Stayng inside the van for a bit, just shooting the shit together with Kate, you eventually climb out again, telling the occupants you're off to go take care of a few lunch boxes you left in a locked room and patting the assault force on the back for a bit after mentioning the need for corpses for 'Lazarus' to work with.
For now, though, you're just getting out and moving into the building your gang just raided. Finding the place most of the fighting seems to have taken place, casting your collection spell to see what happens.
With that taken care of, you move on towards where you can hear the sounds of people. Coming into one of the empty apartments, it seems like they're taking all the loot they can find to this one location before transporting it.
You're almost proud.
Regardless, time for a little pep-talk.
"I am proud of you all. Today, we, the Lord Street Crypts, didn't just stamp out the Merchants. We didn't just make the world an objectively better place.
We, all of us, cemented our place in this city. No longer will anyone be unaware of our name after this night. No longer can we be ignored by anyone. We took a look at Brockton Bay, and we took our place, taking it from this band of human cockroaches.
I can promise you but one thing, and that promise is this:
This was just the beginning."
Nodding towards everyone assembled, you move towards the locked room you left your happy meals in.
Larry and James were just the average pair of guys, doing their thing. Still, when the call to join the merchants came around, they joined up, Larry because it kept them fed and warm and James because he always did was Larry did.
They'd never have expected the fate awaiting them.
With your little snack done, you move out once again, opening the door and carrying the corpses downstairs, throwing them to the rest of the loot. Good thing the girls know to count them as loot for you.
That said, you'll have to hurry with this whole cleanup operation. Things didn't go down quietly, and no matter how abysmal the reaction time of the Protectorate/PRT is in these shit areas of town, it wouldn't suprise you if they got wind of the fights here and sent a group.
So, everything gets loaded into the vans at top speed.
You safely arrive in the vicinity of your warehouses, the group making sure to split up along the way and arrive staggered. No sense in giving the game away this late, after all.
Once all the loot has been unloaded and packed away, you ponder what to do with the rest of the night. still basking in the triumph of just having won your first gang war.
You've come pretty far, huh...
Before everyone can go to their respective rooms/get a room, you take some time to stop Henley for a moment.
"Alright, Henley, before I set Kate on you to actually use your talents for the gang, I still have one last carrot to give you."
Swallowing, he turns to you.
"Sir?"
"Oh, relax, it's nothing bad. I have a Trump power, you see, letting me share a single one of my powers with anyone that drinks enough of my blood, along with just making them better in general."
Waving him after you, it takes quite a bit of time you decide to spend idly chattering with him to thrall him. At least he's slowly calming down in your presence at some point, though.
Alright, a new day, a new load of delegation to get done. First, all the things you're going to make Kate do.
Right, step one, you swing by what has rapidly become Kate's office, nabbing one of those post-it note thingies and a pen, and get to write.
Step two, you breathe out Kate's secretary soul and Skidmark, for help and interrogation, respectively, and tell them to wait for Kate and do what she says.
That taken care of, you ask around real quick and post a note at the door to Henley's room telling him to come to Kate's office once he's awake, and do the same to Nell's room, just telling her where the drug lab warehouse is, instead.
With all of that done (and keeping the post-its), you return to your own room and do your little daily ritual of looking inside you and checking for fruits.
Taking a bit of time to work over Gash in your corpse room, you go out of your way to repair the holes it sports and follow up by adding strands of muscle in strategic locations, hopefully making its jerky movements even harder to read while also giving it more power with every move.
You also get around to reinforcing and beefing up the arms a bit, just taking arms off of the corpses in storage and twisting the raw materials they're made out of into the new arms.
As a result, you now have several arm bones intertwined so as to give it a wide range of movement, coupled with massive amounts of sheer muscle inside and all around this arrangement.
The cool things you can get up to when you don't have to care about the usual biological limiting factors.
Any fat you add to the outside as a thin layer of additional protection. Satisfied with the outcome, you do the same for the legs and the torso, the latter requiring quite a bit of extra work due to all the organs you added to protect the bases of the tentacles, but soon enough you have a hulking monstrosity standing before you.
Of course, this means you need to add more muscle to the tentacles to keep the best feature relevant, and the head gets another few layers of reformed skulls, as well as another few eyes.
The majority of eyes you place strategically around the neck and shoulders, though.
Summoning out that one dude you ate in the same place you recruited Cupcake (man, that takes you back), you start to use what you've taken to calling your soul refinement process.
Because you're literally changing the qualities of a soul to make it better, and you really needed a name to call it before it drove you insane with annoyance.
Anyway, you summon him, refine him, and after the usual spiel of excruciating pain, he gets up again.
And promptly gets an annoyed look.
"Okay, so I can do a thing now, but I need someone to use it on. Lets me put people in their place."
Huh. So that's a thing, apparently. No matter, you just breathe him in again and go on with your day.
Well, it's getting late. Kate is probably awake by now, as well as hard at work, so it's about time you took a moment to let her know what you're planning later tonight.
Knocking on her door, you find Henley busily scribbling and typing away, nodding at you but going right back to work once he sees you. Looks like he's gotten used to working here fast.
Your business is with Kate, though, so you address her once she's putting down her burner phone.
"Hey Kate, I wanted to let you know I'll be going out to try and find my sister tonight. No idea how long that'll take, but I'll stay in contact."
"Sure, alright, just try not to be gone for weeks. Shit is actually looking up around here."
"No worries, I got a captured soul that points me at things I want to find. May take a few days if she's on the other side on the continent, but I at least hope she didn't leave the USA or anything."
It is at this point Henley adds his two cents.
"All my power's giving me is 'look for her', and I have no point of comparison to see how good a plan that is."
"No worries, but thanks for checking. As I said, I'll keep you guys updated. For now, don't mind me, I'm going back down."
It takes a bit of doing, but after about half an hour of finagling, you manage to get over to the workshop warehouse without being subjected to the sun, mainly through having Sherrel help you and a lot of black cloth used to make a 'tunnel' of sorts between you and the invisivan.
It had to be folded a lot of times to make it feasible for you, but it worked.
Incidentally, Sherrel mentions she actually went out of her way to sunproof the van itself, meaning you can sit in the front seats without danger to yourself. Apparently the invisibility system was good enough as a base for her to work from to do it fairly easily.
You appreciate it anyway.
So, you spend a few hours just programming the manufactory again, hopefully laying enough groundwork you only need a few minutes with the robot workbench for any further improvements you aim to implement.
This also means the gang now has access to as many laser muskets of your latest design as it may need, meaning all the muskets already in use will need to be replaced and recycled at some point. At least the latter part will be easy, what with the process consisting of throwing them into the manufactory's intake and waiting for it to reuse the parts.
Before you know it, night falls while you're busy admiring the production rate of your very own invention.
Taking a moment to send off an email about the muskets to Kate, you turn towards Squealer, who was observing the manufactory together with you.
"So, Sherrel, you up for a little drive? I'm gonna go out to find my sister and a ride would be very much appreciated."
"Sure, no need to explain. Kate already told me everything I need to know. Hop in and we can drive off."
Man, she's really too good for you.
Anyway, once you and Sherrel are in the van, your summoned soul riding in the third front seat with you in the middle, you order him to seek out 'Sarah Livsey, my sister, you can see her picture here' as you hold out your laptop you brought with you for just this occasion.
It isn't much longer before you speed through the streets of Brockton Bay, not knowing where you're going, but sure of the thing you'll find at the end of your path.
Huh. Kind of like human life, just replacing death with Sarah. You're getting outright philosophical over here.
It is only half an hour later that you realize it may have been a good idea to keep the GPS thingy on and use it to compare the direction your soul shows you to the actual streets you're driving on.
Having to return to the start of a street due to taking the wrong turn for the third time in a row, you mentally slap your forehead over not doing it beforehand, but just decide to see this as a good opportunity to start using your brain in conjunction with your great and terrible powers, rather than just the latter.
Driving through the city, you happen upon a cape fight, though you thankfully manage to avoid arousing attention from either side involved as you drive along.
Aside from that, you're making good progress so far, having made your way halfway through the city.
It is as you drive on further towards the south that you realize something important, constantly comparing the direction your soul points to (you made him keep his hand outsretched until you find Sarah, really convenient) with the GPS map showing your current location and heading.
The correct direction is shifting.
More specifically, if you're getting this right, Sarah seems to be moving along the boardwalk.
What the fuck.
You'd, uh, you'd never have expected she'd decide to hide in Brockton Bay of all places. Why is she here? This place is a single, huge shithole. With loads of shitheaded capes getting into fights all over the place, not to mention mundane crime being through the roof.
The only reason you decided to go to college here was that it was fucking cheap and easy to rent a hole in a wall somewhere, which is about the only good thing you can say about the place.
Sarah being here without you to murder anyone looking at her funny is unacceptable! You need to correct this situation right the fuck now.
"Sherrel, I've been comparing our magic compass with the map.
She's on the boardwalk. Find a good place to let me out and I'll go shadow to find her."
Sherrel just nods and does as you say.
"Sure wouldn't have expected her to be here of all places, boss. Here I was looking forward to a little roadtrip."
Oh, don't even get started, Sherrel. You just did that whole spiel inside your head already.
It takes you about two minutes to appear inside of an alley, having already reabsorbed your minion after Sherrel pointed him out to you. One minute to rush onto the boardwalk, and another two to find the rough location you were pointed towards.
Time to find Sarah, now.
People- people- shop- people- a bunch of teenagers- tourist trap- shop- Sarah. You just heard her voice.
She's inside that shop. Now... how do you approach this? She still thinks you're dead, but that's also secondary to making sure she's safe.
Okay, Gabriel, okay, keep your cool. You can do this, no worries.
First, you detransform in a dark alley, fixing up your clothes for a moment before you step out. Next, you approach the store you know her to be in (which turns out to be an ice cream place- you had no idea one of them was even open this late).
Strolling inside, you see Sarah sitting at a table... with two boys.
Well now... taking a deep breath just for meditative purposes, your mind races as you determine what to do next. She doesn't seem to have seen you yet, at least.
Just casually walking over (while thinking about burying your claws in their guts), you politely ask "Excuse me, is this seat taken?", using your best silky voice, of course.
"It's free, feel free to-" the black guy says, before regaining his senses after your perfect distraction. Hah!
"Excuse me, but who the fuck are you?" Comes from the twiggy guy sitting next to him.
"Oh, me? I'm Gabriel, Sarah's brother," you explain with a nod towards said little sister, who is currently busy goggling at you with big eyes.
And an open mouth.
"Sheesh, Sarah, you never stopped demanding this, did you?"
As you say this, you pick up the spoon she dropped on the table, wiping it on your shirt for a second before you scoop a little of her ice cream up and ferry it into her still open mouth.
With a content smile, you enjoy the moment for a little before sending a sidelong glance to the two males sitting across the table.
"So, who the fuck are you two?"
This awkward silence as Sarah just keeps on mechanically eating the ice cream you feed her is delicious.
"We'ew, uh, we're her friends, yeah," big black stutters.
"Really? You don't seem too sure of that." A glint may or may not be entering your eyes.
"Is there anything I should know about these two, sis?"
Sarah, meanwhile, seems to have recovered her wits enough to make facial expressions again, something you find to be rather pleasing.
Still with that foxy smile whenever she sees you. Really, this is going better than expected.
After a moment, though, her smile disappears, and she gets a serious look on her face.
"Gabe! I thought you were dead!" She whispers harshly at you, making you chuckle as you pat her head for a second.
"First off, whispering attracts more attention, just speak normally without raising your voice. Secondly, are they okay to hear about stuff?" You indicate the two fucks across the table.
"It's alright, they're teammates."
You fight down the urge to murder them where they sit for a second.
"I was dead, but I got better. Nevermind that, what are you doing in Brockton? This place is a shithole!"
"Excuse me? I came here to visit your grave after I ran away! Not my fault some asshat intercepts me and forces me to work for him."
"Okay, first off, who is that and where do I find him? Secondly, what is he forcing you to do? Do I need to drag you to my doctor?!"
"Why do you have a doctor!? Also, why doesn't my power work on you?"
"Because my power is bullshit. Also, you totally triggered because of our parents, didn't you? I fucking knew I should've gone with plan B and killed them first thing."
"Fuck, why do we both have powers?"
"Fucked if I know." You sure aren't going to tell these other asswipes you ain't actually a parahuman, teammates or no. That revelation can wait until later.
"Actually, uh..." asswipe number one pipes up. "If we're interrupting anything, we could just excuse ourselves?"
"They know you're Cain, I figured that out from your livestream."
"At least one thing that worked correctly, then. I didn't know where the fuck you were, so I just decided to draw the old vacation house as the very first thing and see if it worked."
"How DID you find me? I made sure nobody could after running away, not that it helped against the snake fucker."
"I got a guy that can pinpoint the direction of any one thing, finding you was easy as driving down Lord's Street and comparing maps."
"What."
"And you two, stay right where you are. I'm not done with you yet."
The two of them stop slowly inching out of their seats at your glare. Good.
Getting into high gear as you telepathically contact Sherrel to have her park somewhere accessible and expecting guests, you size up the two of them.
"Okay, first things first. You three will have to grab your personal stuff from wherever your hideout is and move into our lair. Once that's done, you'll tell me exactly who made you work for him and we can make it a family afternoon to murder them."
"Don't we get a say about this?" asswipe number two whines.
You just fixate them with an expressionless stare.
"Guess."
"You can't do that, I- I need him. He promised me help I need."
You look over at Sarah.
"Family issues, he wants to take custody of his sister to get her away from shitty parents."
Alright, minimal respect is now given. Very minimal.
"You do realize that nobody in their right mind would give up leverage like that, right? Whoever it is, he'll keep on stringing you along until you run out of use, whence he will likely have your sister raped to death just to spit on your memory after getting you killed."
He just balls his fists.
"Alright, I don't want to put you into a corner or anything. Once we have everything secure, we can see about your legal situation. Luckily for you, I have better ways to keep my employees in line than blackmailing any implied payment. Worst comes to worst, we can always say 'fuck the police' and homeschool her."
Throwing a quizzical look at asswipe number two, he just shrugs.
"So long as you pay, have internet and I can game, I'm good. Better than having you murder me, anyway."
Good.
"We still have a fourth member, cape name's Bitch. Her power fucked with her head pretty hard, she may be hostile when she sees you. Should be back at the loft right now."
Alright, you can work with this. Paying for the ice cream, the group of you, Sarah, and the asswipes wander out of the shop, towards the place Sherrel told you she's waiting at.
Getting off the boardwalk and opening an invisible door, you get some nice stares as you wave the two into the back seats, letting Sarah sit in the middle front seat before getting in yourself.
"So, this your sister?"
"Yeah. Sherrel, this is Sarah. Sarah, Sherrel. You two can exchange your personal stories later if you want, for now, tell me a little more about what happened after I died. Most of what I did after getting up again is publically available in some way, I'm sure."
"Oh, you'd be surprised. I had to leech the PRT's data on you for a good bit. But okay, where do I start..."
It isn't too long a drive, with you interjecting occasionally whenever she starts to veer off topic. You do make it a point to add sending a striketeam for your parents one of these days to your mental list of priorities, as well as to move murdering this Coil guy upwards on the same list.
He just decided to be a dick to Sarah, and the sentence for that is death.
Eventually, however, you arrive at an old building, Redmond Welding apparently having been the name of the place at some point.
"It looks rundown like that on purpose, just to avoid sticking out. Coil had it renovated on the inside, though."
Huh. Good to know. Not like you did anything different with the warehouses.
As soon as you set foot upon the upper floor, where everything apparently is, you hear growling. A quick look merits a muttered 'Bitch' from Sarah, so you'll go on ahead and think of this as dealing with a confused animal.
Stepping into what looks like the main living area, you immediately see this 'Bitch'. Burly girl, with a trio of dogs gathered up around her.
"Who is he?"
"Calm down, Bitch, he's my brother-"
"Don't care, the dogs don't like him."
She takes a breath and points at you, likely to command her dogs. You preempt that by opening your mouth and showing your wide array of teeth in her direction.
She drops her arm.
Good, you'd been worried you were reading this situation wrong, but she really does seem to take her cues from the dogs.
"Take any of your stuff you can't replace, you're coming with me. Can your dogs ride cars?"
She grimaces.
"Can't we just ride them?"
You lightly raise an eyebrow. Well, okay, you probably should've gone into this with more information, but it couldn't be helped. You had to secure Sarah, and you couldn't accept any delays whatsoever.
Regardless, you spend a little time organizing things before the whole merry band is off to relocate their lair into your warehouse.
You do actually remember to telepath at Kate on the way so she knows what's going on. Her laughter when she hears Sarah was in Brockton Bay this whole time is not appreciated.
So, this whole business took way less time than you'd thought. You were halfway expecting to have to trek through half America to find Sarah, so you suddenly find yourself with more time to use than you'd expected.
This means you have enough time to have a few talks, both with Sarah and with the gang's planners to find and brutalize this Coil guy. Before that, though, you distinctly remember you still had a few prisoners lying around from your last raid on the Merchants, so you summon your mad doctor and send him off to go interrogate them.
You'd noticed, among other things, that more... extreme, for lack of another word, people tend to taste better. The real monsters, the rapists, the murderers, psychopaths and just outright evil ones gave you an impression of fullness and satiety, akin to a fulfilling warm meal.
You were lacking in terms of comparison to 'better' people, though you theorized they would have a similar thing going.
More bland and average people tended to just taste, well, bland. Like, they fill you up, no question, but if you have a choice, you'd always prefer to eat some evil asshole over the color beige in human form.
You suddenly find yourself reminded of that raider chick in that other dimension. Good times, and not just because you and Nora found Slave in the same place as her.
Regardless, back on track. Time to go find Sarah and give her the whole spiel about you being a vampire now, what that means and all that jazz, as well as how your thralling works and the possibility to turn her later on.
So, after a few minutes of searching, culminating in just asking one of the girls where she ended up rooming, followed by you shaking your head fondly, you come towards the room nearest to the basement stairs.
Knocking, you are quickly ushered in by a hectically working Sarah, busy settling into her new room. At least it already comes with basic furniture, though you have no idea when Kate went out of her way to have that set up.
Sarah, being her usual self, sits down on the bed and pats the spot next to her, leading to you sitting down as well and thinking through how you want to put things before Sarah just preempts you.
"Okay, so is now when you tell me everything you didn't want to say in front the others?
"Yeah. Okay, so to start with, I was actually dead for a few months, but I woke up in my coffin just a few weeks ago, dressed in the cheapest funeral suit ever..:"
You go on to explain what happened to you in rough detail, such as ypu realizing you had to drink blood now, thinking things over and realizing whatever you are, you're no parahuman, the time you found Kate shooting at nazis and when you first jumped dimensions.
She interjects at several points, of course, but a few explanations on your part have her keep on listening in short order. Overall, you're a little surprised just how much happened in the time since you came back to life, despite having a perfect recollection of everything.
Must be the difference between being aware of it all and actively thinking about it.
"... so to sum things up, I can thrall people to make them more likely to listen to me in exchange for a single one of my powers. I am also aware of my ability to turn other people into what I am now, though I haven't actually tried that one out yet. You interested?"
"I still reserve judgement for the possibility of you just being mindfucked by your power, but sure, hook me up."
"Not now, that stuff takes a while, but we can spend a little time just talking if you want. I'll be calling a meeting with all the planners in the gang in an hour or so on how to deal with Coil anyway, and I don't have anything important to do in the meantime."
"Sure, that sounds nice. I really missed you, you know?"
"I missed you too, sis. So, you never told me what your power actually was..."
So, after a few hours of talking with Sarah (who has another identity as a Lisa Wilbourne now, apparently), just generally messing around with her and looking at a few funny vidoes on her laptop together, you send her towards Kate's office while you go get your own laptop to send off a few emails.
In short order, you, Sarah, Kate, Sherrel and Henley are assembled in Kate's office, having taken a few chairs from the surrounding rooms so everyone can have a seat.
"So, introductions first. I'm sure you all have an idea of who I am, this is my sister Sarah, a Thinker going by the cape name Tattletale. This is Kate, my second in command and the one keeping the day-to-day business of our little gang on track. This is Sherrel, formerly Squealer of the Merchants and currently employed by us. Finally, this is Henley, another Thinker. He triggered during the last raid on the Merchants; he used to work for them as an accountant.
I asked you all to come here on account of our next big target, a slimy fucker calling himself Coil, and how we will take care of his existence..."
So, to sum up what you know; Coil has a bunker filled with loads of hired guns armed with tinkertech laser weapons, which annoyingly bypass your bullet immunity, which is about it in terms of what Sarah could tell you about his operations as far as she could observe directly.
He made sure she was blindfolded and kept the bunker's location hidden from her on the rare occasion he had her come inside. What she also does know, however, is that not all of his men are all that loyal, with her already planning to subvert a few just in case, and that he is totally the type to have a self-destruct button in case he needs to abandon his base.
Which is fucking crazy, but you'll trust her psych profile on the guy. Her power is apparently really good for things like that. It does help that Henley tries using his power, and soon gets several ideas for how to disable the security measures she's talking about. You still have no idea if his power is based on precognition of some kind or on his understanding of things and his observations of the world around him, but still, it's a good first step.
Taking your dead compass into account, you have an easy way of pinpointing Coil's location, combined with your shadow form being an easy infiltration tool to find and eliminate him. You can also avoid any possible issues with the self-destruct (which apparently consists of a load of explosives, who'd'a thunk it) by just eating him and making his soul deactivate all of his contingencies after his death.
You're briefly worried he may have a dead man's switch that blows everything up the moment his heart stops beating or something, but that, at least, is extremely unlikely according to Sarah.
Sherrel mentions she'd like to just build an excavator with a giant drill or something, but your general idea sounds more efficient.
For now, you go seek out Lea, who just woke up from her own daily nap (the reduction in sleep time is one of the best parts of being a thrall, thinking about it) and tell her you wanted her to work on something for you, grabbing your sketch book really quick and drawing out the schematics for how you ensured that none of the laser muskets can be copied easily (mostly by melting down) and ask her to fiddle around with the insides of your robot designs. You promise you'll join her in a while, but are content to leave the bulk of the project to her for the time being.
With that out of the way, you proceed to go find your doctor minion in the room you had the prisoners stashed. He is, unsurprisingly, engaged in torturing them slowly, but snaps to attention as soon as you come inside.
Time to see what he found out.
Their names seem to be Bruce, Ed, Caiden, Elle and Katey. Bruce and Caiden seem to be real bad fuckers, while Elle was dropped a few times too many as a child and the other two are about what you'd expect from shitty Merchants.
Not like Merchants are a thing anymore, though. So, regardless, after a good laugh, you decide that Bruce and Caiden will be eaten while the rest are to be prepared and turned into bloodpacks for you.
Bruce, one of the last Merchants after you destroyed the gang for the most part. He always enjoyed putting women and children into powerless positions, mostly through a mix of rope, rape and gangrape.
Who'd have thought he'd be put in a similar position before being summarily eaten?
Caiden, one of the last Merchants, though the gang doesn't exist anymore after the raid in which you captured him. He made it a point to be a terrible person to feel good about himself, ultimately leading to his demise when he couldn't bring himself to jump ship off of his greatest way to do so.
And indeed, he didn't feel so good about himself at the end...
Having Nolan go to work with the usual procedure (he knows how to do this by now), you take some time to do your usual ritual of comparing time inside you and looking for fruits.
Concentrating on the present again, you give your minion a few minutes to finish up before summarily unsummoning him and taking out the secretary and Skidmark instead.
Having them go to Kate, along with bringing her a message to have someone take care of your new blooddolls, you go find Lea and proceed to work with her on the initial stages of your little project.
Having estimated she should have gotten enough rest by now, you proceed to go knock on Sarah's door, letting yourself in and gently poking her awake just the way you always did.
Waving your finger away from her cheek, she stretches as bit before sitting up.
"Okay, how does this work, exactly?"
"I just feed you a little blood over the course of a few hours, time needed varies from what I've found so far."
Using your claws to cut along your wrist, you hold it out for her.
"Say 'aaahhh'."
Sarah pouts for a moment, but does as she is told.
After a while of feeding her small amounts of your blood that eventually led to Sarah sitting on your lap so the two of you could watch random stuff on her laptop, Sarah twitches for a moment before raising her hands.
Her hands brimming with electricity.
"Yeah, that is a thing I can do, too."
As you speak, you gently envelop her hands and carefully absorb the voltage brimming in her palms. Better not risk her accidentally frying anything she wants to keep.
After telling Sarah about your telepathy via telepathy (which makes her eyes shine briefly for some reason), you telepathically ask Kate if she still needs Skidmark, luckily getting a no in response.
We got everything we could think of out of him, right now we're busy organizing the retrieval of any stashes and making sure anyone that still worked for him is either working for us, getting nabbed or dead.
Good, with that out of the way...
"Okay, Sarah, here's the soul that can point into the direction of any one specific thing, you have your laptop here, think you can figure out where Coil's base is, Sarah?"
Tearing her eyes from her hands, she grins.
"With pleasure."
Setting everything up and setting the timer for your... other stream, you go through the clothing lying in a corner of your room, until you once again find what you hope was meant as a joke, but will fit your needs almost perfectly.
Yes, all you need to add now is that giant fake mustache and you'll have your new streaming outfit.
Taking the clothes and laying them on the ready, you go to take your usual shower and shadowing before putting everying on, checking that you can see the mustache even with the shadow replacing your face. You can.
Waiting until the timer has ticked down, you present yourself in a nice pose and begin to speak.
"Hello, everyone, and welcome to Abel's Sketching Stream, ASS for short. Today, we will draw some really nice things for you viewers. Please do mind the 18 part of the stream as you watch, if any minors happen to see this it isn't my fault."
Man, keeping your voice just the right tone of dry as the sahara desert is hard.
"Alright then, let's start off with something at least somewhat less typical for your kind, dear viewers- a woman with her nipples actually covered. Shocking, I know."
As you begin to draw, you make it a point to explain what you're doing and why, much as with your Cain stream, just in a completely dry tone and throwing in sarcastic comments about the viewers.
As you begin to really get into the centerpiece of the picture and adding detail, the comments visibly start to slow for a bit before picking up in speed tremendously.
"And this," you say once you're about done, "is how you draw a barely covered woman. I'm sure you are all very happy about it."
Rolling your eyes at the poll result, you continue your act.
"Of course, you lot would vote for a superhero. How droll."
Nevertheless, you begin to draw, not even bothering with a background this time, just going off of what you remember of an actual hero you'd seen once or twice back at college.
That's right- you draw Laserdream, in a fetishistic outfit and with giant tits, from her waist upwards and only just hinting at her thigh from the side.
"And here you have it; one hero. If there are any similarities to actual personages, they are purely incidental, of course. Now, on to the next poll, and please do try to be at least somewhat original this time."
You are about to get to a speech about 'today's youth', when one of your commenters, a 'HealingHand42', begins to flood the screens after having become an 'OnlyFan' (and suddenly your diatribe about the youth becomes a lot more tempting), demanding a specific theme for the next picture.
"I see someone has been overwhelmed by their urges to the point of paying money to get their will. Very well, let me appease your perversions so you can go back into your closet's corner."
Despite your words, you do actually really want to do their enthusiasm justice, so you go all out on crafting a background surrounding the fantasy your paying fan wants to see made real.
"Here you are; a 'magnificent brunette mistress' keeping her slaves in line. I do wonder which end of the leash you'd like to be on? Regardless, here you have it."
The next poll goes on for a while, with several new paying fans and lots of commenters arguing back and forth.
Eventually, however, a winning suggestion manages to crystallize. Apparently, people really want 'three busty blonde chicks with blue eyes'.
Pfh. The nazis couldn't make it more obvious, but lots of normal people have decided there's nothing wrong with the theme as such, so you set to work.
"You know, back in the day, we just told the nazis to fuck off before making the porn they like..."
"So, this will have to be all for today. I trust you deluded deviants will watch next time I find the time to stream, no matter what I tell you, so thank you for watching ASS and see you next time."
Phew. This was actually hard, moreso for the persona you adopted than anything else.
Interlude: Reactions
Emily stared at the screen. This was the third time this new threat to her city streamed one of his art classes, and like the previous two times, her and Renick opted to watch it just to keep up to date, never mind the small host of analysts busy doing the exact same thing, hopefully giving her something to work with by tomorrow.
Except this time the title of the stream was different, and when it started up, she had to goggle for a moment before finding her words.
"Is he... is he seriously wearing a tweed suit and a giant fake mustache over his shadow?"
Renick just stared, open-mouthed.
This was nothing compared to what came next, though. Not only did Cain change his entire demeanour, going from amiable and soothing to dry sarcasm and abrasive wit, he started drawing a scantily clad woman.
What, by the love of all that is holy...
Crystal giggled, watching the drawing of the beauty come to life on the screen. Really, good thing she wasn't missing this. Everything from the start of the stream and the villain's new attire to his choice of words and theme was incredibly funny.
It wasn't even that she was all too into the woman he was drawing, though she certainly could appreciate the aesthetics of her form in an abstract way, but just for the show alone it was worth watching.
When he finished drawing the honestly impressive sketch and demanded the viewers decide on the theme of the next work, she smiled and started participating in the discussion. When the overwhelming majority of voters went for the superhero option, she just rolled her eyes. Of course people would go for the least original possible thing.
Superheroes were her daily bread and butter, so while she'd still appreciate the stream, it really wouldn't be anything new for her. Not like there was a lack of hero pictures on the internet, anyway. An opinion 'Abel' seemed to share, at least, judging by his exasperated comment.
"Of course, you lot would vote for a superhero. How droll."
Exactly. Still, at least they'd get it out of the way to make space for more interesting ideas later on, right? Right. Except, as the pen started to move across the paper and the sarcastic commentary of the show host continued explaining what he was doing, Crystal started to get a bad feeling.
A bad feeling that got validated in short order. It wasn't that she was under any illusions there was no porn of herself on the internet, but really? God, was she really watching him draw a version of herself in a fetish costume and with giant bonkers?
Yes. Yes, she was. What was worse, though, was how she started to like what he was putting to paper, even if the end result was subtly different from her in more than just cup size.
Amy intently focused on her laptop screen. The view wouldn't stop making her ball her fists and bite her lips.
Of course the villain would draw porn of her family. Of course it would thus involve a beautiful blonde with giant honkers. And of course, this would inevitably make her think about what else he could draw.
Who else.
In a display of downright titanic mental prowess, she tore her eyes from the main display of the stream for a moment and went looking around for... there.
Was she really going to do this?
Yes, she was. Not like she was actually using her allowance for anything else, and so long as it was just pens and paper, no real people were coming to harm anyway, right? Right.
So she subscribed and pledged to pay the villain to listen to her suggestions on what to work on. It made her feel a little dirty, but her inclinations did that all the time, anyway.
So she began slamming the keys, letting the diarrhea of her sick, twisted fantasies flood onto the internet. Not the deepest, darkest parts of her mind, no, best to keep that back for now, but might as well get a little idea of hers out there to see how it'd work out, right?
Right.
"I see someone has been overwhelmed by their urges to the point of paying money to get their will. Very well, let me appease your perversions so you can go back into your closet's corner."
Somehow, him actually saying it like that made her feel better. The sheer sarcasm, at least, she could empathize with.
And when the picture started to take form, turning out beyond her wildest imagination, she decided it was completely worth it. And if her fantasies started to take entirely new forms and directions from the inspiration she gained from this and his following words, well, that was nobody's business.
Jessica and Nessa, or just Jess and Ness as they liked to call themselves, shared wry grins as the lesbian wonderland took shape on the screen. It included twins, because of course it did, and neither of them could resist the giggle.
In fact, it was funny enough for the both of them to subscribe, Ness having to do it as Jess was busy fondling the twin sitting on her lap. She couldn't be blamed for it, of course, because who could resist the opportunity?
Naturally, they had to convince the other participants to vote for the suggestion coming closest to their own appearance, the sheer fun they were having from how the other villain behaved overriding any reservations they would otherwise have about connecting their private accounts to their preferences like this.
And hey, while he let off a nazi comment, at least he wasn't a party pooper, and the picture he drew as a result of their prompt was just as... inspiring as they'd hoped.
They were inspired for the whole day.
Lisa, or Sarah as she started calling herself again, looked on at the screen with conflicted feelings.
While she could understand her brother continuing on with his stream, for the good PR if nothing else, did he really have to make it a lewd stream as soon as he found her again? It didn't herlp that his drawings were objectively good, great even, and the way he could disregard her power made watching him draw them bearable for her on that end.
Except, of course, for how this was Gabriel drawing smut for the internet, the same man that once, as a boy, drew her when she threw a tantrum after not getting the pens to do what she wanted. This was a real childhood throwback, but in a bad way, akin to catching your parents having sex.
At least she was already somewhat desensitized to shocks of this kind, seeing as her power did work on people that weren't him, including Kate and Sherrel, who were totally banging her brother, as well as being completely and totally loyal to him.
Something she suspected to be a 'side effect' of his 'thralling', not that she objected. So long as they were still themselves and the process subtle enough even Gabriel himself apparently missed it, it wasn't that bad as far as powers of this kind went. Still enough to get you birdcaged if used on a wide scale, as teacher proved, but she didn't mind.
Which was why she didn't object to letting him thrall herself, not to mention the cool powers she now had. Letting her palms glow with electricity for a moment, she idly considered if there were any other reasons she might have went for being thralled... leading to her squirming in her bed for a solid ten minutes.
Still, she really enjoyed spending time with him, and after thinking he was dead... or rather, dead dead... She must've been the most relaxed and happy she'd been in months, if not years. Pondering over whether she was really doing this, she sighed, pulled the little desk with the things she'd need towards her bed and queued up the first stream.
Picking up her pen, she had a lot of catching up to do... at least she had a way to pass the time when her thinker headaches were threatening to erupt.
Taylor held her breath, looking at the recorded stream from her crappy old home computer.
"Here you are; a 'magnificent brunette mistress' keeping her slaves in line. I do wonder which end of the leash you'd like to be on? Regardless, here you have it."
While she was rather surprised her... research subject was doing things like this suddenly, she didn't want to let it impede her acquiring of vital intelligence, so she made sure to wait until her dad was out of the house before loading the stream via her slow connection.
What she hadn't expected, though, was the way his drawings made her feel. While she initially attributed that to his new way of self-presentation (it helped she could vividly recall the abs under that tweed jacket), she had to take a moment and pause when he finished the drawing of a woman looking just like her, with actual breasts and in lingerie, casually lording over her devoted slaves.
There went her being straight, she supposed. Though at least she was still attracted to the guy on the screen, though she'd prefer him in his previous clothes.
Opening a new tab (and nearly crashing the computer), she dredged up a picture oh Cain in his tight, tight tank top and started switching between both pictures.
Mhmm... this was hard. In all the best and worst ways.
Missy opened up the stream recording on her phone for the third time, having been too scared to watch the whole thing the first two times. While she was focused more on the man with a changed demeanour than on the things he drew themselves, she was still aware she might be caught by one of her parents, and the less she had to talk to them, the better.
Regardless, as she watched on, she couldn't help but tentatively touch her small breasts when he drew a pornified version of Laserdream with giant knockers.
Her naked breasts, because she wasn't going to make stupid excuses for why she was watching this.
Of course, this became more and more her main focus over the duration of the video, especially when he drew what may as well have been three possible grown-up versions of her.
Oooh... she was going to have to change those bedsheets. Really, this just wasn't fair. Why did he have to draw what she wanted to look like and fuel her fantasies this badly?
Okay, after a quick telepathic conversation, you know that Sarah has identified the rough location Coil's bunker is located, so you tell everyone you're going there to see if you can't find him as a shadow.
Using your owl form first to fly downtown, you choose a nice little rooftop to change on, first going back to being vampire shaped, then turning into your shadow, dropping down harmlessly down the wall.
Time to get a-searchin'.
Unfortunately, as much as you search and search, you can't actually find any entrance to an underground bunker in the area Sarah told you to search. Slightly annoyed at this hindrance, you take a moment to reassess your strategy.
Okay, time to actually use your incredibly varied and useful powers here. Using an alley to change and fly up on a roof, your summon your compass and order him to point you at an entrance, specifically an entrance to the secret bunker underground.
You remember the Skidmark incident just fine, after all.
It takes you a while of searching around in the underground parking lot your minion pointed you at, but eventually, you manage to wiggle into the seams of the elevator door, letting you drop down for a bit before your shadowed self arrives at the bottom of the elevator shaft.
You're pretty sure there wasn't anything below the parking lot officially, so this must be it. You can faintly make out a dim light beyond a small crack in one of the walls.
You're in.
Wiggling your way through the crack you suspect to be a pair of doors opening to the sides, you take stock of your surroundings. Several identical hallways, with brighter lights periodically lighting the way.
Everything is either beton or metal, with not a single person in sight. Though you wouldn't be surprised if this place had more cameras than corners, with the way it is set up.
In fact, that small black little apparatus adhering to the wall is mighty suspicious in terms of cameras. Carefully coming closer... yup, this thing seems to be a camera, full stop. Somewhat limited field of view, though, from what you can make out.
Who'd'a thunk your intense use of and experience with machines would come in handy like this? Anyway, you're fairly sure you can avoid being seen by these cameras so long as you're careful.
Nevertheless, this doesn't actually help you navigate this place, you'd still have issues moving around as a shadow due to the lights... except, you spy, with your little eye, some vents. The entrances are even at foot height, and normally would be far too tight to be used, except you're a shadow.
Funny how that works.
Now the only issue would be if there's anything inside these things that can affect you.
Well, only one obvious option here, really. Sliding into the vent, you proceed to slither further into the base, building up a mental map of the vent grid while keeping an eye and ear out for anything outside your new domain.
Mwahaha.
You do encounter a few issues inside the vents themselves, though, mostly just airtight shutters and the like, likely to keep the base secure in case of gas attacks. The occasional laser grids, though, do prove to be somewhat of an annoyance, though.
In fact, the laser grids proved to be more than an annoyance when you were briefly distracted by moans coming from one of the rooms you were passing and they started to fucking move aargh.
Okay, on the bright side, you managed to avoid most of the lasers, and the ones that hit you didn't forcefully return you to being solid. On the less bright side, you feel as though you're missing a part of yourself now. This won't be fun when you rematerialize, you're sure.
Apart from that one instance, though, you make great progress on mapping out the base from the little parts you can see and hear through the vent openings.
You make it a point to denote what looks like an empty prison cell, complete with manacles for some reason, a canteen full of steel benches and desks with a few mercs playing cards and a fully furnished room that doesn't look like it's been used in the last few weeks, possibly ever.
Weird.
Anyway, thinking about it, it's entirely possible that Coil might have an entirely seperate ventilation system for the parts of the base he uses personally. May be worth looking into, at least until you find out where he is.
It does take you quite some time, even at your speeds, but you manage to scout through the entirety of the base. What you did not find, however, is Coil. Neither did you find any place looking important enough to be his office or anything of the sort, leading you to believe he has his own, seperate vents.
Which is quite a bother to you, not gonna lie.
Nevertheless, you have a clue on where he might be. You had noted a hallway without accompanying vents, not something unusual at the time, as not all vents are interconnected with each other and it could thus simply be an area you had yet to explore, but thanks to your perfect memory, you can say with confidence you went through all the vents in the base, but that one part was not connected.
And you just went through the fact that the one asshole you are looking for has a disconnected vent system. Adding 11, you thus arrive at 2.
Now you only have to figure out how to get in.
Carefully poking out your shadowed head... nope, there's a camera there. Time to go around rather than through.
Taking a detour through the vent system to arrive on the opposite side of the hallway you started out in, you carefully exit the vents and draw near the door.
Okay, so first, time to take a look around while keeping out of camera range. Thank fuck they don't move around, at least. So, let's seeaaand this thing is booby-trapped.
On the bright side, it's booby-trapped with more lasers, which, while an issue, are something you can work with. Or rather, around.
By stretching your body really thin and squeezing through where the lasers don't intersect with the doorframe. And honestly, really? Really? This fuck has trapped the door to his office such that lasers cut into anyone that can squeeze through the closed damned door?
If you weren't already going to eat him, you would now.
So, anyway, you're through the door. Now what is awaiting you on the other side?
Well, it's another hallway. Not that surprising, to be honest. Immediately retreating into the nearest vent (hey, it works), you survey the new area you now have acces to... and pretty much instantly find your target.
A dude in a skintight costume with a snake motif is sitting at a large desk, typing away. The room around him is clearly some kind of office, with a few doors leading out of it.
Well now... how do you do this?
Taking a careful look around from your perch inside the vents, you don't see any cameras inside the room, so you slip out and keep outside of your quarry's line of sight.
Taking your time to actually search through the room for any traps, you just can't seem to find any. It's just a normal office room, with nothing unusual about it beyond being in a bond villain base and the somewhat unusual decor.
Leaving that line of inquiry be for the moment, you get back into the vents and search around the place. In general, you don't spot any cameras outside the first hallway leading into this seperate area, and soon enough you come out and materialize inside what looks like his en-suite bathroom. It's good enough for your purposes, really.
Summoning your compass dude again, you once more have him point at the parahuman known as Coil, leading to him pointing towards the office with the guy you saw in it.
Dismissing him again, you ponder over what to do next.
Alright, time to go and take a bite. Going shadow again, you get back into the main office and rematerialize behing your meal, sparking your claws and grabbing onto him!
Slapping a hand over his mouth, you use the other one to slap the gun he tries to draw from underneath his desk away as you bite deeply into his neck, not giving him enough time to react before he dies.
Thomas/Coil was a cautious man. He wasn't always that cautious, but some things you just learn after living for long enough.
And he certainly lived longer than most of the poor fucks that set foot in Ellisburgh. So he used the power he obtained after being thrown out of the troopers for shooting his superior officer during the retreat to make sure nothing like it would ever happen to him again.
The fact he could essentially farm money off of the stock market, as his power circumnavigated Watchdog was certainly a nice bonus. So he set up his little project after making a few deals, and in short order, he became the mastermind of Brockton Bay, slowly but surely steering it towards an inevitable collapse while keeping a veneer of normalcy in effect before his eventual rise.
All he'd needed was a few more months, and he would rule the city in all but name... but then that had to happen, disabling his power and eventually coming for him in person without giving him a chance to fight back.
It just wasn't fair.
Alright, Sarah, I got him. Securely tucked away in my stomach.
Really? Great. Okay, keep in mind he'll probably have several failsafes in case someone offs him.
I'm on it, I'll make him defuse them himself.
Ending the telepathic connection for now, you breathe out the man you just killed, immediately starting to order him around.
"Okay, so first thing I want you to do is to disable any and all failsafes and contingencies you had, set up for the chance of your untimely demise or otherwise. Then we'll talk about how else I can use you."
As you speak, you kick his corpse off of his chair, even helping him by clearing the seat and all. You're really one helpful and considerate slavemaster when you think about it, huh.
Anyway, with him on that for now, what will you do?
Contacting Kate, Sarah and Henley at once, going to the limit of what you can do in numbers of connections currently, you explain how you currently find yourself with a big fat underground bunker, quite likely an abandoned Endbringer Shelter, filled with armed mercenaries that don't even know their previous employer has been eaten recently. You need some help here, just to make sure your organization gets everything out of this.
So you arrange for a pair of the mercs to wait by one of the entrances via Coil and tell them where to drive, not like Sherrel got much to do at the moment.
Aside from all of this, all you have to do now is wait, so you spend some time idly walking through Coil's former suite and thinking about how much better it would look with a few drawings or paintings as decorations before just sitting back on his former bed and relaxing for a while.
Eventually, the group of your organizers is escorted into the office, at which point you helpfully bring over some chairs from one of the adjacent storage rooms (man, this guy really thought of everything) and just make sure everyone is situated.
So, is there anything you really want to raise attention to while they plan out this little takeover?
"Okay, so first, I think I can leave merging Coil's organization into ours to all of you. I'd just like to ask about a few projects and issues and then I'll leave you to it.
So, first, Sarah, how are the Undersiders settling in so far?"
"Alec isn't the issue, I think he wants some help with a personal problem at some point but it can wait far as he's concerned. Brian is being difficult, but mostly because you actually pointed out why his plan is dumb and would never work. I think as long as we give him a way to keep his sister safe, he'll be fine. Rachel is afraid of you; enough so she isn't mucking up for the time being. It'd be great if we could help her set up her dog shelter project, though."
"Thank you Sarah, and there you also got some suggestions for stuff to do later. For now, though, I'd also like to add that it'd be nice to move the tinker workshop down here to make sure none of the superscience I steal from other dimensions gets out uncontrolled. As an aside of that, I want you to go over the mercenaries gathered down here and sort them between those we want to keep, those we want to let go and any of the really heinous ones I can eat.
By the way, I discovered that the blood of truly evil people tastes pretty good. Like, the more objectively evil someone is, the better they taste. Don't ask me how that works, it just does."
The next little while is spent on discussion on how to complete some of the goals you've set, along with everyone making Coil do both the important work with numbers and any secretary work that needs doing. You mainly just hang out for a bit and offer the occasional input where needed.
Ultimately, it is decided the merger is going well enough, with you now having access to a cool few millions in several accounts. You can leave them to work towards the rest of that at their own time. The workshop being moved also isn't too big an issue; all you need is a discrete truck or two and a few days of time.
Bitch, too, doesn't require much to be kept docile under your control; all it takes are a few purchased buildings and some staff that actually know how to work with animals. It's costly, but the cape under your control is worth it. Not to mention you could actually try to spin it as a nice PR move later.
Alec is a non-issue for now; you could ask him about what he needs done, but fuck it, it has time and you need to prioritize for now.
The issues actually requiring further input, though, are Brian's family situation and the merc situation. Turns out the mercs enjoy the usage of several 'leisure captives', which are basically women and children held on base to provide sexual relief, mostly so Coil had another way of blackmailing them into his service. This isn't too big an issue for you, but if you decide to keep them around, you may as well have your doctor soul look them over one of these days so you won't have to replace any too soon.
So, you'll go ahead and eat eight of them, chosen by your trusty committee here. Next off, Brian's family thing. How will you have that dealt with?
Ultimately, you decide to do what every decently rich person does; you just have someone throw money at the problem until it ceases to be a problem.
So you have the others arrange someone to approach her with enough money to get her to do just about most things, hopefully including 'selling off' her daughter.
You suppose a normal person might be appalled by that, and if the girl cares about her, it may leave emotional wounds for the rest of her life, but what do you care? If she goes through with it, she's not fit to be a parent to her anyways, and your relationship to your parents could be summed up in words you don't even want to think with Sarah in the room.
So you decide to leave it at that and instead think about what else to do for now.
Giving the meeting a little more time to finish a few things up, you once more speak up.
"So, I think I'm going to cocoon again once I eat those mercenaries. First time was after ten people, if you don't count the very first one, second was after twenty, so simple pattern recognition tells me it's entirely likely I'll be out for a few days again.
Is the gang well enough for me to be missing for an indeterminate amount of time?"
Getting affirmative answers, you nod happily.
"Alright then, assemble the victims in a room you want me in and I'll do the rest."
Coming into the room in question with a few of the happy meals on legs already present, you don't waste any time, ripping into them one after the other. The men, not having expected they were being called in to be killed, simply don't have the time nor preparations to effectively fight back.
Turns out they're not actually supposed to take the tinkertech attachments everywhere with them, only the ones actively guarding the base have them prepped.
Easy food.
So it goes, you repeatedly tearing into anyone that enters the room, still making sure the cameras inside get a good shot of the action.
Willis, Macy, Edmund, Wilbur, Edwin, Tray, Marwan and Dylal. The eight of them were usually referred to as the K-Team, or the kiddie team, by the other mercs.
Not that the term was wrong, honestly. All of them did like to fuck kids for one reason or another, and the boss did often send them out to catch specific targets or just random toys, but then again, it wasn't like none of the others ever stuck it in a kid.
Willis was their leader, being the most skilled and just dedicated to his job in general, which was a bonus. Macy, while a shithead often breaking their takes, was good enough at his job to be second in command when in the field. Edmund was their field medic, being needed more often than you'd think and often making their captives scream, surprisingly often in pleasure. Wilbur, their demolitions expert. Edwin, the infiltrator of the group, more often than not changing his persona every other day. Tray, pretty deep in the rabbit hole and often trying to convince the others to 'grab an extra, to break'. Marwan, pretty average compared to the rest of the team, and lastly, Dylal, who was another bad fucker often using up captives, but they all liked to have a sacrifical pawn around in case one of them had to die.
None of them expected to just be fed to what could have been their new boss as a team, but there you go. At least they had a lot of fun before they went.