Well, while you would love to stick around a little bit longer, it's Monday and your thoughts on this particular day of the week are sufficiently well-known by this point you kind of do doubt anyone would be surprised at you dipping out of this dimension entirely.

Yes, you will come back to the same shit, but you can push the time you have to deal with it back by at least a bit. Procrastination may not be the best way to deal with your issues, but you are, at the very least, determined to get out of it being Monday right now.

Priorities, right?

Long story short, that's how you end up standing in the sewers of a whole new place. They're… pretty okay sewers, you suppose, or at least you've seen worse so far.

"Why is it always the damn sewers…" You sigh to yourself, shaking your head. "Almost like the world is trying to tell me something."

As always when you jump to a new dimension, you're entirely naked, not a single thread on your body making the jump with you. As you have also already established, however, your shadow still counts as the same entity for your magical powers, and so you simply take a moment to crouch down and pull some backup clothes out of said shadow, quickly getting dressed in some nondescript black clothes.

Just a pair of pants, a shirt, some shoes you had lying around when you packed… The more you think about it, the more you realize you're treating this whole thing like some kind of… company excursion, or a weekend getaway kind of thing.

Ah well, all caution aside, that's pretty much exactly what it is for you. After all, if you won't take things at your own pace, who will?

Next off, you take another moment to rub the sides of your head, massaging in the squall of knowledge you are currently receiving. Turns out your ability to just instantly know a lot about new dimensions you enter hasn't left you so far.

Okay, so… It seems you managed to land yourself on a parallel Earth, funnily enough. There are capes here, too, though the term itself hasn't really caught on in pop culture, so superpowered individuals are commonly just thought of as supervillains or -heroes, it seems.

They aren't too common, but there's a definite presence to them, and this Earth (which you are spontaneously tempted to call 'Earth Shitshow' for reasons you are about to get to) has been the theater for many, many conflicts between heroes and villains, heroes and natural disasters, heroes and literal aliens and alien invasions, magical creatures and deities and all that stuff.

… No, honestly, you're kind of baffled that, A), this many varied threats to human civilization could even manage to occur and B), humanity hasn't been wiped out several time over by this point. Which is probably owed, at least in large part, to the superheroes present here.

There are a bunch of smaller superhero teams, more local than anything else and usually more concerned with street level conflict and the like, you don't really immediately have much information on most of them, but there's one big team that basically takes care of any extinction-level events and the like when they pop up, it seems; the Guardians of the Globe.

One of them even is an alien himself, apparently coming from this dimension's version of Mars (because of course this dimension' Mars is settled by a whole alien civilization), which makes him some kind of natural shapeshifter. You just wonder whether he's part of the team for diversity reasons, to be honest.

You will probably have to be careful here, mostly to avoid tripping over any, like, ancient curses or interdimensional portals at the worst timing possible. You kind of doubt anything around here would be able to follow you home, but better safe than sorry, you decide.

Discretion, better part of valor, all that good stuff.

"Alright, guess it's time to get our bearings," you say, lifting the most important piece of equipment you brought with you out of your shadow- none other than a copy of the Thinker's miniaturized core, sitting in another mobile carry case for it. "You ready to go?"

"Existence of the internet has been confirmed," the AI announces as you slip her into your pocket. "Accessing information."

"Take your time. Speaking of, though, what time is it?"

"Local time is 8:31, Monday."

"… Ugh. Monday, bloody Monday, as always. There are just some things nobody can escape from."

Ah well. Time to show a whole new dimension you're in


Well, it's Monday morning still, so you suppose there's nothing in for it; you quickly shadow your way out of the sewers from where you landed, blending in with the usual crowd as soon as you can. Seeing as you managed to luck into finding yourself in a modern city in this dimension's United States, you can do at least that much easily enough, and a few minor unknowing donations see you holding a couple hundred of the local dollars as well, just to start with.

And yes, you checked, but history is sufficiently divergent the currency is pretty different from the one you're used to as well. Hence, while you did keep a bunch of money in your shadow just in case, it isn't really going to help you much here, not if anyone takes more than a passing look at it.

But hey, pickpockets happen, and you're pretty sure you weren't noticed by anyone as you walked along. After a bit of searching, you find yourself in an internet cafe, surreptitiously slotting the Thinker into the computer you rent while ordering some tea and some dessert to go along with it.

You don't even pay attention to what exactly you order, you're too busy flirting with the waitress to distract her. Just in case.

That done, you quietly hum to yourself as you peruse the news, the Thinker taking in as much information as possible using the provided hardware in the meantime. Her holding case is just that, a temporary way of carrying her- it's got wi-fi and all that, but an actual computer lets her do more in a shorter period of time, simple as that.

Only so much space for computing when her personality takes up a lot of storage in itself; there's only so small you could get all of it while keeping everything functional.

Anyway, sun's out, people are going to work, traffic is as dense as ever; the scenery seen outside the windows is one you're pretty used to seeing from living in L.A., more or less. That said, you're here for the cape news, or 'superhero news', as it were, and so you get right on those.

The latest really big thing you can find, looking at it, would be… the Guardians of the Globe (of course), stopping what look like two Blue Man Group rejects on steroids from storming the White House to murder the President. Kind of extremely cliche, but hey, whatever floats their boat, you guess.

Incidentally, looking at it, you suppose the villains involved would be classified as Tinkers of one sort or another if you were on Bet right now- for some reason, particular individuals just seem to be capable of performing superscience in this dimension, something you won't go all that deep into (yet). All that you need to know is that it's a thing and you'll keep on the lookout.

Next off, the roster of the Guardians… is memorized, but if at all possible you'd prefer to keep away from them for the time being. There's some big government money behind them in addition to them being the premiere hero team around, so senseless conflict isn't really high on your list of personal priorities.

Not to mention… You click on a picture of Omni-Man in flight, grabbing civilians out of the air after they were thrown out of the scene of a cape fight. Not technically a part of the Guardians of the Globe, but kind of their heavy hitter, as you understand it; full Alexandria package, basically the flying brick to brick all bricks as far as the locals are concerned.

You probably could take him, but you don't want to test it until and unless you have to. For now you'll have to set up shop, figure out what kind of organisms to search out for biological samples (and what technology to steal, of course, these people have superscience coming out of every corner if anyone in the government has half a brain) and plan your next steps from there.

The Thinker directs you towards information regarding a certain alphabet soup agency relevant to what you're thinking about- the GDA, or Global Defense Agency, to be precise. She doesn't have any direct access to its files- they are keeping anything they have off the internet entirely, all air-gapped or even purely analog documents for security reasons, but the agency's existence as such is open enough for your purposes.

… Well, it's probably a start to investigate further from, if nothing else. Also, you are getting your slice of cake, so you set your quick research session aside to eat.

It's pretty okay, for the record. Not the best you've ever tried, but not bad either. About what you can expect from a place like this, really.


With a bit of background context established and your goals defined, you… Well, you are kind of stuck, for a bit.

It's not that you don't have any options for what to do, of course- if anything, the problem is the opposite, choice paralysis being the ailment that's befalling you now. You could set up yet another secret underground lair, using the resources and technological capabilities at your disposal, you could pretend to be a hero or something to infiltrate the scene, so to say, you could just stay completely quiet and hidden, assume a normal identity and secretly pursue your own goals from complete anonymity…

The world's your oyster, but there's simply too many ways to eat it. First world problems, eh?

This is the reason you prefer being the classical villain over being the classical hero, as far as superhero stuff is concerned anyway. You are the one starting shit, you have the initiative, you can plan for and dictate engagements much, much better than someone on the other side.

It's the old conundrum of heroes versus villains. Heroes are reactive, they have to react to disasters and villains and all that, whereas villains are proactive. Heroism is a lot less appealing when you consider it from this angle.

But all of that aside, you don't really feel like throwing away the advantage of surprise quite yet. After all, if nobody knows you exist, nobody can plan for you- it's the same reason behind why you keep most of your vast amount of powers hidden.

So, after some thought and back-and-forth between yourself and the Thinker, you leave her copied core tucked away in a safe little spot- on the roof of a certain fast food chain restaurant with free wi-fi- while you go ahead and turn into mist.

As in, you transform your body's physical makeup into vapor, letting you spread yourself around a bit. You don't often use this particular power, but assuming there's no extreme heat involved, it's just as good as, if not even better than, your shadow power in letting you just shapeshift out of the way of harm or, as in right now, cover a lot of space very quickly.

It gets harder to move around the less of you is in one place, interestingly, but it also makes you less noticeable; who's going to mind a little bit of vapor here and there in the corner of their vision? You look hardly any different from any other patch of air, really, a fact you make great use of in looking around and investigating almost the entire city in quick succession.

You burst apart into a massive cloud of fog if you don't deliberately suppress the speed of your transformation. There's a lot of yourself to go around, just saying.

… The big issue is really how limited your ability to multitask is. That part remains the biggest issue for this method of reconnaissance.

Anyways, the more you see, the more you're convinced this version of Earth is closer to Earth Bet than it seems as first. There are superpowered individuals and, although some mundanes try to oppose them on occasion, such as police officers being braver than they should be or even armed soldiers firing on bulletproof assholes, things generally work out into capes fighting capes at the end of the day.

… Honestly, the biggest difference is the absence of any real mass destruction. Oh, sure, things get destroyed, blown up, civilian casualties are had in honestly concerning numbers, but there's no destruction on the level of Endbringers most years. Perhaps that's why, but the level of… pervasive despair you're so used to seeing back home just isn't quite there.

Not a bad thing, it's just weird. May take some getting used to- it's just that this is a modern world, with capes, even if they're not called that, just that one bit of background being completely different and changing the whole picture.

Uncanny valley, except on a whole world's scale.

Still, aside from a couple crimes going on in a few of the less wealthy neighborhoods you poke around in- a few drug deals here and there, a quick robbery there, really nothing big- you don't see anything immediately and obviously interesting, instead shifting your attention through the various small, puffy clouds of mist you pull together anywhere you consider potentially promising.

Police stations don't offer much of value at the best of times and the same is true right now as well, random apartments and office buildings are too annoying to search individually, the streets are unremarkable at this early time of day… Then it happens, an innocuous conversation you overhear leading to a quick bit of closer search in short order.

"Are you sure anyone will apply? She is known for being… eccentric."

"It takes all sorts. I am sure someone will come looking for work quickly enough. Still, why would she insist only someone with 'artistic sense' could fit?"

"Eccentric geniuses." A chuckle, followed by the slight creaking of well-oiled hinges. The end of the conversation, but you're hear everything you needed regardless.

A hand materializes to grab the Thinker's core, turning it into mist for a moment as well. Shortly thereafter, you reappear in full on the other side of the city entirely.

Thirty seconds later, you're knocking on the door of a mansion, having bypassed the front gate entirely to take the back entrance instead. "Hello there, I've heard there's a position needing some filling?"

You've got a good feeling about this one, so you may as well strike the iron while it's hot!


Hiring processes are, you have to say, one of those things you can easily exploit, for one simple reason; they are ultimately largely based on people's opinions of other people, and as long as you can get them to talk to you people are easy.

More often than not, anyway. A big part of conmanship and being social in general alike is all about choosing your battles wisely and targeting people vulnerable to your particular scheme, whether it's a friendly smile or the good old grandkid con.

Of course that's just the first part of this particular job interview, as it were. Once you've talked your way past the people in the way, you still have to meet the girl that you're meant to…

Actually, you're not quite a hundred percent sure what your exact job description is. You probably should've paid a little more attention to that, huh?

Eh, whatever, you'll just improvise things as usual.

The girl you're here to see is sitting in a clinically white room, the furniture, the drapes, walls and ceiling all kept uncolored and carefully clean, both fitting right in with her pure white hair currently bound in a rough ponytail and clashing with her rich, chocolate-colored skin as she sits there.

She isn't even looking up from the rubik's cube she's fiddling with, her almost orange eyes not twitching from where they're staring through her white-rimmed glasses.

Also, those thighs sure look damn tasty. Just a thought you spontaneously had. It's the kind of thing Sarah would normally chime in on, but she isn't exactly inside your head right now, is she?

After a moment of silence, she sighs. "I was hoping it would take a little longer."

Her voice is quiet, but actually fairly nice to listen to, for all that she mumbles a little. It also lets you infer a lot about what's going on here exactly. "For someone to apply or for someone to make it straight to you?" You ask, eyebrow raised and corner of your lips quirked.

"Both," she says, lowering her toy to look at you for the first time. She stills, but only for a second or two before she goes on. "I didn't really want to deal with any of this, but…"

"But someone thinks it's a great idea and made it happen anyway," you follow along, still not quite sure what exactly 'it' is- though you have a few guesses by now.

She nods, still not emoting much. Good thing you're used to this kind of thing from both Okita and Lilian, though your eldest daughter has been a lot more expressive the last year or two. Then, as you refuse to continue the conversation until she has something more to say, she sighs again.

"Exactly. I don't really need an assistant because I'm not about to build a bomb that can blow up half the city and I never had any plans to."

"That a thing that happens often hereabouts?" You smirk.

"No," she drily retorts. "You build one little drone for an elementary school science fair and everyone thinks you're some super-genius forever."

Yeah, you thought about as much. Now, how to go from here… "That's why you insisted on someone that can draw? To limit the number of applicants?"

She nods and, simultaneously, shrugs. "If I have to deal with this, I'm going to make it as difficult as possible for everyone involved."

You chuckle, liking her spirit. Girl's got spunk, even if she's basically living in a small mansion and has been her whole life. She doesn't really give you the vibes of someone that used to stay somewhere that isn't the lap of luxury for any length of time.

Still… "I don't really think that'll work out in the long run, to be honest. You'll get fed up eventually," you point out.

"And taking you would be more bearable than most others are likely going to be, yes," she concludes, thinking way ahead of the conversation here. Good, really, if she can't be arsed to be talked through it then neither shall you be to do so. "… Why did you come here? You're intelligent enough to do well in most other jobs and you didn't know everything about me already."

Heh, she caught on already? She really is smart. You honestly don't know what people want beyond that… Though if natural-born pseudo-Tinkers are a thing, you suppose it kind of makes sense others would assume someone of above-average smarts might be one.

Not that that was ever a problem for you, growing up and long before you started to just make yourself smarter in all the ways you could find. You've always been sexy, not necessarily smart.


"Well, you're not wrong," you agree easily, making it a point, in fact. People in general tend to be more agreeable when you agree with them, after all. "I just figured this job would be both interesting and not take up too much time in my day, so I decided to go for it."

"… Makes sense with that qualifier," the chocolate-skinned girl nods. "I guess it wouldn't hurt to use you as a shield for my sanity."

Good enough for you. "Alright, so what's my job exactly?"

"Good question." She looks you up and down, putting her cube down to the side to rest her hands on her thighs instead. "It just occurred to me we didn't introduce ourselves yet. My name's Alicia."

"Nice to meet you, mine's Gabriel," you return in kind.

"Very good. With that out of the way… Strip."

To be honest, you kind of figured this would happen. She's a cute teenager and potentially in a position of some power over you, at least thinking normally; you've had less likely situations like this come up before.


"Only if you will, too," you grin, tugging at the cloth of your shirt. "Not fair otherwise, is it?"

"… This isn't about fairness," Alicia point out. "Just to see what I'm working with."

"I see." Your smirk is unbroken as you start stripping, not making a big production out of it- though you still do provide a little bit of a show, old habits and all that. "Next time, then."

Her eyes glued to your bared chest, the girl you're here for swallows. Not heavily, nor particularly noticeably, but for your senses she may as well be waving a neon sign. "Maybe."

When you start to fiddle with your pants, Alicia shifts her focus, staring at your crotch with baited breath. A few practiced motions later, you're shrugging them off, stepping forward and leaving them behind on the floor; your cock at half mast, you pose a little for her, watching as she watches you.

"That is… very big," she comments, though she doesn't budge even as you slowly approach her, her white hair twitching in the air as she realizes the situation she's put herself into.

However, she doesn't panic- instead, she leans into it both literally and figuratively, reaching out to grasp your dick with a delicate hand. You let her, feeling as she starts to explore and slide her fingertips over the hardening, fleshy rod you just gave her to play with.

"This is my first time seeing one in person," she notes, then looks up at you with her cheeks slightly darker. "You did not hear that."

"Hey, no shame in having no idea what you're doing," you shrug. "Everyone has to start somewhere."

"… I suppose you're right." Now using both hands, Alicia starts to rub and stroke your cock, proving she is if nothing else a quick learner, one of her palms wrapping around your tip as she gives you what amounts to a handjob.

"I'm certainly not complaining," you tell her. "Would you like to add this kind of thing to my personal tasks working for you, then?"

She keeps going silently for a few moments, her dark skin darkened a little more around her cheeks as she looks away from you. "… Yes."

Well, that's that confirmed, then. "Gotcha. Also, where would you like me to cum?"

Her eyes widen, hands freezing in place. She totally didn't consider the messier parts of what she's doing right now, is she?


Your 'interview' goes about as great as it could, not that you really expected anything else from the moment you saw a cute, outwardly emotionless chocolate-skinned teenage girl with sizable knockers and an innocent level of curiosity about your junk conducting it.

You end up covering the area next to her in white, by the way. It's odd, but your cum is kind of camouflaged amidst her white, colorless room, to the point that someone not used to it (or with baseline human levels of senses) would have a hard time actually spotting exactly where it is.

Alicia, for her part, just insists that yes, you are hired when you make a point of asking just to be sure, you soon wind up in a fairly inconspicuous room, to be yours until further notice after you mentioned you could move in straight away.

Turns out the young lady has to calm her heart after what you just did… Or rather, let her do to you, anyways. Not that you don't intend to do a lot more to her in short order, of course, but you've got a bit of time anyways, may as well play with her to spend some of it, yeah?

You also did have to sign a contract (that you secretly read in full while pretending to just glance over it casually), the usual kind of thing for a new workplace; it defines your salary, duties (kept fairly vague, unsurprising given nobody seems quite sure exactly what you're even meant to be doing), the nondisclosure agreement apparently implicit anyways to make sure you don't steal any superscience to sell elsewhere…

Well, it wasn't anything particularly interesting, though it does say something about this place that they're going out of their way to make sure either way. It's not like Alicia has already revolutionized any particular field of science as of yet, after all.

You're pretty sure she'd have noted that when she mentioned how annoyed she is at her family considering her some super-genius, after all. Also, the Thinker looked her up, and you can confirm there's nothing happening in that general direction.

There were a few articles about her a couple years back, most likely precisely because she's a somewhat high-profile member of a rich family that was rumored to be some genius like they have running around left and right here, but they were just that, rumors being spread by a couple gossip rags and the local cape-media equivalents thereof.

Her family's big into manufacturing in general, having made a fortune off of investing big into military supplies and government contracts that come with that, which may explain the excitement about her supposed intellect. Well, Alicia's a smart girl of course and with study and effort could probably make a lot out of herself, but she really, really doesn't seem to want to deal with any of… Well, all of this.

Hard to blame her, when you bother to employ some empathy. Still, this does give you several openings to make use of…

Ah well, for now you've secured lodgings, a believable cover for your activities and a potential pet project on the side. "How's the false identity coming along?" You ask the Thinker, having taken her out of your pocket to set her core container on the nightstand next to your new bed.

"Gabriel Livsey exists as a legal entity and citizen of the United States of America," she lets you know, her pleasantly soothing, computerized female voice doing wonders for you as always. "Two speeding tickets have been registered under this name in two different states to increase credibility. Would you like to add any doctorates to this identity?"

"Mhm, nah, I don't think there's much point to that, but I'll let you know if that changes," you shrug. "In the meantime, I suppose it's time we got started on the other stuff we need if we want to get anywhere…"


You quietly hum to yourself as you swing the pickaxe, hacking your way into the concrete of the ground beneath you at a hearty pace. You have lots of work to do if you're going to put your base of operations into convenient walking distance of your new place of 'employment', and it begins with an access to the actual sewers.

Hence here you are, making some space in the mansion's basement for it. You're not trying to make it a big production or anything, so here you are, using some good old manual tools combined with your superhuman strength to dig a bit of a hole.

You may be somewhat of an expert on the matter of holes, but those you concern yourself with are usually less literal than this one by far. That said, the Thinker pulled up the blueprints of the mansion you're in right now to check for any pipes or electrical lines and anything else of the sort, making sure that the spot you would choose to use wouldn't have you accidentally screw any of that up on the way down.

Nothing would blow harder than having your plans be screwed up now because you accidentally hacked through the literal shit pipe, just saying.

Once you hit upon the opening you wanted, you widen it a little, then cover it with a plate of metal (you'll install a proper trap door later once you get around to fabricating it). Looking at it, you nod.

Good enough for the moment.

That confirmed, you kick the plate right off again, jumping down the hole to find yourself in the sewers. It's stinky, it's dingy and it feels almost like home, something you are very much concerned about on the inside as you make your way around the underground tunnels meant to deal with waste flow.

Side note, this section of the sewers is connected to a bigger reservoir, which is precisely where you're going right now. Near it, you can access a control room separate from most of the muck, letting you (finally) put at least a little bit of distance between yourself and the muck outside.

Nobody can argue about how great sewers are whether you're a budding supervillain or just trying to establish smuggling tunnels or something, but they're also exceedingly smelly and unpleasant if you aren't used to them. Which is one reason why you will just be teleporting around instead of walking this stretch of distance you just walked by foot the moment you have put up an actual teleporter.

"Now then, let's see about doing a little home improvement, shall we?" You talk to yourself, spitting out a wafting cloud of silvery smoke.

Moments later, it's congealed into the form of none other than… a manufactory, of course. Like, what else would you be summoning up right now?

Grabbing one of the handful of mobile phones you filched while you were already fishing for people's wallets earlier (you took the cards out to avoid tracking of course, basic pickpocket 101 there), you throw it straight into the machine's intake, the rest of the things following in short order as you whistle a jaunty little tune, programming your favorite little helper (after the Thinker, of course) to repeatedly replicate these phones a couple times.

You'll need a steady supply of raw materials in short order after all, and modern electronics have almost everything you need to build basic robots. A few samples of titanium for a couple alloys wouldn't hurt, of course, but you can work with what you have for now just fine.

In the meantime… Building up enough material in an exponential replication scenario is still going to take a bit due to the small amounts of the actually important stuff you have on hand right now, so you won't have your multi-limbed Hammers out for a bit.

As such, you just get right back to planning out how you want your new lair to be built. Modern problems, modern solutions, work smarter not harder, all the good stuff.

In this case, there's not really that much use to you going out of your way to do horribly much manual work when you could instead lean back and let your tools do the work for you. It's what they're for.

Instead, you can plan out what they'll do once they're done being made, as well as how exactly you're going to access the other materials you need, the ones not commonly contained in smartphones.

Why did teleporters have to be so complicated and require low-grade plutonium again? Oh, right, Earth Fallout, your bad. Of course the technology would incorporate plutonium.


Things are underway in short order, not that you need to do all that much for the time being; the Thinker can take care of coordinating your new building robots once they're done being built, which shouldn't take all that long once you hit critical mass of a few rare earths required for your more advanced robotics.

Huh. Come to think of it, you probably would be considered one of these unexplained supersciencing geniuses all over this Earth, wouldn't you? Not that it matters or anything, you just realized someone probably tried a robot army kind of deal before at some point.

Like, you would be personally insulted otherwise. You know the Mauler twins are some kind of genetics specialists, there's a local hero literally named Robot… Just saying, robotics as a field of study is perfectly suited for mad geniuses of all stripes.

Yes, you're getting a little too personally invested here, but still. Robotics have never let you down and you know what you're talking about.

Also, note to self to get a sample board of the entire periodic table to store in your shadow for later. You didn't really expect to need to, considering you can usually just get pretty much whatever you need through local channels, but that was really more you just not thinking much about it.

Eh, it'll be fine, you can organize this stuff in a jiffy later when you have some time. You'll have a bunch of robots and a properly, permanently corporeal manufactory set up in a day or so, things can really kick off from there.

For now, though… You check the time, having been down here for longer than you expected. You probably shouldn't blow your cover by spending all day in the sewers, should you?

Marching back to the mansion's basement access (carrying a few quickly manufactured parts to make that trapdoor you wanted to place over it, shouldn't take long to put together), you quickly reintroduce yourself to the semblance of a civilian life, making it a point to go on to get familiar with everything you'll need to know going forward.

It takes a bit, but hey, may as well get it done with. 'Sides, now that you're starting to settle in this may just be one of the cushier place you've spent time in.

Not like you have to focus on your supposed main task all that much. Alicia may appreciate the eye candy, but you're fairly sure she wouldn't appreciate all that much pushiness.


Honestly, having time while being entirely unknown for the moment, nobody present on this Earth actually aware of your presence and its implications (you hope, anyways) is pretty great. It's been a while since you actually had this kind of situation come up, but taking your pick of unwary targets is as fun as ever.

It won't last forever of course, but it's a nice little advantage- and one you very much plan to use. You may have originally come to try and find yourself some samples from whatever notably powerful creatures you could find- you want to see how far you can push your ADAM/FEV mixes and the associated branches of science- but, as it stands, you have even more to gain from seeing about profiting off of the scientific advances already made in this dimension.

You can always get back to your Plan A once you've plucked some of the lower-hanging fruit you can reach right now. And really, that's exactly what you have some of your magic for, isn't it?

"What is the easiest way to acquire some superscience I do not yet know of?"

You await an answer to your query, letting reality compile a complete one. You have no idea exactly how this part works, whether you're using your subconscious to interpret raw information gained through casting the spell or you're actually accessing some semi-conscious, semi-omniscient information storage existing naturally or somehow momentarily created upon you doing so or whatever, but hey, it works somehow.

There's a delay between you asking and something coming back, but that's more or less all you know about the exact process. You like to imagine it has something to do with the universe's limited processing power.

Anyways, you-

Ah, there you are. Parsing what you just received as a dump of pure data…

Looks like you have a couple options here, actually. On the one hand, you could just go and grab some superscience from several people and places, though only a few of those are mentioned inside the answer you just received. On the other hand, though…

You also could instead try to get in contact with a few people. Specifically, the Mauler Twins you saw something about in the news are currently in prison, but they're specialists in the field of genetics, doing manipulation thereof, cloning, mental transferrence between individuals and more, it seems. Then there's the Global Defense Agency, which has been researching everything it could get its hands on, reverse-engineering captured technology where possible, that kind of thing.

If you could get into the GDA's files and grab some of that, or else find a way to trade with the government spooks (heh, as if that'll happen), you could get some real work done… Or, by the same method, break the Mauler Twins out and arrange something with them, you may be able to acquire both their capabilities and some local minions for yourself.

Alternatively, there's also that local guy you already noted, 'Robot'… He's a hero, so he probably wouldn't just cooperate with any demands you made, but you can always suss him out and steal his stuff the hard way.


You don't have much of any real support structure yet, considering it's still being built down beneath your feet (well, down and a bit of a stretch towards the right from where you're standing right now, same difference), but the Thinker has access to the internet and, through it, to satellite imagery and all the info she really needs to do some very fun things.

Things such as tracing past sightings of certain heroes as captured by smartphone users that just had to post any footage they had straight onto social media, for example. There's a few unusually annoying issues with actually cyberstalking heroes like this, but though it takes a while due to limited processing power of her current carrying case, a little time really is all it takes.

In the meantime, you have a costume to assemble! A separate cursory internet search reveals that, although this dimension is a lot like Earth Bet, there are quite a few differences as well; people actually have their 'civilian' identities traced back here, meaning that you really should keep yourself from being easily found out, at least.

You suppose there has to be a reason things are put together better here. Then again, they deal with threats that can actually be fought back in a meaningful way as opposed to the Endbringers, which may have more to do with that.

Anyways, you need to actually disguise yourself, in addition to looking good. Thankfully, you know precisely what to do already, and so you set out to acquire the clothes and props you'll need.

Not like this'll be difficult. You may not make a big deal out of it, but you're kind of great at crime, y'know?


It's easy enough to just create and conjure a new aura minion (provisionally dubbed 'Teddy') for your disguise and the clothes, while significantly harder to acquire, also don't take too long to get, either.

Not just any place sells actually child-sized gothic lolita supplies, to say the least, but although you are kind of curious about how and why this is a thing in openly available retail, you won't really complain, either.

Long story short, by the time the Thinker can tell you where to go and what to do, you are sitting on a random roof dressed in black and red, your long black hair waving in the breeze.

And you're a little girl, of course. Can't nobody trace you back easily in this disguise, baby. Being a shapeshifter with the freedom you have really does come in handy sometimes- sure, you don't usually run around as a girl like this, but it is a nice change to be female and not be lugging around your extra girls.

Seriously, you have no idea whether it's because you're just genetically predisposed towards it, but you have some serious tits when you go girl power. Not, like, Okita levels, but just short of her, really.

Anyways, now that you know where you're going, you get up, brushing off your dress a little. Maybe you should keep it- this stuff looks pretty good on you, now that you look at it.

Ah well. You shadow yourself, darting off- you have a bit of a walk to actually get to the place you're going to be robbing blind.


The Teen Team has an actually pretty impressive setup for itself, more so that you honestly would've expected from a group that, well, literally calls itself the Teen Team. Seriously, people, image is important, and your name says a lot about who you are in this business, okay?

The message a name like that sends is, let's face it, not exactly positive. Like, teenagers are neither the picture of professionalism, expertise nor basic human decency, so why would you literally go to such lengths to point out that you are a group thereof?

It baffles the mind. The intricacies of local cape culture still seem to be escaping you.

But yes, their secret headquarters. Built into one of the massive pillars holding up a bridge in turn bearing a street's worth of traffic around the city, there are several entrances that lead inside, though not all of them are equally hidden; the very top of the pillar can open up to allow flying individuals inside, for example, which you're pretty sure encompasses exactly one of the heroes in this team.

And sure, Atom Eve seems like a perfectly nice hero, her theme being 'pink' combined with 'girl', but that does seem a little overboard to install for just one person. Maybe they were planning to add more flyers to the team down the road?

Anyways, you slither inside through one of the side doors, taking care to keep out of the light cast by the lamps illuminating the place. Just in case there's any cameras you didn't see, pretty much- you aren't necessarily quite invisible while you're keeping to the shadows, especially if your surroundings are lit up brightly as is, but it's close enough you may as well be for the most part.

You've been doing the shadow shtick for a while now, you know how to do it well.

The base's interior itself is essentially made up of several stories, all with a wide, open shaft along the middle- again, a way for flying individuals to just enter from the top and get down or move around quickly and easily. A few of the levels inside this place are filled up with rows upon rows of shelves tightly packed full of books, there's a couple doors that lead around the place- it doesn't seem to be the kind of place where anyone actually lives outside of their cape persona, though you could be wrong.

More importantly, time to figure out where what is. Who- or whatever Robot is, he's clearly technological in nature, and you'll be damned if he doesn't keep at least something of use in here in case he needs some repairs or even regular maintenance.


It takes a good bit of searching, as the Teen Team's base is annoyingly ill-organized to anyone that isn't already familiar with its construction (damn teenagers and all that), but after you make your way past some dressing room, the showers and a couple of side rooms apparently meant for individual team members to store their stuff, you finally strike gold two stories up.

There's no book titled 'Complete Guide To My Life And Works, by Robot' anywhere, of course, you'd have been incredibly suspicious if there were, but as you slide along across the ceiling, careful to keep out of sight of any potential cameras (few of those are ever placed to observe the ceiling and they're no different in here) and generally making a point to hide yourself properly as you go, you come into what seems to be exactly the kind of thing you were looking for.

It's not a proper robotics lab as such, but rather what appears to be a workshop of sorts, with some automated machines inside. They aren't active right this moment, however, and so you feel confident enough to investigate them a little closer.

It's a little difficult, but you can wedge your own shadow-form body into any cracks you can find, so you get a little bit of firsthand experience with their insides. Kind of awkwardly, but you can get a rough idea of how they're put together, at least.

Which, for the record, doesn't involve any chewing gum wrappers, repurposed microwaves (that you can tell, anyways) nor broken furniture of any sort- none of the telling signs for tinkertech, in other words.

So yeah, that's one hypothesis shot down. It would've neatly explained how the locals do their thing and why their more advanced technology hasn't just spread everywhere by this point, but, well- there were also a good few signs against the possibility of the Passengers you're aware of spreading to this dimension, if only because of the patterns you can observe in parahumans being absent here.

It was a long shot from the start, anyways. You still have no idea why some people can just up and play at being Tinkers just like that, but at least you can preclude one hypothesis for the time being.

Now, as for the machinery itself… It isn't anything inherently special, you have to say, though it is remarkably well put together, all things told. Maybe if you weren't literally specialized in designing the same or similar things just in better, you'd even be mildly impressed, but as is you can only say that it's probably a good thing this Robot guy hasn't gone into virtual nor artificial intelligence as far as you can tell.

Because let's be honest, if he had, you'd be dealing with a robot army after all. The industrial application of the same technology you're overtly crawling over right now isn't hard to realize, so you're assuming there's some limiting factor as to why he hasn't just built one- the most likely being, of course, the issue of how to control said robot army once made.

You figured that one out a good long while ago, then got the Thinker to do one better on top. Robot… hasn't, it seems, or maybe he just lacks funding for some reason? You'll just assume there's a legitimate issue somewhere along these lines.

This, naturally, spurs on your search for any hints as to said issue. Which has you get right back to snooping around again, of course, just because you are absolutely looking forward to stealing any and all technology you can get your hands on.

Maybe he's got some nice gadgets your own robots lack as of yet. Maybe there's a trick or two you can copy off of him, the joints are always an issue on robots- or of course you could get an insight on how exactly he controls that drone body he uses in public.

Which you do, incidentally. Without even meaning to, in fact; you slide over the designs on accident at first, but they become quite obvious when you slide back to look at them again.

There's a disassembled signal receiver right there out in the open, apparently broken. You make a point to analyze it a little, though your current lack of corporeality makes that a little difficult.

Then again, you don't want to leave any traces at all if you can help it in any way, so yeah, you just have to figure this out without being able to touch anything.

… So, just what kinds of signals is this little fucker meant to receive? It's way too complicated to just be a radio receiver, for one, you can tell that much with a glance. Maybe if this was a century ago and standard technology, sure, but this thing is meant to handle too many inputs coming in at the same time for something like that.

Unless it's just a big set of transmissions being made? Still no radio signal, unless he's just scrambling literally all the frequencies every time he sends something-

Ah motherfucker, you know what this is about. A few of the components are kind of weirdly familiar to you from the memory reader pods from Earth Fallout- this thing receives instructions from what is almost assuredly the actual controller's brain, directly and all.

How does that work? Is he basically lying in a pod all day to have his brainwaves read, does he wear some funky helmet, is it some cybernetic thing? Is the robotic drone basically a full-body prosthesis or something?

You have to know now.


Brain-Machine-Interface: A piece of technology meant to allow for human brains and appropriately designed devices to interface directly. Primarily meant for use in virtual reality or, alternatively, controlling robotic drones from afar. Comes in the form of slightly bulky headgear that can operate as a standalone, may possibly be improved to be an implanted device instead.


… You kind of want to try and see if you can't use brains as bio-degradable computers now. Like, it would be kind of disgusting, but also kind of really neat, plus you do have the technology to keep them alive- those Robo-Brains were a thing, after all.

Note to self, make it a point to interrogate Robot about this stuff at some point.


You explore the Teen Team's base for a little longer after you have deciphered a little of the genuine superscience you still cannot quite explain the presence of in this dimension- seriously, you don't just randomly get super-geniuses that just revolutionize random fields of science on the fly, that' not how knowledge works, nor society- but, sadly, not for particularly long.

You're interrupted by, of course, teenagers screwing in the showers. A cursory look reveals it to be the one called Rex Splode, you believe, as well as Dupli-Kate. And honestly, their cape names may be dump puns, but you actually can respect that, at least.

Still better than their team's name as such.

But yeah, you aren't really comfortable messing around the place while its inhabitants are around, not after you more or less got what you wanted already, and so you simply leave. Without leaving a trace, of course, not a single sign of your presence anyone could conceivably find.

Unless they got, like, some kind of Thinker power, for all that the classifications you're used to are not exactly a thing here. Either way, you don't think any of these guys are the think-y type, so you'll just assume it's fine and move on with your life.

There's only so much you can worry and plan for before you're actively self-sabotaging. You'd like to think that's the one lesson the Simurgh teaches to anyone present on a planet it is hanging around, but honestly crediting an Endbringer with anything at all seems kind of like a stupid move to begin with.

So you won't, simple as that. You'll just claim you hold the opinion you shouldn't overthink things just because that's how you think and leave it at that.

Now then, actually returning to the mansion you're technically working at now would be taking a bit, but you can teleport! Not through your usual means for once, either; instead you make use of your power to instantaneously move to a predetermined location, having designated your future underground lair for this purpose ahead of time.

Progress is going good, too, you note as you move through quickly, nodding at the single Hammer already at work excavating a little additional space while your steadily growing stock of materials is being repeatedly churned through your manufactory, the concrete and stone it rips free added to the mix for good measure as well.

Really not wasting any time there. Then again, the Thinker is nothing if not efficient in what it does, really.

Thankfully, nobody's noticed your absence as you re-emerge to the rest of polite society, and even the clothes you requested have arrived. You could've just made them yourself using some spare cloth (that you probably would've also stolen, let's be real about that), but you aren't exactly disclosing your capabilities in that regard and you'd like to keep it that way.

The clothing in question is, of course, a butler uniform. You're technically not actually a butler or anything, but you thought it would be nice to dress as one for a bit- after all, there has not been a single type of uniform conceived by human minds you do not look awesome in.

And hey, it works on Alicia, too, when you go pay her a visit wearing it. "… That is dangerous."

"Not how I'd put it, but sure," you nod, clearing your throat as you put on a professional demeanor. "May m'lady require anything else, then?"

You bow with one hand on your chest. Alicia blushes, clearly thinking about things she wants to do with you, and you chuckle at her obvious teenager-ness.

At least she's not, like, repressed or anything like that. You can smell on her how much she's been masturbating since you last saw her, something that may or may not be connected to her having met you, you think.

Note to self, get some of your old moves ready for her. You knew working as a male stripper would pay off your whole life when you used the money to get into college, but it turns out you have a surprising amount of practical opportunities to put what you learned at the time to use as well.


You sit back, your legs crossed, on your new bed, one that you absolutely intend to never actually use to sleep in. Other activities, maybe, but no sleep.

With a bit of an idea of how things are on a local level, that being that heroes apparently have absolutely ludicrous amounts of funding and leeway when it comes to heroic activities. Like, that base you toured would be nigh unthinkable on Earth Bet, simply because the authorities would never allow anyone to build inside a giant bridge like that.

But yeah, now it is time to take a look at things from another perspective, from the other end of the scale, as it were. And what better eyes to see through than those of what the internet conclusively tells you is the strongest man on the planet?

Nolan was… conflicted. He had been ever since Mark first begun to exhibit his natural powers, so late that he had been doubtful he ever would… And maybe it would've been better if he hadn't, the more he thought about it.

But he had. Later than almost any pureblooded Viltrumite, but no weaker for it. And now… Now he, too, had to do what he had to.

But right now, he had to keep any such doubts out of his voice and off his face. They were flying together, stationary in orbit around the planet, and he needed to talk to his son.

"I'm scared, dad," Mark said, looking at Nolan over his shoulder. "What if I can't do this?"

He didn't answer for a moment, instead waiting for the baseball to come around. It should be there in three… two… one… "You hear?"

"I do."

"Get ready."

And say about his confidence what you wanted, but Mark faced away from him, stretching the glove out and- caught it, with a resounding plop. Investing into these things to get something durable enough to survive being thrown around the globe and caught seamlessly had been entirely worth it.

"Were you nervous?"

"A little."

"But you caught it," Nolan pointed out.

"I did."

"Being a superhero is no different. This is the beginning of a long journey for you and me." Far, far longer than Mark had any way to know, he thought with some trepidation, even though there should be no such thing on his mind. "And along the way, you're going to need to do things you don't want to do, or might not think you can do."

It was strange, to talk about these things. To lay them out like this. And as he looked in Mark's eyes, Nolan knew he could only hope he would be able to convince him in time.

"It's okay to be scared. It's natural, to doubt yourself. But if you can push through that, and do what needs to be done, you'll do just fine. You think you can do that, Mark?"

"Yeah," his son smiled, turning to throw the ball again. Nolan smiled back, turning to catch it as it made another flight around the planet again before he floated closer towards him.

"Son, kids your age think they're invincible. And holds them back, makes them careless. The thing is, you're different. You, actually are-"

INVINCIBLE

And though he could not show it, the heavy weight on Nolan's heart lightened as Mark's face lit up.

It wouldn't be long now. He'd best stop delaying it.

His first strike, to take out the leader, was thwarted by Red Rush. Annoying. It would have made the rest of this much easier.

The Guardians of the Globe stared at him collectively in the aftermath, The Immortal the only one to bring out any words at all. "Omni-Man?!"

It was no use, of course. This fight was always going to end one way only… And Nolan very much intended to do so on his terms.

The Guardians of the Globe had to die. It was the only way; they would object to the very existence of the Viltrum Empire, to Earth's addition to it. So they had to be removed, as simple as that.

There was no space for sentimentality here. Nolan had a job to do.

He knew their capabilities. He knew how to counter them. And Red Rush would be the first to die, the moment he could bait him into striking him. The rest would be easy pickings.

Time to produce some bloodshed.

… "Well shit," you say, the bloody fight's echoes playing out under your eyelids. "So much for the Guardians of the Globe."

You just caught up to events as they are happening, so as Omni-Man beheads The Immortal with a hard strike of the edge of his hand, you officially decide you want no part of this bullshit.

Apparently, Earth's greatest protectors have just been systematically splattered across the floor by one of their closest friends, or at least allies, and the guy just displayed massive speed, strength, durability and absolute ruthlessness in ending them one by one as decisively and thoroughly as possible.

He's also apparently not human. You now also want in on whatever the fucking hell his DNA thinks it's doing, but preferably without having to fight him for it.

You have opinions about getting into actual fights, as opposed to one-sidedly destroying whatever is opposing you. And you don't really want to risk it against this guy, not unless you're fully confident you can cripple or kill him immediately.

He can bleed, The Immortal's punches proved as much, and his strength isn't limitless, Martian Man managed to tie him up using his own shapeshifted body for a bit. But in the end, he overcame all of them, and in the face of his strength nothing they mustered lasted for long.

Time to work out a few contingencies. Just in case.


Okay, so there's a lot of crap going down right this very moment, and if you were a local you'd probably be freaking right the hell out right now considering the exact nature of said events- the Guardians of the Globe are kind of a big thing.

Were kind of a big thing, now, to be correct. Not like the general public has any idea as of yet, of course.

You do know where to start, at least. "Thinker, the headquarters of the Guardians of the Globe is somewhere in Utah," you explicitly point the one detail you managed to pick up in the background out aloud. "Can we locate it?"

Annoyingly, not as such, it turns out. Less annoyingly, there's a few possible locations based on the brief glimpses you caught through Omni-Man's eyes, so while you have to look into it in person a bit simply because the people behind the Guardians deliberately put their base into as mountainous and unrecognizable an area as possible.

Quickly rushing off, you push through the shadows, using your magic to swiftly traverse the city as you hop from one spot of darkness to another. You make your way through basements and alleyways, flying off as a raven once you leave city limits as such and the landscape becomes less riddled with convenient urban sprawl casting shadows everywhere.

As the sun goes down around you, you pick up more and more speed, your self-targeted telekinesis and redirected gravity help you along.

It's a bit of a distance to Utah, but you do what you can, what with not yet having teleportation coverage. Ugh, this is one of those things you just get so used to you take it for granted and only realize how heavily you relied on it when you don't have it anymore.

It's really nice to just instantly be wherever you want to be. Just saying.

Now to hopefully arrive before whoever else is going to get there does and this whole thing becomes a lot more complicated than it has to be…


… Yeah, let's be honest here, you were never going to just not take everything. It's one thing when you're personally endangered by a lack of stealth, but in this situation, when it would be just this difficult to actually trace your intervention back to yourself?

They better believe you are going to take anything and everything of value. And hey, blood samples from the Guardians of the Globe, plus Omni-Man, are nothing if not valuable to you.

So you just go right ahead and exert your power over blood, making it a point to keep the different blot of it you draw from the various corpses separate so you don't have to mess around with them too much later. Getting your samples mixed up is one of those mistakes you refuse to make on account of just how easy it is to avoid it with perfect recall of any and all of your memories.

Well, most of them, you just need to discount the ones from before your reanimation. Same difference.

Anyways, as the dozens of people in heavy tactical gear (you can see the indents against their skin's blood circulation, though any specifics are beyond you) burst into the secret base, wasting no time in immediately forcing their way through the sealed doors by way of… Well, some tool that lets them carve through thick slabs of metal, presumably by emitting high amounts of heat or something, they are greeted by the sight of small streams of blood flowing out of the bodies of the Guardians, as well as from Omni-Man's face.

They immediately raise their weapons and, you guess, shout something, but you aren't actually at the scene yourself- and your hearing is good, great even, but it's not acute enough to let you listen in through a literal mountain's worth of obtruction.

So instead they just- a, you think they just shot some kind of laser weapons at the blood you were reeling in. Bullets would've just penetrated and come out the other side while at most leaving a few holes, but it looks like they just kind of evaporated a little of your bounty on its way out.

No matter. You've already got enough blood on hand, you just wanted to distract them while you finished sneaking the stuff out. Now that that's taken care of, of course, you simply drop anything they fire at, letting them think they're accomplishing anything of worth.

Note to self, mundane soldiers equipped with the equivalent of tinkertech exist here. Don't just disregard them on principle, they might just pull out something you aren't actually immune to.

But yeah, your newly acquired samples are now snaking along, floating near the ground to try and avoid detection as you take flight once more. Time to get out of here and stow this blood away in clearly labeled containers in your secret base!

Yes, it's still under construction, but that won't really stop you or anything. The Dread Castle of the Night Queen built amidst the Swamps of Rot is immense and awesome, as you will be sure to remark anytime anyone asks you in your girlish version of yourself.


Alright, so it took a bit to get back because, and you have to reiterate the obvious here, you had to manually fly back all the way from Utah (couldn't even dive through the shadows because you were controlling the blood from afar and you refuse to transform back and pack it up in any way until you're a long damn way from the scene of the crime, just in case), but here you are, back in the sewers and your ill-gotten loot stashed away nicely.

You've got a grand total of three Hammers by this point, a tunnel that is leading further and further down and a side cave under the rest of the sewers themselves, within which there's a small generator driven by one of your eldritch cores providing power to a freezer, which is where you have the blood samples for now.

You don't actually have a proper lab as of yet, but the Thinker will be working on setting it up… soon-ish. You have a lot of building to do before your Dread Castle becomes reality, it goes without saying.

Thankfully, you're about to ramp up material production in short order, as your second manufactory is going to be going online in relatively short order. The complete versions of the things are really impressive in how quickly they can work and produce just about anything in vast quantities, but they do take a lot of material and time to set up to begin with.

Speaking of the things you have to do, though- having more or less reverse-engineered Robot's brain-machine-interface technology from first principles (in a rough manner anyways, you're pretty sure the guy's got more impressive stuff hidden away somewhere else, you did only get a good look at the part of the equation that receives signals after all), you already see a good few applications for the stuff, now that you have a moment and need a bit before you can get the tools to properly analyze the heroic DNA you grabbed anyways.

You've got some semi-decent virtual reality tech already, to the point it can be used by just about anyone, but integrating this stuff into what you have would make the connection smoother, more direct- it would let you downsize the required machinery a good bit, once you figure out how to implement the things Robot does in, say, a helmet-sized device.

More realistically, you'd likely make it some sort of chair or, even better, just keep it as a pod or something. Not like someone currently engaging virtual reality particularly needs their body to be doing something, after all.

Then, of course, you have the esperization process, that unstable, by necessity individualized treatment capable of granting great power… in various cases, while doing precious little in others. Having more ways to directly apply the stimuli required for this whole shebang to work to the human brain can only really help with it, once refined.

Note to self, have the Thinker figure out how to do that one, because fuck you if you will be arsed to; the sheer breadth of possibly required sensory input is too bothersome for you to fiddle around with. It would literally take you years to do it by hand. Like, the interface is one thing, you can work out the hardware issues just fine, but what to do with it is a different story.

And then there's the big one. Direct interface between the brain and specifically prepared machines and devices, such as through the modified version of that VATS program Lea was working on, allowing a human controller to look in on what your turrets or robots are doing from afar, literally letting someone have eyes on the back of their head in the form of cameras directly displaying what's behind them, mentally operated mechanical limbs and other devices…

It basically allows you to just take most automated processes and have them be directed by a human mind. Now you only need to figure out a few key parts of the process of actually implementing what you saw when you did some industrial espionage back there.

… It's not exactly an industrial thing. Intellectual espionage? Villainous espionage? Eh, you'll figure it out later.

For now, you got work to do! You'll try a few things inside your inner world first using Yoshi as a test subject, then try to replicate functional prototypes in reality, you think. Same procedure as usual.


"Why!" Clang! "Won't!" Crash! "You!" Clunk! "Work!"

"… You know, I didn't expect you to be the one to get aggressive with the lab equipment," you point out to Yoshi.

"It's called percussive maintenance and it's the only reason humanity ever achieved anything!"

"… Huh, fair enough. Should I go tell indigo you're cheating on her by hitting on inanimate objects now?"

"She'd never believe you. Not that one, at least. Also, keep your lying mouth away from her, please."

Will wonders never cease? "You've learned to ask for things politely? She really must be a good influence on you."


You have a lot of things to do, in short. However, as it's currently the dead of night where you are and nobody actually expects you to be anywhere, you have more than enough time to take care of a good bit thereof, starting with the engineering challenges you get to play around with and, following their end, some good old research of current events.

You knew, from the moment you stepped foot in this dimension and received the complimentary knowledge dump, that this dimension is entirely unlike Earth Bet, for all its similarities. However, you still sometimes have this strange sense of dissonance, as you hit upon one of those things that are starkly different to your home.

And hey, you really can't just go around and make stupid mistakes just because you expect things to be like you're used to. As such, it's time to do some studying in depth!

With the Thinker's help, of course, as her processing power grows bit by bit, her central core set into a sizable device by now. She just needs some proper processing capacity and while it's a far cry from the 'body' you built for her back home, it's a perfectly serviceable start for her to work with.

You did go a long way from the enormous, antiquated thing she started out with. Heck, it was basically a damn clockwork computer compared to what it was replaced with later, and she could literally predict the future even back while stuck inside of it.

So then, this dimension… Note to self, figure out a dimensional designation for it at some point, it's getting a bit tiring to think about it without one all the time. But yeah, there's a couple things that really do stand out when comparing things.

For one, being a superhero is not literally one of the worst decisions possible here, though you'll stand by your opinion that being a villain is still, like, way preferable. Also, the government is actively supporting small and semi-independent teams of heroes as long as they don't break the wrong laws, which again is a far cry compared to Bet, where that kind of thing is basically a routine way to either get joined to the PRT of your own totally free will, or else.

At least in the US, anyways. You're well aware things work differently in other parts of the globe, you just tend to draw on your experiences and what you studied in person for this stuff- and besides, say about it what you will, the PRT is still comparably less shitty than most alternatives you've heard about.

Anyway, as long as you don't step over the line, you can expect the government to actually help you out and keep you clear in this dimension. Sadly, you imagine stealing blood samples from the premier heroes roughly equivalent to the Triumvirate in terms of PR, eating people or generally forcefully obtaining resources and technology from others all would very much be way beyond that imaginary line in the sand, so you guess you don't have to bother pretending all that much in case any of your actions ever come to light.

… Well, they'll be scrambling now after the Guardians got summarily mutilated and murdered, so maybe you could find a way to force through a bit of an exchange there. Question is how much you can walk over whoever's in charge, though, so you'll just keep the idea in mind for later.

That aside… Heroes are still talked about in social media, entirely unsurprisingly, and footage of cape fights always seems to be popular anywhere you care to look.

More importantly, the kinds of threats superheroes are needed to beat back are… Let's just call them 'colorful' and leave it at that. Giant meteors threatening to become meteorites and wipe out a good chunk of the planet, alien invasions, eldritch creatures, insane scientists with tinkertech levels of bullshit (which is exceedingly high, for the record), whatever crap comes out of adjacent dimensions, literal demons (ones you could summon as well, in part, looks like there's a few layers of hell that are more accessible from here than usual… or the other way around), just about all and sundry any particularly lackluster comic book writer could come up with despite their limited creativity.

Oh, and supervillains of course. Along with mundane criminals, you guess, which is something to think about- this clear divide between capes and non-capes you would think is a natural consequence of the presence of superpowers just isn't quite there.

Oh, sure, cops will still die horribly against some capes no matter how brave they are, and non-powered gangers are powerless in front of heroes and villains alike, but the old adage of 'if it's not bulletproof, a one-armed monkey with a gun can kill it' still applies even here.

Careless capes that lack survivability absolutely can and will catch bullets and die of lead poisoning just fine, and it's way less of a big deal here than you're used to. Like, still a huge shebang if it's a hero whose metal content drastically rises for a short time like that, especially if they're really popular or anything like that, but still.

… Interesting. Quite interesting indeed. This may require some closer study indeed…


"So… You do this often?" You look at Alicia, your employer by technicality doing some morning stretches as she's up already at this ungodly hour.

"Do what?" She asks, her flexible body bent to the side at the moment, showing off her huge rack.

"Get up at five in the morning for no reason like a crazy person," you explain. "Like, seriously, who does that?"

You realized she was awake when she started stirring in her sleep, having monitored her overall state through your good old blood senses throughout the night. Just because, y'know, you may as well, being in the same building and all.

As such, you quickly came along once she was dressed, only to find out it seems she is making a point of doing some morning exercise before the sun's even up. Or, as you just put it, behaving like a lunatic.

"I need the extra time in the day to get everything done," she faintly explains, carefully pulling her limbs behind herself to stretch her neck and back. "Not enough hours in the day otherwise."

"You should treasure your sleep as much you can."

"If you don't like it, why are you awake?"

"It's technically my job to hang around you." And you also, y'know, wanted to make sure she wasn't having a stroke or something. No joke, that's vaguely what people getting up in the morning look like to your bloodsight. "So you do this… every day?"

"Nobody stopped me yet," Alicia points out, her yoga pants barely concealing her rounded butt as she get on all fours next. "You don't have to come if you don't want to."

"No, no, I don't mind that much," you shrug. "While I have you here already anyways, though… Mind telling me a little about yourself?"

"… What do you want to know?"

"How about we start with your family? Not everyone can afford to live in a fancy mansion like this- and I didn't sight any relatives of yours yet."

"Mhm," she agrees, nodding slowly. "Mom and dad are living somewhere else. They just bought this place for me so I don't have to commute to school so far."

Well, talk about silver spoons, you suppose.

"Not sure what they're doing most of the time, but we have a lot of money. They invest a lot, and when you're rich enough you can basically just make your investments make money."

"Ah, the good old high society experience," you smile. Your own parents would've literally murdered puppies and orphans by the dozens to be living that kind of life- it was pretty much all they ever wanted.

"I have a little sister that comes to visit me often. Might see her around." Cocking her head to the side, Alicia hums to herself. "Also got a few other relatives. My cousin, Alana, she's a professional photographer."

"Huh. With models and all?"

"She tried to do landscapes once, but she's no good at that. She also visits sometimes, but she's busy with work a lot."

"Sounds nice," you say. When Alicia looks at you questioningly, you elaborate. "You got a family that cares about you, even if you don't see them that often. That and loads of money. It could be worse."

"Yeah, I guess it could."

And, as you carefully do not indicate in any way, the Thinker just informed you there is an extremely high probability that this cousin of hers was none other than Green Ghost- who just got fisted through the face a couple hours ago.

… Kiiind of an awkward thing to bring up.


You end up just chatting away a little while, eventually helping Alicia do a light workout while you're here already. She does appreciate it too, especially considering you actually do have some in-depth knowledge on how to be a personal trainer.

Not as much as some of the others would, but you have an extensive understanding about human anatomy, including how to not break it down horribly.

You also get to fondle her all over, teasing your erstwhile 'employer' as you have your way with her body in a less direct manner than you usually would. You kind of like the opportunity to play with her this way, not going to lie.

She eventually has to move on to go to school, but she comments on how much lighter she feels after the impromptu massage you ended up throwing in. And by the glances she keeps throwing you, she also is considering just staying home and trying to jump your bones, if a certain amount of breathlessness and her hard nipples poking through her shirt didn't tip you off already.

Sadly, she wears a bra before she leaves the house. You'd almost forgotten most people don't have supernatural upper body strength to effortlessly carry giant jugs on their chest all the time; if you didn't, your female form would be damn near required to keep the additional support on her at all times.

Ah well. With Alicia gone for the moment, it's about time for you to get back to furthering your own agenda, your nefarious plans don't advance themselves just yet. You need to establish some more automation before they do.


Now then, you remain busy as is, but for the time being you should have some leeway in the 'shit to do' department. Of course, your first priority will be to properly go through the blood samples you 'consensually withdrew' from the Guardians, but it'll still take a bit until the lab equipment you'll need will be ready to go- these things take up some materials that are in high demand around your underground lair to begin with, so replicating sufficient amounts thereof will still take a little while.

To be fair, you are kind of pulling a whole cutting edge research complex out your ass- it taking a day or so using nothing but those phones you filched yesterday is already downright incredible in itself.

You aren't going to complain about needing more than five minutes' advance warning. In the meantime, though, it's not like you can't use your time effectively in other ways; you need to figure out a bunch of stuff, get down there yourself to establish a few of the… testier parts of your future research lab (ADAM is such a joy to work with, especially when you have ensured absolutely none of the stuff somehow gets anywhere near the rest of the sewers, the mere thought is almost enough to overcome your undead physiology just to make you feel sick), do some cleaning around the place in general, maybe set aside some time to more thoroughly ingratiate yourself with Alicia-

And just as you're about to get started with the 'figuring stuff out' part, specifically with trying to triangulate a few locations staffed by members of the Global Defense Agency around the city you find yourself in, as the GDA is notably extremely secretive and knowing ahead of time may just save some mild headache down the line, it happens.

The Thinker alarms you first, though the sounds of screams, explosions and laser fire drift to your ears only moments afterwards, too faint to be made out with human senses from where you are.

Thankfully, for all the differences present in this dimension, social media is still a thing, and so you still have the inevitable idiots that stand still and take pictures or videos to immediately upload thinking that'll be worth anything in spite of their imminent, looming deaths. As such, you even have footage available of a literal army of green, kind of wrinkly, bald aliens marching through portals that spontaneously opened in the middle of downtown.

Like, they're green, they have these feelers coming out of their heads and they all wear white-blue uniforms and bear standardized weaponry. There's a legitimate alien invasion and you're actually really close, globally speaking.

… It's kind of like you've been handed an invitation to a free-for-all buffet, isn't it?


It goes without saying, but you immediately make your way over to the scene of the alien invasion, of course. Like hell are you ever going to not take part in this kind of fun. Still, by the time you arrive, said fun is already in full swing, portable barriers being deployed by the green guys that are basically these metal crates that expand when activated, basically pre-prepared barricades the likes of which you were considering adding to your robot legions' kit at some point before deciding they weren't worth the bother at the time.

Policemen were firing on the alien army, having taken position around a dozen or so squad cars surrounding the steadily growing armed forces amassing in the area. They are, however, using, y'know, normal guns, the kinds that shoot bullets instead of lasers.

Which is what returns fire on them. Suffice to say, they're being slaughtered for the trouble; as you watch, several of them are shot down as they scramble to take cover behind their cars.

They aren't really doing much in return. The aliens' armors are stupid and incomplete for the simple fact that they lack some damn helmets, instantaneously having you question whoever designed it, but as long as they don't catch a bullet to the head the comparably low-caliber shots can hardly even inconvenience them.

Also, the green soldiers are methodically firing at civilians, killing them by the dozens as they flee. Peaceful contact really, really is not what they're here for.

Looking down from the nearest skyscraper, you consider what to do. While it would be trivially easy to just squash all of these suckers at once and slurp up their blood and souls for a big meal, it's probably a good idea to keep your hemokinesis on the down-low for the moment, purely because of the way you had to use it to take the blood of the Guardians, so you may have to change up your approach a little.

You still want to get your fill of alien souls, just because they're there and you can take them, the only issue is you may need to limit how many of them you get to gobble up. However-

Oh, a local has arrived on the scene. Blue and yellow costume, with these big lenses over his eyes that kind of make him look bug-eyed. He's a flier, coming in after observing the situation for a moment himself, you think-

He lands, pointing at the aliens and telling them to get away from the civilians? Well, all he achieves is getting splattered with the blood and viscera from said civilians, the laser fire blasting him backwards but not really harming him. Alexandria package, you decide, and a pretty amateurish one.

Yeah, that's the look of a complete amateur.


… Ah well, can't be helped. You clear your throat, amplifying your voice to be heard clearly far and wide. "Mister Teeedddy," you call out, taking an odd sense of glee in your current small and female form and the behavior expected of it, "it's Dinner Time!"

You may or may not have taken a few notes from the Little Sisters you've been around before. But hey, they're the experts on behaving like cute little girls, you're just imitating them, honest!

Anyways, you drop your teddy bear, the white plush toy promptly falling, as things that have been dropped are wont to. Your voice has drawn attention, so a sizeable amount of both fleeing civilians and aliens have turned to watch it fall-

And grow as it twists in the air on its way down to the ground. Its cloth-skin bulges with muscle, black, bristly fur growing out of its back, head elongating into an ursine snout locked into an angry snarl. Its bulky limbs stretch out, insofar as they can, and when it finally lands, it does so already in motion, transferring its momentum into a tucked-in roll.

As in, the creature now weighing easily a ton or two is rolling across the ground, its fur turned into spikes that are less piercing anything it comes across and more mulching it to pieces as they impact any obstacles with their sides first. Row after row of alien soldiers is bowled over, turned into a messy, bloody smear in its wake, the survivors still busy throwing themselves aside as Teddy the Bear passes by the next one.

You note their blood is still red, interestingly enough. You wonder whether it binds oxygen through iron in the same way most mammal blood does, this shade usually indicates as much. An interesting bit of observation for later.

One of the aliens was just trying to execute some old grandma crawling across the ground. He is now missing an arm and half his face, as your minion had to swerve a bit to avoid flattening her as well, and runs away swiftly, ordering others to cover him in a guttural language. Meawhile, though, your chosen creation of the day has come to a halt, growling menacingly at your cause for unleashing it.

Slowly growing louder, it shifts from a snarl into a roar, explosively darting forward to snatch up one of the aliens and biting its exposed head off. The rest finally realize they're in some deep shit, but as it turns out you made Teddy's skin too resistant to most forms of damage for their lasers to do more than buy them some time.

They're bringing tanks through the portal now, formed a little weirdly but recognizable as such enough. Your minion proceeds to throw itself at them, shrugging off heavy blasts of energy as it rams through anything in the way.

Note to self, your bigger minions are capable of fighting armies by themselves. This one in particular needs regular pulses of additional aura, considering the amount it consumes to fight, but it's both durable and deadly enough to just tear through the opposition anyways.

Also, that Alexandria package from earlier has since grabbed the old woman that barely escaped with her life and carried her away before returning, though you note he seems to be hyperventilating a little. He's also still covered with the blood of innocent civilians.

You're about to jump into the fray yourself to reap a couple souls when you pause, again, having noticed something else coming into this direction. Someone else, rather. Some chick dressed in a pink cape costume flies in, emitting some kind of energy from her hands and feet that allows her to propel herself- right, Atom Eve from the Teen Team.

Small world, huh.

She lands and tells the newbie to help evacuate civilians, having correctly judged that he's in over his head. You assume her teammates aren't far off- yeah, you can already sense them, blood signatures flying above the ground spaced together tightly, presumably on some kind of vehicle.

Huh. That was faster than you'd have expected. It also kind of puts a damper on you jumping in there and eating everything when a bunch of heroes are on the scene…


Yeah, right, as if that ever stopped you before.

You step off the building yourself now, dropping straight down much the same way that Mister Teddy did earlier. Keeping your legs pointed straight downwards and a confident smile on your face, you deter both Atom Eve and the other cape nearby from flying over to catch you- though they both look like they're instinctively tempted to 'save' you.

You'll just file that away for later. Anyways, your impact sends a slight tremor through the street, your light weight not really enough for more while you resist the urge to manipulate relative gravity to make this whole thing look even more dramatic, though you accidentally get stuck where your minion landed earlier, one of your feet sinking into the ground with a loud crack.

"Ugh! Nugh!" You pull yourself free, hopping along on one foot while a bit of concrete rubble you ripped out of the ground settles behind you. Once done, you cross your arms, feet set at shoulder width as you imperiously gaze upon the aliens you're here for- the one not currently being savaged by your teddy bear. "Bow before me, lowly minions!"

The response you receive is concentrated laser fire you quickly sidestep, though Atom Eve erects a pink forcefield before you to block it anyways. "What are you doing here? Kids shouldn't-"

"Uh, Atom Eve?" The new kid asks. "She turned a plush bear into that… thing."

He points at where a huge, furry and exceedingly spiky bowling ball lands yet another strike, fleshy pins splattered all across the pavement. "Mister Teddy is a loyal retainer," you nod proudly.

Eve scowls, but more at the aliens than at you, you think. "Kids still shouldn't be anywhere near-"

Just at that moment, the rest of the Teen Team drops out of the sky, having arrived via some sort of gliding motorbike thingy driven by Robot, or at least a drone he's controlling. Robot, who is controlling a robot, unsurprisingly, Dupli-Kate, some asian chick not even bothering with wearing a mask who can duplicate herself and Rex Splode, a guy that can make small objects explode.

They immediately form up around Atom Eve, who supposedly does direct manipulation of atomic particles. You haven't seen her just erase the aliens from existence yet, so you're assuming her power isn't as strong as it sounds.

"Who's the shrimp, I didn't know we also did kiddie pools," is the first thing Rex Splode says as he sees you. You respond by, briefly, addressing him in turn.

"I, am Night Queen! And you will pay me the appropriate respect, or else!"

"Or else what, huh? Gonna bite a couple ankles, you-"

"Big mouth for someone at ball-punch-height!" You hold back. You really do. You still shatter the armored cup part of his costume with a quick, powerful punch, sending the teen superhero straight to the ground as he wheezes in pain.

Any and all male beings in sight, including the aliens, wince for a moment in sympathetic pain. Once again you have halted an entire alien invasion for a few seconds simply by engaging in your antics- you may be on to something interesting here.

"U-urgh… Why…?" You can hear the tears in his eyes.

"You were kind of asking for it," Dupli-Kate points out before she starts, well, duplicating, engaging the aliens in close combat during this moment of inaction, punching, kicking and applying grappling holds as appropriate.

"Please refrain from further friendly fire for the duration of this conflict." Even Robot's voice is robotic, very obviously generated locally inside his drone. It's actually distantly reminiscent of the Thinker's voice, in a way. "Also, three enemy tanks will be approaching from our right in-"

You proceed to dart forward, unwilling to bother listening when you can literally see the blood signatures of said tanks' operators yourself already. Vaulting atop one of them, you wedge your fingers into a closed hatch at the top, forcefully tearing it open to get at the vulnerable little alien inside.

You lift him up as he struggles and tries to bring a firearm to bear. You just bite into his neck, letting warm, living blood flow into your mouth as you drink him empty like a juice pack.

Then you throw him at the next tank, which is currently aiming at the new boy, causing its main cannon to miss and hit a bunch of other aliens instead. "You're welcome," you shout at him over the chaotic thrum of battle, jumping off to avoid the next volley of fire coming in your direction.

"Oh, uh, thanks?"

"Focus! We need to-"

"Rex, civilians in danger at your location."

"Can't… Move… Yet…"

You sigh. These guys are way out of their depth here, aren't they? They should stick to street level crime, not alien invasions.

"Mister Teddy Number Two! Mister Teddy Number Three!" Miming pulling something from under your dress, you reveal two more teddy bears. "Dinnertime! Feed me lots!"

You launch them, too, into the fray. Screams and bear-like roars resound shortly thereafter.

"This will limit the amount of enemies we have to face. Good work," Robot remarks.

"Obviously! I, The Night Queen, am a genius tactician and logistician in addition to my numberous other qualities!" You pose again, only to have to duck under another tank shot. The one one-armed cock from earlier is back, you think- they didn't even make the glass of those tanks they use one-sided. "Now if you excuse me, I shall have to harvest the souls of the living! "

Time to see how many of these things you can manually eat while dodging around the heroes present here.


The fighting isn't exactly going down easy, of course, as you are holding back a majority of your really good powers and slowly grinding down an entire army of these aliens, the name of their species roughly pronounced as 'Flaxan' according to the first souls you harvest among them, but honestly, it goes surprisingly well.

Atom Eve is… basically just throwing up these pink forcefields left and right when she isn't throwing projectiles made of the same weird energy around (atomic particle manipulation your ass), but she's also prioritizing any tanks that come into sight with these heavier, charged versions of the same, so she basically just cleans the field of any particularly irritating issues. Rex Plosion, for his part, has more or less recovered, though he's still moving with a slightly bowlegged, awkward gait, the boy moving around and throwing small, exploding objects at any groups in sight.

This helps Dupli-Kate, who is busy throwing herself at any stragglers that make it through that, using her powers to just be in several places at once as she brutally overcomes them in a succession of melee fights. Incidentally, she's both visibly Asian and relies mostly on martial arts- way to be a stereotype there.

Robot is mostly keeping to the background, analyzing the battlefield and calling out instructions where appropriate. He also has these little blasters in the arms of his drone, but mostly he's acting as a decoy whenever any of them try to take potshots at civilians that still haven't evacuated.

Man, do these people just not have any self-preservation instincts or what? Like, this is an alien invasion, with a whole army and all. It's not exactly subtle what's going down here.

Speaking of, you are busy brutalizing aliens. This is one of the most awesome things you've done in the last couple hours. "Kneel before the dread powers of the Night Queen!"

Your bears are just completely rampaging around the portal, turning what was supposed to be an orderly, quick march of reinforcements into pure, bloody, screaming chaos. Limbs and assorted internal organs fly in all directions, screams and laser shots ring out and any attempts at reinstating order are shut down by a bear weighing tons eating them.

And in the meantime, you are posing atop a pile of corpses, snacking on yet another Flaxan you had your minions throw at you before you continue in the middle of your speech. "You are nothing! I am everything! Submit or suffer the useless deaths you deserve! Mwuahahaha!"

Just then, the new boy swoops in from your side, grabbing you while you're about to jump into the fray again and flying off. "Watch out!"

One of the Flaxan tanks fires on your position, which was why you were going to go on the attack again. As it is, all it achieves is to splatter the bodies of their fallen all over the place.


… Well, you weren't going to play this card, but when he's literally asking for it like this…

You take a deep breathe to speak extra loud. "Cease this sexual harassment at once," you declare more than you even demand, wiggling around as he tries to keep a grip on your back.

"Wha- I- No!" He protests as the collective entirety of the Teen Team- and a good chunk of the invading Flaxans- turn to stare at him, despite the latter not actually understanding any of what you say. "Look, I'm saving you!"

"Inferior weapons fire is beneath my notice," you harrumph, crossing your arms while still being held by him, the two of you now flying up above the fight. Huh, you don't usually fly around all willy-nilly like this, even if you technically have the ability to; you prefer not making a target of yourself, but you're pretty sure this guy's enough of a Brute he doesn't need to care usually. "I totally saw it coming."

"Yeah, right." His smile, visible as most of his face isn't actually covered by his costume, is brittle, but at least he's trying? He obviously isn't used to this level of violence, so anything other than freezing up is him doing better than you'd have expected.

Modern man is many things, but the average person simply isn't used to the concept of sudden ultraviolence and won't just immediately react as appropriate. Even, you suppose, when they're related to Omni-Man.

Yes, you recognized 'Mark'. Also, is there, like, some lady-Viltrumite around or did Nolan reproduce with a human? Because that's not usually how anything works, just for the record. Aliens don't just go and are genetically compatible with other species off the cuff!

But enough about that, you have some more Flaxans to murder.

Clearing your throat, you point at the chaotic melee down below, specifically at the slowly retreating bulk of the enemy, their big, lowing portal shimmering on the street. "Throw me."

"What?! No!"

"Yes." You glare at him, demonstratively uncrossing and re-crossing your arms. "Do it. I command you."

"I'm not going to throw you at a bunch of crazy dangerous aliens!"

"They," you proclaim, "are weak! I demand their blood!"

Unfortunately for you, while you'd love to keep arguing (and reinforcing the persona you're trying to present here- being just obnoxious enough is a hard balancing act, but you think you got it down more or less), the situation is changing once again. In fact, you'd almost say it's going from ridiculous to downright stupid.

The Flaxans… Are aging rapidly, their skin shriveling up as its color fades, their bodies losing strength and even their weapons quickly growing useless. "What's going on?" Mark asks.

"They are experiencing the terror of facing me! The Night Queen!" It's not easy to make yourself look comically unimposing with a backdrop of utter, brutal violence like this, but you manage, stretching up your arms and 'accidentally' hitting Mark in the face as you do, though it doesn't really hurt him. "They're also aging really fast. Like, just look at them."

The Flaxans, whose name is still as of yet unknown to most other people around, promptly begin to run back into their portal, abandoning their weaponry wholesale.

… You really would've preferred to have eaten more of them.

MON, JAN 30, 2023 AT 10:30 AMNEW COMMENT47 CHAT

"Rex, stop hiding behind me," Atom Eve said, tone entirely exasperated. It wasn't like she hadn't just earned herself that much, at least- this fight was as gruesome as it had been exhausting.

"No way! Did you see what that little monster did to my family jewels? What if I'm never gonna have kids now?!"

The little girl they'd encountered on the scene of the invasion (because it was pretty obvious that was what it was, she didn't need Robot's fancy techy toys to figure that out) was standing in front of her, hands on her hips, and blowing a raspberry at him. "Can't take away what isn't there."

Normally, Eve may have been tempted to defend her boyfriend, but… those three giant bears, each with differently colored fur, were standing behind her, silently menacing at them. They probably wouldn't attack… but Rex could deal with this himself.

"Is everyone alright?" She asked, taking a step to the side and removing herself from that confrontation entirely. Rex screamed and started running, the girl calling herself 'Night Queen' (loudly and repeatedly, so it was probably her hero name) tight on his heels.

Robot stopped staring at the wreckage of one of those alien tank things, less turning around than rotating his body. It wasn't really quite in creepy territory, given he was a literal robot- stilted, somewhat unnatural body language was just kind of what everyone expected of him. "Most of the civilians that were present after we arrived made it out," his robo-voice said. "Dupli-Kate suffered a few scratches, but she will be fine in short order."

"I!" Rex shouted as he ran past, still followed by Night Queen, "Am! Wounded! Bad!"

"Hold still so I can de-gross your face! It'll only hurt a little at the start!"

"Please do not subject Rex Splode to any medical nor cosmetic interventions without consulting the rest of the team," Robot asked, being summarily ignored as the circus went on- straight over several puddles of blood, testament to them coming just a little too late.

Eve's hands tightened, but she said nothing. They were a local team of heroes, this kind of thing was way beyond their pay grade- where were the Guardians of the Globe? Normally they'd be the first on the scene of a disastrous attack like this, not some newbie still wet behind the ears and a delusional little girl, for all that Night Queen obviously saved their asses today.

She seriously doubted the Teen Team would've fared this well if it wasn't for those giant monster bears stemming the tide. Speaking of-

"Avast!" The girl in question shouted, sitting astride on one of the things. "We shall return to the Night Queen's Dread Castle, deep within the Swamps of Rot! And we do not accept any servants at this time, so stay begone!"

That last bit was said towards the new guy- his costume looked professionally made, at least, so he was a step above most new heroes they got. Wincing, he scratched the back of his head. "So, uh… Guess that's that?"

"More or less," she shrugged, being, like, way too used to this kind of thing. "I'm Atom Eve, how 'bout you?"

"Oh, uh, right. Introductions." Yeah, that awkwardness had her feel right at home. Teenage boys were hard to not recognize. "I'm invincible".


Well, while the amount of souls you obtained isn't exactly as high as you were hoping, you still get yourself a fairly solid idea of how these 'Flaxans' work… More or less.

Highly authoritarian and fairly militaristic by nature of their culture, their society is ordered into strict structures, though they do generally remain capable of thinking outside of them when needed; sadly, you can't just go, impersonate their ruler and tell the entire species to go kill itself.

Well, you can, but it's unlikely they would obey, even if it were you. You're good at talking people around because you find the levers that make them tick and pull them as needed, you can't just put on a bright enough smile and make people do whatever you want.

Things aren't ever quite that easy.

But back to the Flaxans; the noted absence of helmets of any kind in their uniforms seems rooted in a biological issue that evolved into a cultural one over time. The weird little feelers of rigid flesh sticking out of their heads are kind of sensitive, as these things are wont to be, and so covering them up with, say hats or the like, simply would be extremely uncomfortable for them.

Cue a couple thousand years of development as a species later and, just like that, it is considered shameful to be covering one's head, as doing so is equated with a variety of punishments for a variety of crimes throughout their history as a society. So they just… don't wear helmets, you suppose.

They do whatever they will, really. Not your problem if they'll never implement any kind of solution to this issue and just walk around with their braincases uncovered and easy targets for anyone with a gun.

The reason they decided to invade Earth was simple; their scientists figured out it was there. That's it, the existence of any other society that is possible to subjugate is all it take for them to do just that. Or at least the royal family is of this opinion and has kept to it for most of its existence, and, well, strict hierarchical structures and all that.

Not that the rest of these suckers is much different. Citizens either support the war effort or else pretend they do, or else. The suppression of subversive sentiments has been turned into a part of their very culture as well.

They also seem to enjoy a variety of generally strangely barbaric pastimes, such as keeping slaves, making them fight in gladiatorial combat, putting those they consider shameful into pillories in public spaces to let them be demeaned in public… All those kinds of things. Basically medieval things that don't really have any place in actually advanced societies, like the Flaxans demonstrably are.

Also, there seems to be a difference in the progression of relative time between their home dimension and this one, for they indeed did not simply create portals between wherever they are and Earth but rather crossed dimensions through technological means. Sadly, the ones you ate were all soldiers, as only makes sense, and so you only have some barebones rumors to work off of as to the specifics here.

… To be honest, you would be a lot more annoyed about that, if it weren't for the fact that, as you now know, the Flaxans absolutely will be back. They're too unreasonably proud and persistent to just accept a loss, so considering the relative time dilation…

They'll probably be back soon-ish. As you don't have exact data on this, you just have to guess, but it could be anywhere from within the week to sometime this month before the Flaxans finish their preparations for the next invasion. Which, really, suits you just fine.

In the meantime, though, you have a lot of work to do back at your base- which you have recently declared to be your Dread Castle, so you need to ensure it's worthy of the name. And surely there won't be any distractions, right?


When Alicia comes home, she does it to the sight of yourself greeting her, but contrary to conventional wisdom she isn't immediately in a great mood or anything as you hold open the door.

"… My cousin's dead."

Ah. Yeah. That.

… Who said nothing could possibly come up for at least half a day again?


For the record, you have spent most of the day, the time during which your teenage employer was gone elsewhere, working on your underground base proper, as you had been planning to. While it's certainly entirely viable to just leave things up to the Thinker and the robots she can deploy once she's done generating the requisite raw materials, you may as well help things along manually where it makes sense as well.

Specifically, you can keep the manufactories churning away without bothering to have them do anything other than assemble, de-assemble and re-assemble the same objects in increasing amounts by simply making Yoshi take over the actual assembly of things using his powers when summoned.

You don't usually bother but, well, it really does speed things up when you don't just have a dozen of the things working at the same time letting you just do whatever you want on an industrial basis anyways.

Thanks to that, you've managed to set up somewhat of a workable lab in a sealed side room, a small way away from where you're excavating a bit of a larger space for your 'real' villainous lair. By way of a bunch of robots, of course, in case that was in any question whatsoever.

It's not much compared to what you usually work with, 'merely' something you'd call a high-tech lab environment rather than the very much hyper-advanced devices and tools you usually have access to for these kinds of things, but it takes a bit to actually fabricate the magical alloys you use for that. You have to prioritize here, work with what you have and all that.

Now, as for the main matter at hand… The blood samples you took from the Guardians, still awaiting analysis. That whole alien invasion business may have delayed things a bit, but you still have work to do on this stuff.

Now, some of the blood samples? Completely normal and mundane. Darkwing, for example, is an entirely unremarkable adult male, aside from the levels of oxygen and assorted nutrients in his blood indicating an above-average level of fitness and general health. Dude was really taking care of himself, not that helped him any.

Like, as you understand it, he was basically a baseline human using a bunch of tech-y gadgets to fight crime- how the fuck was he in the same league as what you've seen of the other Guardians? Must've had one hell of an engineering team backing him up.

Green Ghost's DNA is, similarly, entirely human, and she is indeed related to Alicia when you use an errant hair of hers to compare (just to be sure). However, her blood itself does exhibit some very interesting irregularities, the very molecules making it up not behaving quite like they perhaps should.

Probably based on however her power worked, exactly. The Thinker suggests, and you concur, that it was 'probably magic'- it's nice when you have an easy explanation like that always at hand, isn't it?

The Immortal is the next one on your list of people with superpowers that don't really reflect on this level of biology. Like, as far as you can tell, his genome is actually different from the regular person, something that had you a little excited at first until the Thinker pointed out that it's still perfectly normal and expected when comparing it to naturally preserved samples from various precursors to modern man.

He's not unusual genetically speaking, just antiquated. Interesting on that level, but not really relevant to yourself- you're no DNA-historian, so you don't really give a fuck. Next!

Red Rush, completely mundane blood cells and DNA, except they all move at accelerated speeds, without the accompanying increase in decomposition rate you'd expect to be seeing. Again, no idea how it works, you put it on the list of things to do more research on later when you don't have anything else do to.

Which brings you to the really interesting samples. Aquarus was some kind of weird human-fish hybrid, in addition to his blatantly supernatural hydrokinesis, and you make a point of comparing his DNA to various species of fish. Sadly, you don't have the whole body available for dissection; though the Thinker can learn a lot just through analyzing DNA and extrapolating from that, doing so properly would take time given her lack of a massive computing framework, so it's not a priority quite yet.

Similar goes for Martian Man, who apparently was an exiled Martian. Capable of some amount of shapeshifting, his body doesn't actually have blood, but you went ahead and used some of the blood you actually controlled to scoop up a few pieces of his body… You think.

Like, there were a few scraps of him left stuck on Omni-Man, the Guardian's corpse less a coherent corpse and more a few strips of biological material left lying around where Omni-Man tore some actually important organ out of him during their fight, as you remember seeing through the latter's eyes.

Anyways, his ambiguous body structure aside, Martian Man certainly doesn't have many similarities with any terrestrial organism you've ever seen. Must've evolved in an entirely different environment, naturally- you do wonder if they have any closer research as to what Mars looks like here and how and why Martians are even a thing.

He could shapeshift quite a bit, so you're definitely putting a closer look at Martian physiology on your to-do list. Would be a cool thing to add to your own creations, or maybe you could even make some plasmid or tonic out of it?

Food for thought.

Now, as for War Woman's samples… pretty weird, obviously not quite human but close to the same and so on and so forth. You pledge 'magic' again, considering her purported physical capabilities.

The real tasty thing, of course, now that you've worked your way through the chaff and the rest, is none other than the blood you extracted from none other than Omni-Man, from where he was bleeding out of his face due to internal injuries. Considering his immense capabilities, the flight, the durability, the sheer speed and power, all came from his being a Viltrumite.

More aliens, yes, but pretty human-looking. More importantly, his very cells are unusually 'strong' for microscopic parts of an organism, surprisingly resistant as you conduct a few perfunctory tests. You heat them up, you cool them down, you submerge a small amount in acid, but nothing actually hurts the stuff.

DNA analysis comes back… inconclusive, to the point the Thinker has begun building and adjusting entirely new tools to just establish how exactly it works, given it's just entirely removed from any similarity with anything either of you have ever seen before.

And that's saying something with ADAM in the mix.

So… Yeah, that's pretty much how you spent your day, only to end up here and now, feeding Alicia a bunch of chocolate and ice cream as comfort food. She doesn't really show it in her body language, not in a way most people would recognize, but the news of her cousin's death is definitely hitting her hard.

She's also notably sparing with details about said death. She totally knows the woman was Green Ghost.


So the next thing on your list is to figure out the exact specifics of how death works in this dimension. Not… exactly because of Alicia, but ancillary to her whole business- the Guardians of the Globe are kind of dead, and there has been no announcement yet.

That tells you two things. One, whoever's in charge of their whole shtick is trying to mitigate damage while they're tackling the issues that come with them being gone. Two, they… probably don't exactly have a replacement for the big boy (and girl) superheroes.

If they did, they'd be rushing to roll out said replacements' PR as soon as possible, but you haven't exactly seen any signs of that. You could be wrong, but your intuition and experience as de facto HR manager for the Lord Street Crypts are agreeing that this is the most likely state of affairs.

Now, you haven't been around long, but you have a very decent idea of exactly how necessary the Guardians were. Heck, just earlier this morning, a random alien invasion happened, something that people on the internet agree should have been handled by the Guardians of the Globe, their absence being remarked upon!

One way or another, this version of humanity kind of needs its superheroes, simply because without them, natural disasters, hostile forces and creatures as well as good old supervillains would tear it limb from limb. Which puts it into kind of a bind without them.

Case in point, Omni-Man is secretly some kind of conquering alien invasion force himself, or at least your surmise as much from what thoughts of his you managed to listen in on before he murdered the Guardians. Sure would be nice if he hadn't just wiped out the, like, only real defense against him.

Cape dynamics! When just having a huge military force simply doesn't work against a threat that can shrug off rockets and then punch you so hard the friction makes your insides boil while the fist is passing through your body. Kind of necessitates an answer in kind.

So the possibility of, say, bringing the Guardians back to life is tempting, if only because it would let you buy the good graces of whatever powers that be that do not want to see humanity be destroyed, enslaved, horribly mutated or otherwise experience some exceedingly uncomfortable fate as a whole.

Of course it isn't quite that easy, however. It never is. As your demonic lawyer is more than happy to inform you!

First off, hell has access to this dimension. It isn't as hard to move between 'here' and several parts of it, though interactions are, as is apparently common, heavily colored by the 'nearest' layers of hell in particular. A steady stream of particularly egregious sinners enters hell through them, effectively acting as a source of wealth for a few powerful local demons.

Then there's also heaven. Yes, they do have one of those here, apparently; some angelic entities that, for one reason or another, settled down and decided to safeguard the souls of the locals are around, in natural rivalry with the demons that also want at any souls they can get in general.

Heaven is surprisingly territorial, for the record. You think. You are kind of going off of descriptions from a literal demon, after all, how much you can trust her to stay unbiased here is another question entirely.

That's not all for potential afterlives, however. Apparently, an incarnation or permutation of the Greek pantheon is also around, meaning that some souls may have been drawn somewhere else entirely, and actually retrieving them may be… complicated.

Which is a potential issue, as this means that even when using a Vita Chamber, which is normally a foolproof method of bringing the dead back to life as long as their soul is still around somewhere, may or may not work in all cases.

According to your 'sources', as long as the souls in question actively want it, it should at least be possible to establish contact with them in the case of any that were taken in by the 'heaven' connected to this dimension. Incidentally, this kind of arrangement is pretty rare, as angels are nigh impossible to find at all in this cosmic day and age, and the ones that are around rarely bother themselves with mortal souls.

At least it's not an issue you have to deal with on the regular. And no, you aren't at all pissed about them not being on Earth Bet to keep Reggie's soul intact until you could come to bring him back.


Calling up their souls themselves is the next step, or at least feeling them out a little. As long as you're prepared (and concentrating a bit), you can usually figure out if you can call a soul to your location at all, even if you don't actually want to do it yet- so figuring that out first is probably the smartest thing to do in this regard.

You're just going to blame magic for this one, you have no idea how the specifics work. As usual, really.

And, to your mild surprise, a good few of them generally feel 'doable'. Darkwing, Green Ghost and Red Rush are more or less available as per normal, your magical method of calling upon the souls of the deceased not detecting any issues with the prospect of working off of their cape names; normally you'd prefer to have some extra 'targeting' ready, knowing their names, their faces, their history and personality and all that to let you actually find the right soul, but not everyone is a Guardian of the Globe, so you can distinguish them from everyone else well enough.

War Woman is a big 'maybe'; something feels different with her, but not in an obstructive way. Best you can guess, she's in some other, non-standard afterlife, but still available for a call or two when needed. Good enough for you, you guess. Martian Man, on the other hand, is… extremely hard to target, for starters.

Like, his name is literally what it is, not much of an 'address' to speak of. If you're unlucky, you may just get any random male Martian when you try to call on him, unless you can get something that may help in that regard. His name, some details about him personally, maybe even his corpse and you'd be set to actually get the right guy.

Hopefully, anyways.

And this brings you to the last two. The real problem cases. Aquarus is very much a case of 'nope', wherever he is doesn't feel like it would let him go just like that, whereas the Immortal…

Well, you suppose he kind of does deserve the name after all. To your senses and your magic, a deceased soul that matches the parameters you are looking for simply does not exist, leaving a few possibilities- but you don't expect he somehow terminated his own soul the moment he died.

No, you believe he may still count as 'not quite dead' by some technicality, making him the potentially only survivor among the Guardians of the Globe. Hard to believe when he literally got his head chopped off by Nolan bitchslapping him, but hey, looks like he's got some serious magical resistance against death going on?

Good on him, you suppose. You'd need to inspect the body in some depth to know more, of course.


Okay, so while Alicia is just kind of passively sad, not unlike a kicked puppy just quietly sitting in a corner, she's not really in the mood for you to entertain (or 'entertain') her with your antics. Apparently, she really did love her cousin, huh?

Well, you just end up using the opportunity to go and establish a steady flow of a bit of the more volatile resources you tend to rely on. Yes, you do mean ADAM and FEV, of course, your favorite tools for doing completely safe, sane and consensual things to mother nature with.

Crimes. You are talking about crimes.

Of course you also do take additional precautions as you do so; there's all kinds of weird reality-warping shenanigans going on in this dimension, and so you feel the need to be extra sure none of the stuff ever escapes. The last thing you need is for some magical asshole to accidentally trip over his dick and right into a vat full of magical mutation juice, after all.

In case anything unforeseen happens, the chamber housing a bloated undead thing made of a couple hundred fused rat corpses (the sewers truly do provide nearly everything a man could want) generating will be subject to incineration, disintegration and flooding with industrial bleach and disinfectant, and in that order, the moment anything at all unusual happens inside of it.

Only a single one of these things usually isn't enough to actually kill ADAM- you tested it and all, but the stuff is just too dangerously capable of adjusting. That's how plasmids and tonics are made in the first place, interestingly, the substance rapidly mutating to fit into any environment it is in and going on to carry said mutations with it when introduced into a host, though you're making it sound way less complicated than it really is in practice.

You also do get a teleporter set up, the Thinker more or less improvising one based off of your usual designs. It doesn't have the kind of coverage you normally take for granted, but at least it'll let you move all across the city easily enough.

It's a convenience you still appreciate. Greatly, in fact. You will never again take freely available teleportation for granted.


Alicia is already in bed, having eaten her fill of comfort chocolate and needing some rest now more because she needs to rest her belly more than anything, so you leave her be for the moment, your babysitting duties duly fulfilled for the day.

… You may want to go and spend some extra time with her tomorrow. Like, she was pretty busy and later on despondent today, but that kind of thing may be an issue going forward, considering how closely you bound your 'civilian' identity to her already.

At any rate, lots of things to do, including some preparations you want to get done in light of your plans for this dimensions. Like, you don't want to actually fight Omni-Man, but just in case you end up doing just that, you may as well do it with every advantage you can get.

To that end, you are looking into crafting a little piece of 'fuck you' for just such an occasion, something that may just come in handy down the line considering the kinds of bullshit going around on this Earth. First thing you need is a symbol of protection, seeing as that's what you intend to use it for even if by generally malevolent means.

Curse magic being what it is. It's not like it's absolutely necessary to do it like this, but past experiments have shown that cultural signs of your intent can help guide and adjust what your curses do when used right.

Still more an art than an exact science, but you'll take what you can get. Which, in this case, consists of the Hamsa, a symbol of protection against malevolent intent and magic in many middle eastern areas, a stylized right hand with an eye symbol on its palm, generally speaking, poised to ward off evil.

Yes, the irony behind this symbolism is a big part of why you chose to use it.

The 'fingers' pointed up to be the actually warding version, as opposed to pointing down to bestow good luck and blessings in common modern interpretation, you will be crafting this little 'charm' you plan to imbue with some of your own magic tricks out of some mythril, as you actually did think to bring some samples of that particular metal with you.

Typical you, really. You didn't think to pack general samples of everything on the table of elements, but the magical metals you found in another dimension entirely? Of course you got some of those, just in case.

Ah well. Now you just need to settle on a design- probably the most difficult part of this process, if you are to be honest. You can have the manufactories take care of actually creating the shape you want, the only part you have to do is to program said shape in.


Warding Hamsa:

A 'protective' talisman crafted by Gabriel Livsey

Instead of warding off evil, as this kind of object is meant to do in the cultures it is wide-spread in, it curses any individuals that try to attack the wielder with horrible luck

Momentarily inflicts a -80 modifier to any actions made to attack the wearer as long as they are relatively nearby

This malus does not stack, but lasts for the entirety of a given turn in combat

Made out of finely forged mythril and infused with powerful magic. Enchanted through a combination of Cursed Effigy and Curse Person.


Well, it took a bit longer than you'd really been expecting, but after just a little bit of finalizing the design you ended up deciding on and some mildly satanic-looking rituals, you finally have the little pendant you wanted to craft done and tied to your pants, where it will hopefully stay in place inside your pocket without dangling about too much.

You even transformed one of your arms into a wing to pluck a feather, then used your own blood in addition to it as a combined catalyst. Handily, your blood, as it turns out, is actually kind of naturally cursed, which lets you do some funky things with it when you start to get really creative.

Or you can always just throw it at people and watch them suffer. Literally, that's one of the many, many experiments you conducted on Earth Rapture- many of the people that got any of your blood on them just threw up or went mad on the spot, interestingly. Watching and comparing results was one of the things bringing you great solace while you were hibernating the years away.

Anyways, project complete, you'll have to actually put it to the test eventually, see how it performs in practice… Though that does, naturally, require a few subjects, as these things are wont to do.

Eh, you'll just wait and see- you're trying to be careful here, but you honestly rate the chances pretty high that someone will be trying to fight you eventually, just because that always seems to happen to you anyways. Call it a statistical inevitability or whatever.

Ah well. Next off on the docket, you have some more research to do on that Viltrumite blood sample you managed to grab- and then you're looking to do some good old engineering. Robotics shall forever be a favorite pastime of yours, you guess.


"So," you say, addressing the person (or 'person', depending on how you view it) in the room with you now, "how's it feel? It's been a hot minute since you had your own bodies."

"It feels… different." The disaffected voice of the Thinker, formed much closer to a human voice yet still bearing a noticeable edge of dispassionate disconnection like she always does, her tone remaining robotic under all circumstances. "This one is more mechanical than I have gotten used to. And the costume seems… strange."

Shifting her robotic limbs, she takes a seat on one of the workbenches scattered along the walls of your new workshop, synthetic blonde hair falling down along her chest.

"It seemed fitting," you shrug, entirely unconcerned. If she didn't like it, she just wouldn't wear it, not like she's ever been shy about being naked around you before. "The limbs work?"

"Physical dexterity and maneuverability match expected levels. Combat testing recommended."

"That's unusual," you tilt your head. "Normally you just predict these kinds of things. When was the last time we actually bothered testing robots or robotic parts like this?"

"By subjective time as counted by my core processor, two years, nine months, twenty-three days-"

"It's been a while," you simply concur. "So why now?"

The Thinker pauses, looking at you from the corner of her eyes. "This unit predicts an above average chance of demand being met in this eventuality. Addendum: This unit demands a kiss every time it hits Gabriel Livsey."

You quirk an eyebrow, crossing your arms as you lean to the side (and subtly shift your weight to dodge just in case she decides not to wait). "If that's what you wanted, you could've just asked, you know?"

"Counter-argument: The Thinker and Gabriel Livsey are alone in this facility, and will continue to do so for some time," she says, setting her feet down on the ground as she approaches you. "You may be busy durin the day, but at night we can spend a lot of time together."

She almost sounds… wistful, or she would if she had any inflection in her voice, and while her robotic body's facial expression doesn't change either, one could mistake her body language for being just a little shy.

"So I want to enjoy it."

Well, that pretty much settles what you'll be doing then, doesn't it? "Alright, do we have- of course we already have a reinforced combat arena," you chuckle. "Well, what're we waiting for?"

Time to beat each other up as an expression of closeness. Not the weirdest thing you've done to cute girls like her.


Fighting your own creations to test them out isn't exactly new for you, but as you told the Thinker, it's been a while since you actually bothered to. Still, though neither of you really goes all out, you can at least confirm that the Thinker's entirely robotic body works as intended.

It's got manual dexterity far and beyond what human bodies could get up to while also being both faster and stronger than your 'normal' robot, using the humanoid Hammers as a baseline. Well, it is specialized in these regard, to be fair, capable of using weapons of all kinds but particularly meant to use a sword to fight things with.

Which it does, as you already concluded. Pretty well, too; you hold back and don't put in all that much effort, but all that means is the Thinker wins plenty of kisses off of you. And visibly improves her combat capabilities, refining the combat 'style' she is developing to suit this body.

And then, well, then come the bad news, now that you've established all of this. Simply put, Viltrumite samples are, as you suspect Viltrumites themselves are, insane and stupid. The blood you got continues to ignore just about most of your attempt at making it react to stuff meaningfully, even going so far as to bluntly ignore the ADAM sample you add to a small amount of Nolan's blood.

Amazingly, it seems this alien species may actually be immune to ADAM's effects and their consequences, which is actually kind of an issue considering you're trying to synthesize a tonic based off of their bullshit. That said, you aren't exactly beyond recourse entirely here- the ADAM, at least, is still doing something in this situation even if you have no idea what exactly, and you have a good couple dozen of experiments still to run on this stuff before you're done.

The Thinker assures you there is a way to do what you are trying to do here, and she is kind of an expert on this stuff in her own right, given she managed to accurately predict and control ADAM in the past. You'll just have to see what comes of your current set of samples; if need be, you can always see about having Nolan Grayson hit in the face hard enough to make him bleed, as the Guardians of the Globe proved was possible.

Incidentally, the Thinker also did mention something odd to you. Apparently, the water contains some unusual chemicals in this dimension, as she has run a few tests on the sewer water itself after having realized something was off through her magical predictive AI powers (not technically magical, but you like to pretend they are), and so you are now actually aware of it.

No idea what it does exactly, or what its intended purpose is. The Thinker says it's interacting with the human brain, somehow, but disappointingly it doesn't make people gay as far as she can figure out.

That's your first and only guess shot down right there, then. Too bad, you guess.


Yoshi, Nolac, Indigo and Julianne, the four souls making up the core of your internal science team, do not always get along the best, though the levels of interpersonal harmony amongst them are actually higher than you would've expected, for several reasons.

Among those is that while Nolac is a complete and utter monster, he slash she slash it also is capable of holding that part of themselves in, to the point the other three, while still wary, don't have to be outright hostile towards them all the time. Additionally, although the three former scientists are originally from this Academy City that apparently was a thing in some parallel Earth, their belief systems and morals aren't particularly divergent from one another, so they don't have particularly much to argue amongst themselves aside from the occasional difference in opinion.

Because Academy City's researchers sure as hell didn't always work like that. You've passively listened to Yoshi's ranting and raving about that often enough to pick that much up, if nothing else. Backstabbing, office politics (lab politics?), literal murder over preferred scientific approaches and pet theories and projects, the place had it all- not everywhere and on every level, but still, you somehow managed to snack on reincarnated researchers that actually gave a shit and cared about not being horrible pieces of shit.

All the more irony that they ended up enslaved to your will in particular, as you do not, in fact, give a shit, but that's just how it goes, you suppose.

Long story short, it's not unusual to see the quartet leading your science team discussing things together without any hair being pulled, but not that usual. In this case, they aren't arguing physically, at least. As in, nobody's pulling on Yoshi's ears for one.

"But if it is non-reactive with non-familiar enzymes and proteins, how can they crossbreed? We know at least one Viltrumite-human specimen," Yoshi argues, gesturing towards a close-up of the Viltrumite DNA samples you took; you remember looking at this specific one earlier, which explains where the image is from.

"Well how do you suggest they can function as a living organism while ignoring anything else? Viltrumite cells have to differentiate somehow," Indigo points out, her blue hair shifting as she gestures animatedly herself. "I remain no expert, but-"

"It's magic space fucker juice, ain't gotta explain it." As always, Nolac does not care about exact scientific explanations whatsoever. Turns out combining a mad sadistic genius and a mad artist created someone that views things as more of an art than a science more often than not. "Just accept it's what it is and think about how ta use it."

Almost immediately, Nolac and Indigo get into an argument, both of them standing to one side of Yoshi who acts as a 'neutral' border between them. You yourself and Julianne, for your part, remain seated behind them, quietly eating popcorn while you watch.

You have no idea how she got the Cook to keep her provided with the stuff, but she obviously gets enough shows like this for it to have been worth it.


"From one giant shit show to another."

Cecil Steadman was not a happy camper at the moment. Teleporting into Guardian HQ, he ignored the urge to grimace at the slaughterhouse someone had gone and turned it into- he'd seen worse, much worse, but knowing whose blood and guts decorated the place was still enough to have him grind his teeth if he didn't control himself.

And he needed to control himself. The Guardians were dead, Omni-Man was beaten halfway there somehow and as the 'Flaxan' invasion, according to that kid Robot, had proven, they needed the Guardians. Casualties had been kept relatively low, but that was just it, relatively.

Eighty-two people had died. It could have been worse, much worse, especially if it weren't for that crazy kid with the bears that'd shown up out of nowhere. But Cecil had people on that, A-listers like that were best kept track of sooner rather than later.

Especially when they apparently were mentally unstable like this one. Hard to tell whether it was some superhero (or villain) persona thing or not, and it didn't matter in the end as long as she didn't go nuts at the wrong time.

It galled him to watch literal kids in the line of fire like this, but better she was pointed at the aliens with a tendency for picking a fight with geriatrics than not. At least that way there were fewer casualties on their side.

Invincible was hopefully going to shape up after this. If things went to complete shit, well, having a miniature Omni-Man on hand may just save everyone's asses. If only Nolan would pull himself together, they'd have something to work with right now, at least.

No good news on the Guardians front, either. Cecil would be surprised if there was. "Give me some good news, Donald."

His subordinate looked at him through those mirrored glasses of his, the forensics teams at work hustling all over the place the Guardians of the Globe had died. "Ugh. Whoever did this cut the power and the backup. They killed the cameras and the security systems, forensics are, frankly, astonished. I told them to start over and try harder."

"That's not good news. That's not good news at all- I asked you for some good news, Donald!" Because if there was ever a time he could've needed them, now would be nice. As always, the world failed to provide.

Cecil crossed his arms. Right. Time to try something different. "Get the hell out. Everyone!"

Donald immediately sprung into action, once again proving why he had his job. "C'mon, you heard the director, move it!"

Five seconds later, the room was clear. Their people weren't paid for dawdling around, after all. "Hnnh." A deep, growling sound, from a throat that wasn't human. Obviously.

"Come on out. I know you're there." Donald raised his pistol, ready to fire on the first thing that moved without question, but Cecil pushed it down again. Good initiative, not the right time.

"Wasn't. Hiding." From one moment to the next, a hulking, large figure was in the room with them, all red skin and pointed ears. As he'd known there would be. A clawed hand reached out to tap a splatter of blood. Getting up, the inhuman man wearing a tan coat and a fedora kept going, back turned towards them.

"Sir, who the h-"

"Damian Darkblood, Demon Detective," Cecil explained before Donald had a fit. Or a heart attack.

"Hrnh." Obviously seeing something they didn't, Damian continued shuffling around. "Seven superheroes murdered. Strongest man on the planet almost dead. No suspects. No leads."

"How does he-"

"I don't know. Demon magic or something." Magic was not something Cecil was an expert in. It was also not something he trusted, but they were hard up for any better options at the moment. "If you're asking if we need your help-"

"Wasn't. Asking." Darkblood was behind them now, kneeling over the shattered remains of Green Ghost's amulet.

"Fine. Knock yourself out, oh Great Horned Holmes."

"Hhnh… Someone used magic here. Someone not part of the Guardians."

"… Oh, looks like we're getting somewhere already." And this was why you didn't give up until you exhausted all the means at your disposal. "Figure out who, what, how and where. The sooner we got a culprit, the sooner we can have a little talk with them."


It's a new day, a fresh new morning and a new set of issues for you to tackle. Because of course you still have a whole load of crap to deal with, if you didn't you'd be worried where the other shoe was waiting to drop on you at this point.

Honestly, the world may as well admit it's specifically trying to fight you, personally, and let go of those attempts at subtlety. Everything that happens, any events of real consequence on any real scale, it all revolves around you, in the end.

But your late-onset egomaniac megalomania aside, right now you have to keep your head in the game a little, seeing as you're entering Alicia's room once again. At the ass-crack of dawn, of course, because apparently that's around the time she usually gets up.

Except she isn't right now. Most curiously, the pure white space you are now inside of does not contain a chocolate-skinned beauty working up a sweat: instead you have sleepy one lying awake in her bed on your hands, her eyes turned toward the ceiling as she just lies there.

She doesn't react as you close the door behind yourself. You consider clearing your throat, but no, you don't think that matters right now. She's aware of your presence and to pretend she wasn't and needs the pointer to realize just wouldn't work for her, you think.

So instead you simply start talking. "I remember the times you used to get up and work out first thing in the morning like they were yesterday. Oh wait, that was yesterday. You have a habit of dropping habits or was that just for me?"

"… Hah." She actually looks at you now, shifting in her bed. For the record, yes, her bed sheets are white as well. "You wish."

"A guy can dream, can't he?" You come closer, promptly taking a seat on her bed, head turned to the side so you can watch her face. "But seriously, how're you doing?"

"… It's weird," she states, quietly tolerating the closeness of your body to hers. "My cousin, Alana, she… She always seemed so sure, so in the flow of things. It's like she wouldn't ever change, or like she could possibly ever die just like that, you know?"

"It's pretty much always like that," you tell her quietly. "You never expect the people close to you to die."

"Speaking from experience?"

"I am, yeah. A couple years ago, my brother died, I was nowhere near there, but… yeah. Figure I have a feel for what you're going through." Or at least you did for the few days it took you to get into a car accident and die yourself, following which your emotional spectrum shifted quite violently. Eh, even as a vampire you're still capable of empathising, if you bother trying.

"I see." Alicia sighs, closing her eyes as she shimmies closer to yourself; whether to seek comfort or to comfort you over the flash of genuine pain you allowed yourself to show at the mention of your brother you have no idea. "It sucks."

"That's life. It sucks 'til you die, then it goes on to suck for everyone else." You have experience on this one- Earth Bet didn't miraculously get better while you were dead and buried for a while there. "I think you just gotta try to make the best of it. Stay positive just out of spite, you know?"

"Not sure I always can. I'm not a very positive person," the girl you're here for jokes, bitter sarcasm in her voice. "… She was murdered, you know?"

"Oh?" How much is she willing to tell you here, you wonder?

"They didn't catch the murderer or anything. I wonder if they ever will, or…"

Ah, the uncertainty. The lack of closure. Who killed her, why, and how? Without knowing, of course Alicia would want to find out, even if she also realizes she's in no position to try to.

The issues of being sensible, huh?


You lean over her, giving the dark-skinned girl a wry smile. Then you lean in further, pulling her into a spontaneous hug.

"What if I told you," you whisper, "that I knew she was Green Ghost?"

Alicia goes rigid, but doesn't otherwise react.

"Or maybe if I told you that I know who killed her, along with the other Guardians of the Globe?"

"…" She shifts, glancing at you from the corner of her eyes. "Who are you?"

"I am the guy that signed a certain employment contract as Gabriel Livsey," you smile. "And that wasn't a lie. I don't do lies, you see."

"… But it wasn't everything, either," Alicia follows, brow furrowed. "So please answer the question, who is Gabriel Livsey?"

You feel a bit of mirth cooking up inside your chest, slowly letting it bubble up out of your throat and past a grinning mouth, a chuckle making its way into the open air. "Now that's the million dollar question, isn't it? Well, as I said, I know a lot about what's going on, more than most I'd wager. And I may just be interested in having you help me with this whole… dead Guardians situation."

"You got yourself hired here just before they died," she realizes, still lying motionlessly in your arms.

"I did. An amazing coincidence, actually." Slowly letting go of her, you look her in the eyes, letting her take in your smile. "I was actually looking to use this as a cover for my other activities, poke around a bit for anything interesting going on. I had no idea you were even related to Green Ghost until she was already dead and I was investigating everything surrounding that whole mess."

"Okay, so you're a supervillain and/or hero and you are somehow aware to Alana's death."

"More or less," you shrug. "To be precise, I was looking into Omni-Man using some of my amazing magical superpowers, just seeing if he may be a problem for me, where he's active, that kind of thing. Imagine my surprise when I picked up on his thought about how to ambush the Guardians."

Alicia twitches in place, calming her breathing before responding. "They said he was the only survivor, badly hurt. If he was the one that killed them-"

"Then everyone's in deep shit, considering there's an apparently hostile super-alien around that may or may not be a threat to the world at large, and he just took out his biggest opposition, yes," you complete the thought. "You are now aware why I brought this up."

"… It makes sense, in a way. Omni-Man was never a part of the Guardians himself, despite what many people think, and if there's anyone strong enough to take all of them on at once and win, it would be him." Poor girl looks like she might be hyperventilating, so you reach around to pat her back a little. "If he actually has a motive."

"Still not quite believing me?" You ask. To be fair to her, Omni-Man has been kind of a big thing for, what, a good couple years?

Around twenty, the Thinker lets you know.

"No. It makes too much sense. There are many supervillains all over the world that would love to see them dead, but the situation as I am aware of it does not fit that, at all. If I assume that you are correct, on the other hand… We need to warn the GDA."

There you go. Alicia's a smart girl, as she just proved in a couple sentences of analysis on everything she knows about this whole thing. "See, that's the issue. I have little real proof beyond a magical vision I had about Omni-Man and I doubt that's enough to actually convince anyone."

"You might be surprised about some people, but you're probably right." She chews her lip, thinking deeply. "Actually, a question."

"Shoot."

"Who're you in costume? I assume you would be a new face, but people's opinions may be influenced of what you're known for."

"Why, I'm glad you asked!" Grinning widely, you jump off her bed, spreading your arms dramatically as you begin shrinking down and changing gender in utmost haste, flesh and bone shifting smoothly to fit your other identity. "I! Am! The Night Queen!" You shout, your high voice triumphant and precocious at the same time.

And your arms waving around in the now way oversized clothes you're wearing, cloth flapping around a bit.

"… What."

"And all shall bow before the Nightly Eminence's splendor! Mwuahahaha!"

"… Ah. You are fucking with everyone that pays attention to this kind of thing."

"I have no idea what you are talking about. Also, you have failed to pay your cookie tax for this morning, so I assume you will be adding interest to your payment plan going forward."

Alicia's face, finally after all this work you've been pulling on her, cracks. A smile, that is, something like an aborted chuckle actually coming from her as well now. "Can I just order takeout for today instead and we'll call it even?"

"Mhm… The royal 'we' considers this acceptable tribute!"

"… I have to ask, is the 'Dread Castle' really a thing?"

"It is! So are the Swamps of Rot, though, so you probably don't want to actually be there. The sewers are really smelly, but I needed the space to build something proper to my standing as the monarch of sleepytimes!"

She half-snorts again, holding a hand in front of her mouth so you don't see her smile. "You're impossible."

"And!" You exclaim, rapidly growing back to your original size. "Hilarious. Besides, you don't actually know how old I really am."

Alicia freezes.

"I actually could be ten," you continue. "And a girl. You have no real way of finding out."


After a bit of further discussion, you are on one page with Alicia regarding one thing, if nothing else- right now, you have to be careful with what you do and whom you can trust. The information you hold is too volatile, and dangerous, to be thrown around at will, and especially not while Omni-Man is around.

That said, while she really does want to do something about that, such as contacting a trustworthy (according to her) member of the GDA, you can convince her to leave doing this for a moment, considering how shaky and untrustworthy any argument you made would be for the time being.

No, right now you have another issue entirely in the next Flaxan invasion that you happen to be aware is coming. Without the Guardians and Omni-Man continuing to be out of the picture for the time being, you kind of need to be ready to respond to that, as well as to put an end to the threat the Flaxans represent entirely at the next opportunity they offer you.

One threat at a time and all that. With any luck, you won't have to deal with both at once, here.

So with her aware of your plans for the immediate future, investigating further in an attempt to tackle the whole 'murdered Guardians' problem and preparing for a much more immediate threat on the horizon at the same time, you soon leave Alicia to her own devices, now that she is aware of a lot of the stuff going on in the background.

You do not mention your plans to, potentially, resurrect the dead in this case. Not for the moment, at least. That is yet another can of worms you are quite happy to keep kicking down the road for now.

Next off, you have some more science to do and some demons to summon! Not for any particular reason beyond you wanting to spice up your current pet project a little, but if you can get your Hamsa pendant to be actually helpful on the level you need, you don't see any reason not to make it work as much as it can…

Most, if not all, of your many victories up to this point are rooted in thorough preparation, even if you make them seem spontaneous, easy and simple in the moment. You're surprisingly diligent, now that you think about it, aren't you?


You've done it- you've successfully replicated the effects of the Plasmid, Gravity Well, you kept to use in combination with your Esper power, but with your Esper power alone. Not the whole part where you first create a semi-living piece of physics you can then throw, but, well, you can just point at something and boom, there you go, a Gravity Well is there.

It's amazing! And also slightly unwieldy until you get into the habit of using it properly. Just takes a bit of practice to let you execute the maneuver smoothly and on a moment's notice, what with the numerous calculations you have to run through on instinct to make it happen.

Then again, you now have figured out the mathematical formulation of miniaturized gravitational singularities, kind of. Or at least one kind thereof, same difference. This might just come in handy at some point, as well.

Anyways, you also take a moment to try out one of your many useful little tricks in a more directly pertinent matter here. Taking your Hamsa pendant out of your pocket, you rest it inside your palm, concentrating for a moment. "Reveal your future!"

As you are planning to keep this little trinket on you for the foreseeable future, you can more or less scan said future for what happens to it, specifically when and where its particular magical mechanisms may be triggered. Most of the things you pick up on are just movement as it stays tucked away amidst your clothes, but you just need to pay attention and…

Ah, there you go. A curse gets tripped by Flaxans, and repeatedly, sometime… Oh wow, the day after tomorrow. Only three days after that first invasion. The time dilation between their dimension and this one has to be really funky if their logistics can actually do this.

Well, you have a rough estimate of when they'll come back, then. While your tactile precognition isn't foolproof as such, it's fairly reliable as far as these things go, simply because few things really mess with it. The most pertinent of which would normally be your own actions- knowing the future inherently changes how it plays out and all that- but you sincerely doubt you'll be somehow changing the Flaxans' timetable anytime soon.

Like, you would, but you just don't have a way to access their dimension. Yet.

Now, about your Hamsa… "You haven't even been used once, but you already deserve a little power-up," you decide, talking aloud to the inanimate object. "Let's see what we can do…"

"Objection: I deserve more attention than the pendant," the Thinker points out from where she stands behind you, as always keeping nearby when you're messing around inside your workshop. "It already gets to stay inside your pants all day."

… You know what, true enough. "Is there anything you'd like, then?"

"There are a few things I would like. I suggest we start with a kiss."

Jeez, someone sure is clingy… Did she get annoyed when Alicia started cuddling up to you earlier?


Summoning demons would, in many cultures, probably be considered some form of taboo, given they are, universally, kind of really fucking evil, just with varying levels of subtlety about it depending on the individual.

Like, that's just how they are. If they had a secret heart of gold they wouldn't really be demons. There are some that are intelligent and personable enough to set the whole evil thing to the side and act like any other person when they want, just taking your own lawyer as an example, but ultimately, whether they're civilized, scheming bureaucrats or mindless, raging brutes the size of a skyscraper, demons want to make others suffer.

It's kind of their favorite pastime. The souls of the damned would be their national dish if hell was anything as limited as a 'nation'. Damnation and betrayal are kind of their 'thing', by and large.

All of this is true and yet, even you have to admit that what you are doing probably isn't quite the same thing as the version of 'demon summoning' most people would think of at first glance.

You're kind of bullying them, it's true.

"And this," you say, punching a hulking humanoid with flesh distorted in wildly unpredictable ways in the face as it lies before you, broken, only held up by your hand on its throat, "makes twenty. I think I have enough for now."

That's right, you're summoning various permutations of Tortured, then balling them up to fuse their essences together into a single whole you plan to feed to your Hamsa. This baby is going to be very good at what it does by the time you're done with it.


Addition to Warding Hamsa:

Attacks that, after all modifiers are applied, roll under 0 become critical failures, always resulting in harm to those that perform them. Said harm is often visceral and extremely painful, but rarely predictable.

The range for critical failure of attacks is increased from 1 to 3 (rolling a 'raw' 1-3 becomes a critical failure)


Night has fallen while you were working away inside your secret laboratory inside your secret lair secretly built inside a section of the sewers underneath the city, in great secret, but you don't really have to maintain as much of a cover as before, especially after you thralled Alicia earlier while the sun was still up and all.

Say what you want about her, but she does have a great poker face, so in case anyone wonders where you are exactly she can just claim she has you running some errand or something. You're technically there to do just that for her, so you doubt anyone will be too doubtful.

Now as for what exactly you're actually doing right now… Well, you've had the Thinker run analysis of the tissue samples you took from Martian Man, given the stuff literally comes from an extraterrestrial creature.

The guy's entire bodily composition wholly alien in a way you haven't yet seen, so of course you're curious. Heck, while he still has some equivalent of DNA as you know it, it's not actually made up of the same old four types of Nucleotides you usually take for granted, for a start.

Just saying, Martians are very much not something that you'd see developing in any ecosystem known to you. The entire set of biology they're made of is categorically different to anything on Earth.

This presents you with some challenges, of course. For one, you needed the Thinker's assistance to make any sense of what you can get out of the samples at all. For another, well, according to what you could dredge up about the physiology of Martian Man and the powers it effectively gave him, somehow Martians can just change the shape, elasticity and structure of their flesh to astonishing degrees.

You're not talking about shapeshifting the way you're used to thinking of it, of growing claws or fur or anything of the sort. No, it's more like they have exceedingly malleable bodies that can take various shapes to begin with and merely return to a sort of… humanoid resting form when not stretched into being otherwise.

There are limits, as there always are. But in most respects, Martians are basically made of rubber that can stretch around at will, capable of performing remarkable feats when required.

The same would, of course, not be easily implemented in any organism with discrete inner organs that need to be in place to perform their function, nor with any skeletal structure to speak of. There's simply so much more diverse and discrete variations of tissue, for one, and the list of issues in this regard goes on and on…

That said, you have been able to isolate a sort of interaction between some of the samples you took and some ADAM you (carefully) add to it. You don't have much tissue from the alien to work with here, but what you do have goes into figuring out if you can't use this stuff somehow.

Then come a few more catalyst additions to the equation, some electrical energy, some heat, some cold, some exotic radiation and other phenomena you happen to have access to… You (and your little team of researcher souls) basically add anything you figure may just make this mix work in a way that's useful to you.

What you're doing is basically science, or it would be if you had some test subjects to inject the results of your labors into to properly test what they do. You don't want to say it, but you kind of miss the functionally infinite human subjects you had on Earth Rapture.

But hey, the Thinker can just tell you what your concoctions would end up doing to a human being. That's almost as good. Just a little less science-y than it could be.

So you end up creating a sort of… Rubber Man Plasmid. It does requires active use, as far as your friendly neighborhood AI can tell you, but allows the user to perform some pretty nonstandard feats, such as moving through otherwise much too tight spaces or bouncing back from blunt impacts none the worse for wear.

And stretch out their limbs a bit. Maybe even use the rebound of their own movements to hit someone particularly hard. It's nothing too out there, but hey, new stuff is always welcome in your arsenal, far as you're concerned.


Rubber Man 1: Allows the user to spontaneously increase the elasticity of their body, such that they may shrug off blunt impacts (Damage Resistance 20 against them) and move through tighter openings than their frame would usually allow. Additionally, reach of melee attacks is increased and unarmed attacks are turned from 1d4 base damage to 1d8 base damage. Only active when channeled.


Shard of the Deeply Resentful x1 used

Modification to Warding Hamsa:

The range for critical failure of attacks is increased from 1 to 5 (rolling a 'raw' 1-5 becomes a critical failure)


Right. So before you do anything else, having more or less made the actual Plasmid, Gravity Well, redundant, you probably should replace it with another one while you're at it and working with ADAM already; you don't need the old one anymore, so in with the new and all that.

Injecting yourself with dubiously generated substances stemming from a selection of the finest rat carcasses a modern sewer system could produce that you then shoved into what amounts to a sci-fi oven for a few hours like it was the world's nastiest donut dough may be a questionable course of action to some, but they are not scientists like you are. Their opinions are irrelevant.

And speaking of, yes, you do in fact use a Plasmid that requires high temperatures to be created. The one, out of all the Plasmids whose production method you're aware of, that springs to mind first when you think of high temperatures, for that matter.

Incinerate! The most potent version of which needs to be 'baked' before being 'fried', according to Brigid's notes on this stuff. Hey, she's the expert, you aren't gonna argue with her about it.

Either way you jam (yet another) dosage of highly mutagenic magical cancer cells into your arm, enjoying the slight burn spreading through your veins for a moment.

"You know, this kind of superpower is probably the reason why people think there's a need to control superpowers somehow," you think to yourself before you casually blow up half your lab in a deafening rush of fire, turning delicate devices into molten slag in a single, spontaneous combustion that leads to an explosion afterwards, technically. "Imagine if everyone could just cause this kind of destruction on a whim. Good thing I'm so responsible with handing out superpowers."

"Indeed," the Thinker acknowledges, ignoring the cooling material next to you. "Combining ADAM with FEV was an ingenious solution to its practical application issues."

… Well, yeah, everything's better than turning entire societies into super-cancer-drug-addled madmen.


Okay, you got a… roundabout idea of what's going on in this dimension, and though things got just a tad bit more complicated than you'd been hoping pretty quickly, you haven't exactly forgotten your original motivation for coming to this dimension in the first place, so you may as well get that done while you have a break before the next Flaxan invasion.

If there's anything you really lucked out on so far, it's the fact you managed to snag some blood that was coming out of Omni-Man while he was unconscious after murdering his former coworkers in cold blood, back in the Guardians' base. And you maintain, by the way, that Utah is a terrible place to put anything of importance whatsoever, just for the record.

Just, it had to be pointed out. Why Utah, of all places? It's… Utah. You can't get more out of the way of actual civilization than that, except maybe in Florida or Alabama.

But yeah, getting blood samples from the man would be a… challenge most other times, you'd bet. Yes, punching him in the face repeatedly would be one option, you wager he'd have something to say about that and you aren't quite sure exactly how many times it would take you to get some fluid out of him.

No, lucking into some blood from the man saved you a lot of trouble. That said, while Viltrumite DNA is all kinds of weird and buggered, you definitely still do want to steal some of that strength for yourself… You know, just because you like being powerful and this is a way towards that.

In case it hasn't come up yet, your thirst for power is second only to your thirst for your sister, who is also your wife, your wives in general and your daughters. It's, uh, it's not at the top of your priority list as such, but still pretty far up there, you'd say.

So you want to further study Viltrumite DNA, except the crap doesn't make any sense and you don't want to make the Thinker spend months on figuring it out. Not when there's another option right in front of you and all that.

Yes, you talk about none other than Mark Grayson, Omni-Man's son and, as you understand it, some kind of human-Viltrumite hybrid. Your thoughts on the mere fact of this being possible aside, you've spent enough time just ranting about it as is, figuring out a bit more about how it is possible at all should bring you a lot closer to a viable route towards the outcome you desire, or so you hope.

Your desired outcome being yourself standing on the same level as Omni-Man in the physical 'how the fuck even' department, but you'll take anything that dopes you up a bit. You've never been all that picky about this stuff in the first place.

… It may also bother you how there's some species out there that's just naturally stronger than you are, physically speaking. Like, it's one thing if it's demons or other unnatural shit in general, it's not too surprising, but where does a man the size of yourself get off to just breaking physics to this extent?

Fucking assholes, those Viltrumites. They better learn their place and they better learn it fast before you get really creative about them…

But let's not get ahead of yourself, first you need some samples from one Mark Greyson. Hence why you're taking a look around the Greyson home, a nice single family house in some suburbs you don't particularly care about.

Naturally you do so in the form of a raven, the kind of which isn't too unusual in urban areas, because you're a fucking professional. Now, the boy will be out of the house soon, for school and all, whereas the mother hasn't been home ever since Omni-Man took a nap amidst the bodies he produced, as far as the Thinker has been able to ascertain, so…


… so you take a step back and shift course a bit as you circle across the sky above the house in question. Because as you see Mark's blood signature, hard to differentiate from any given human's, by the way, leave his home, you also can spy a few other blood signatures.

Not inside of there, of course, but on the other side of the street, a lot of people and sitting around, more than would normally live in one of these homes, and all clustered around one room, too.

This seems like a nice neighborhood, so you don't assume it's a bunch of hobos squatting together, to say the least.

Well, a quick transformation into a shadow of yourself later, you're carefully wiggling yourself inside through a window at the back of the house in question, soundlessly making your way inside.

You have an idea of what you'll find before you actually get to where the living people present in this location are, though, thanks to the quiet humming of computer equipment, audible to you even in this state thanks to your almost pointlessly acute hearing. These people obviously are operating a bunch of computers in there, to start with, and there's one reason as to why they would you can think of, right across the street.

"Alright, that's him gone. Anyone else want some coffee?"

"I'm 'porting back to the office, want me to grab donuts?"

… These government goons are always the same, whether they're working some office or spying on the family of superheroes in some darkened room, huh?


Okay, this is an obstacle, but it's not really enough to stop you from doing your thing either way, it just makes it a little more interesting how you get to the point you want. A little bit of difficulty to spice up your day and all that.

Now, you could of course just massacre everyone in sight, delete the recording as well as the recording equipment (from reality), but you feel like all that would do would be to paint a much bigger red flag all over everything that's about to go down than it really needs to. You are actually good at this whole stealth thing, okay?

Like, yes, sure, it still count a stealth if nobody is alive to see you and all that, but in this particular case you figure the government is a lot less likely to start pulling nukes on your ass if it knows less about your capabilities and all than the other way around.

You have to actually take this possibility into account, for once. What is it with every place other than Earth Bet being filled with people that have access to nuclear weaponry? Like, people are very stupid and irresponsible as a whole, this seems absolutely, insanely dangerous.

As Earth Fallout can confirm, if not in as many words.

But yeah, time to go and arrange a little distraction followed by you stepping into action proper. To do so, you first sneak up into the attic, still as a shadow and all, before you slowly grow out of the ground after you confirm that the dark space you're in now doesn't contain anything silly like motion sensors or laser tripwires or anything.

Then you clear your throat. "Any inside you will be distracted from work!"

With that, you let yourself 'fall' back into a two-dimensional plane, sliding back out of the attic now that you've laid down a quick curse over the building. Already, your curse is taking effect, causing the employees downstairs to stumble around as the one that brought coffee goes to the floor in an uncontrolled motion, spilling his load all over the place.

Talk about hostile work environments, heh.

With the people keeping an eye on everything busy for the moment, you make your way over and across the street, still twisting along the ground like the ominous silhouette you are. They won't be clumsy messes forever and all that.

… Well, the curse is going to let up in a couple days, at least. You didn't really put all that much juice behind that one, it's just meant to be a quick distraction and all that.

You infiltrate the Grayson home swiftly and easily, no particular defenses keeping you or anyone else for that matter out. Not even any really serious normal alarms against intruders or anything beyond the basics you spot as you slide in through a window.

It's almost a bit disappointing. What, did they think nobody in the know was ever going to be stupid enough to try anything in Omni-Man's home? Or any serious threats that figure they could actually get away with it, like in your case. Really, they could've at least put in some motion sensors, you know a couple systems back on Earth Bet that work just fine on that basis.

Alas, you have some snooping to do. More precisely, you have some snooping to do in a teenage boy's room, once you find-

Is that a toy robot you spy on the ground through a crack in the door?


The Graysons have a nice place, you have to say. Nice housing unit, nice garden someone is obviously taking care of, everything's the kind of cleaned-up and put-together you don't see outside of homes where someone actively cleans up and keeps everything where it' supposed to be.

Personally, you kind of rely on several robots to clean up after yourself, for the most part, but hey, however they keep each other from cluttering up the ground, good on them. Though you do have to point out that they don't have many fresh ingredients in the fridge nor freezer- ah, but they have ready-made dinners with a post-it note telling Mark to heat them up when he's hungry, signed by his mom.

How cute. She's off looking after Omni-Man, but she did still ensure he'd have something other than takeout to eat in the meantime. Honestly, that's much better than, like, ninety percent of parents you've ever personally come into contact with, you think.

Rough estimate. Do your own parents count thrice, once each for each kid they had? …Then again, better not think about this too much.

Anyways, you stray off into the bathrooms you find briefly (and yeah, they have two bathrooms in here, which is basically a necessity in some family constellations, you think), but you aren't about to sort the various hairs you can can pull from the drains in there because screw that. You do, however, take a couple samples from a comb you find in one, may as well get some DNA from the wife.

Is Viltrumite hair just as resilient as the rest of their bodies? Probably so, come to think of it, else Omni-Man would probably have gone bald by now.

Anyways, hair found in Mark Grayson's room is a check, beds usually have a few shed hairs at minimum and once again you are not disappointed as you rifle around really quick, only momentarily manifesting an arm to collect everything you want.

And with that, you're done. Time to skedaddle while they're (hopefully) still mopping up the coffee on the other side of the street.


Alright, so using your hard-fought samples and the selection of devices the Thinker has put together during your absence and previous work with her to analyze them properly, you sit down and get started on doing just that, trying to figure out through whatever unholy mess it is that Viltrumite DNA even functions.

Having these samples from both Omni-Man and his half-human son, you can finally make some actual headway with this, at least. "Okay, so we know there's some human DNA in the boy, and we know the Viltrumite… stuff somehow intersects with it," you summarize, gesturing at your holographic screen currently showing a side by side comparison. "Can we extrapolate from this to this?"

Honestly, the Viltrumite genetics are entirely unlike almost anything else you've ever seen, though you'd bet your perfect abs they have to have been artificially modified at some point a couple generations back, at most. Natural selection would, presumably, still have been a thing on whatever alien planet they developed on, but you don't see how any reasonable species would need the kind of physical capabilities these creatures exhibit… And any environment that would require them to develop them would preclude civilization and human-adjacent looks in general in the first place.

Not to mention way less 'spaghetti code' than you'd see just about anywhere else. Like, you're pretty sure the Thinker could confirm that even Martian Man's equivalent to DNA had it, that useless background DNA that doesn't actively do much of anything most times.

And then there's the whole 'crossbreed with everything' bit. Which, you cannot repeat this enough, is insane, stupid and stupidly insane. Whoever put this into the Viltrumite genome, they did a great job and you'd love to congratulate them in person.

"Analysis ongoing. Eighteen percent complete," the Thinker announces. You're pretty sure she just loves playing to the whole 'robotic AI' theme she's got going on.

"So we are getting somewhere," you smile, looking at how Viltrumite and human DNA intersect with each other in Mark Grayson's genetics. "Now how can-"

The Thinker, still telepathically connected to you as she is at all times, beams her brute-forced understanding of what works how directly into your mind, allowing you to take part in the process yourself and lend your own thought process to doing so.

And, indeed, you immediately begin to recognize the patterns you knew had to be there all along. In your mind-meld, things rapidly, almost violently, become clear.

And just like that, you begin to work, robotic digits apportioning some of the hair you took as your claws begin to type, sending pre-treated ADAM boiling and defining your next steps already.

You finally see. You finally understand. This is what's so great about sharing your cognition with minds that are far beyond your own capability, even if you fully realize the Thinker considers your own mind just as labyrinthian and wondrous as you consider hers expansive and intense.

Now here's what amounts to chromosomes, here are the superpowers… And here are the things you need to copy.

You may not be able to just perfectly replicate all of a Viltrumite's abilities, but if you get this right, if you can use ADAM to overwrite what's already there…

You may not be able to make anyone as strong as the real article. But if you inject a reasonable approximation of the right pseudo-eldritch genetics, especially in something that is already overwhelmingly powerful like yourself, you truly will be invincible.

(Note that CupOfHappy used a token to juice this one up, too, increasing initial bonuses and adding some minor bits)

Viltrumite (X): Tonic that grants physical capabilities rooted in Viltrumite biology, aka 'Smart Atoms' that work on a molecular level inside the user's body

Increases bonus to physical rolls by 20. This bonus may incrementally rise with time and intense use, such as through combat in particular, to up to 250.

This bonus also applies to rolls to resist diseases and parasitic infections of all kinds

One tenth, rounded down, of this bonus is also applied as extra base damage to all physical melee attacks, extra Natural Armor and Regeneration (per hour)

This enhanced strength comes with minor kinesis in the creation of leverage to let it be applied effectively whether in flight or otherwise.

Living beings' life spans are increased to a minimum of approximately 1200 standard years.

You are unveiling the secrets of the universe! You can make biology ignore the laws of physics wholly and entirely, far and beyond anything seen before!

Also, the Thinker thinks you're being over-dramatic, but in a fond way, so hey, fine with you.


Some maniacal laughter may ensue as you find a new way to make physics cry in the corner, because that's just what you do and can't resist doing when given half a chance; the same, of course, goes for injecting questionable substances you may or may not have synthesized out of very questionable semi-biological cancer juice and alien DNA.

Insofar as you swiftly jab that bad boy straight into your damn jugular once you're done sciencing the hell out of it. And you see the expected increase in physical capability straight away- it's small, but noticeable, and you expect it to increase over time just like the original article's strength would.

All credit goes to the Viltrumite genome, of course. You couldn't have done it without it. Finally, the species is good for something.

Sadly, you haven't been able to just steal the full deal of insane abilities they have by birth, theoretically; no flight, for example, and it's just not quite as much of a strength increase as they would have normally. But what you do get is still considerable, strength, durability, the power to just apply that strength through spontaneously, self-created leverage, some enhanced healing that makes it possible to recover from most wounds with time (if you couldn't do that already anyway), all the good stuff.

Now all you have to do is to wipe out all actual Viltrumites and you will- ah, no, wait, that's a cheap comic villain kind of motivation for your actions. Stupid, in other words. You probably shouldn't go down that particular rabbit hole when you have enough of those to go down yourself already.

No, you'll just eradicate any Viltrumites that make themselves an issue for yourself. Much saner and more manageable stance to take.

Anyway, enough about that, the word 'Viltrumite' is already starting to lose all meaning to you with how often you are thinking it. Instead, back to more directly relevant concerns, such as your current predicament on this particular Earth.

Technically, you got what you were after when you came to this dimension, now. You could leave and you'd call it a complete win right there, maybe come back after you've brewed up a few more specific responses to certain issues, such as the mustache-d menace calling itself Omni-Man flying around the atmosphere, but on the other hand…

Well hey, you're here already, may as well make the best of it. You also still look forward to trying your hand at counter-invading those Flaxans you know are coming, so…

Well, screw it, you'll just have to figure things out. Not to mention the additional time will help your brand new Viltrumite genetics get going properly before you get back home and all that.

Speaking of which, you are aware of the GDA and some of its operations, an agency for the record has done what any government agency that tries to stay under the radar should and just put its credentials and all that freely out on the internet, on the government's official sites and all, just heavily redacted and rephrased to sound as boring and inconsequential as possible.

Good job on their part, that. If it wasn't for the Thinker, you'd never have actually suspected a thing.

Still, you don't really know how these guys operate, nor how you should deal with them in the eventuality of you rubbing elbows with them. They do seem to be the guys that are responsible for the world not spontaneously ending in a fiery cataclysm every other Tuesday, rather than some equivalency of the PRT, at least, so that's one thing in their favor.

It's hard to be a government agency that fails more successfully at its job than the PRT, after all.

Luckily, you have reason to believe someone very close to you may be able to lend some insight in this regard. Long story short, this is how and why you end up sitting on Alicia's bed, the girl it belongs to sitting on your lap as you slowly brush her hair.

She does like it a lot, going by the fidgeting going on out front. However, you do have some questions to ask.

"So, hypothetically, if the GDA were aware of Night Queen the Great and Terrible, would they want to dissect her?"

"… What brought this on?"

"Just going down my checklist of reasons not to work with the authorities."

"You probably should."

"Huh." You draw her into a light hug, just to feel her fluttering for a moment. "I'll take that under advisement, but tell me more anyway."


So… The Global Defense Agency, going by what Alicia can tell you, is actually, surprisingly, not a shit show of epic proportions. Somehow, someone somewhere managed to have a government agency with pretty much sole access to a wide variety of highly valuable and dangerous information, technology and authority over the super-powered going-ons all over the world, or at least most of it, and it isn't a massive cesspool of corruption and dubious dealings that end up a big negative for humanity as a whole.

Surprising, yes. Like, you were thinking something had to be off about this dimension for a while now, but it turns out your earlier musings about the government's lack of shittery may actually be on point. You'd never have expected as much, really.

But yes, the GDA generally has its shit together, as best you can tell. Your chocolate-skinned employer may not be rubbing shoulders with any of them on the regular, but as she is related to one of the Guardians, who work with it very closely, she has, on occasion, met their people.

Even, she tells you, the head of the organization itself, once or twice. Cecil Stedman, as he introduced himself, a name that doesn't ring any bells with you and very much shouldn't, given his job. He'd be a shit leader of a covert government agency if just anyone knew who he was, you figure.

Now you know his name, though, which does give you some… options. Not too many with just a name, but still, it's a step in the right direction, you figure.

However, as you question Alicia about the matter, another possibility occurs to you, one that would have seemed strange under most circumstances. What if, instead of demonstrating your overwhelming power to get the government to stay out of your damn business, you somehow got into contact with the GDA and cooperated with it?

It's not like your own goals are terribly opposed to its purpose, after all, and you have been considering a few quick and dirty resurrections from the dead, given the samples of blood and tissue you were able to take. Also, with Omni-Man having killed the Guardians and all that, it's not like the GDA has terribly many alternatives to whatever deal you end up making with it when it comes to not being demolished by an angry… Viltrumite, if you got Nolan Greyson's thoughts correctly while watching through his eyes.

Your capacity to bring the Guardians of the Globe back to life is just that valuable- and, if you are to be honest, you'd much prefer to leave actually fighting the guy up to them yourself, in case it suddenly becomes a case of 'Omni-Man genocides Earth'. No idea how likely that is exactly, but better not to find out, yeah?


The intricacies of the manipulation, utilization and proper storage of souls are, one could very much argue, surprisingly important to your daily work, much more so than you would have expected before you gained the requisite capabilities. Well, not daily as such, but you imagine it would be pretty dang embarrassing to, for some reason, 'misplace' the souls of the Guardians of the Globe while you work with them.

Like, believe it or not, but you're kind of a professional when it comes to the handling of souls. Sure, most of said handling involves you treating them like the meal packages they are to you, but still; you're at least kind of invested in not fucking around with them, whether they're food or potential bargaining chips.

Now, experiments are another matter entirely, but you doubt the GDA people would like it if Night Queen proudly announced she stuck demon junk into the Guardians before bringing them back to life just to see what would happen. It would be hilarious, yes, but also counter-productive enough you won't do it.

Unless you have a good excuse, anyways. Then all bets are off.

This is why you are busy working away inside a separate magic laboratory of sorts built into your other facilities down in the sewers for a good part of the night, seeking new and improved ways to safely store and maintain a soul where you can properly make use of it- without any chances for… mishaps. Or, for that matter, interference on the account of whatever deities or other supernatural entities that may be hanging around this place.

With your progress decent and the ways in which the literal reality manipulation you are capable of, if only in specific ways still, you have already discovered several-

"Thinker," you say, looking down at your lap where you see a blonde, uncannily human robot head poking out between your legs. "What are you doing?"

"A phenomenon of increased cognitive ability regarding the individual known as Gabriel Livsey is known," she tells you, opening the zipper of your pants. "Replication is in progress. Please hold."

"Ah crap, Kate put you up to this, didn't she?" And, as the head of your cock is swallowed by way too soft and perfect lips, literally designed to be perfectly pleasurable by your own hand, you can't help but groan. "This is going to be either brilliant or distracting. Probably both."

The Thinker doesn't answer, her synthetic tongue already swirling around your shaft as she rapidly works her way into deepthroating you properly, but you can feel her amusement anyways.

Great. Guess you'll have something fun to do while you work, at least. For the next six hours or so. You were planning to spend a while in here.


Rubber Man 2: Increases Damage Resistance (Blunt) to 25, unarmed melee damage to 1d10 and reach to the equivalent of a whip. Also grants 10 max HP while active as the user's body becomes rubbery and harder to damage in general, internal organs included.

Rubber Man 3: Increases Damage Resistance (Blunt) to 30, unarmed melee damage to 1d12 and max HP bonus to 15 while active. The user may use their own body as a flexible rope or similar that wraps around enemies, allowing them to initiate a grapple at range with a bonus of 30 to their own physical rolls to bind the target.


Your literary genius does, as always, know no bounds, and so you end up keeping up some work on the sequel of your first real book in the idle hours of your inner world's fucked-up little cycling and recycling of time.

Seriously, you're unsure exactly how long it's been in here compared to the progression of time outside of this place. Like, if there's one thing you are sure of it is that it's been a good while longer than what you've been experiencing, but time progressing in fits and bursts between varying levels of slower rates it tends to take on makes it actually pretty hard to tell.

According to Yoshi, it's been several years for every year you've been doing other things by now, drawing on the automatic display of these things offered by the Clocktower you have in here, but you don't really care about it that much so… Whatever, really.

But back to more important matters, your writing. The daring protagonist, having figured out the exact schedule of usual, daily life in captivity and, more to the point, of his captors, has hatched a plan to escape involving some lube, a plank of wood he's managed to hide away under the bed he spends most of his time on being ridden like an especially heavily vibrating motorcycle and a fall from a window that he just barely manages to get through without spraining his ankle.

Next he's running like the devil himself was after him, considering the vampire and the werewolf that ended up capturing and 'sharing' him aren't going to give him up without a fight, which involves him avoiding his friends and family for the time being and instead stowing away on the nearest train out of town, consequences be damned.

You think you'll call this chapter 'Ride to Freedom' or something. Just descriptive enough to give away that yeah, he gets out, but not too much otherwise. Oh, and afterward you'll close with an interlude from the girls' perspective as they figure out their 'professional' boytoy is gone and they immediately try to find him.

Always nice when the words flow properly.


Funnily enough, Alicia, though she rarely emotes all that much, if in a surprisingly different way from, say, Okita, is still heavily invested in the whole 'saving the world and possibly bringing her cousin's murderer to justice' affair you currently have going on, so much so she's readily available for you to plan things out with whenever she's around.

And she's been staying home for a few days already. You think she may be using her cousin's death as an excuse to ignore school for a couple days, actually, or else she's just playing hooky in general. Not that you care either way, school sucks and she hardly needs it.

What this means is that you do a lot of planning and general organization in the white void of her room, these days. Honestly, you're pretty sure most people would get really disoriented from this whole color scheme thing Alicia's got going on and she may or may not find it soothing because she isn't exactly neurotypical herself, but it's hardly an issue for you, so whatever.

Vampiric mental modifications for the win, as usual.

"So you could get someone on the phone, issue is we have no idea who."

Alicia nods, solemnly chewing one of the brownies you made before you came to feed her with. Girl needs some sugar in her life, just saying. "I shouldn't technically know it, but there's an emergency number. Just in case."

"Well, it's better than nothing," you shrug. "I'll be trying to get in touch after I take care of the Flaxan situation, but I'd prefer not to draw you into things directly- would this number being called be connected to you?"

"… Probably, yeah," she admits, guiltily reaching out for another brownie. You can make enough to feed a small army, so she really doesn't need to be worried- you stuck a bunch of this batch in vacuum storage just in case she wants more, even. "But how else will Night Queen establish contact?"

"I have a couple ideas," you smile, stretching and leaning back, with your hands behind your head. Her eyes are all over you as you do. "For starters, you did meet their director, Stedman, was it? If you can describe him accurately enough, I may just be able to pull something with a bit of magic mojo in the mix. Hopefully, anyways."

"Mhm. He's got a big scar over the right side of his face, below the cheekbone, and he always wears a suit, he's always serious and most of his hair is gone. I suspect it may be the stress..."

You settle in to listen. This is going to be… interesting.


Cecil Stedman was on his fifteenth coffee for the day before twelve, having to wrangle the biggest concentration of emergencies since the founding of the agency he led, for better or worse, and the killer of the Guardians was still, several days after the murders, somewhere out there.

To say he was having a shit day was to imply he wasn't having a shit week. Because if there was one way to sum up his experiences since Monday, that was it.

He also, although he'd never tell anyone, massively enjoyed ordering rooms cleared out whenever Darkblood showed up. Maybe next time someone was going to notice the Guardians going dark sooner than, what, eight hours?

Either way the great dark detective was racing them with his presence once again. Not like it was hard to recognize the signs, Cecil's breath wafting off in small puffs of mist every time he exhaled.

Once everyone was out, he looked up at the big screen, the current hostage situation they were working on already brought under control by a quick response team in the absence of the heroes they would usually entrust these things to. At least the contingency plans weren't being wasted.

"Well? Enlighten me. What do you have?"

"Hrn. Analyzed traces. Only magic from outside was affecting Omni-Man."

"Did it manipulate him, somehow? Compel him?" There weren't many things that could take the Guardians in a fight, surprise or no surprise. Omni-Man fit the bill, and if a villain were to manipulate him into attacking them, well, there were few of them that wouldn't love to take them out somehow.

"No," Damien growled, Cecil's hopes and dreams dashed once again. Why were things never as simple and straightforward as magical mind control in this business? "Faint, but nothing like that. It was used to observe. The blood was manipulated later. Likely related, nothing sure."

"So we don't necessarily have a perp, but we do have a witness," he summed it up, thoughts racing. If someone was watching, they would be-

"And they are here, too." Darkblood reached out, clawed, red hand going for Cecil, and it took a conscious effort not to put three bullets in him before he completed the motion of touching his forehead-

Alright, so this took a bit to tune correctly, but you have gained lots of interesting information! One, Cecil Stedman is indeed the right address, the one you were looking for when you started casting and fishing for the person you were looking for.

Two, the GDA apparently retains the services of a demon, which is honestly surprisingly sensible. You would do the same, if you felt the need to get a few extra hands for miscellaneous work. Three, said demon, Damien Darkblood if you got that right, is both capable of somehow sensing your magic when cast or afterwards, a well as interfering with it in some capacity.

Which. Uh… Kind of a snag, that, but nothing too bad. And he obviously can't just go and trace it all the way back to yourself, otherwise you'd imagine you'd already have some visitors asking a few questions by now. Cecil doesn't exactly seem to have all the time in the world, here.

So! Your little bit of spying was, apparently, interrupted by an overweight-looking demon detective in a literal coat and fedora, but you more or less got what you wanted- though you'd have preferred to have gotten some more time in Cecil's head, of course. The GDA is aware that you peeked through Omni-Man while he murdered the Guardians, but they don't know who you are exactly, nor whether you're even the same person that then stole the blood samples later on.

All in all, that's not all that bad. And…

You have a demon, and you have a name. Now if someone were to put him back into hell, you would have everything you'd need to summon him, more or less, which is one more possibility at your disposal now. And more importantly, you are aware of the GDA's current state of affairs, more or less.

Someone would, indeed, do a lot to get the Guardians back. The only question, now, is how to frame this entire thing… Something to deal with properly after you've done the Flaxan thing, as you were planning.

You can let the demon sniff around for a day or two if it took him this long to even be sure of what he just told Cecil.


"How are you going to stop the Flaxans? If they'll come back, and with that time dilation…"

"I just have to go through one of those portals and make it clear that it isn't worth it to try and fuck around, because they will find out."

"… Can't you just, make it impossible for them to make portals?"

"Not sure how, really," you admit with a shrug. "They're an interstellar empire with delusions of becoming interdimensional as well. I'd need to literally genocide their entire species to make sure they wouldn't come back a month or two later."

"So you will do something horrible on the planet they use as a staging ground," Alicia reasons.

"Several horrible things, really," you muse.

"… I feel like I should oppose this plan of action."

"But…?"

"But they are the ones that will keep coming and killing civilians unless stopped. So just do what you have to."

"I always do, don't worry. Some more brownies?"

"… What did you put in these?"

Nothing but the usual ingredients and lots of love and care. That is the secret to baking.


Merrily having completed most preparations you were planning on taking care of before the invasion later today (your magical glimpse into the future to ascertain the Flaxans would come wasn't, like, super precise on the timing, but you're pretty sure it'll be sometime towards the evening, so you have some leeway left until then), you currently find yourself deep inside your secret lair, the latest efforts towards expanding it leading to your current location.

Specifically, it's kind of a power testing range. Not quite the same level as what you had in some of your other bases before, but perfectly good enough to let you figure out a few things about the current state of your physical capabilities, which incidentally is what you are currently after.

See, you are pretty strong, when you want to be; your undead physiology in itself lends itself towards this, but so do the tonics you took to supplement it, the ADAM cells involved changing the configuration and capabilities of your body to no small degree, then there's the Viltrumite tonic you made and promptly added, your aura, letting you directly empower yourself in various ways including in matters of punching things…

You've been making yourself stronger in very direct ways, is what you're saying. Question is, how strong exactly? Like, you can modulate your strength pretty well at the lower ranges of these things, pick up soda cans without crumpling them up, turn doorknobs, shake hands, all that good stuff without unnecessary collateral damage. On the other hand, though, the more force you try to exert, the harder it becomes to precisely control it.

It's not really a huge problem; when you go all-out, you're moving so quickly and punching so hard chances are you're trying to destroy things to begin with, after all. Still, it has also made it kind of an idle consideration of yours exactly how strong you are dependent on what abilities, powers and other bullshit you're putting into things.

Hence here you are, topless, looking at a big machine the Thinker put together meant to let you gauge these kinds of things. Why exactly its entire front is decorated with a big, red cross you aren't entirely sure, but she probably meant for you to know where to punch.

Which is what you do, with just a little space between yourself at the machine for good measure. And all your enhancements going at full blast, just to let you see how it works out. One foot back, taking the appropriate stance, fists raised and all, you push off the ground, your whole body twisting with the force you exert.

You feel something give way along your fist as you forcefully stretch your arm, then a repeat of the same feeling- ah, you just broke the sound barrier, you think, judging by the things your ears are telling you are going on. Neat.

You near the target, arriving at your maximum intended velocity. You watch, eyes taking in the shape of your knuckles as they fly forth, cutting through the air like a whip or a blade would. The sound is actually kind of funny, you think to yourself.

Your fist impacts the target. A loud, ringing, gong-like sound goes out, and it feels like the earth is shaking beneath your feet, though that's probably just yourself. You have successfully performed a basic punch, not unlike a kickboxer's or similar, though heavily adapted to suit yourself and your style a little better, considering the changed requirements for these things when you factor in superstrength, superspeed and general superhuman capabilities used against equally superhuman foes.

It's not that different when it comes to just punching correctly without breaking your own body, but you definitely have to be more careful about managing and dispersing force and all that, even when you're undead, with a very different sense of pain and the ability to just regenerate damage.

Being able to just regenerate things away is no excuse for fucking up these basics. It reeks of incompetence and isn't exactly constructive in the middle of a fight.

As you return back to a basic stance, arms relaxing a fraction and drawing back closer to your body, you nod in satisfaction. This was a good punch. You like it.

Now to repeat the same a few times, then suppress your aura and try again to compare. Oh, and then there's your flash stepping thing where you temporarily ignore the laws of physics just by moving, which will require separate measurements. You'll probably be at this for a while.


Over the course of your testing session turned impromptu training session, you quickly come to realize that, while you already knew you were pretty strong, you're actually, like, way stronger than you were thinking. It's one thing when you're just moving around and punching and kicking normally, but you actually have a lot additional enhancements to what's 'normal' for yourself.

Which, when used appropriately, let you do very silly things. Things like punching so hard, down in your secret Dread Castle, that the vibrations you cause, even through the layers of cushioning and dampeners applied to your testing site, register as a small earthquake in the city up above.

Like, a very minor one, to the point nobody not actively watching a seismograph notices, you're pretty sure, but still.

Things are especially dicey when you start to really put your back into thing and burn through some of the blood you always keep yourself fed with to really lay into your target machine. Turns out that, as long as you have the sustenance to burn, your basic, vampiric undead physiology can produce ridiculous mounts of force… That is then, of course, further amplified by your aura, Last Embrace essentially acting as a pair of rockets attached to your arms and every bit of strength and leverage you can effect otherwise, Tonics included.

You know what, potentially squaring up to Omni-Man is back on the table again. Not, like, the way you'd prefer to deal with him, but you think you may just be able to get in a couple surprise hits faster and better than he would be able to deal with.

Sadly, you can't really test your advanced transformations and their strength, as most of them would simply be too destructive for you to get away with it; your purpose is not to destroy the city above yourself, and you are kind of planning to use these powers for something else shortly anyways.

It's kind of a strain to pull out your really impressive stuff and all. There's a reason you don't just spend all day in those forms.

Speaking of what exactly you were planning to use your best and most inherently war crime reminiscent powers on, though, you receive notice from the Thinker the moment something happens on the surface, quickly changing shapes and clothes before you have her teleport you up.

The Flaxans have started the second invasion you knew was coming! Or, in layman's terms, the free takeout has arrived, but this time with an invitation to the VIP table for you.


The Teen Team has managed to be on the scene earlier than yourself, this time, though Atom Eve and the newer hero you know to be Omni-Man's son still only arrive at around the same time you teleport in on a rooftop nearby. Incidentally, said team of heroes is also standing on a rooftop overlooking the newly opened portal to the Flaxan dimension, as you shall call it for the time being; cape business just has a natural way of occurring on rooftops when convenient.

What isn't happening up on the level of your lofty vantage point, though, are the literal squads of Flaxans currently marching through aforementioned portal. A trio of alien tanks is already through, two of them veering into two different directions as they came in on an intersection while the third one is still getting out of the way of their infantry.

However, something you instantly note is that said tanks are looking distinctly different, and you doubt they spontaneously decided to change models for fun after the last invasion's failure. Similarly, your enhanced vision spots a few changes on the laser rifle things they use… Though their uniforms are still pretty much the same and also still incapable of blocking headshots.

Long story short, they made progress, but they didn't really solve a few fundamental issues, it looks like.

So you have a massive amount of Flaxan infantry coming through the chokepoint of the portal, this time not bothering to set up mobile barricades and instead just moving as quickly as possible while remaining in formation and opening fire on any civilians in sight, a crapton of their troops pouring in by the moment. The Teen Team's still figuring things out itself, it looks like, but you could probably seize control of the situation if you wanted to bother with them…

You grasp your animate plush toy minion tighter to your chest as you consider your options. "What do you think we should do, Mister Teddy?"


Well, those guys can do whatever the hell they want. You, for one, are going to stop an alien invasion on sheer principle alone before you put your plans for the planet on the other end of that portal into practice.

You clear your throat, raising your plush bear threateningly. Not that anyone is watching, but you can fix that; by tuning up your voice to be really loud and carry really far, the classical superhero approach to subtlety and tact. "Bow before the Night Queen!" You demand, a slightly unhinged smile on your face.

Then, and only then, with the Flaxans aware and hastily calling in more tanks to try and deal with you, do you drop the white plush bear, repeating the exact same maneuver that you opened with last time while casually ignoring the dozens of red laser shots fired vaguely into your direction.

However, while your bearish minion makes it all the way to the ground in short order, already spinning thanks to the momentum he gathered while on the way, they seem to have some actual countermeasures this time, rather than being chaotically slaughtered like hens in a fox den. A row of Flaxans is setting up what to your eyes seem like portable turrets- and indeed, though your teddy, currently weighing tons and all, is approaching them quickly, the constant, solid beams of laser-y force suddenly fired at him slowing the bowling ball impression he's making to a crawl.

Then the tanks are aiming all over the approximate area and shooting out a few balls of glowing energy- yep, they somehow made energy-based explosives. What is it with people misusing laser technology? First laser mortars, now bombs?

Either way, that one Mister Bear is hemorrhaging aura under the bombardment he's currently subjected to, even as the Teen Team finally gets its collective asses into gear and steps into action. Robot, still flying his ridiculous flying jet bike, ferries Dupli-Kate and Rex Splode down towards the battlefield while the actual fliers, Atom Eve and Invincible, follow behind, but as everything is currently exploding, there is only so much these guys can-

Aaand the tanks have alternative ammunition, as they are now bombarding Robot with homing EMP devices that stick to his frame, probably magnetically or something, and completely paralyze him. This causes his jet bike to crash, now that it's literally uncontrolled and all, and while a few Flaxans die in the resulting explosion, you're willing to say that it probably worked as intended.

Meanwhile, Dupli-Kate is the next target for the beam turrets, their constant fire keeping her busy just duplicating herself out of the line of fire to survive at all, whereas Mister Splode-

He throws a bunch of pocket change, small coins imbued with his power going by the characteristic glow and managing to take out a couple of the turrets as they explode violently, only for a small team of Flaxans to rush towards him, shooting some fancy guns at the next volley of exploding currency.

Which promptly decides to fly right back at him, to which he screams and runs away, now under fire by his own power while the alien soldiers exchange a high five. Did they somehow create guns that can reverse momentum?

That's pretty cool. You add it to your shopping list for later.

You, on the other hand, are currently launching yourself straight over the battlefield, having compiled a plan while all of this has been going on. Time to introduce these idiots to the terror that is Night Queen when she is being ignored!


You meet the ground with shattering force, literally unconcerned with the consequences for yourself as you have already proven you're perfectly durable enough to ignore a bit of a drop like this beyond having to dig yourself out of the concrete afterwards.

Then, however, once you've done the digging out part, you breathe in deep, getting ready for yet another shout. "I SAID BOW!"

You stomp down indignantly with one foot, every bit the demanding and cocky kid you're pretending to be. However, as you do, you also engage your Esper power, your control over gravity allowing you to make this single motion rather much stronger than it would otherwise be.

That is to say, you're multiplying the weight of your leg as you bring it down and then, for good measure, deploying a few very small fields of overlaying gravitational forces all around you. End result, your angry stomp literally tears up the entire street, a long crevice torn open all along it (and then a bunch of Flaxans scream and tumble into it because of their positioning, which is also nice).

Not satisfied, however, you raise both hands to make yourself appear bigger than you are. Then you press down on the upper bodies of a hundred Flaxans, the idiots happily having arranged themselves in divisions of that number, with five times the gravity of what they would normally endure, simultaneously pressing up with the same amount of force of reversed gravity on their lower bodies.

The result here is that they become literal, bloody pancakes.

"Any that fail to submit will die!" You cry out, raising a hand towards where a dozen Flaxan tank are hastily trying to shift targets towards your position. "And I am seeing a lot of failures here!"

A wave of your arm and 'suddenly', all those tanks are 'falling'… sideways, that is, their own weight directly applied to move them all in the same overall direction, reaping a bloody harvest as they smash into dozens upon dozens of Flaxan soldiers. Their cries are music in your ears, all that's missing now is the lamentations of their women.

Speaking off… Looking over at the portal, you note that a bunch of the Flaxans are glancing back towards it, obviously not exactly sure they can actually win this fight. Which isn't wrong, just too late of a realization. "Still not kneeling! I see you all want to die a well!" Casually waving a hand yet again, you make another division of infantry fodder float up into the air, their screams temporarily getting quieter before they come closer again.

Make them 'fall' upwards with twice their own weight, then slam them down with double of that to make sure everything is dead on impact. Even if their armor could keep them from just bursting like eggs dashed onto the ground (which they can't), their insides are pretty much mush at this point anyways.

Also, you cannot reiterate this enough, their heads are entirely unprotected, so… Brain slush with skull chips for everyone, you guess. They should probably censor any footage of this, actually.

Anyways, your work here is done… Or rather, is about to be done, there's still one Flaxan standing and glaring balefully at you, wearing this ostentatious red cape with white trim over his shoulders, obviously the asshat in charge of this- Oh, wait, you actually recognize him, he's using a robotic prosthesis in place of the arm you took off him last time.

You proceed to gesture toward one of the half-intact tanks, their drivers either dead, unconscious or trying to open the hatches and get out in the altered gravity you're imposing upon them. It flies towards yourself until you jump up to catch it by the barrel that seems to be its only real armament, making both it and the guy inside of it completely weightless for a moment so you can casually swing it around behind yourself. "Here, I'll help you! Your head! Is meant! To go down!"

A mighty overhead swing follows. The guy that probably was somehow important is too proud to run properly, instead facing you until the war machine weighing literal tons again now slams down onto him like an angry god's fist.

Pretty sure he won't be surviving this one. And, with most of the Flaxan army either dead or in disarray, you figure your job here is done for the moment.

You look around, but Robot is back on his feet, aided by Rex Splode, while Atom Eve has thrown up these huge shields of translucent, pink energy between the invaders and any nearby civilians, while Invincible is trying to fight off a bunch of Flaxan soldiers that realized their weapons don't work against him and promptly went on to try and dogpile him.

Not how you'd approach a Brute, but whatever, they do them. As for Dupli-Kate, she's still brawling with a couple stragglers somewhere, you think. You didn't really pay attention until now.

"Night Queen," Robot addresses you. "Good work on repelling the invasion. You should-"

No time to chat with the robot guy, the portal is still open and you have a perfect opportunity to refuse to elaborate before leaving.


Ignoring him thusly, you turn to address the scattered survivors of your latest rampage, rapidly waving your arms to make it look like you're flustered while summoning another Mister Teddy, the first one from earlier already discorporated after its aura reserve expired earlier.

"They're escaping!" You point with one hand. "GET BACK HERE, YOU DANG SNACKS! Mister Teddy! FASTBALL SPECIAL!"

With a grunt, your ursine minion grabs your side with one paw, throwing you up in the air. Once there, you ball yourself up, your feet hitting his paw when it comes to pull you along.

With a roar of effort and sheer, muscular power, Mister Teddy throws you like a literal hardball, straight at the portal to the planet the Flaxans have been using as a staging ground. "Mwahaha! MWUAAAHAHAHAHAHA! NONE SHALL ESCAPE THE NIGHT QUEEN'S WRAAATH!"

And just like that, you manage to slip through mere moments before the portal abruptly closes, regardless of the Flaxans still effectvely stranded on Earth. Sure sucks to be them, but who cares- you have a whole world to take apart as violently and horribly as you can!

"Soo… Is it just me, or did the night brat just get herself yanked to another dimension?"

"Her name is Night Queen, Rex," Robot corrected his teammate. "And I am sure she has a plan for what she is doing."

"Really? Because it didn't look that way to me," he replied, turning to the ursine creature standing next to them. "And what about you, huh? You supposed to be her stand-in or what?"

It sniffed, then produced a grunting sound.

"Yeah, okay, dumb question. But seriously, man, what even was she thinking there?"

The bear-like semi-organism scuffed.

"Rex, I believe we should consider the possibility that your Russian heritage allows you to communicate with ursines and ursine-adjacents," Robot informed his teammate.

"Man, that's, like, kind of racist, okay? Where's that even come from?"

"I believe you should ask your new friend."

Rex Splode turned towards the ursine, but the creature merely imitate a shrugging motion before it abruptly dissolved into a pale mist.

"Aw man, you serious?!"

"Hm. This may make it difficult to reestablish contact with Night Queen."