond. Not that Dinah has it any easier; she just doesn't care people know how turned on she is by everything going on right now.

She's remarkably unrestrained about some things, wiggling and twisting happily perched on your lap as she is.

Still, as pliable and eager as these two may be, the issue remains you only have one cock to go around at any one time- an issue, though not one you will be solving in the next five minutes, just like every time it comes up.

So you'll need to choose one of them to fuck stupid before turning your attention toward the other one, naturally. Because you just hate to leave a job not done. "Who wants to go first?"

What ensues is a swift mental battle slash discussion, leading to Dinah blushing happily as she gets first shot; Jackie wants to watch. And play with her while you do it. Turns out you may have awakened something within the cluster, given how deeply interwoven their emotions and minds and really everything are.

One way or another Jackie comes to sit in front of your seat, Dinah's back turned towards yourself. She's wet and horny, panting in anticipation, and you pull her backwards by her arms.

Gently, of course.

Your own knees set wide enough to give her the space, you just drag Dinah onto your cock, small and tight pussy spread widely over your length- you can feel her heartbeat through your cock, delicate body under your complete control as she surrenders completely the moment you drill your cock into her.

You waste no time in immediately thrusting into her with everything you have, drilling the mayor's niece like a drilling machine out to install a lamp inside drywall; hard and fast, in other words. You can already see the little heart forming in her eyes, their weird phenomenon you have found no explanation for to this day manifesting once again in a girl you're plowing.

She's enjoying herself and panting loudly with her tongue hanging out, so it seems to be working out alright, anyway. Even if you'd really like someone (that isn't yourself) to acknowledge these kinds of things just to make sure you aren't just going nuts more than usual.

Dinah's cute, smooth belly is especially cute today, you think. It's bulging a little every time you penetrate her all the way, the size of your cock motivating her to use a free hand to spread her butt, letting you see her pink pucker as well as the place you're connected to her clearly.

As a rule of thumb, when you're fucking a girl hard enough she's splattering saliva and other kinds of fluids over the ground, you're doing something right.

Jackie, meanwhile, is toeing closer, edging towards her new 'friend'. Dinah's chest is undefended, little bulging breasts and hard nipples poking into the air free for the taking, and so she soon winds up with her lips wrapped around one tiny teat, one hand playing with the other and the last set of digits busy stroking Dinah's belly where your cock is ravaging it, letting you feel it, too.

Dinah is a mess at this point, mewling and crying with pleasure, though her white-haired companion soon kisses her instead of nibbling on what have to be painfully hard nipples; their sloppy make-out session is only interrupted by yourself when you really get to hammering the horny brunette girl down, her legs and arms tensing up as she squeaks her climax out.

You do not stop there, naturally. Pulling her onto your lap, lifting her into the air, facing towards you, away from you, sideways- it doesn't matter how you fuck her, just so long as you do, depositing load after load of your seed right inside of her sweet little love tunnel used by you.

It takes, maybe, ten or twenty rounds, as you aren't actively holding yourself back, but evetually she's reduced to nothing but a slumped-down little mess, one you carefully deposit in your seat as you officially give it up. It's soaked anyways. Instead, you hold out your hands to Jackie, who is herself soaked to no small extent, not that the rets of the room is faring much better at this point.

"Your turn?" You ask, giving her a mischievous (some might call it smug) smile.

"My turn," she agrees, holding her hands out to you.

You can't help but chuckle at the childish gesture.

Snatching her up, you playfully dislodge her skimpy clothes, the panties she's taken to wearing pretty exclusively, to be precise, and knead her cute little butt, giving her a kiss on a soft cheek. "You ready, sweetie?" She blushes, looking away.

You jam yourself in without any more foreplay required, slowly driving your cock into the shortest of the Cluster Six at a stark angle that lets you grind against what you just so happen to know to be a weak spot of hers.

Suffice it to say, Jackie doesn't escape your grasp any better than Dinah did before her. She also has takes just as little issue with this.

Her clustermates seem to think it's cute- and are happy she made a new friend besides. Always nice to see positive, supportive support structures, isn't it?


Reed Wahl is, it has to be said, dedicated to his work, if nothing else.

The thought comes over you as you survey the room the madman has taken to retreating to when not in use; as he did in life, Reed is still pursuing the 'perfect equation', a mathematical formula through which to gain omniscience, basically, predicting everything that might have ever happened or will ever happen.

It's a waste of effort, of course. Predictive modeling like that only works as long as every single variable is already known and well-defined, but there's dicks like yourself around casually waving their dicks in the air and overriding the laws of physics, and you aren't the only outright supernatural being you've seen around the multiverse.

On a limited scale, yes, sure, something like this may be successful. Not in the grand scheme of things, however. Not that you suspect the soul you appropriated would ever agree to any such thing; Reed here has been quite obsessed long before you came along and liberated him from the mortal coil.

Now he's here, inside a dark, featureless chamber out of the way of anyone else, using pilfered paper taken from your workshop to scribble down his equation, numbers and variables arranged in all sorts of fancy ways that actually give you the impression of complete nonsensical crap.

Seriously. Complicated mathematics are all well and good, but you're pretty sure Reed won't be achieving anything of worth for a couple centuries, at least. Not that he doesn't have the time, assuming your frequent use of him won't see him eliminated from existence at some point.

"What is it? I am busy!" He exclaims in his weird accent as you come inside, the hunched, humanoid figure a mix between how he ended up looking despite the Thinker's capabilities at optimizing the use of ADAM for himself and his (you presume) human appearance, in contrast to how Wales' soul is looking completely human right now.

"I'm using you for an experiment. Now shut up and come along."

It really is nice, you complete your earlier train of thought, how you can just do that. Utter commands and be obeyed, regardless of your souls' opinions on them. There's a reason you don't pay any attention to either unless absolutely necessary, quite unlike how you treat your living underlings, minions, subjects and similar.

Also, Reed's cries of pain as you kick him into the pit of razor blades, extremely high and low temperatures, somehow living components and more not too far from your underground dungeon within your inner world are mildly therapeutic.


Dinah Alcott got back home late; by the time she'd recovered feeling in her legs and toes and could walk without making any funny movements, not to mention finished watching the last Star Wars movie of the day, the sun was already going down and she had to fish for the key a little because she didn't check where it'd landed after she put her clothes back on.

It happened. Stuff got jangled around and she didn't feel like wasting her power on it.

Once she was in, though, she was treated to the sight of her mom sitting in the living room, waiting for her, as soon as she took her shoes off in the hallway. She didn't even have time to ask what was going on before she told her, though.

"Dinah, sweetie, it's very, very late," she said, looking at the clock up above the living room table. "Didn't you promise you'd come home right after school?"

"I was busy," she said and turned to go upstairs, but her mom wouldn't have any of it. Drats.

"Hold on a moment, let's talk this out." She always did this, trying to make herself look reasonable by opening up with that. "You know your father and I don't want you out too late, especially not after dark."

Dinah resisted the urge to roll her eyes, but just barely. It wasn't 'after' dark, technically, sun was still kind of up there in the distance, and it wasn't like she didn't have enough time to do anything she wanted at home either.

And nobody was dumb enough to get in her way outside. If they were, she had a little gun Gabriel had given her tucked under her dress. If she didn't just see them coming from a mile away anyway.

"Really, do you know how dangerous it can be in this city? What if-"

"Bad. Don't." She had to put her foot down. "You know I don't like open-ended questions. They give me headaches."

"… Right." It was mildly infuriating her parents took this much re-education to learn the rules. Sure, Dinah didn't get headaches as easily anymore, but she still could after a while and if she didn't curtail this stuff hard and fast, it could balloon out of proportion quickly. "Sorry, sweetie. We really should get you looked at by a doctor, though."

Ugh. This was all so annoying. "I don't need to see a doctor anymore. I'm fine. You just have to pay attention."

"We worry about you, that's all. If there isn't anything wrong, it can't hurt either, see?" How far had the world fallen that her mom was actually trying to convince her with logic now? "It's just two quick visits, they won't be long. I promise."

"Two?"

"Yes, one to a neurologist and one child doctor that just wants to ask you a few questions."

"…"

Okay, quick. Tapping into everyone else, Dinah thought what her mom was saying over. Neurologist? She'd complained about the headaches. They were looking into possible disorders, especially about the scare with her dad- cancer was treatable now, but for a while they'd thought he might just die or something. The other one?

… Chances her parents thought Dinah was autistic? 91.46%. Uugghhhhhh.

"I'm fine, you don't need to bother, it'd be a waste of everyone's time and money," she emphatically told her mother. "And don't bother listening in on my door, I talk to myself one time and you never let it go. Just go away or something."

She liked using her power out loud, it helped her make sense of it, but she couldn't just do that at home without first checking if anyone was listening, because she was living in an authoritarian dictatorship with no privacy laws, apparently.

With that, she stomped on upstairs, back to her room to relax and take out the cooled ice cream box she'd taken back home with her. She'd been thinking about sharing it, but she wasn't in the mood for that anymore.

She'd just eat all of it herself, hmpf!


One advantage of being with the Crypts was that Dinah could just pirate all the video games she liked. That and asking Lea about it was why she had a single cartridge inside her game console now that could load up over a thousand games on demand.

She didn't really need to sleep anymore most nights, just, like, once every three or four days, so she had lots of time to spend somehow, and when she wasn't looking up someone else's thoughts lately, she was just playing whatever pokemon game looked good at the time.

And now she even had ice cream to eat on the side! She was a growing girl with a big Thinker brain, so she needed lots of sugar, see? It was a dietary requirement of hers, so nobody could get mad at her over hiding lot of sweets that may or may not be illegal contraband around her room.

And with a towel under her door, nobody could even see the console's light! She truly was a criminal mastermind, the only one eligible to lead the Junior Division of the Crypts.

"Muhuhuhu," she laughed. Quietly. So nobody could hear her and bother her about it.


Riley is mentally telling you about how she is now friends with Dinah after they both got to talking over the network, a most wonderful development you make sure to encourage. Everyone in the Crypts could probably really use a friend or two, but especially Riley, given her past history.

She and Mimi know each other, but they're more colleagues than real friends, what with the age difference and all. Luckily you do have enough capes everyone is statistically likely to find at least one or two compatible personalities somewhere.

In other news, you have a date with Crystal in a bit, time to go dress up in your teenage Gabriel persona.


It's been a while, but you slip into the guise of a somewhat generally apathetic, unbothered teenager with the practice of having been one yourself easily enough. You still remember how you actually were at the age your body is at right now, of course; you really weren't this quiet, for one.

The less is said about how else you were, the better.

Anyways, there you are, wearing jeans and a dark jacket meant to clash with your bright shirt. You are told (by Sarah) that this looks good and nothing in your experience speaks against it, so you went with this and a pair of sneakers. Overall you're going out of your way to look like a boy out of a decently well-off family out for a night in town.

You arranged to meet Crystal in a convenient place (for her, anyway) and came twenty minutes early, both just to make a guaranteed good impression and to do some people watching on the side; Brockton Bay has become a lot more interesting to observe of late, given the changes you've been making.

From the park bench you're waiting on you can keep an eye on a couple of streets relatively easily, so you do. There's foot traffic all around, so you have more than enough people just walking around, coming and going wherever ad however- but, and that's the interesting part, you can pretty easily make out a lot about them as they go.

Their clothes, overall condition, body and facial language, the sounds of their voices as they spoke into phones or even just breathed, the scents of their passing when the breeze was angled right, the beating of their hearts; all this and more you take in, passively allowing yourself to just perceive everything around you and categorize the information without thinking much about it.

Adults, teenagers (no kids at this late hour), old, young, walking frenetically with a goal in mind or more sedately, taking their time for some reason, you see and hear and sense it all. It's actually kind of amazing just how much information you can gather without even really trying, and the conclusions you can make about people through it.

Which is why you identify Crystal effortlessly long before she actually gets anywhere near you, approaching through the park. She's wearing pretty clothes that practically scream 'mature college student out for a date', too.

"Hey Gabriel, hope you weren't waiting long?" She asks once she's in casual conversation range.

"Not as long as I would have," you shrug with a pointed smile. "You doing well?"

"I could be worse," Crystal replies in the same vein.

Together, the two of you get going.


Today, or rather tonight, the sun has gone down already and all, you and Crystal are going shopping together. This being a date and money not being a concern far as you're concerned, you are, of course, paying for everything, regardless of what she has to say on the matter.

"You really don't have to-"

"I want to and nobody can stop me."

A master orator is you.

You basically drag a bemused Crystal to the shops you remember to work out well for yourself in the past, having her try on a couple pieces here and there as they draw your attention. It's a pretty nice time, all in all, even though you'll admit to the common issue of just not being all that interested in clothing as a guy.

It's a thing, okay? Women are way more into shopping, that's just how it is, always has been and likely always will be. Exceptions may exist, but they're the exception rather than the rule.

"You know, it has to look kinda weird for us two to go shopping like this," your date tells you as you shows off a new set of clothes, a blue blazer over some olive green shirt. "With our ages and all."

"So?" You shrug, completely unconcerned. "People will look and stare and then forget it in a day or two, so I don't really care."

"That's a pretty mature way to look at it, I suppose."

Mhm, chances are high she knows a bit more than your name by now. Asking around over telepathy, it turns out Vicky pretty much confirmed suspicions she came to by herself, it seems.

Not like it really matters, of course. She has neither bluntly called you on it nor tried to call the protectorate on you so far, speaking either of her good sense (as neither of those would really result in much of anything) or of her having an actual plan you're perfectly willing to go along with for now.

Anyway, much more interesting is what she does next; glancing to the left and right, wary of possible onlookers, she gives you a mischievous grin, the college girl transforming into a teasing older sister type in a heartbeat.

"But what if I do this?" Looking right into your eyes, Crystal pulls her shirt up, holding it in place with one hand. "Amy really seems to like them."

Humming approvingly, you take a step to stand right in front of her, both hands stretching out to fondle her breasts right away. She sighs softly, pleased; mentally, you ask Amy what this is about.

Turns out these are iteratively improved and slowly perfected breasts, in fact, to perfectly fit Amy's tastes, that is. Smiling, you pinch Crystal's nipples, drawing a quiet gasp from her. "I get why, these look like a lot of fun," you tell her.

"… I know I shouldn't talk, but is this alright? People might see."

"Again, I don't care," you grin at her, kneading soft flesh with both hands. "But hey, if you'd like, we can go inside."

"You're incorrigible, you know that?"

"So I've been told, yes."


Things develop quickly from there. Both you and Crystal quickly take off everything in the way, letting your pants and hers drop to the ground where they're kicked into a corner mercilessly as the two of you get to the real action of this little date you're having.

It's like out of a porn flick, you idly think, or a bodice ripper novel, two bodies pressed against each other in a clothing store's changing room, skin unmarred by anything glistening in the glare of the overhead lights as you make out.

Your fingers dig into Crystal's abnormally soft skin, so pleasant to the touch you're convinced Amy had a hand in it because nobody not at least a thrall of yours or equivalent should be this nice to feel up. You have her pinned against the wall in short order, sweet little moans escaping the college student's lips as you get into position.

Before long your cock is pressing against her entrance, getting ready to fuck her once again. You take your time to actually push into her, though, teasing her and flicking her nipples back and forth until she pouts about it.

Only then do you actually thrust forwards, your cock spearing into her as you go balls deep in one stroke, filling her up to her womb. Crystal has to bite into your shoulder to stifle the sounds she's making at that, doubly so when you actually start moving, and you let her, consciously keeping your aura from activating.

She makes for a tight and enjoyable fuck, though neither of you is being that quiet; it's only really a matter of time until an employee comes around and makes an issue of themselves, at least until you in turn make them stop being one. Until then, though, you're methodically nailing this girl against the wall, her soft arms and legs wrapping around you as the tremors of your activities are spreading.

Crystal comes pretty easily, drooling both from her mouth and from her pussy, but you don't let up, doing her just as hard and fast as the last time you met. When the time finally comes for yourself to follow suit, though, she actually pulls herself together, both hands on your head.

"So, you're, Cain, huh?" She'd be more in line with how she wants to sound right now if she wasn't panting like a bitch in heat. No, not Rachel, the other kind.

"I am. What about it?"

You come inside her, completely unperturbed by this turn of events. Crystal sighs, letting go of you as another orgasm distracts her. "What about it all right…"


The rest of your little talk, burdened down by the two large, tightly-packed bags of clothes you bought for Crystal, is taking place atop one of the Bay's many windy rooftops, the city lights shimmering in the distance to dimly illuminate the surroundings.

It's really atmospheric, is what you're saying. You got a knack for this kind of thing.

"So…"

The two of you relocated up here to discuss whatever may have come up as a result of your cape identity being known to Crystal, not that you particularly cared yourself- your senses would make it easy to discern and avoid any eavesdroppers with little to no effort- but there's no harm in getting her to fly you up here for this, either.

"So." Your answer is as profound as it is short. "I'm guessing you had a few questions."

"Yes!" You're both sitting down, but she's notably more active, gesturing animatedly. "You're… Cain! You're the most famous cape in the world!"

"Yes, the cancer thing. Though I'd like to think beating Leviathan like a red-headed stepchild had something to do with the 'cape' part of my renown." You give Crystal a sardonic smirk. "Anything else?"

"There's so much I want to ask you! Ugh…" It's a conspicuously teenager-y moment, you think to yourself. "Why did you get close to my cousins, first of all? I don't believe for a moment there's no hidden motives there."

You blow out a breath of air, smile still on your face. "Honestly? Because I could and it seemed like fun. Amy really needed to unwind anyways, so I just did what I usually do."

"What, draw adoptive sisters into a pseudo-incestuous relationship with you?"

"It sound bad when you put it like that, but I don't limit myself to adoptive sisters, strictly speaking," you point out. "But yeah, let's turn that around a bit. Why wouldn't I seduce the both of them? It's fine as long as everyone has fun, isn't it?"

"… Is that why you opened that club, the Raveyard? The Palanquin has been a lot emptier lately."

"Part that, part me just wanting to open one," you shrug. "You really shouldn't read too deeply into what I do, most of the time. In the end I just want to increase my power and influence or just do whatever I damn well want in the moment. That's all there is to it."

"Including handing out powers like fresh bread, huh?" Crystal ponders, tilting her head. "I don't think I thanked you yet, come to think of it. About Amy and Vicky. You kept them safe when Leviathan came."

"Don't mention it, they thanked me enough themselves way back when," you wave her off. "Speaking of, though, would you like a couple yourself? Just a few the PRT doesn't have an easy way to find with a full body scan, anyway."

"… Tell me more?"


It had been a long time since she was in this place, she thought to herself. Even longer since she'd have envisioned herself visiting of her own volition.

Looking up at the Barnes' home, Taylor took it all in, the all-too-familiar sight only the first layer of things she was processing; inside the house, bugs were crawling through dark rooms and creeping through the hallways. Not many, nowhere near enough to let anyone know she was there, just enough to let her get a picture of things.

It was quiet inside. Unsurprising, given the time on a weekday. Still she made sure to search every room for any signs of activity, just in case.

When she didn't find any, Taylor directed her swarm towards the next step. She knew the layout of Emma's room like the back of her hand, so it took less than a second for a fly to find the sleeping redhead in her bed…

And buzz. Loudly.

It did so until Emma shifted in her sleep, trying to get rid of the annoying sound, only for the fly to move closer, making it harder to ignore. This pattern repeated several times until, finally, the girl blearily woke up, groaning in a way Taylor could understand even with the few bugs she had on her.

… Directly, anyway.

Most of her swarm inside the building was currently hidden around her room, kept out of sight in case she decided to turn on a light, but in the end it took several more fly-bys of the most obnoxiously loud fly Taylor could find for Emma to get herself up, breathing loudly all the while.

Taylor herself, meanwhile, was hiding under Emma's bed, her main, human body completely motionless as naked feet met the ground next to her.

All it would take next were a few steps, and… She dissolved, turning into a large mass of chitin skittering into place outside of her hiding spot, turning back right behind a very much former best friend.

It was then that she realized Emma went to bed naked, pale kin almost shining in the moonlight to her nocturnal eyes. She had to resist the urge to lick her lips at the sight of what would soon be hers.

Her victim didn't see anything coming. One moment, she was on her way to get bug spray or something to drink (Taylor knew she often did that right after waking up), the next there was a hand on her mouth and a second over her arms, keeping her in position with superhuman strength.

Emma kicked her legs out and made muffled screaming noises in surprise, but it was for naught; just like that, her naked skin pressed against the hard plates of Taylor's costume, the two of them teleported away, leaving nary a trace behind.

Instead, they appeared inside a room. It was a decent room, though with no edges nor anything that could be used as a tool or weapon lying around. A bed, soft carpet, some manacles dangling from a wall… Everything a good girl could need.

"Welcome home, Emma," Taylor whispered to the redhead. "You're finally where you belong now."

Her tongue found the ear she was talking into, lasciviously licking over it.

Emma fainted then and there.

Typical.

Sarah? Yeah, I'm done with my personal project for now, is there anythin else that need doing?


Brockton Bay, as a modern city, is… well, serviceable, you'll say that much. It's got a population, poverty isn't as abject and problematic as it used to be within your area of control.

Honestly, you had to slum it for a week or so way back when you were a kid and that whole human trafficking incident happened. You know precisely how hard it can be to have to live on the streets, the amount of sex you were subjected to without the guise of a normal life to hide behind as an excuse was half the reason it took you that long to find a way back to LA.

But yeah, anyway, back to Brockton Bay, the city of broken dreams and bad things that don't turn out as bad as expected (trademark pending). Honestly, when you first started gathering a couple mooks, back when it was just you, Kate and a couple of the girls, you never would've expected you'd be this much of an improvement on the place as a whole.

Like, you eat humans, you grow stronger by eating humans and you literally enslave their souls in doing so, all without a single care in the world for the people that get hurt by it. How in the fuck you are a better alternative to literally everyone else that came before you, criminal-wise, is still kind of mind-blowing.

Reconstruction effort are well along their way, though you make a note to check on Kassie's family and how they're doing later, just in case; she's one of your capes now and that means you do go the extra mile every now and then. That aside, the docks are slowly being repaired, the port itself technically being workable again as you've already taken care of the Boat Graveyard and miscellaneous facilities, such as copious amounts of warehouses, are already operational and have been for a while.

In theory, shipping could commence right this moment, provided some heavy equipment was brought in to handle shipping containers properly. In practice, you would still be relying on trucks to handle any cargo that isn't meant to land in Brockton Bay itself, and as there hasn't been much of that going on for what must be decades by now you don't really expect you'd have an easy time finding enough drivers doing that job.

Hence, the railways. That need to be prepared a bit, as you're assuming parts of the rails will have rusted into nothing by now this close to the ocean. Originally, you were just going to leave that to the mayor, but hey, as it has turned out that would take weeks, if not months…

Well, he's in your pocket. Ensuring the 'right' companies get certain construction contracts is par for the course as far as corrupt politicians go, isn't it?

"Alright, crew, we're on a time limit and a budget," you announce to the gathered robots you're built for this on the fly. "Let's get this done hard and fast, yeah?"

You are answered by beeping and booping, just as you programmed them to do when you have a speech. Excellent.


You wear a nice, bright yellow hardhat, of course, as you keep track of the time plan, idly making sure everything about this project works out exactly as you had envisioned; not to brag too much, but you are very, very good at this kind of thing by now after all the other things you've done and built (or oversaw the building of).

This is child's play for the current you. And, as you're doing it in the middle of the night, you don't really expect any nosy interlopers trying to ferret out what the hell is even happening right now. You even made sure no PRT forces would get wind, mostly by way of requesting Sarah and Taylor to ensure such.

Last you heard over the network, there was a little operation going on meant to distract a few people through having Skitter feint an appearance, a surge of bugs noticeable in the south of town that will be blamed on a factory's broken ventilator shaft later so as to let Sarah hack into (read: Guess computer passwords with infinite use of her power) a few computers and remove certain footage of cameras deployed around the outside of Brockton Bay.

They can't really legally do this inside the city, but out in the 'wilderness', it's fair game.

And oh, sure, they'll probably realize something happened in the morning when everything has been replaced, repaired, cleaned up and more, but it's not like you particularly care.

In the meantime, you're just a boy playing with big choo-choos, from the middle of your territory all the way nearly to Boston. What's not to love?


You did it! You did it! "Hah. Haha. Haaaaaaaaahahahahahaha!"

"What's the mad laughter 'bout this time?"

You turn around, facing Lea. A quick cast of your thoughts around hers reveals she's checking up on you because she's worried about how tinker-ish you've been behaving for a bit.

"Nothing much, I've just spontaneously replaced a good chunk of the earth under Brockton Bay, including the aquifer, with a massive computer mainframe," you explain, unwilling to keep the wide grin off your face.

"Huh. Anything you're planning on using it for?"

"By itself, not much," you agree with a shrug. "But then there' also… This!"

You hold out the, frankly, ingenious device you built along with the gigantic project you just finished up on the fly. The outer casing is more a prototype than anything else, you can change it out later on, but the important part i what's inside.

"This device can hold massive quantities of all kinds of data, far more than it should be able to. Such as the entirety of the internet as we know it… Or, say, an Artificial intelligence," you point out. "And I just so happen to have an easily accessible slot to set it into and watch the fireworks happen in this thing."

"Riiight," Lea draws the word out, glancing at the deep, dark tunnel behind you leading to the only direct access node for the Thinker's future 'mainframe body'. "And you wouldn't also happen to have a spare AI lying around?"

"Not here, but next time I'm taking a litte vacation I may just bring her around," you grin.

"Of course it's a she, too…" The engineering-inclined vampire mutters in exasperation.

For some reason.


Of course once you're done preparing the Thinker's new body (and carefully documenting how you built it so you can go ahead and use a bunch of robots to make copies elsewhere, of course) you aren't done in the area quite yet- this was actually more of a side hustle that ended up growing out of proportion once you got invested, not that you don't like the results.

The original reason you came down here was, in fact, that you wanted to meet up with Alice and do a little cooperative study in terms of alchemy. And, Alice being Alice, this study is naturally directed towards the concept of blowing things up, as she feels the most confident when keeping with her strengths.

Or, a she put it…

"This will be the bomb that will pierce the heavens! And blow up anything beyond them given it's in outer orbit and we don't risk continent-wide collateral damage."

"It really is inconsiderate of them to break so easily," you nod along wisely.

"Exactly! Why can't the Earth just be a vampire as well so it could just heal from that kind of shit? That'd be so convenient!"

… You're pretty sure you can't do that, actually. Though maybe… Nah, you just don't quite work like that.


It seems there was some momentary power fluctuation around the workshop earlier, which is absurd given you already replaced the fusion core-driven generators with your much improved eldritch core siphons to keep your bunker powered, but it was just a little tinkertech experiment after all, it seems.

Though what Sherrel could have been doing that would consume more energy than New York City consumes in a year you have no idea. Just in case you went ahead and doubled power production in your little subterranean kingdom going forward, it just took an hour or two to create and process the necessary materials.


It is complete and utter darkness.

That sounds a little like the introductory line of some horror novel or maybe a ghost story, but it is also the best description you can think of for the area of your inner world you are currently inside of. Originally you were just going to send in a couple miscellaneous souls whose potential loss wouldn't be that big of an issue, but as it turns out they can't really move around inside; their limbs simply refuse to work, their senses completely blocked and their bodies unmoving whenever they go deeper than a couple steps.

The only way to access this area, as far as you've found to date, is an open door within the palace ruins your internal soul dimension seems to be focused on, pitch-black nothingness filling the otherwise seemingly mundane frame. It doesn't seem like there's anything else beyond that, either, despite your attempts to find your way around a little.

Annoyingly, you can't see through it somehow, either. That isn't an issue with your night vision, of course, you checked and it works within this place just as it does when you're piloting your body properly. No, the reason you don't see anything is that there is nothing to see.

No walls. No ground nor ceiling. No movement as far as the eye can see.

It is complete and utter darkness, devoid of all existence. Nothing is here. Nothing can be here.

Except for you, and the absence of light and life and things. As a whole.

An absence that is whispering to you.

"… Isn't it annoying?"

"You'd have to elaborate," you point out (quite reasonably, mind you). "What do you think is annoying in particular?"

"What you're doing. Surrounding yourself with people and civilization you just don't need."

"Eh." You shrug, not particularly taken with that argument. "I like having civilization. And people that I can talk to. It'd be damn boring otherwise, wouldn't it?"

"We both know boredom is a passing malady at best," the empty room whispers to you. "You should just tear it all down. Take humanity apart. Rebuild it in your own image, enslaved to-"

"Yeah, no, no, stop." You hold up a hand. "Like, don't get me wrong, I do get the appeal of doing something like that, but all in all it's not really my jam. I much prefer to take what's there already."

"That much is obvious from the way I am," the absence of existence surrounding you grumbles.

"Speaking of, what are you exactly? A couple answers do tend to go a long way," you remind it.

"I am you. I am what's left of you." You raise an eyebrow, looking around. An awful lot of nothing, huh. "You know what I mean. I am what we became when we rose."

"Yes, yes, I'm aware I remade myself into a mockery of all that is just for the heck of it entirely subconsciously," you wave it off.

"Not a mockery. An absence, the opposite of what it means to exist."

"Same difference, really." Though you do see the logic, there. You did kind of turn out to just be the opposite of a human being in many, many ways, though what that says about humanity as a whole given you're apparently a positive influence on it you will leave unsaid. Unthought, whatever.

"I am the part of you that wants to drown everything that is not us in what we are. Turn humanity into vampires and blood-slaves breeding for our amusement and expansion. Shut out the sun forever and-"

"Again, no need to elaborate, I get the idea." Are you always this annoyingly tiring to deal with or is it just this part of you? "I'll just count my blessings that you are just a small part of me. A very, very small part that doesn't really matter in the face of more important things."

"I know." It's so nice to have these kinds of conversations with things that already realize how they'll turn out. "Call on me to darken the world. We will be a stain on it that shall never wash away."

And just like that, you're transported back outside of the Darkness.

Man, you're glad not every part of you is that emo.


Most of your day, beyond a little rousing practice in the art of imitating the souls you have consumed as they would be while alive, is taken up properly giving the Travelers you ended up recruiting a small tour and introducing them to various services open to Crypt capes; from aura, thralling and a more thorough breakdown of salaries (mostly in regards to additional bonuses paid on a case-by-case basis for anyone that's actively participating in gang business) to the various ADAM-based products offered to anyone that has the required rank within your group.

Which is a fancy way to say 'if you are allowed on base, you are allowed to pull a few syringes from the vendors'.

Naturally, being at this point already, you get all three of them to take you up on your offer of thralling them, doing it one after another and even with overlapping timing; in the end, more power is and remains the most prominently useful lure you can apply.

Incidentally, Jeremy ends up striking a casual friendship with Ballistic, though it doesn't go much further than that- the red-haired man is a tad bit too old for the younger cape to consider him a peer and their interests don't really align beyond being Crypt capes. They still get along fine, though, so you won't complain or anything.

All in all, it was a fairly quiet and productive day, considering what you consider your primary job here.


Kayden Anders had been doing rather well for herself, of late. She felt, anyway. Yes, she was still a villain, as opposed to becoming a full hero as she'd initially envisioned (despite the difficulties such a transition would bring with it), but she was a more respectable one, not to mention she wasn't really active as one most of the time.

… What? She may have fought the other gangs as Purity, but now that Brockton Bay was under the Crypts' control, there was no real need for her to go out and hurt people, barring any capes coming in from the outside and trying to build up a foothold.

Against all wisdom, conventional or otherwise. The Lord Street Crypts were strong, anyone that didn't see as much by now was either deluded or living under a rock.

Mostly, Kayden was just doing what she really liked to do- interior decorating. With the budgets afforded to her by the organization she was part of and working for, she could give free rein to her imagination, even if the exact purpose of her work was somewhat… Questionable, at times.

She'd learned far more about high-class prostitution in the last month than she had ever envisioned herself doing. On the bright side, she… Didn't really mind?

Nothing to be said against a dislike of prostitution a such, but she'd been talking and genuinely working with too many sex workers to really… Keep up a dislike of them personally. She had an issue with the structural phenomenon of it, but she understood that it existed and naturally came to be due to circumstances outside of any one person's control.

There was no true point to blaming a prostitute for prostituting herself when there were underlying reasons she, A, could realistically do so and B, saw it as the occupation she would earn her money with in the first place.

Many just didn't have much other choice. It was as simple as that.

So yes, Kayden had designed brothel reception rooms and… Working rooms, but those were not the only things she'd been doing. Apartment entrances, simplified and mass-produced storefronts (she should be bothered by the mass-production of her work, but she knew well enough it would be modified and individualized to particular needs and preferences once bought anyway), offices and administrative space…

She had put hand on around half of the interior space of the northern quarter of Brockton Bay in some way or another at this point. She sometimes considered how prolific interior designers, of all things, usually were… And whether she may be among the more successful ones in history.

At the very least her children (and Theo counted, she had the papers to prove it after his father's death) would grow up not wanting for anything. As a mother, she was ensuring that much, at the very least, and she couldn't say she wasn't proud of doing so with her own work.

All of this notwithstanding, however, she hadn't really expected to find none else than her employer, one 'Mister Wilbourn' (she knew he also called himself Gabriel Livsey, but that may or may not be just another alias of his) at her home as she went about beginning her day.

"I made coffee, in case you wanted any. Breakfast?" He asked.

Kayden blinked and stared for a moment. Then she sighed, determining she should just roll with it. "If you would, please."


Hash browns, fried eggs and bacon were certainly not the worst thing Kayden had ever consumed for breakfast, especially prepared by someone that really knew what he was doing; the hash browns were crispy on the outside yet juicy and soft on the inside, the eggs were brought to perfect consistency after Gabriel had asked her which way he preferred them and the bacon, too, was nice and crispy.

"Is this what it feels like to be in a relationship with a professional cook?" She asked without much thinking about it.

"Mhm, not far off, I suppose," the man she was in a somewhat ill-defined relationship with smiled as he returned to the kitchen after delivering her the food. "Don't worry, by the way, the pancakes are almost ready."

"There are pancakes?!"

"Of course there are, who do you take me for?"

"A villain, not a househusband," she murmured, ignoring the light chuckle coming from her kitchen in response. This was some really good breakfast she was being served here, she could deal with some sass.

"Want any buttered toast while we're at it?"

"Yes, please."

Really, really good.

He even went ahead and made some for himself and Theo, too, not that Kayden had any problem with that; she was pretty sure half the things he was bringing out of her kitchen door couldn't have been made with what she'd had in stock in the first place.

A period of relative quiet followed, both of them taking their breakfast in silent companionship. It was, perhaps, ill-advised to compare Gabriel to her ex-husband, given she had actually been married to the latter and her relationship to the former was largely limited to sex and employment (a problematic mix in itself to say the least), but even so… It was inconceivable she would ever have had a moment like this with Max.

He had always needed to fill any empty space with words, somehow. To proliferate himself at all times. If she was honest, Kayden had divorced the man both because the future he was envisioning and working towards was not one she wanted her children to grow up in and because in retrospect, without the gilded glasses, he was not that great of a man to begin with.

He had money and power in spades, but that was it for his good features. The less she thought about the rest, the better. Granted, money and power were a good argument in themselves, but by themselves they did not make for good husband material.

Gabriel, on the other hand… Well, she didn't really see that much of him, overall, but she imagined even a somewhat absentee father was still better than one that actively-

"Penny for your thoughts?" The words tore Kayden from her introspection. "You were looking like you were thinking about something interesting there."

"Don't mind me, please," she said, taking another bite. "Just work stuff. Speaking of, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"


"Good thing you mentioned 'work stuff', given I came around to give you more," the surprisingly good cook replied, seemingly in a good mood. "You did great work with everything up until now, so I hope you weren't planning to go on vacation yet."

"Wait, I have vacation days?"

"Of course you do, didn't you read the contract?" Gabriel asked, still amused more than anything else. "It's a little more complicated than the normal corporate jargon, but you do have a month's worth of vacation time every year, plus overtime you can either get paid out or added to it as requested."

"… I think I should take another look at what I signed later," Kayden said, both embarrassed and amazed at what she was hearing. Really though, nobody actually read the fine print. "Those are some interesting conditions, though."

"Well, much as the accounting department thinks we are, the Crypts aren't actually an evil empire of a corporation," he joked, gesturing with a piece of toast (just crispy enough to give it a little bite). "It's generally understood that if something big comes up or a particular cape is actually needed needed, everyone is free to shift things around, but in principle you do have the right to just take time off. Heck, we actually added clauses dealing with childbirth and -rearing in case anyone among us needs to be flexible about work in that regard, too."

"Max never did that. Formalize things with contracts, I mean," she mentioned before she thought better of it.

"Well, he was running one of the largest neo-nazi gangs in the US, he probably assumed everyone was going to agree he's an asshole on principle anyway."

Breakfast was… nice, all in all. They talked a while longer, exchanging funny little stories and working their way through demolishing Gabriel's cooking until Theo came to investigate the delicious scent wafting through the apartment, whereupon they retired to her home office to discuss business and leave him to take his own share.

What Kayden was supposed to do next was quite reasonable, too. High-class apartments, hotels, corporate building lobbies pre-made to serve their purposes, with the same unlimited budget as before.

"To be honest, I feel like I'm being overpayed," she eventually mentioned. Not something anyone would ever tell their superior normally, but the Lord Street Crypts weren't really a normal company themselves. "Half my pay is just adding up on my account lately…"

"Don't worry about it. Just see about doing something nice for your kids every now and then, but it isn't like we can't just procure however much money we want to," Gabriel just shrugged.

"No, no, I already am, this is after I did everything I could think of and there's only so many day trips to Disneyland anyone can stomach."

"Mhm… Do you think it might be an issue in the long run? Moving so much wealth to our capes that the rest of the market has less money circulating, I mean. It shouldn't be an isue in the short term, but after a few decades…"

"I don't think you have to worry about that anytime soon," Kayden chuckled.

It was fun, really. Not many employers- or men- could say that about themselves.


Mimi was doing fine.

That wasn't something she often used to do, but lately she was doing much better, she thought. She still didn't like to be around people too much and she maybe liked being around fire a little too much, but it was fine, really.

Riley and Sarah had been helping her. She was just a little lightheaded around it now, but she didn't feel like she wanted to just hurt anyone she disliked anymore.

It was probably better, right?

"Don't worry about it too much," Gabriel said. He was a nice Gabriel. "Just let it go as it will. We'll all help you through whatever it is."

"Mm," she made, letting her head rest of his naked shoulder.

Cuddling was nice. She liked cuddling like this. She wished sometimes she could jut burn everything that distracted him so they could cuddle forever, but that wouldn't work, so she didn't.

There. Take that.

Gabriel chuckled, rubbing her hair. She liked him doing that.


"Hello everyone, and welcome to Painting with Cain." The greeting slips past your lips with practiced ease, your ill-concealed form moving to gesture around the room.

You have been doing these streams for a while now, it'd be weirder if you hadn't gotten used to doing this by now.

"I am happy to announce, in fact, that today's episode will be going on a little bit longer than normal, by which I mean about twice as long," you announce. "As I feel we have gone over a lot of topics regarding drawing and, to a lesser extent, painting already, today will be spent inspecting and demonstrating another form of art. Specifically, high-tech models and figurines and how they are made. I do not expect many of you dear viewers will have the equipment, materials or opportunity to attempt one of these at home, but who knows- stranger things have happened, but either way it is quite interesting to see the process in action if you're interested."

Your audience has repeatedly reported to like the sound of your voice on stream, so you're talking a lot. Not that you weren't before, of course, a major part of these i that you are talking, explaining things and all, if only to avoid producing too much dead air (basically footage without you doing anything, hence uninteresting for the audience), but you're paying much more attention to it lately.

"First off, our subject." You pull out several pictures, satellite footage and a few ones taken from the ocean and surrounding hills, of none other than the city of Brockton Bay, in all its urban decaying glory. "That's right, seeing as I'm living in this city, I may as well use it as the subject. Our first step, of course, is going to be making a mold out of flexible plastic, we'll be filling it in later and then cutting it apart once the material in it is done setting. Normally all of this would take days, of course, but we've got some advanced chemistry going here; it will just be several hours, which is why today's stream will take so long."

As you talk, you continue to arrange the materials and tools of your craft around your desk, getting everything ready. There are few things nicer to look at than a well-organized workspace, not only in this current context, but right now you kind of want to put all your cards on the table, so to speak.

"Of course we won't just sit around twiddling thumbs during the still necessary wait for this, in case you were wondering. As you may see," you reach out to tap a key on the laptop you routinely use for these streams, slapping a poll next to the live footage being streamed right now, "we will be filling this time with an a.m.a., Ask Me Anything for anyone that's confused. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, you as a community may vote to ask me questions and I may answer them, if they're acceptable. And I feel like it, of course."

You take a moment to chuckle at the camera warmly.

"A lot of this will involve fine detail work, of course, the kind of thing an unpowered artist would take significantly longer for. Still, let's see what we can do, hm? First, we must define the overall shape of the mold, the fiddly bits will be added after it has served its purpose with a good old carving knife. Feel free to brainstorm questions that really burn under your fingernails in the meantime, of course, don't mind me too much."


The questions being asked of you as you continue to do your work, blabbering on about this or that all the while, are a wild mix of eclectic and oddly specific, but still you work with them as best you can, turning your refusal to hand out information into just another 'charming' part of your performance.

And hell, over six hours of constant talking and interacting with your viewers is kind of exhausting, just mentally and emotionally, despite the extended practice you've been getting already. If you weren't undead and literally incapable of tiring, you'd be absolutely wrecking yourself by doing what you're doing.

There's a reason most examples of this kind of moulding are usually delivered in a time lapse and without much commentary, you suppose, beyond the obvious anyway.

'Oh Cain if the Bay, give me your wisdom. What are Alexandria's three sizes?'

"You ever heard of the proverb 'give a man a fish and he will be fed for a day, teach him to fish and he will feed himself his whole life'? I probably butchered that one, but I'd suggest you go look up a few of the official pictures the PRT put out and mess around with modeling software a bit. Or get someone more tech-savvy to do it for you if you can't, no judgement."

'A friend keeps having these crazy theories about the meaning of what you draw and sing in your broadcasts. Every day she gets worse, can you confirm that there is no hidden meaning in any of it?'

"Most of what I do is just a red herring to mask the actually meaningful stuff, as a rule of thumb. I would suggest you have a talk with your friend, though, that really doesn't sound healthy; conspiracy theories are all fun and games until you come to the point you actually believe some of the wacky stuff you or others come up with might actually be true, at which point you can seriously hamper your life and relationships."

You give the camera a serious look, or rather utilize body lanuage to communicate you are dong so.

"Seriously, have a talk, try to get them to cool it a bit, it isn't healthy to overfixate on this kind of thing. Get their other friends and family involved if you have to if it's really that bad, an intervention as a last resort to try to get someone to see reason is always possible. Heck, contact mental health professionals if it continues being massively impactful, better to be too careful than to just sit by and watch as your friend loses themselves going down rabbit holes."

'What is your opinion about Artificial Intelligence?'

"AIs would be pretty neat, assuming they were made well and didn't try to secretly overthrow humanity somehow. You know, common courtesy things," you shrug. "In principle, I'm assuming a given Artificial Intelligence would be just like a quirky person, so I don't see why they wouldn't be treated as such and integrated into society in some way unless they give us a reason not to. You know, it would be pretty cool to have literally unfathomable intellect and knowledge in a few people among us at least, we all know humanity could use something like that."

'How does one join the Lord Street Crypts?'

"There's no secret passphrases or similar to hand out, I'm afraid," you chuckle. "Generally speaking, approaching a member or affiliate in certain parts of Brockton Bay will see you pointed in the right direction, at the very least, the rest is all up to you. Incidentally, housing and medical insurance are arranged in-house for anyone looking to join, there's a reason we're a surprisingly popular employer around these parts. This is not a call to join, by the way, just to make it clear. Please don't ban this channel over this."

It would be pretty annoying. Not supremely problematic, worst come to worst you could always just buy up the site, but it would waste your and everyone else's time.

'What was your first sexual experience?'

"Back in kindergarten, actually, with one of the teachers. That said, a gentleman doesn't kiss and tell, so that's all I have to say on this topic." Why did Sarah immediately scream into your head the moment you started answering this one? Weird.

'Did the illuminati create you?'

"Not to my knowledge, no. Though I could always be wrong, of course."

'Are you going to run for mayor? I would totally vote for you!'

"Sadly, several laws actually prevent parahumans from running for office, not to mention I'm extremely busy on a day-to-day basis as is. I acknowledge and appreciate your support, though."

'How did Leviathan taste?'

"Kind of crunchy and pretty damn chewy, but in a good way. There's not many things that really test my jaw strength, especially when I'm transformed, so the consistency was nice. In terms of actual taste, it was kind of like chewy candy flavored after gravy, is the best I can say. It's hard to describe."

'What is the answer to life?'

"I thought the internet figured this one out ages ago, it's '42'."

'How many people have you eaten, cannibal monster?'

"Wait a moment, I believe I once saw an image that explains this quite adequately… Ah, here we are."

'How many female capes on the crypts are you fucking?'

"Again, no kissing and telling. If you really want to know, go ahead and find some way to ask them themselves."

'Charmander, Bulbasaur, or Squirtle?'

"Personally, I'm trending towards Charmander, but hey, they're all good, solid starters."

'Can you do this AMA naked please?'

"Sadly, this channel isn't listed as NSFW, so they'd actually ban me if I tried."

'Oh Cain if the Bay, give me your wisdom. Would you fuck a trap/femboy?'

"I'm not really into guys, sorry. I'm sure you'll find someone that will appreciate you and your hobbies if you look for them, though."

'Who do you think is the hottest Protectorate heroine?'

"That's honestly pretty hard to answer. Can I just say most of them are 'smash', rather than 'pass'?"

'Why did you choose to make the crypts instead of joining the Protectorate?'

"The Protectorate has a lot of rules and oversight that I simply would not work well with," you explain. "Then there's also the part where I do quite literally eat people, a practice I do believe their PR department would have a field day with, and not the good kind. All in all, finding myself a few heavily armed and motivated henchmen was just the better call, to be honest."

'Could I hire you to paint me in 'private'?'

"I don't usually do private 'interviews' like that, but maybe we can talk. If you find a way to contact me or a local Crypt member with details, that is." If someone goes through the trouble, you have little issue granting them an hour or two of your time, provided you aren't busy.

'How do you feel about the fact that you have become a symbol of toxic masculinity that are enslaving women?'

"Please, I do beg to differ, the Crypts actually have a history of freeing human beings from slavery. In case you are referring to the practice of prostitution, sure, a discussion is to be had, but you may find that your opinions do not hold all that much weight compared to statistics and simple facts of life often not considered in open discussions, or indeed in legislature as such."

'Why do you hate pharmaceutical companies?'

"I do not hate them. If any come to harm as a result of my actions, they are simply collateral damage. Not everything in life is about them." Really, you remember the one guy that flipped out and joined the Slaughterhouse Nine on his quest for revenge of all things.

'Why did you choose the name Cain?'

"I realized killing people was a necessity given my power and went over the classical mythologies for a good name nobody had taken yet. The biblical first murderer fit, so I ran with it, simple as that."

'Do you have a favorite hero?'

"Honestly, Eidolon is pretty great, just because of his flexible powerset. Then again, most people would probably name one of the Triumvirate when asked about this these days, wouldn't they… ?"

'What determines how people taste? Do you have a favorite blood type or do they all taste the same?'

"Good living does more for that than blood type, actually. I have yet to notice any real differences based on type. Beyond that? Well, I am quite fond of eating rapists and murderers, make of that what you will."

'Coca-Cola or Pepsi?'

"Personally I prefer Coca-Cola, but both are actually fine by me. I realize I'm in a minority in this regard."

'Pineapple on pizza, yes or no?'

"No. Nothing against any madmen that like it, but I prefer pineapple separately."

'Are you Satan?'

"Again, not as far as I know, though again I also could be wrong. We all know how it feels to wake up in the morning and realize you have a grudge against God."

'While you were thinking the name for your gang, what other options were there?'

"Oh, a whole bunch, we even went and brainstormed way to fit into Brockton Bay's preexisting naming scheme. Lord Street Crypts eventually won out for the aesthetic."

'Why do you eat people?'

"Why does the wind blow? Why do people fuck each other over and eat bread all the time? Why do spiders eat flies? I could go on, but I think you may get the picture."

'Is there a conspiracy on Earth Bet?'

"Statistically speaking, it'd be extremely weird if there wasn't some conspiracy going on somewhere, wouldn't it?"

'How many diseases have you cured already that you didn't share yet?'

"I actually go out of my way to let Professor Abraham know about any medical science I do. The rest is up to him."

And so on. Man, people get ideas when you give them a few hours of your time.


All in all, the AMA went pretty well, better than you expected initially. You only had to had have around a third of questions deleted for being inappropriate and slash or bait.

The model of Brockton bay, too, isn't doing bad, though you wish you had a little more time to carve actual windows and add little light sources as appropriate. Still, it is of acceptable quality, though you will definitely go over it using your claws later in your free time.

"As you can see, the form of this particular subject is making it a lot harder and more time-consuming to get it just right, but here we are. I may just do some more work on it later on, but the model is close enough to the real thing I'd call it a finished work if that was all we were after. Hope you all had fun watching and to see you next time around!"

Phew, so much for that. Now to go and relax a little before you deal with the next extremely serious (trademark pending) matter on your plate.


It is, perhaps, for the best you never did investigate the methods of your Soul Guardians in greater depth. Or at least you never did spoil the results of said methods for yourself, which is still a net win far as you're concerned.

Simply put, the souls you gave over to the Dollmaker and the Pit Lord have been transformed quite rapidly, though it seems they ended up deciding to get the cooperative parts of your orders over with sooner rather than later. You suppose mutual dislike will do that, though you get the impression that while everyone dislikes the Pit Lord, he himself only really nurses antipathy for the Dollmaker in turn.

A case of similarities contrasting unfortunately, you suppose. If they were real people, you would simply ensure they'd see each other as little as possible, but as they are more figments of your mind and soul, they will do what you demand of them regardless.

You've found it a nice change from the climate of openness and approachability you try to portray outside of your soul palace, to be honest.

In any case, the work they've been doing is… Impressive, to say the least.

A massive, towering figure is kneeling near the industrial factory the Dollmaker makes his home inside of, writhing things visible inside of it, under its skin and along the metal edges protruding from it.

Easily the size of a building, the giant is absolutely motionless, your approach causing no reaction.

If you were to describe it, it is some kind of massive cyborg creature, all bulging flesh and cold steel combined into a single amalgamation. It is humanoid, with oddly long limbs reinforced and armored by what is obviously the Dollmaker's work, both sleek and bulky metal with jagged edges hidden behind first impressions; you can see where two massive blades would be jammed out of the arms and serve as enormous weapons, capable of being rammed through or cutting apart tanks with relative ease.

Not to mention, say, buildings. Or people.

The creature's skin, visible beside the armor panels and likely weapons platforms installed all over and inside of it, is a dark, green-ish tan, almost as if someone had left an olive out in the sun and just as shrumpled up, great creases and wrinkles everywhere. Large hands and feet are encased is more armor, of course, but the sides and neck are largely open.

Its face is covered by a mask leaving around one quarter free, letting you see the red, balefully shining eye staring at nothing in particular, and the muzzle is made of overlapping slabs of metal fashioned to look like sharp, overlong teeth. The other eye is covered by what you suspect to be a sensor of some kind, three smaller, but still enormous by your standards, lenses arranged over where it would be.

Long, white hair falls over the monster's back, obscuring a mildly spiky spine covering looking suspiciously like it might be meant to hold rockets to be fired off from a crouched position. Long spines of steel run around the back and all the way to the front, like a mockery of an exoskeleton version of a rib cage.

You can make out more squirming shapes around where this thing's inner organs would be on a human, giving you the distinct impression that, should anyone manage to breach the skin, they would be rapidly overrun by whatever is inside of this thing.

"Look a' it, all swollen an' shit. Yae happy now?"

"Heheheheee, too much steel in the way, yes, yes, there could be more muscle and fat, a proper lovely instead of these… things."

"Ugh, dis is why naebody can work with ye, where 'm I ever gonna be adding the guns now?"

"The subdermal mesh, that is the problem, why bother when muscles and bones do the same job and can regrow? All the lovelies are trapped inside now…"

It is… probably good enough for your purposes, you will say. No need to interrupt the two Guardians tasked with this whole thing in their mutual grousing.


Your bedroom has, in second thought, turned into somewhat of a cuddle pile with almost disturbing frequency; though the only warm body permanently stationed inside is that of your mother (and good riddance, as far as you're concerned, she gets fucked on occasion and that's all she's ever really been good for), many of your lovers with free time on their hands have come to just go inside and hang out.

Considering you don't actually need to sleep, that's as good a use for a bedroom you can imagine, of course. The hazards of being an immortal, downright god-like figure, you suppose.

What? It's only hubris if it isn't actually justified. A being that can change the weather almost at a whim and has access to the magical powers you have may as well be called a god from the perspective of a human being, no?

But back to the cuddle piles. Seeing as at least one or two of your wives is always likely to be there to do stuff in person instead of just relying on telepathy for connecting with their own kind, you end up stumbling into and being detained by them every now and then, naked bodies and happy smiles enough to know you want to be a part of this relationship (bit late to say this, but yeah).

Hence now, too, you are lying on your bed, cradling Sarah atop yourself as the others stream in and out however they feel like.

"So the Raveyard's been working out?" You ask, not aware of the exact figures beyond the fact you are, indeed, accruing a profit.

"Yup. It better had with the publicity our presence gives it," your blonde little foxy sister mumbles, rubbing her face against your bare chest as she looks up at you.

"Good, good. So how about taking it a step further and building a massive luxury hotel somewhere around Brockton Bay, call it the 'Mausoleum' or something to keep with our theme? Bet I could put so much tech in there it should count as a transformer or something."

"Hmm… You do realize it would be filled with spies trying to figure us out within a week, don't you?"

"That's the neat part, they'd be a solid source of guests and wouldn't really stand a chance at analyzing my tech in the first place," you grin. "If anything, if they do I want them either hired by us on the spot or liquidated, whichever works better."

"Well, the night club worked out, why not a hotel?" Sarah sighs, her hands finding yours. Fingers entwining, you hold her close, just like she's supposed to be. "You have to figure out the details, though."

"No problem, I already hired a certain interior decorator and have her working on it."

"Har-dee-har."

Neither of you stops cuddling as the idea is sent out through your telepathic network, asking around what everyone thinks. Most reactions seem to be neutral to positive, so you go ahead and add it to your list.