Sarah. Sarah, it's happening again.
What? Gabe, I fucking swear, if you're-
No, it's not me this time! It never was, but, but- ugh! I'm inside and Rune set the kitchen on fire! Why does this happen every time I sneak into a nazi's home?
... I'm sorry, Gabe, but I think you might be cursed somehow.
I know, right? Anyways, I'll get out and pretend to be a random passersby that saw the fire and decided to help. Wish me luck!
Gabe, I will say it right now. Don't you fucking dare to seduce anyone tonight, you hear me?
Cutting off the telepathic connection, you get into high gear, getting back out the way you came while Rune begins flailing, coming out of her sleepy confusion slowly as she tries to do something.
Okay, transforming back, you begin to concentrate on growing younger, not having experimented with the power much, while making sure not to overdo it, so as to keep your clothing fitting. Unfortunately, you don't have too much time before you can see a lick of flame from the window.
Figuring you're rapidly running out of time, you just get going, running towards the window while making sure to stay within plausible human limits.
Once there, you see the situation has escalated while you were busy; the fire has begun spreading, a cupboard nearby the stove in the process of burning, starting from above where the fire is coming from, while Rune is now wildly flailing about, her head twisting as she is trying to find something to put out the fire without letting it spread uncontrolled... Not that she's particularly controlling it as is, though.
You're pretty sure she's panicking.
Alright, in sequence. You didn't take your phone with you, given you were planning on breaking into a house and all, so calling the Brockton Fire Department is out. You don't trust that Rune will manage to get what you want from her in her panic, either, if you even can get her attention, and every moment counts right now on account of the spreading fire.
And hey, if this triggers the alarm, even better. In fact, why the fuck hasn't the fire alarm started yet? Something to think on later, time to get in there and stop the fire now.
Sizing up the window as you come to a stop in the garden, how do you do this? You need to get in fast, but you also don't want to give the game away on you having superstrength.
Okay, so if you remember correctly (which you always do, kinda hard not to nowadays), you saw a few potted plants out on the terrace when you scoped out the place earlier, so...
"Anyone inside?" Your call spurs Rune on to look even more panicked, though you don't exactly have time to observe her beyond the flame slowly taking up more of the windowspace. "Hold out, I'm coming in!"
Darting around the corner, you pick out a decently heavy-looking pot, coming right back to that same window. "Okay, get away from the window!"
With a resounding crash, you smash the improvised bludgeon against the glass, shards of it subsequently flying inside and through the flames making good progress at overtaking the countertop.
Jumping inside after it, you're soon confronted by the sight of Rune having taken ahold of the table as she looks at you fearfully.
Well shit, now she's scared and in danger of smoke poisoning.
"Miss, is there anyone else in the house? Please, if there's anyone else I'll try to bring them out, too, but you have to get outside before the smoke becomes too bad."
"N-n-n-nob-body ins-s-side." Rune mutters, slowly letting go of the table. Was she planning to try and use her power to defend herself? Also, the file Sarah put together mentioned she had some kind of language defect, but you're not sure whether it's that or the adrenaline that's making her stutter.
"Okay, so we need to get you out of here before you breathe in too much smoke. Can you open the door?"
"K-k-key 's th-there. D-door. C-c-can't, have t-to put out f-fire."
"Sorry, but that's not happening. We need to get you out of the kitchen and call the fire department."
"R-right. Ph-phone, l-l-l-living room. C-can show you."
"We have no time for that, out NOW." Scooping her up, you ignore her surprised flailing as you barrel your way outisde the kitchen, the smoke starting to get thick enough you have trouble seeing far. Really high time you got her out of there.
You make a show of looking around as you make your way towards the front door, pretending not to have memorized the floor plan before now. Once there, you look at Rune. "Okay, where's the key?"
"B-b-b-b-bowl n-next t-t-to t-t-t-the d-door." Man, her stuttering really makes this take longer. Still, spotting the bowl on the shoe cabinet to the side of the hallway, you hurry over, the smoke thickening before your very eyes.
Hastily handling the keyring inside, you try out three of them in quick succession, finally making the lock turn and bursting out the door, Rune already coughing by the time you do so.
Okay, here you are, with Sabrina (or Tammi, but your version is funnier) the teenage nazi in your arms, a housefire at your back and only moments until she'll be collected enough to actually try and ask you what's going on.
"What did you set on fire anyways?" You ask, setting course for the next-door neighbor with Rune in your arms.
"Uh, um," she stutters, clinging to your arms like a lifeline, "I-I-I-I w-w-was h-h-hungry, s-s-so I-I w-w-w-went to m-m-make s-s-something t-t-to e-eat, b-b-but the p-p-pan c-caught f-fire."
"What was inside the pan?"
"J-j-just o-oil. W-w-was th-thinking w-w-what t-t-to p-put ins-s-side."
Well, that's... bad, right? You vaguely remember oil fires being pretty bad. Either way, time to call the fire department, so you ring on the next-door neighbors' and wait, shifting Rune a bit so she doesn't slip.
"Actually, while we're at it, my name's Gabriel, in case you were wondering." Smiling down at her, you go ahead and ring the doorbell again, settling into a steady rhythm as you keep on going.
"O-oh, I-I-I'm T-t-tammi. T-t-tammi H-herren."
"That's a nice name, Tammi." Is that- oh your god, she's blushing. Sorry Sarah, but it looks like you'll be disappointed in your big bro tonight, after all.
Luckily, you don't have to keep on making awkward conversation with a teenager rapidly developing a crush for you, as you soon hear footsteps through the door, a man in his thirties, built like a brick shithouse and standing there in his pajamas, opens it.
"What is it at this time of night, dammit?"
"Sir, I don't want to alarm you, but the house next to yours is... that." As you speak, you look over at the building you just pulled Rune out of, words somehow leaving you.
Suffice to say, you doubt there'll be much to save.
"I'd be really great if you could call 911, I just barely got her out in time when I saw the fire," you explain as you heft Rune, making her squeak, "and I don't hear any alarms going off, so..."
Grunting, he nods at you. "I'll call the fire department, you want to take her inside?"
"You sure the fire won't spread?"
"Enough space between houses, should be okay."
Just as you take a second to think it through, Rune's belly audibly grumbles, her face going red as she tries to hide it behind your arms.
"Actually, I'd best take her to a diner or something, get the little lady fed. You wouldn't happen to know a place nearby?"
With a weird little smirk, the man nods. "Could think of a place, yeah. Jus' go down the street, tke a left and keep straight 'till you see it, five, maybe ten minutes on foot."
"Thanks a lot, really. You should probably get to that phone call now, though."
"Yah, I'm on it. You two have fun, if anyone asks, I'm sendin' them there."
Nodding in thanks again, you turn around, still carrying Rune (or Tammi, best get in character now). "Sorry, if this is weird, but you don't have any shoes and I'm not sure going back in to get them is a good idea, so I'll just carry you there."
And hey, it's a diner. You figure the people there at this time of night will have seen weirder than a college-age dude carrying in a younger teenager in her pajamas, right?
"I-I-I'm n-not t-t-t-too he-he-he-heavy?" Oh, is she worried about that?
"Not at all. Light as a feather, Tammi."
And thus, you're on your way.
Sarah! Sarah, I know what you said, but this is totally not my fault!
Gabe, what'd you do this time?
Nothing! I just saved Rune's life and proceeded to carry her to safety in a princess carry, now I'm taking her out for a meal because she's hungry! Entirely normal and obvious things, but for some reason she's latched onto me and won't let go!
GAAAAABE!
Now she's turning and unhealthy shade of red as she recalls the way her stomach grumbled earlier and how I'm carrying her because she's in her sleepwear!
Gabe, I'd start swearing now if I thought that would fix anything. Just, just promise me you won't start seducing Kaiser and Lung somehow, okay?
I'll try, sis. I'll try.
"So, Tammi, tell me about yourself?" May as well get something out of this walk, after all, and information was the entire point of you coming out of your lair, after all.
"R-r-really? Th-th-this s-situation, a-and y-y-you're a-a-asking me about m-m-mys-self?"
"Hey, I pulled you out of a housefire and am taking you out to a diner, high time we got to know each other, I'd say!"
"H-hehaha! O-o-okay, muh-my n-name is T-t-tammi, a-a-and I-I-I l-l-like c-cats."
"Mhm. My name's Gabriel, and I recently rediscovered my love for art."
"O-oh- C-c-cain?"
"Hit it on the nail. Though, to be honest, I was thinking about getting back into it for a while before he started those streams, I used to draw all the time as a kid, you see."
"C-c-cool. I-I-I d-don't r-r-really h-h-have an-n-ny h-h-hobbies o-o-or fr-fr-friends o-or an-n-nything."
"Because of the stutter?" When she doesn't answer, you continue. "Honestly, I don't think it's that bad. People have worse ticks all around, and yours will go away sooner or later."
"Y-y-yeah, r-right. N-n-not like anyo-o-one's ever t-t-t-told m-me that b-b-before."
"Hey, I'm serious! The worst other people have to live with is a bit of stuttering, you're still way better of a friend than another backstabbing little cunt the kind most people on a schoolyard are nowadays."
"C-c-can w-we j-j-just talk about s-s-someth-thing else?"
"If you'd rather not... Well, what else could we talk about?" As you turn the intersection towards the left, you use your power over weather to finally let that gust you'd been slowly building up to flow, a few raindrops falling down with it as it ruffled your hair.
Tammi stares a little, but gets herself together quick enough, though not without a renewed blush. "U-um, h-h-how h-h-have y-you b-b-b-been d-doing, G-g-g-g-gabriel?" As she says your name, she cringes, almost as if expecting you to react to it specifically.
"Well, the job's been going well, might even get a promotion soon-ish, though nothing's sure yet, and my little sister's been a bit of a brat lately, though she's still just as much of an adorable scamp as always."
"Y-y-you h-have a s-s-sister?"
"Yup, she's the scourge of my existence and I couldn't imagine life without her. Why, I should tell you about that time she almost set the kitchen on fire..."
"... I-I-I'm r-r-really f-f-fucked, a-aren't I-I?"
"Mhm, depends. You living with your parents?"
"N-no, r-r-relatives. M-m-my p-parents an' m-me, we d-don't t-t-talk anym-m-more."
Alright, going a bit too deep there. Luckily enough, the sky was filled with clouds and a bit of wind all night now, so your covert efforts haven't gone to waste, and before you know it, a modest bit of rain drizzles down around you.
"Well shit, now it's raining, to boot. Gimme a second." It takes a bit of borderline acrobatics, but you manage to keep Tammi in one hand while the other is peeling your top off of you, then shifting her over into the other as she stares at you, wide-eyed, as you shake your jacket off your arm and spread it over her.
"It's no umbrella, but it'll have to do until we're there." And with that, you quicken your steps while simultaneously intensifying the rain into a proper rainshower.
It is with more than a little water clinging to your shirt that you stumble through the diner's door, soaked from top to bottom, though you made sure to keep the wind blowing from behind you so your jacket could stop the worst of it from hitting Tammi as you ran the last stretch, keeping the downpour your little shower developed into going for as long as the water in the atmosphere suffices- you're not about to actively draw water from around you into your little performance, that'd be way too much effort.
"You didn't get too wet, did you? I'd hate for my jacket's sacrifice to be for naught."
"I-I-I-I-I'm f-f-fine."
"That's good." Smiling your relieved smile number three, you carry her over towards one of the tables, sliding her mostly dry form on the cushioned bench before going ahead and, yes, taking off your shirt, hanging it across the backrest opposite hers and sitting down yourself, straightening it out a bit.
"Now we just gotta wait 'till my stuff dries out again and I can get back to pretending to be decent." Impish smile number two, I choose you! Honestly, you're kinda relieved your rehearsed facial expressions are seeing some use again; at least that weren't hours of your valuable time spent in vain.
Tammi certainly blushed, so you'd consider it effective enough.
It being night, there were, what, two, three other patrons around? Three, as your hearing informed you. The diner wasn't too small of one, either, easily housing around thirty people, more if they used the seating to its fullest extent, and it didn't take long for a middle-aged waitress to make her way through the pleasantly dark-red colored decor and color scheme, raising an eyebrow at the two of them as Tammi immediately tensed at her approach.
"Oh, don't gimme that look, I just pulled her from a house fire and we got right into the rain when she got hungry."
"Yeah, sure, cowboy. Her parents know she's here?"
"They weren't around, luckily enough. Told one of the neighbors what happened and he told us to come here, she's hungry and it beats standing around in the rain."
With a huff, she turned her eyes towards Tammi, then into a more neutral area between them. "Alright then, what can I get you two, if you're so starved?"
"U-um." Hoo boy, she's insecure about her stutter, this will be... just great, honestly.
"I-I-I-H-h, d-do y-y-you-" Honestly, this is kinda pitiful to watch, with Tammi growing more frustrated as she tries to speak. Time for you to step in, then.
"We'll have two poutines, for now. We'll see about afterwards."
"Anything to drink?"
"Eh, two cokes, if that's okay?" At Tammi's nod, she makes a note on her little notepad and nods at both of you.
"If that'll be all, I'll be back with your food in a jiffy."
"Th-th-thank you."
"Issues with new people?"
"Y-y-yeah. I-I-I t-try, b-b-but I j-j-just get n-n-nervous an-an-and st-st-stutter and i-it j-j-j-just g-g-gets w-w-worse and w-worse."
"Honestly, anxiety like that is really common in teenagers. Fuck knows I was a nervous wreck at your age, always trying to look as normal and average as I could." To be fair, that was a mix of your parents' indoctrinating you not to give away what went on at home and you desperately trying to fit in and have a place to exist that was less bad than home, but she doesn't need to know that.
"R-r-really? Y-y-you d-don-on't l-look th-the p--part."
"No, really, being a teenager sucks hard. Of course, it helped when I really got my feet under me and set my eyes on a goal I really wanted to pursue. Kinda made things easier in some ways, even if moving out and going to college as soon as I could wasn't necessarily my best decision ever. Then again... it brought me here, so I won't complain." Aaand charming smile number 4, don't fail now!
"I-I-I 'm-m-m a-also g-g-g-glad y-y-you're here n-n-now." And it didn't fail. Perfect.
You keep on making light conversation as you wait for the food to arrive, casually mentioning a few tidbits about yourself and watching Tammi soak them up like a sponge.
Kind of like feeding breadcrumbs to ducks, heh. Except that this particular duck is a cute teenager clinging to any sign of genuine affection and connection she can find with both arms and legs. Really, you'd be surprised the E88 hasn't taken advantage of this so far, but then again, perhaps they figured just leaving it to her relative(s) and taking it slow would suffice, given they weren't exactly in a hurry.
On the other hand, few people ever expect your particular brand of... Gabe-ness.
The conversation going on inside your head, though, is taking a quite different, if not entirely unwelcome tone...
Hey Sarah, want an update?
... Sure, why not, can't hurt, at least. Hit me.
So, I took Tammi over here-
Still such a white trash name.
-to the diner, of course 'just so happening' to run into a spot of rain of course entirely unrelated to my capability to control the weather, which is why I took off my jacket so her pajamas wouldn't get wet, and am now sitting here barechested as we're waiting for my stuff to dry.
And nobody's asking any questions?
Of course not, it was an act of god, honest! Heck, I even controlled the wind direction to make sure only I would get drenched.
Hahahah! And let me guess, now you're sitting there and using her vulnerabilities against her on every level and making her thank you for it?
Kinda, I've already told her how I really don't mind her stuttering she's really anxious about, ordered food for both of us because she has issues with talking to new people, more issues than normally, anyways, and am subtly flexing my chest while going on about how Cain's art streams had me rediscover my passion for drawing things myself.
Hahaho, and you're obviously entirely honest while you're doing so, aren't you?
Of course! Everything I'm saying is at least technically true. But you won't guess the next part.
Oh? Do tell.
I ordered poutine for both of us, and you know how hard the stuff is to eat without getting at least some on yourself.
No! You're gonna pull that old 'pluck it from their cheek' trick?
If it works, it works. Oh, and of course I've been subtly flirting with her all this time while pulling the 'nice older guy' act, so I'm giving it even odds of getting to fuck her, or at least getting some head, before the night's out.
Oh Gabe, we should do stuff like this together more often. Even if I still resent you turning everything into a cheap porn flick with your very presence.
Hey, I'd say I've at least arrived at a cheap novella's prince charming at this point. Anyways, food's about to arrive, so let me concentrate a bit over here.
"Here's your orders. Can I get you two anything else?" Throwing a questioning glance at Tammi, who is again tensing up and looking away from the waitress, you shake your head with a smile.
"Not for now, thank you. We'll just wave if we need anything."
Waiting a bit until she's out of earshot, you gently motion towards Tammi's poutine, snapping your own fork up and picking some of the fried potato out of the bowl, blowing on it for a moment in remembrance of when you disliked piping hot food.
"Well, let's dig in. You must be famished by now."
Timidly nodding, Tammi takes a sip from her coke first. "Y-y-yeah. S-s-s-suppose I m-m-may as w-well m-m-make g-g-good on f-f-finally g-getting th-that m-m-meal I-I-I s-st-started all th-this for."
The next moments are spent in silence between the two of you, yourself topless and wet all over, her shoeless in her sleepwear, forking food around and stilling hunger that (in her case) was great enough to have burned out entire buildings.
Heh. Sometimes you wondered if poetry wasn't one of your undiscovered strengths, after all.
And yeah, the poutine is pretty good, the potato stripes (you refuse to call them fries, they aren't, and the difference should be clear to everyone) nicely crunchy the way they become after being double-fried and the sauce melting into the cheese just right. Still, you didn't come here to eat, as surprisingly palatable as the food may be.
"So..." you begin, smirking a little as your opening in the form of a flake of half-melted cheese presents itself on Tammi's cheek, "there's something I've been wondering."
"W-wh-wh-what is i-i-it?"
Enjoying the nervousness obvious in her posture as you lean in, you reach a hand over... and gently scoop up the cheese on her cheek with your thumb,nomming down on it with a downright impish smile as she blushes bright red.
Bullseye.
"You were awfully scared back at the house, more worried about trying to put it out than your own life, even. I don't want to push, but... Is everything okay at home?"
"I-I... I-I-I'm n-not s-s-sure I-I-I sh-sh-should t-tell y-y-you a-a-'bout th-that."
"It's alright. I promise I won't tattle." You are, after all, not your sister.
Tammi chews on... well, everything about this situation for a moment, but once the moment passes, she sighs out a resigned breath and nods.
"O-o-okay. J-j-j-just kn-know th-th-this m-m-might t-t-t-take a b-b-bit t-t-t-to p-put int-t-to w-words."
Silently giving her all the time she needs, you take another bite from your plate.
"Th-th-the th-thing y-y-you g-g-gotta kn-know i-is, 'm fr-fr-from a-a... pr-pr-pretty sh-shit f-f-family."
"Mhm, I can certainly empathize with that."
"Th-th-they w-were... th-they h-h-had c-c-cert-tain id-d-deas abo-bo-bout h-how th-th-the world wo-wo-works, y-you kn-kn-know? B-b-but I d-d-din't-t a-a-agree w-with th-th-them. S-so I-I-I j-just h-h-hung o-o-out w-with an u-u-uncle th-th-that w-w-wasn't a-a-an a-a-assh-hole ab-b-bout eve-e-erythi-ing."
"Shitty family, uncle less shitty, With you so far."
"E-e-except th-th-that uncl-le t-t-took m-me alo-ong for a f-f-few th-things. S-s-so I-I end-ded up in j-j-juvie, and-d th-th-they p-put m-me i-i-in s-s-solit-tary b-b-bef-fore... s-s-someone g-g-got m-me o-out. A-a-and th-then I-I end-ded u-up w-with r-r-relat-tives m-my u-u-uncle g-g-got a-a-along w-w-with."
Mentally filling in the gaps with what you know, Tammi was probably born into some kind of hillbilly village or generally backwards background, an uncle of hers was more white superiority aligned and she kept to him as a way to escape what she felt was an unbearable environment, he got her into trouble and as such things are wont to do, landed her a place in juvie, where she probably acted up due to her upbringing, got thrown into solitary confinement, triggered and broke herself out with her power, coming back to her uncle who pushed her along to the E88 due to being a cape and probably got a few hundred dollars for the 'service', thinking himself smart over doing it or something.
Leaving poor little Tammi, thrown into yet another new environment she doesn't have any idea how to navigate and under the care of people she has no idea how to interact with as she's used for her power, all of that with her stutter and resulting increased anxiety beyond what might be expected in that situation anyways, and now she's even burned down her new caretakers' house.
They might as well have delivered her to you in wrapping paper and with a little bowtie on top.
"And let me guess, now you've burned down the house, and you have no idea what to do, how to face those relatives of yours or... anything, really. You're lost."
Haltingly, Tammi nods.
"Well, I'd give you a few pearls of wisdom on why it's all not as bad as it seems or how they'll surely laugh it off in a jiffy, but I'm neither naive enough to believe the first nor did it sound from your story like the second one applies."
"Yeah, you know what? This sounds like a really tough spot you're in. You have to go back to people you're not sure want you back, or at least want you back for who you are, and you're not even sure you yourself want to go back to them after that little accident."
"Y-y-yeah."
"So why don't I just go on ahead and... tell you a little secret of mine, one that might just put me in a position to help you out?"
Leaning a little closer to Tammi, you conspiciously take a look around as you take care not to dunk any limbs in diner fast-food before giving her an equally conspicious smile, winking and turning your eye into a shadow for just a moment as you do so.
"I am Cain."
Tammi just sits there blinking for a moment.
"O-o-oh."
"Yup. Incidentally, I'd be entirely open to just... whisking you away from all of this. Screw your family, screw your uncle, screw your 'relatives' and everyone they work for. They can all see about getting their own lifes together while you fuck off right under their noses. No need to ever so much as talk to them again, and we can even sweep the whole 'burning house' thing under the carpet far as you're concerned."
"... O-o-o-okay, g-g-give m-me a s-s-second. W-w-was th-th-that w-why y-y-you s-saved me?"
"No, that was actually a spur of the moment thing. I was just scouting out the area, I knew there were Empire people around somewhere, when I saw the fire and I couldn't let a cute girl like you simply die due to fire or smoke poisoning now could I?" Charming smile number six! Number siiiiix!
"O-o-oh."
And it works! Hook, line and sinker! The blush reaches a power level of over a hundred! Mission success, if you're one to judge.
"O-o-oh!"
Tammi withdraws unto herself, hugging her knees to her chest and hiding her face behind them, though she peers past them at you shyly.
"S-s-so h-how d-d-does th-this w-w-work? D-do we j-j-just r-run off i-i-int-to the n-n-night, or wh-what?"
"Nothing quite as drastic as that," you chuckle, "we just finish eating, hopefully before those relatives of yours show up, then I carry you off into the night while giving the waitress a nonexistent phone number in case anyone asks after us, whereupon we walk into a nondescript alley and board an invisible car to drive off with."
And indeed, you've already asked Sherrel to come park the invisivan nearby your current address, so all you have to do is wait for the right moment to fuck outta here.
"Incidentally, any idea when those 'relatives' might come back home to find said home a burnt-out ruin?"
"N-n-no id-d-dea. Th-they u-usual-l-ly st-st-stay g-gone on 'b-b-business' l-late o-o-on the w-weake-e-ends."
"Alright, guess we have some time to finish up here first, then."
"Wh-wh-what i-if I-I-I'm w-w-wrong?"
"Don't worry, we'll just improvise. Worst case, we just pretend everything's above board and I follow you in secret to get you out of any trouble half an hour later, at the latest." Snaking an arm over the desk to pat the back of her own hand, you smile reassuringly. "It'll be perfectly alright, so why don't you go ahead and finish eating? Wouldn't want the poutine to get soggy now, would we?"
"M-m-mhm."
Good, you've managed to coax her into continuing to eat, though she keeps on throwing you glances out of the corner of her eyes whenever she thinks you're busy with your own food and not paying attention to her. She actually makes a cute little sound whenever you proceed to look at her to let her know you know, amusingly enough, though before long you're both finishing up, Tammi having finished her cola a good while before her poutine was done and blushing a delightful crimson when you jokingly offer her your half-finished one, though she doesn't turn you down, either.
So, what now?
"All done?" You ask, the last bit of your nicely crunchy poutine wandering onto your fork and into your mouth from there.
"Y-y-yeah. A-a-are w-we d-d-doing th-the th-th-thing n-now?"
"Just about, yeah." Finishing off, you wave towards the counter, the waitress noticing and coming over.
"Hey there, can I bring you two anything else?"
"No, thanks, I'm just paying for now. We're gonna go back to the house, see if there's any news on her relatives, that kinda thing. Could I leave a number with you, in case anyone comes by asking for us?"
"Sure, sweetie." Rattling off a randomly made-up number, you wait until she's finished noting it down before grabbing your wallet, unbeknownst to her empty save for a whole bunch of cash.
Sliding her a fifty dollar bill, you smile. "Just round up to whatever works best."
Hesitating, she takes the cash, giving you back twenty dollars. "Listen, it's a good thing you're doing here, okay? Even if it looks skeevy as all hell. So if anyone asks, I'm giving them the number you left, and I'm keeping shush about you doing it all barechested and her in pajamas of all things. Wish you two a nice night, despite how things're turning out for her, alright?"
"Thank you, and right back at you." Playfully flexing your abs, you test your shirt, still a little damp but not quite as soaked as it was when you came in.
Not like it actually matters to you, you could run around naked on the north pole, but yeah, appearances and all.
"We'll wait until the rain lets up a little, then we'll be off. Let's just hope it'll turn out okay."
"Feel free to come back if there's nothing new, least it's not as windy in here."
And with that, you're free to go, Sherrel already waiting in an alley a street over, so you put your shirt on, smiling when Tammi bunches up your jacket and hands it to you.
"Y-y-you s-s-sure w-w-we c-can w-w-wait f-for th-th-the r-rain?"
"Oh, don't worry, it's already letting up, and we'll get you somewhere nice and warm in short order, not that I'll let you get wet for no reason in the first place." Casually walking over to the door as you throw your jacket on, you simultaneously concentrate on stopping the rain entirely, only a few drops coming down by the time you open the door and stretch your hand out.
Nodding, you turn around, returning to Tammi and scooping her out of her seat right into your arms, causing her to squeak before holding her hands over her mouth.
Cute.
Outside, on the way towards your getaway vehicle through nightly city streets and idly avoiding passerby where you can, Tammi starts up a short conversation, something unusual for her if you're judging her character correctly- she hates the way her stutter is viewed, so the fact she voluntarily speaks up without being spoken to is already a good first sign, far as you're concerned.
"Th-th-that r-r-reall-ly w-went w-w-well. W-w-with th-the w-w-waitress."
"Oh, that's one of the advantages of being at least passably handsome and convincing her I was a good guy doing a good thing. You heard her say it herself. People want to feel good about themselves, so if you can convince them helping you is a good thing, most casual conversation ends up somehow like that. 'Course, it helped I just let her decide how large her tip was."
A few minutes of silence before, as you're nearing your target alley, she follows up on that.
"I-i-is th-that wh-wh-what y-you d-d-did with m-m-me?"
"Don't be silly, Tammi, of course I did! That's the trick to it, you see, just because I'm convincing you I'm helping you to get you to do what I want doesn't mean I'm not genuinely trying to help you."
Smiling down at her, you press a kiss on the top of her head, making her squawk and cover the spot with both hands.
"After all, it's easiest to manipulate people if you're not manipulating them at all. I've been more-or-less honest with you for as long as I've known you, Tammi. Think about it. But maybe do so later, because we've arrived."
Not giving her any time to react, you send a telepathic message for Sherrel, causing her to open the van's door from the inside and making a black rectangle appear in midair.
"Wh-wh-what's th-th-that?"
"That," you answer, "is our getaway vehicle, to make sure we aren't followed."
And with one last smirk at Tammi, you jump right inside.
"Hey Sherrel, everything going good?"
"Hey boss, all in the green. Who's our guest?"
"This is Tammi, new cape with the crypts. Tammi, this is Sherrel, a tinker working for us. She's built the invisivan we're in right now, and generally drives around on gang business. Ready to come see our secret lair?"
Closing the door, you get comfortable on the front seat you've taken for yourself, securely hugging Tammi to yourself as you keep her on your lap.
"I-I-I-y-yeah."
"Aww, she's adorable, boss! You should get more cuties like her. So we going right back home?"
"Yup, not much else to do right now. Unless you want to do anything before we go, Tammi?"
At the shake of her head, you nod, satisfied, and proceed to lean back and enjoy the ride as Sherrel maneuvers the invisible vehicle through darkened streets.
Anything you want to say or chat about on the way?
"Now, Tammi, before we get there, I'd best explain a bit about our hiring policies. Simply put, the Lord Street Crypts don't give a single fuck wherever their capes come from. Any place, and race, any gender, heck, any gang. Sherrel here used to run with the Merchants before getting some of that 'Gabe Special'."
"Oh, um, yeah, don't do drugs, kid. That's pretty bad and ruins your life. At most drink gabriel's blood, least drug-like drug ever."
Snorting, you poke Sherrel's side with your elbow. "You only think of it that way because you were so used to taking shit when you first got some. But yeah, don't worry Tammi, this isn't some weird sex thing, I can actually give people powers by having them drink my blood."
"R-r.really? L-l-like O-o-othal-la?"
"Pretty similarly, actually. I can only hand out powers I have myself, and not all of them, but in exchange they last for a very long time, months being the longest we've tested so far, though they go away eventually unless renewed, but it's just way more convenient to renew them regularly that install them from scratch."
"A-a-are y-y-you g-gonna d-d-do th-that t-to me, t-t-too?"
"If you want me to, sure enough. I'd like you to get used to the people you'll be working and likely living with for a bit, first, though, or at least get an idea of how you want to furnish your quarters."
"Wh-wh-where a-a-are we g-g-going e-e-exa-a-actl-, uhrng." Groaning in frustration, Tammi pouts as you lightly pat her head, smiling at how cute she is as her stutter keeps her from saying what she wants to.
"Don't worry, you'll see soon enough. Suffice to say, the Crypts have a surprisingly stable foundation as an organization."
"Boss, you'll need to hide her, she's just too cute, the girls will eat her up!"
"Should I smuggle her into my place for now, then," you laugh, hugging Tammi a bit.
"Depends, is it really a nudist zone?"
"Of course it is. Why else do you think I really want to take her there?" You idly play with the hem of Tammi's nightshirt, smirking at the way she tenses up.
But for real, you're gonna need to get her a bunch of stuff; furniture, clothes, entertainment... Good thing you can just churn any of that out of one of the manufactories at will. Really, interior decorating has never been this easy.
Brings your thoughts back to Purity... You wonder how she's doing? Hopefully fretting and losing her nerve, though you don't mind if her desperation is a slow process. She'll be procedurally backing herself into a corner, just about waiting for someone to give her a way out... only question is whether you or Kaiser will be the first to stretch out a hand at the right moment, and you like your chances on that gamble, if you're honest.
After all, you're not her ex. People get really bent over their exes, you've seen it time and time again, and Kayden didn't strike you as particularly unusual in that regard.
"Hey! Hey boss!"
Mildly confused, it isn't like him to actively call for you, you turn towards Nolan. "What's up? A little busy right now."
"Oh, just, y'know, pretty sure I cracked that FEV bullshit you had me on."
"Why didn't you start with that, then? Okay, what have you got for me?"
"Been working on simulating with those lab rats Yoshi organized us, and I finally got a lock on making the sims work in ways I want. Like, they still mutate like fuckin' crazy, but the mutation's getting kinda stable in ways I decide beforehand."
"'Kinda'?"
"There's still outliers, but if I wanna make giant horned rats, I generally get giant horned rats. Some have extra tails, some got none, a few had chainsaw tails, but, y'know."
"Hmm... Good work. Keep on fiddling about, see if you can't lock it down further, but this is great progress so far."
"Okay, so you have a line on someone already?"
"Yup, discreet, decent work, and if we need to make revisions, you can just use what they make as a basis for the manufactories as I understand it, so you can easily remake the costumes as often as you want."
"Very good. Next off, those little lessons from Priestess?"
"I'll send around a note, the girls'll attend if they feel like it."
"Good. The souls have integrated casting implements they can call into their hands thanks to the new upgrades, so it'd be kind of a shame to just have them leave everything to the skills their minions brought with them."
"Oh, and about those kids..."
"The ones we found when we took over?"
"Yes, those. What exactly did you have your minions do to them? They're obedient enough, follow orders while thinking for themselves, but they're also pretty creepy."
"Creepy how?"
"They tend to move in sync when more than a two or three of them are in the same room and even say the same thing with overlapping voices. They stop it when told to, but they always return to doing it after a while."
"Hmm... Okay, that is kinda unexpected, but isn't it fine? As long as they know better than to do it where outsiders can see or hear, a little quirk like that is nothing."
"Haah... You're impossible, you know that? Now come over here and sit down, I need some stress relief."
"Oh? Lots of paperwork to deal with?"
"Nah, I just haven't shot anyone ever since we returned to Bet. Could we please just start off a gang war randomly and take over that way?"
"Sorry, sweetie, you know I want to fuck with the nazis a bit before we start massacring them en masse. We could look into assaulting one of their safehouses one of these nights?"
"Promises, promises... Aaah..."
Collecting Okita and moving on into one of the walk-in freezers you have going aboveground for just these purposes, you're... well, not too surprised at just how difficult she is being about this.
"Let's make it cutier!"
That one sentence started what you would later think of as the War Of Cuteness, fought between Okita's demands, your available corpse parts and every inch of skill and creativity you could scrape up.
"Make the legs shorter and the body larger!"
And so you ended up completely rehauling the body build, meaning you pretty much had to entirely redesign everything from scratch from that point on.
"Lots of bones here, give it a really cute face and spikesies?"
The 'face', as it were, had to be redone and thickened a dozen times until Okita was satisfied with the swirling designs, and the teeth, of course, needed to be made more jagged and larger until they appropriately contrasted against it to 'highlight the cuteness'.
"More spikesies!"
And once it was just right, you naturally had to give them a row of jagged reinforced bone spikes all along their backs.
"The handsies don't work anymore. Make them smaller?"
You ended up withdrawing the tentacles inside your creation, serving as a bundle of elongated tongues, even as said insides further inside begin to look more and more like a giant muscle bundle to let them contract and strike with enormous strength.
"The legs need to be more stumpy!"
Yeah, the legs probably should be significantly stronger, if only to carry the mass of concentrated bone you've kept on slapping up top. Unfortunately, you've begun to run out of easily available biomass, so you simply took to taking some from the sides and throat for now, the parts that could ignore a bit less mass as they didn't have to carry as heavily (and the neck was a giant mass of muscle already).
You were pondering whether it was worth it to have someone go get some more biotrash from one of the other freezers, but-
"It's perfect! It's a cutie-woopie!"
Running in and hugging one of the forelegs, Okita pouted at you, at which point you couldn't help but laugh as you ruffled her hair.
"Rise, my fleshly servant, and fulfill my will!"
Suffice to say, you now have a new model of cutie before you.
"Alright, everyone," you say, clapping your hands at the fairly empty meeting room, "let's talk costumes. They're kinda important, they give you an image and some personality, defining the role you take as a cape. Of course, anyone can use any kind of costume, or none at all, for that matter, and still make it into any given role, but it's significantly easier to be seen as a villain if you've got an appropriate costume and vice versa as a hero.
With that said, what do you want people to think if they see you when you're out there caping?"
Kate, Nora and Jeremy sit there, looking at you with a certain sense of bewilderment.
You smile.
It took a decent amount of poking and asking, but ultimately, you've got a few basic concepts down. And a whole bunch of designs sketched out, but those will be trashed after this anyways, so fuck that.
-Kate wants something to match you, some kind of dark suit. Easy enough.
-Nora doesn't really have any strong suggestions, though she wouldn't object a simple bodysuit with a few add-ons.
-Jeremy really wants something to keep himself safe from attacks his power doesn't protect him against, some kind of lightweight armor perhaps
With the general ideas clear, Kate will go ahead and get everything organized to actually get them some kinds of costumes. You, meanwhile, have something to take care of.
That is, thralling Tammi. A quick question has you pointed towards her room, and soon enough you knock on her door, waiting as you hear a bit of a ruckus from inside before the door opens.
"O-o-oh, G-g-gabriel." Opening the door wider, Tammi beckons you inside a somewhat bare living room, visibly not yet lived in.
Perhaps it wasn't the best of ideas to give teenagers their own apartments in terms of living space and responsibility, but fuck it, your lair, your rules.
"Hello Tammi."
"Hello, Tammi. Has your day been?"
"B-b-been g-g-good. B-bit w-w-weird, b-but g-good."
"That's nice to hear. Would you like to tell me more about it?"
"W-w-well, f-f-first I-I w-w-was j-just sl-sl-sleeping f-for a wh-while, b-but th-then I-I-I g-got hungry ag-g-gain, so I w-w-woke up and th-th-thought I-I-I'd j-just d-d-dreamed y-y-yesterd-d-day. B-b-but th-then I r-r-remembered a-a-and asked s-s-someone wh-where to g-g-get f-food, s-so th-th-they t-told me wh-where to g-g-go a-and f-f-find E-e-ethan, a-and he g-g-gave m-me l-l-lots of w-w-waffles a-and..."
And there she goes, telling you everything she saw and did. Honestly, makes you wonder if nobody ever sat down and talked with her about her day like this or anything, but then again, quite possible that the answer is no, so...
Ah well, you'll just go along with her for a bit.
"... a-and th-th-then I-I m-m-met Sh-sh-sherrel, and she sh-sh-showed m-me h-h-how to m-m-make f-f-furnit-ture w-with th-the m-m-machines."
"I see, did you make all of this yourself?"
"N-no, sh-she h-h-helped m-me p-p-p-pick."
"Mhm, I see. Say, while we're on the topic of Sherrel, did you think about what we talked about?"
"wh-wh-what?"
"The additional powers. Would you like me to give you some?"
"I-i-is th-that o-o-okay?"
"I wouldn't offer if it wasn't." Holding out a hand, you smile at Tammi.
"Well?"
"Y-y-yes p-p-p-please."
It took a little coaxing, but before long, you have Tammi sitting on your lap, her new clothes (most likely from the same manufactory as her furniture) actually fitting her rather well.
Securely feeding her your blood bit by bit, your other hand is entirely free to act, currently wrapped around her stomach, a fact which had her blush again as you moved her in the same position as back in the van, when you drove her towards your lair... but this time, well, this time you have a bit more latitude in what you do with it, don't you?
Tammi stiffens up when you move you free hand under her shirt, though she doesn't have much time to do anything else before you start rhythmically stroking her belly, making her twitch for a moment or two before her legs kicks out, even as she begins making cute little sounds into your wrist.
"Uuuuuh... uuuuuh..."
Honestly, this is way too cute, so you just keep going for a few minutes, until she blinks her eyes as she stops drinking for a moment, turning her head to face you the best she can, sitting on your lap as she is.
"Wh-wh-wh-what's th-th-that?"
"That is me rubbing your tummy, Tammi. Didn't expect you to like it this much, either, though I'm not complaining."
Scritching her stomach now, you're somewhat surprised when she starts giggling like mad.
"S-s-s-sto-o-op, I-I-I-'m t-t-t-ttickl-l-lish!"
"That sounded a lot like 'keep going, I like this' to me!"
"Hahahah-haha," Tammi giggles, unable to stop herself as you keep on gently tickling her stomach.
"Oh, here, keep on drinking, wouldn't wanna waste the progress so far, would we?"
"C-c-c-c-can't-" she gets out, her legs kicking out wildly, but not without a measure of joy.
"You have to, how else are you going to get those extra powers? C'mon, I believe in you!"
She shakes her head against your wrist, but sticks it out anyways, using both hands to hold your one hand against her face as her legs act out her twitches and energy.
After a bit, you, too relent, returning towards stroking her belly, only occasionally taking advantage of her being ticklish as the ritual proceeds nicely.
However, a little time in, you can't help but wonder how... ticklish... Tammi is elsewhere. So you gently slide your hand downwards, gently massaging and groping her thighs in sequence, but with her legs rubbing against each other a little and no further reaction forthcoming, you just take a minute or two before moving back up under her shirt, rubbing circles around her bellybutton for a bit before moving on ever further upwards.
Before long, you've got a gasp on her breast (no bra...), again gently massaging and pinching her nipples, playing with them a little. Tammi's breathing, long calmed from your tickling assault earlier, begins to pick up, deep breaths through her nose as she keeps on drinking.
It doesn't take ger long until she begins to try grinding downwards, your helpfully erect cock serving as the perfect place to rub her cute little pussy against, divided by several layers of cloth as the two may be. Tammi freezes up for a second when she really realized what she's doing for the first time before, hesitantly, resuming the grinding motion.
Luckily, it seems there's nothing like gentle bellyrubs to get her to let go of her reluctance, and soon enough she's plunging one of her hands down underneath her skirt and into her panties, playing with herself as she drinks your blood sip by sip and grinds against your cock.
Honestly, there's worse things you could be doing... and when she absolutely cums the moment you lean down to nibble on her ear lobe? Well, some things are hard fought, valuable for the effort you put into them. Tammi, though, Tammi isn't valuable because you put effort into turning her into a blissed-out wreck slowly soaking certain fluids down onto your pants, no, she's precious just for how fun it is to play with her.
Because fuck going out of your way to manipulate people not already doing half the work or more for you.
Tapping out a quick message for Henley, hopefully getting Ethan to stop asking people for things when he could just fill out one of those damnable requisition forms like everyone else- you were entirely certain Henley would have one for the materials of things to be built using one of the manufactories- you take a moment to check and make sure that Tammi was really okay, she'd been cumming just a few times after that first one, but that would more than likely have been her first chain orgasm ever so far, and make your way to your little recording room.
Of course, you have several fake moustaches stashed around the lair already, just for convenience as you don't have to keep track of where it is between the 'science' room and your art room, quickly slapping on your Abel 'stache and tugging on your tweed suit a few times.
Time to get to work. To show these imbecilic masturbators and cheeky fornicators a glimpse of true art in the only medium capable of reaching them.
Truly, Abel's labour was a labour of love.
"Hello there, despicable perversions of proper sexualiy. I am, as always, in despair to see you here. I remain Abel, brother of Cain and your host to this... despicable pastime of yours."
Turning away from the camera, you switch the active one around as you pick up the pen and measure out the proportions of what you're about to do.
"Let us cut to the chase, we all know you little deviants do not care about anything but your immediate gratification. It has been brought to my attention that, hypothetically, if me and my brother both were to have drawn certain confirmed parahumans, we were missing one to complete a certain set of them.
Now, of course, this is not the case, but if it was, I would naturally aim to beat out my brother by getting the last missing one in place, and so I am happy to present to you a drawing of what is, surely enough, not one Brandish, aka Carol Dallon. For family values are something to be treasured."
Alright, so here you go, background will be all colorful later on, but not much of a focus for now; instead Brandish, with only a very few select parts of her costume present and forming one of those plasma weapons of hers, it not quite yet taking form in her hand as the other grasps for the viewer.
"The hair, I think, will be the turning point. It will all hinge on the detail of her hair." That's a lie of course, her expression will be just as important, nearly as important as the bodily proportions you're giving her.
"Oh, and the musculature, of course. This woman is living an active lifestyle, it is only natural she would have some level of muscle obvious in her complexion." And yes, this is one nice sixpack you're giving her, even if she is reportedly spending most of her time playing lawyer instead of actually, y'know, doing stuff.
The eyes are what you're really proud about, though. Now for the coloring.
"Here we are then. Coral Dillan, or however you wish to call this random woman. Next! Come now, we all know your depravity has seeded some nauseating concept inside the poll by now."
"Why, you have not voted for a cape this time around. Color me surprised, I'd taken you all for entirely superficial and boring. Of course, the target of your twisted desires is still connected to the PRT on a... rather high level, but I suppose one cannot demand the mass of teeming hormones drowning out braincells that is you change overnight."
Okay, gangbang of Rebecca Costa-Brown. Her face isn't hard to find as you spontaneously look it up via phone at an angle the camera can't see, pretending to be measuring out the perspective.
"Now, this does leave us with an appropriate amount of freedom in interpretation, what with the vote reading 'Chief Director being gangbanged and loving it'. And with us, I mean me, of course, considering none of you out there have an artistic bone in your body."
Sniffing theatrically, you begin, a somewhat curvier and more 'casual' Costa-Brown being shaped by your pen, one eye closed due to the dick you're about to draw and her tongue outstretched... No, wait, doesn't fit. The guys would have to be overlapping outside the frame for that... Okay, you'll just move that one towards the back a bit.
Oh, how about a woman at her back, fondling her tits? Which you're also enlarging, of course. Yeah, that one's nowhere near the focus of the picture, so you'll position her face just so you can't see it in full.
"Now, the nature of the act naturally demands several male participants, naturally with different skin colors. We are inclusive here."
And yeah, you're mostly mentioning this because the contrast of the unnamed woman in the background against the Chief Director's skin color will be amazing... Not unlike your sister's against Aisha's.
Good times.
"As is the nature of these things, of course, it will be hard to see until I begin adding color, but rest assured, I will."
To be honest, you're a little worried those penises won't really hold against scrutiny, not being your usual wheelhouse and all, but ah well, the people will just have to deal.
Oh, and you nearly forgot the guy under her, fucking upwards into her pussy. That one won't require all that much effort, thankfully enough.
"Honestly, hair is sometimes the hardest part of these debauched pictures; the way it moves and swings requires significant effort to bring across just right, depending on the exact... positions... involved."
For the sake of speed, you're simply roughly copying one of Sarah's expressions from when she was playing with Aisha; it worked for you back then, it'll work for this picture.
"While I'm coloring all of this in, feel free to waste precious lifetime on inconsequential polls as to the nature of the next work, by the way. Not like any of you have anything better to do with said lifes."
"Oh, I see your newfound enlightenment did not take. Too bad, though I cannot fault it for leaving you. Anyone would have, if the alternative was having to be near any of you."
Okay, goth Panacea. That means black hair, probably drop the freckles and all the usual goth stuff. Oh, and of course nearly naked, kinda important for this stream in particular.
Doesn't mean you have to be overt about it.
"You know, I sometimes wonder what people's fascination with goths is, but then I remember how it is a matter of your weird fascinations, and I lose all interest."
Yes, you'll just have her casually sit there with just this short and tight little top barely enough to cover her nipples, instead going up to her wrists on the arms... and weird goth thighs, with some kind of coat she's vestigially hanging onto, just so she has something to sit on, protecting her bare flesh.
And a pen she can nibble on or something, playing with it with one of her hands. Yes, this is shaping up nicely.
"The eyes, especially, need proper attention here. Whether this is makeup or one sleepless night too many is your decision, of course."
Mhm, the curves are hard on this one. You'll go on ahead and give her the contours of some more muscle than you'd usually add to her body type, and the transition from her wider hips will flow nicely, her pussy just barely hidden behind her knee and thigh, lightly spilling out of the cage formed by your earlier work.
"Oh, and a collar, of course, how could I forget? With strings to her pen, I'd imagine she uses it often. Lord knows I'd wish I had a pen literally tied to me sometimes."
"Quite the beauty, isn't she? The best part, of course, being how she denies you manic masturbators what you want the most. Now, we should have enough time for one more picture, so let's see what little collective intelligence you have gathered between yourselves has to say on it."
"Vista, huh? I do hope you all realize I can and will twist things around, yes? Similarly, I do feel that it bears repeating, but anything drawn during this stream is strictly divorced from any persons, real or imagined, regardless of what the poll says."
Of course, you're not actually going to give them what they really want. Instead, you conceptualize and sketch out a rough idea of what you're going for; a beach as a background, and an aged-up version of how you'd imagine Vista to look like, with a bright and happy smile, some random decorations and details...
Maybe a few more plants to the side, flowers growing over the beach swing you have her sitting on, leaves intersecting with the picture towards the top.
And in terms of clothes, of course, she's wearing a cute little dress. Her thighs are as far as the viewers are allowed to see today.
"Hmm, the eyes are turning out to be a lot more aligned with eastern art than western, though I suppose the former can use any and all advertisement it can get, after Japan had that little... accident. It actually used to be a major cultural exporter beforehand."
Oh, and matchingly cute little sandals, of course! Honestly, she's turning out to look a lot like Sarah at that age, if with slightly different features and an entirely differnt look in her eyes.
"Oh yes, a strawhat! I remember seeing an advertisement with one in it, years ago. I categorically refuse to draw each individual straw, but that is the great thing about art styles; I can just keep it rougher and justify it as a stylistic choice."
And you even gave her some really nice thighs and cleavage, so if they complain, you can just call them names and move on.
"That will be all for this week. Thankfully, it will be another seven days before I have to face your strange mental excretions again. Farewell."
Amy leaned back in her chair, eyes fixed on what she was seeing and hearing. Thinking back on it, it was really only a question of time until this happened, all in all, even if she could've done without thinking of Carol like... that.
"Now, of course, this is not the case, but if it was, I would naturally aim to beat out my brother by getting the last missing one in place, and so I am happy to present to you a drawing of what is, surely enough, not one Brandish, aka Carol Dallon. For family values are something to be treasured."
Snorting, she couldn't help but agree. Sure, yeah, 'family values'.
Thinking back to the time she'd just completely frozen up when... that... had happened, and she'd just completely frozen up without any idea on how to react, setting in motion the series of events that landed her sister in M/S screening the PRT graciously provided when everyone misinterpreted what'd happened, with herself too mortified to say anything, yeah, family values should be valued indeed.
At least Vicky was back now, with results inconsistent (as M/S screening often was, it was essentially just an extended and repeated psych evaluation, as she knew) and Carol right back in their lives, just the way she'd always tried to be when they were younger.
Succeeding more often than not, too, to her credit. Fondly remembering long evenings spent playing monopoly when their mother managed to drag everyone onto one table and her sister's insistence that rewatching The Princess Bride was entirely justified and necessary, nay, a duty even, Amy shook her head, watching as her mother was metaphorically undressed on paper.
God, she was so going to hell for liking this.
"Oh, and the musculature, of course. This woman is living an active lifestyle, it is only natural she would have some level of muscle obvious in her complexion."
Yeah, right. Amy knew a thing or two about her mom's musculature (head out the gutter, Amy!), and while Carol Dallon indeed was muscled far more than would be expected judging by her daily activities, years of an active cape lifestyle leaving marks not that easily removed through endless paperpushing day in and out, she certainly wasn't that well-muscled.
Although, maybe she would come around with a little convincing- No, bad Amy! Stop it! Even if it'd be pretty easy, just mention how getting back into top form would surely help in catching Cain-
Urgh! It was bad enough Crystal had gotten her to change up her breasts based on that one time Cain'd drawn her, finally getting over far too long of a hesitant period and asking if she couldn't do something so she'd have 'the most amazing rack of doom'.
Maybe it had something to do with the... encounter... preceding Vicky's short incarceration, else Amy had no idea how to explain Crystal agreeing that Amy needed to see what she was working with, subsequently leading to her groping and pinching and weighing Crystal's breasts, with her moans and pleased sighs echoing in her ears and driving her on.
She may or may not have turned up her sensitivity to milk an orgasm from her jugs and told her to come by every three days for regular 'checkups', but what else was she supposed to have done in that moment? She'd need to work on Crystal several times anyways, having set up her breasts to slowly grow over several days as a way to avoid Crystal having to binge-eat repeatedly, if only so she could regulate her hormones and make sure those glorious globes remained perfect throughout the unnatural changes she'd added.
So what if she took advantage of her cousin while she was at it, anyways?
Well, she wasn't being faithful to Vicky, for once -shewasn'twithher-butshemaybe,shaddup-, though from what she was seeing, her mother certainly could-
"Uuurgh." And here she was, back at fantasizing about her mother and her sister lasciviously taking their time to soap her body all over, taking turns to wash it clean and grope her freely as she-
"Ugh!" Bad useless lesbian incestuous brain!
God, she was so going to hell for even thinking about this. This and her 'Crystal Boobs Observation Diary'. Yes, she'd actually labeled it that, that was how bad she was!
"Here we are then. Coral Dillan, or however you wish to call this random woman. Next! Come now, we all know your depravity has seeded some nauseating concept inside the poll by now."
Forget it, she was a useless teenage lesbian too busy drooling over how her mother could look like under other circumstances to do anything.
With a mix of guilt and a hot, sweaty feeling fueled by the same, Amy dove right back into her earlier fantasy just as her hand dove down her pants.
David smiled with mixed feelings, deleting his hastily made account as he watched the chaos he wrought.
"Now, this does leave us with an appropriate amount of freedom in interpretation, what with the vote reading 'Chief Director being gangbanged and loving it'. And with us, I mean me, of course, considering none of you out there have an artistic bone in your body."
Perhaps it had been a bit... unwise, or hasty, cycling through powers until he succeeded in slotting two that let him convince the watchers of the stream to vote for the option he'd suggested, a mix of group mentality analysis and some kind of public speaking power he could translate into the written medium well enough, but honestly, Rebecca had been asking for it.
Now he felt a little shitty for, well, causing a pornographic piece of his coworker to be created live for the world to see, but really, she was basically asking for it with the way she couldn't help herself but snarl at him every time he spent a few hours writing up crackpot theories and pinning them onto Cauldron's blackboard.
"As is the nature of these things, of course, it will be hard to see until I begin adding color, but rest assured, I will."
Hah. At least he wasn't a douchebag about it, David supposed. Though... Yeah, the way he drew one eye closed and the other one marked by what could be either a tattoo or some kind of scar?
... Yeah, she was going to have a field day with this one. If he wasn't fairly sure of the contrary, he would have actually considered this to be a reference to her eye. As it was, though, he would argue against anything Rebecca would theorize about this, on sheer principle alone.
... Honestly, Hero would have had a hoot of a time about all of this. He also would've hated everyone moping about him not being there to share the good times, though, and they'd all done enough of that back when he went anyways, so screw that.
"While I'm coloring all of this in, feel free to waste precious lifetime on inconsequential polls as to the nature of the next work, by the way. Not like any of you have anything better to do with said lifes."
And that was his clue to get everything ready. Shame he wouldn't be around to see some of this, but he needed to get the popcorn in the microwave as soon as possible.
"Door to Cauldron."
Stepping through the glowing portal, David whistled out a jaunty melody as he soon pulled out some of that popcorn. Ben's favorite brand, back when they were just a bunch of very sick people all getting healed out of nowhere and had the regular movie nights.
This one's for you, buddy.
Missy breathed a sigh of relief, her efforts not having been in vain.
"You know, I sometimes wonder what people's fascination with goths is, but then I remember how it is a matter of your weird fascinations, and I lose all interest."
Not that she particularly cared about what the picture ended up being, hell, she felt apologetic towards panacea, even, but the alternative had been herself on the chopping block.
And that would have been so embarrassing.
HealingHand had been working against her again, the... the bloody cunt, but she'd managed! She'd avoided being drawn naked!
Sure, it'd taken a lot of fast typing and writing and a few more spare accounts, but she won in the end.That was what truly counted, even if hiding under her covers as she operated the laptop she'd gotten... One of her parents, she couldn't remember which, to buy in order to spite whichever the other one was.
She hated how closely her home life resembled some accumulation of cliches about families splitting apart, some sitcom simulation, but if she could make use of it, she'd take what she could get.
She figured her parents owed her for emotional damages caused by this point, if nothing else.
"The eyes, especially, need proper attention here. Whether this is makeup or one sleepless night too many is your decision, of course."
Helplessly chuckling, a masturbating Amy Dallon couldn't help but admit that yeah, that as probably the sleepless nights, though lately they'd taken on another reason for existing, at least, even if that didn't make living without regular coffee infusions any easier.
Also, she was fucking hot. She gave up at this point.
"Oh, and a collar, of course, how could I forget? With strings to her pen, I'd imagine she uses it often. Lord knows I'd wish I had a pen literally tied to me sometimes."
Victoria Dallon eyed the screen with a sense of morbid fascination, the thoughts about her sister she'd been trying to suppress surging to the forefront of her mind. It'd been bad enough when it was her mom's turn, that was just weird, but when he'd drawn a delicious goth Amy?
Oooh, that just wasn't fair! She didn't want to go back to M/S, that sucked!
Then again... If she masturbated here in the secrecy of her room, nobody would know, right?
NO! She had to go visit her sister, she was bound to keep an eye on this, too, and ask her how she was feeling! She may need help!
Except, as Victoria floated near her sister's room, she began to hear a quiet noise... Something wet and repetitive and a female voice.
Eyes wide as saucers, Victoria Dallon laid an eat against the door, going as quiet as parahumanly possible, and what she heard...
"Yes... Vicky... Come all over your goth girlfriend..."
Well, suffice to say, the prospect of masturbating suddenly became a priority again.
Missy Biron borderline cried when she didn't have anything to throw at the audience to keep it occupied, being voted for the final picture of the stream, after all.
"Vista, huh? I do hope you all realize I can and will twist things around, yes? Similarly, I do feel that it bears repeating, but anything drawn during this stream is strictly divorced from any persons, real or imagined, regardless of what the poll says."
That said, as the time moved on and the pen shifted over paper again and again, she actually cried, out of relief and gratitude this time.
"Oh yes, a strawhat! I remember seeing an advertisement with one in it, years ago. I categorically refuse to draw each individual straw, but that is the great thing about art styles; I can just keep it rougher and justify it as a stylistic choice."
Yeah, this was alright and actually made her really happy. She wouldn't mind looking like that in a year or two.
Rebecca Costa-Brown was, perhaps, not in the best mood when she had Doormaker open up the portal.
Actually, scratch that. Rebecca Costa brown was pissed.
"I can't belive that little dick did that. And as group intercourse, to boot!"
"Trouble in paradise, Becky?" David drawled, his immense amusement obvious even without Thinker powers to enhance perception of such things.
"Can it, Dave, I've had enough to deal with as the Chief Director, and I fully expect my replacement to be incapable of dealing with the exponentially increasing fallout within hours, so let's keep this short."
"What, no convoluted attempts at making sense of potential messages that may or may not exist?"
"Please, as if we don't both know what he meant, this time. The 'Chief Director being gangbanged and loving it' picture was the only one not directly referencing local capes, and it somehow used both eyes to point towards 'Alexandria's' lost eye." Blinking with the prosthesis, Rebecca sighed.
"This, combined with the covert and not-so-covert references clearly spell it out if you know the context. He knows about both my identities, he knows about Cauldron to at least some extent and he is very well aware that we would have to abandon most of our operations on Earth Bet if he were to rile up enough local factions against us."
"E-*cough, cough, excuse me, mind elaborating on that?" The little fuck actually pulled a bowl of popcorn out from under the table (so that was what he had been holding there), munching down on the stuff and even offering it to everyone else.
"Come now, it should be obvious to everyone here. The picture about me was a representation of cauldron being assaulted and forced out of most practical matters the moment he reveals what he knows, as represented by me surrounded by penises, and if you look carefully, several details from the other pictures actually serve to underline this narrative."
"How so? I'm afraid I only really noticed the part where you're happily taking cock while your tits are massaged. Tits which actually are larger than in real life."
"Thank you for the stute observation, David." Ignoring him, as well as the way Numberman began muttering under his breath as he simultaneously kept working through his laptop, Rebecca cleared her throat and launched into her explanation.
"First off, his mention of family values seems to be all about the Dallon family of New Wave, a local team of little impact, but if taken whole, the statement encompasses much more. '-and so I am happy to present to you a drawing of what is, surely enough, not one Brandish, aka Carol Dallon. For family values are something to be treasured.' Putting it into perspective, this is him explaining how he is portraying someone that he is assuredly not portraying, explaining he will be drawing me, but not Cauldron, and that something is to be 'kept in the family', a common turn of phrase in large parts of the US and reference towards him not exposing us so long as we do not expose him.
"Next off, a seemingly mundane and simple statement, but one that sticks out nonetheless on account of his Abel persona referencing itself in a tone not sarcastic nor caustic as a part of another dig at his viewers. 'Oh, and a collar, of course, how could I forget? With strings to her pen, I'd imagine she uses it often. Lord knows I'd wish I had a pen literally tied to me sometimes.'" Going so far as to mimic his tone as he said it, Rebecca scoffed.
"A pen is a tool to write things down. To share information indirectly. He is telling us if we try to remove him, he has arranged for the public to be informed of as much information as it needs to so as to have Earth Bet become unusable for us. A pen tied to his throat? Extremely obvious and blunt for him.
"And don't get me started about the part about the Ward! Almost as if he was trying to make up for the relative chastity of the picture itself through sheer obscenely numerous hidden messages..."
David, the ass, managed to close his mouth halfway into her rant/explanation, just numbly eating his popcorn as he shared with Contessa.
The sense of tension in the air comes suddenly and, contrary to what you'd expected, from Kate and Sarah entering your bedroom together as they discuss some inconsequential organizational detail, only to freeze up as they see you.
Or rather, you as a ten-year-old, with half your clothes oversized and the other half fitting you.
"OHMYGODGABETHAT'SSOCUTE!" Before you have time to react, Kate is on you, holding you up in the air and shaking you lightly.
"Stop that! Let me down!"
"NEVER!"
"Gotta agree with her, bro, you look adorable like this." Stretching out a hand to poke you in the face, Sarah grins. "Does that make me the big sister now?"
"It does not, I was born before you were. Also, let me down already, my pants didn't shrink properly." With matching grins this time, both Kate and Sarah proceed to forcefully take your hands off your waistband, leading to the predictable result of said pants sliding to the ground, soon followed by your underpants.
"Congrats, you've bullied a ten-year-old by taking his pants off. I hope you're proud of yourself," you deadpan at the both of them, not that they seem to care as they inspect little big Gabe.
"So he always had a pretty large one, huh?" Kate ponders, her hands in your armpits as you're not seriously struggling.
"I wouldn't know, I was born way later and by the time I can remember back, he was already taking care of us."
It is at this exact moment that Aisha comes strolling in, smiling to herself as she takes a sip out of a bottle of water entirely naked, as is her wont nowadays, only to see what is going on and freeze.
"Not a word."
Contrary to your assertion, you soon have a guffawing teenager rolling around on your carpet. Really, is this the level of respect you're due as the leader of this gang?
It took a decent while to get everyone to calm the fuck down, but eventually, an equilibrium settles in where you are handed around between Sarah and Kate, both making you sit on their lap by the time you've finally gotten the trick for adjusting your clothes as you age or de-age down.
Aisha, of course, is on molesting duty, but you honestly don't mind, considering what you did to her already, and it is thus that the three (four) of you discuss what needs doing next.
"While I'm always up for fucking with the nazis, the ABB looks like it might be more of an issue for us for the time being."
"What'd they do? Lung's usually content to sit on his scaled ass all day."
"Usually, yeah, but we do know he went out of his way to go recruit that bomb tinker last month, and, more importantly, we know a bunch of ABB grunts have been seen moving around near our borders, so it'd be great if you could go see what exactly they're doing," Sarah explained.
"Tell me more about those sightings? I need details please."
"It's not much; a more-than-average amount of people in red and green have been seen, moving things around. Could be they're moving shipments, could be it's human trafficking. We won't know until you get in and snoop around."
"Oooh, can I come?" Aisha asked, stopping in her fondling of mini-Gabe's balls. The girl was worryingly into doing that.
"Sure, why not."
"Sweet! Lemme go grab my mask real quick."
Getting up, both you and Aisha proceed to make your preparations, her darting off to do as she said, you taking your time to revert back to your usual age.
"Okay Sarah, you just make sure to run control while we're gone, I'll ping you if anything comes up as always."
"Sure, sure. You just make sure Aisha doesn't accidentally dismember anyone."
"Alright, any dismembering shall happen on purpose."
"Eh, good enough."
Facing a (still naked) Aisha coming running back to you, you laugh a little at the overeager expression on her face. "Calm down, I need a moment to get back to usual. While I do that, let's plan this out properly."
A few telepors after your impromptu planning sessions later and both you and Aisha are turning into shadows, gliding down onto street level and taking a look around.
This place looks suspicious.
That's a candy store, Aisha.
Yeah, and where else are the creepy rapist dudes going to get the candy they tempt little kids with?
Aisha, we came to figure out their operations, not so you can steal candy. We can always get back to this when we're done.
Boo!
Thusly keeping Aisha under control, the two of you proceed to comb through the streets, eyes open and minds connected.
Hey! Hey Aisha! You gotta come over here, this shit is great!
Waving your shadowed form at her own, you move a bit so she can fit into the same corner without overlapping with you. Doing so doesn't actually do anything, but you figure that's just etiquette among shadows or something.
Either way, here you are, huddling under a parked car and listening in on an... interesting conversation.
"...-uck are we even doin' all this for again?"
"'Cause we're being told to, baka. Also, learn fucking Japanese already, any idiot could listen in on us!"
If you were physically capable of it, you and Aisha would be grinning at each other right now.
"Fuck you, like I ever will."
"Yeah anyways, keep your mouth shut and do as you're told. We gotta get everything prepared on time, or it's our asses on the line."
Well, well, well, isn't that interesting. Looks like we've found the bad boys we came for, then.
We gonna follow them?
Just gimme a moment to update Sarah, then we can see about that.
C'mon, hold onto me.
We're shadows, how's that even work?
It just does. Now hold tight, wouldn't want them to drive off without us.
It had, fortunately, not taken the guys you'd been eavesdropping on long to get into the same car you and Aisha were hiding under, just carrying over a few packages out of one of the shops nearby before driving off.
On the way, you discover that yes, you actually can carry Aisha, using your powers to adhere yourself to the car's underside as you idly chatter with her.
Now if only you actually could fondle her, rather than rub nonexistent overlapping forms against each other...
Still, you're keeping Sarah apprised of where you're going, occasionally peering out from under the car's hood and looking out for any street signs you're passing, steadily making your way deeper into ABB territory according to your sister keeping up with your progress and reconstructing the route you're taking.
All hail the internet and the ability to just browse maps of literally anywhere nowadays.
Most of the ride's rather boring, truthfully, but at least your little shadow seems to be having fun until the anticipated moment of the car slowing and parking comes upon you.
Okay, you stay here, I'll figure out where we are so we can come back later and search this place after following these idiots around a while longer.
Gotcha.
Sliding out from under the car, you first take a look around, noting you're clearly inside some kind of industrial area, the look of old, abandoned factory buildings fairly obvious in that regard.
Somewhat more interesting, for you at least, is the fact you can see a train track nearby, clearly indicating this place has to be connected to the trainyard somehow. It takes a bit of work, but you ultimately manage to find a street sign, Sarah soon confirming you're a good bit into ABB territory, to the west of the trainyard under your control.
Scouting out the area a little further, you soon come upon an intersection, allowing you to convey more street names to Sarah who soon tells you she's fairly sure she knows where you are, subsequently getting right back under the car you took to get here.
Had fun?
I wish I did, this place is boring as fuck. Let's hope they'll take us someplace more interesting next.
"... -nd you're sure you can't tell me what we're doin'?"
"As if I'd ever tell a moron like you. I'd like to keep my head attached, and you blabbing won't help with that."
"Fuck you!"
"No, fuck you. Just accept we're moving a bunch of shit around. Doesn't matter what for, doesn't matter what shit it is, we're just the muscle."
"Ain't'cha the least bit interested?"
"For tha last time, no! Look, we ain't gettin' paid for askin' questions, we're gettin' paid for doin' what we're doin'. Now get in the car an' buckle up, we're runnin' a few pickups for tomorrow and I won't have ta see yer face for the day afterwards."
It is as the two morons make one of their 'pickups' that something goes wrong. To be honest, you'd been waiting for Murphy to come annoy you for a while now.
Bickering like you've cunningly deduced by now they normally do, they're carrying a bunch of parcels to the car, again, as usual, they've been driving to places and doing just that for half an hour now, when it happens.
It being the dumb one stumbling, faceplanting on the sidewalk and his burden clattering across the ground... with one of the packets, impacting the ground with a decent amount of force, coming loose and spilling its contents all across the floor.
Interestingly, said contents turn out to be a series of devices seemingly cobbled together from random bits and pieces someone pulled out of household appliances. You cannot discern any obvious use for them, though you're also not inspecting them particularly closely.
Oh, shit, you think you know what these are.
Aisha? Aisha, I need you to teleport yourself away right now.
What? Why?
These are tinkertech. The ABB recently got a bomb tinker. Do the math. If they blow up, we have no idea what they might do, and I'm way harder to kill than you. So go get on one of these roofs and watch the explosion from afar.
Next thing you know, Aisha's gone, though that doesn't stop her from talking to you.
You really sure they're gonna explode?
They're tinkertech. They're also bombs. Damn right am I sure something's gonna explode any time now.
Just as you finish the thought, the dumber of the two morons, having come up to his feet by now, comes over to pick one of the likely bombs up with his basr hands.
You know not everybody's studied parahumans in college, but c'mon!
"Huh? So we been ferryin' weird lil' toys around for weeks now? What the shit?"
"Dude, the fuck? Help me put this shit back together before anyone sees!"
And with that, the idiot looks away from the thing whose function he has no idea about... and a near inaudible whine starts coming from it.
Oh fucking shitballs.
You know a lost battle when you know it. Or, in this case, a bomb about to blow.
Thus, you don't bother taking it slow or bothering with stealth, you race out from underneath the car and across the street, and not a moment too soon.
Whoa, this looks rad as shit.
Turning around only once the crackling of freezing air fades, you see, well...
Suffice to say, literally everything is frozen over where you were just hiding. Both of the ABB grunts are frozen in the exact position they were in when the bomb went off, clear ice letting you see the expressions on their faces just fine.
A large chunk of said ice has covered the entirety of the sidewalk they were on, spreading from the facade of the building they just came out of towards about a quarter across the street, a few streaks of ice stretching out here and there.
Looks like however this bomb worked, it did it by freezing everything and spreading the effect for a short distance.
So much for finding out more from these guys.
Joining Aisha up on her chosen rooftop, you hang your head down the same wall she's holding hers.
That was sick!
Aisha seems mostly enraptured by the 'performance', staring at the transient piece of almost-art.
You know what, I was planning to tail these guys for a while longer, but with that fucked now, let's go find that candy store again.
You really mean it?
Duh. Time to go get a bunch of sweets. Just remember we'll need a lot to share with the others, so you better get ready to ferry a bunch of stolen candy out of the store. Repeatedly.
Before we go, though... Give me a moment. Wouldn't want people to randomly blame the one big cryokinetic in town, now would we?
Detransforming for a moment, you chant Make the world a colder place! at the area you remember the bombs to have scattered in, as well as however many of them are inside the car at the moment.
Now let's get out of here.
Moments later, a resounding explosion goes off, the entire housefront you just ran away from blasted apart, pierced by ice shrapnel, split apart vertically, spatially inverted and filled with weird looking gas and liquids.
Yeah, you're quite happy you detonated that shitfest from a safe distance. Like, you're fairly sure that just took a bunch of civilian casualties, but really, who ever gives a fuck about those?
Alright, so how much chocolate do you think we can carry at once?
It is laden down with both arms full of various sweets, followed by Aisha with a similar burden and lightly swollen belly, though disappointingly not from your seed (yet, anyways) that the both of you teleport back into your lair, the amused gazes of Kate and Sarah on you as you sit down to take her into your lap and lick her fingers clean of the sticky residue of the candy she already stuffed herself with.
"So, how has your night been, everyone?"
Autodoc Improvements
Pupperdoc (or most animals smaller than humans that can be treated with this) (4 points)
Mobility (modify the machine to fit into the back of a van) (3 points)
Medical Scanners (if it can't treat it, it can tell you why) (4 points)
Durability (not a priority, but lets them weathercar accidents, at least) (2 points)
Waterproofing (1 point)
BROCKTON BUGLE: MIDNIGHT MASSACRE
Last night, around 4:30 am, citizens of the Docks South district were in for an unpleasant surprise. In the middle of the night, a bright flash heralded the sound of thunder rolling through the district, clearly audible throughout it.
This was not a prank getting out of hand by any measure, as the originator of the explosion being described was a nondescript combined apartment building and shop, formerly servicing and selling phones and electrical accessories, now a ruin after a number of anomalous effects destroyed it during or after the explosion and continue to persist.
PRT agents have been dispatched and are currently investigating the scene of the crime, though no official conclusions have been announced yet. Currently confirmed casualties amount to 28 deaths and 56 wounded, further shifting as evacuations of affected areas and medical care continue.
It is suggested to report any hints or leads at the anonymous PRT hotline at...
-Excerpt from local newspaper's digital edition
With most of the minor quibbles taken care of, meaning delegated to Kate, and the more science-orientated souls under your control having reported their progress, meaning you know it will take just a few more days for Yoshi to complete his physical lab setup and Nolan is still busy trying to control whether or not the simulated mice grow chainsaw tails and lamprey mouths, you turn towards the important things in life.
Meaning, art. Time to take a little time and just draw at your own pace, maybe get some work done for that auction, maybe draw something for use inside the lair, who knows?
"So, how do you want me?" Sarah asked, swaying happily as she walked and showing off her body.
"You know as well as I do there's no way I wouldn't want you, but for starters, how about you take a seat on the couch?"
"It's still amazing just how fast you got this room organized."
"Wasn't that hard, honestly. With the manufactories and what materials we had on hand, all it took was getting the measurements right and carrying everything in here." And indeed, your 'special little drawing room' came out rather well, all things considered. A nice plushy couch, drapes, carpet, everything you could want, all in red for now.
Changing the room's colors would simply take a quick trip to the manufactory and about ten minutes of effort.
"You know, being able to just draw stuff from perfect memory means you don't really need to hold any poses for any length of time... though I suppose that's not even the point for you, is it?"
"Isn't it? You tell me, big bro." Leaning over the couch's backrest, Sarah began presenting her ass.
"Oh, we both know where that road leads... and nothing stops me from railing you while I work, either," you growl.
It's a sound she shivers to.
In the end, you have drawn up a significant amount of pictures, though many of them you won't ever show to anyone not inside your inner circle, aka being boned by you. Your sister is adorable and beautiful, but you simply prefer to show her off clothed, for the most part.
That said, not every picture was about her; you also went through other themes, such as the Garden Of Eden, considering it fitting, what with the biblical bend to your naming scheme, as well as a more victorian feeling series of pictures about a masquerade ball.
Of course, nothing stopped you from just combining themes here or there, such as one sticking out to you where you modified Sarah's look sufficiently to be unrecognizable and put her into Eden.
Indeed, her appearance lends itself well towards offering the forbidden apple... Even if you're self-aware enough you're more of a casual tempter than she is.
Ah well, doesn't change just how tempting she is, you can't help but think as you smile down at her, shifting your grip on her ass as you pound her tight pussy, her back resting on the couch as she luxuriates in the attentive affection you're lavishing onto her body.
Alright, here you are, freezer most of your 'materials' have been carted into. Question is, what exactly do you want to do? You've currently got only two undead active, Gash and Okita's new 'cutie', having deanimated the rest for the time being and readied them for recycling.
Kind of a shame Sarah couldn't join you, but she's rather busy most of the time, and mutilated corpses didn't make for the finest backdrop when having sex, something you certainly understood.
At least Okita's busy playing with her 'friend'.
Okay, so you're thinking about creating a more covert kind of undead, the kind that could potentially fit into a crowd or at least not arouse too much suspicion when walking around. Having expendable assets like that mingle with the general populace as they're fulfilling your commands might just come in handy down the line.
Alright, so as it turns out, morphing animal bones into muscle mass is boring and tedious in the extreme, though on the bright side, you didn't need to waste too much time on it, having enough other animal waste lying around to concentrate most of the bone into a big, strong, human-ish skeleton.
As it turns out, not needing to give a shit about biological issues such as energy, nourishment and all that crap that keeps natural grown stuff from having giant armor plates of bone or similar fun thungs opens up a lot of possibilities. While Mr. X won't have any special features the likes of which you like to add to your undead creations, he will be immensely strong, tough and share the usual immunities undead do, not giving a single fuck about breathing, eating or pain.
Suffice to say, he will certainly suffice to deal with most more mortally challenged foes... especially once you get around to creating a few more comrades for him.
They'll be unable to talk beyond groans and grunts, but then again, that puts them ahead of most teenagers running around this city. Most people out on the streets will see a big, strong man and instinctively keep out of the way- which is exactly what you want them to do, honestly. They'll be able to mingle among crowds and move around while arousing relatively low amounts of suspicion.
Unless their clothes are damaged or removed in some way, in which case the corpse-like skin stretched over a mixture of solid, writhing muscle and even more solid plates of bone visibly contouring.
Of course, no initial design will ever be perfect. You know it, you live it... or rather, unlive it, but whatever. What counts is, Mr. X over here could be better than he currently is.
For starters, taking in the whole design and the way you made it, you made a few obvious mistakes, now that you view it from a new angle. Yes, this big bugger is very hard, big and strong, but you kinda sacrificed a lot of ability to move freely in exchange for more bone structure everywhere, but... Honestly, you could probably move things around a little on pretty much every joint, shift a few bone plates around, and Mr. X could be much more agile without working against his internal structure.
In fact, why not go a little further? This guy's really heavy, yes, but most of that mass is muscle, so why not go ahead and ensure a bit more muscle is around the legs and hips, giving your creation not only a heavy kick (well, heaver than before anyways) but also theoretically allowing it to jump a decent distance despite its sheer bulk.
Suffice to say, a ballistic Mr. X to the face should solve most non-cape issues, and even most capes would be hard pressed to really defend against something like that.
You know, this isn't as big of a pain as you first thought.
"He's so cute and cuddly!" Aisha screams, hugging you to her (naked, obviously) chest.
"I know, right? It's completely insane just how floofy he is!" Sarah exclaims, patting your back as you idly paw Aisha's perky little tits.
"I should say something about him molesting any teenagers he sees even as a damn puppy, but you know, I'm not even surprised at this point." Shaking her head with a smile, Kate casually grabs a... doggy food bowl out from under her desk, her other hand showing off a bag of dog food.
You're not sure whether to be amused or insulted, so you settle for a sneezy whuff as you lick Aisha's face, much to her squeeing joy.
"Okay, everyone, let's do this. Sorry about me calling a meeting like this, by the way, but you know how it is, rapid developments like this require rapid responses and all."
Taking a seat, you take a look around. Kate, Sarah, Henley and Aisha are sitting there, your lightweight council ready and prepared to talk this out.
"Let me first explain what this is all about, in case anyone doesn't yet know. Yesterday night, I was out investigating suspicious movement by known ABB affiliates Sarah caught up on, through a combination of traffic cameras and some of our people infiltrating the area on occasion reporting on them, and so me and Aisha-" you say, ignoring Henley's temporary confusion, "- went there and swiftly began tailing a pair of suspicious guys driving around, picking up and delivering packages all over the place, most addresses already noted down and all, including a particularly interesting one in the industrial district west of the trainyard proper, but I digress.
Where things get interesting, is when one of the two idiots we were following accidentally opened one of the packages, revealing what I soon recognized to be tinkertech explosives, so we evacuated the area, soon watching as one of them picked it up, apparently triggered the bomb and got himself, his buddy and everything nearby into a giant chunk of ice, which led me to trigger the other bombs from afar just to make sure they wouldn't go off unexpectedly later on and to deny them to anyone managing to pry them from the ice, causing the explosion in Docks South."
Observing everyone's serious faces (even Aisha's being serious, for once), you continue. "Now, with the intelligence we have gathered, we can draw several conclusions with relative certainty. One, The ABB has a bomb tinker, a certain Alice Nakamura, recruited after she tried to blow up her university. This is almost certainly her work. Two, The ABB has been distributing these bombs in the area, potentially even trying and/or succeding to smuggle them into our territory, given the vicintiy. Three, our friend Alice is damn dangerous as a tinker, given the result of me triggering those bombs.
Thus, my overall conclusion is that Alice Nakamura is a top priority for either recruitment or elimination, because either way we can't allow the ABB to have access to unlimited tinkertech explosives. Any thoughts?"
Everyone exchanges a few looks before Henley takes initiative. "First off, a clarification, please. You once told us that your 'magic' interacts badly with tinkertech, how likely is it that the intensity of the explosion was influenced by whatever you did to trigger them?"
"Not that likely, to be honest. A good bit of the basic blast heard throughout half the city was likely the explosion created by my spell and the tinkertech interacting, but the deleterious effects on the area were all caused by the bombs themselves. In fact, those bombs are a rare case of tinkertech performing as expected instead of just blowing up when subjected to my brand of reality warping."
"Okay, how exactly are you planning to either murder or abduct her, then?" Kate asks, her chin resting on her fingers.
"A rather basic outline of a plan for now, but basically? I'll use one of my souls equipped with the power to find specific things asked of it, find out where exactly she is, then abduct her through the use of a body displacer soul if possible before evacuating the area, leaving behind a fake body to throw off the trail, hopefully disguising her 'death' as an accident with the bombs she was working on at the time."
"Not sure how likely Lung is to buy that one, Gabe. Tinkers are supernaturally good at dealing with the things they make, she'd basically need to be completely braindead to mishandle her bombs."
"Yes, but does big and scaley know that? I hope he doesn't, and the fake body I'll be morphing to look just like her should hopefully clear any doubts."
"You do realize that plan is very... vague, do you, Gabe?" Kate throws in.
"Well yes, I don't have any exact data on where she is, so a certain amount of thinking on my feet will be necessary as a matter of course."
"I suppose we'll just have to leave it to you, ultimately. What will you need for this, and I assume you'll go for it rather soon, given the circumstances?"
The following discussion to take your vague plan and turn it into a somewhat less vague plan had... well, a few results. First off, Sarah insist that she will get Coil ready to essentially give you two chances at getting everything just right, as well as having you wait a few hours so she can analyze everything she can get on Alice Nakamura, to ensure you have the best chance possible at manipulating her towards your ends once you got her cornered.
Further, the initial idea of faking her death through a mishandled bomb is accepted, but overall consent is to use the soul of one of the ABB's people present inside the area, with their corpse dragged along and all, while your exit strategies are enhanced through both Sherrel in the invisivan and Aisha using her soul if you can convince Alice to come with you by her own will on site.
With that, you'll have to spend a while waiting until Sarah's done on her end, but hey, you can just train a bit, so it's no biggie either way. Just gotta remember to go tell Sherrel what she's been volunteered for.
Alice Nakamura, as it turns out, has never been in a particularly mentally healthy environment.
"As you can see from all these old social media posts, her parents, especially her mother, were extremely proud of their 'genius' daughter. Basically from the moment she was born."
"Yeah, just amazing how early she learned to walk. Just has me blown away," you joke, tone dryer than the Sahara.
Which just so happens to be one of your favorite places just for the name, but that's not important.
"This thread draws itself through pretty much her entire life. Her parents just are the kind of people to praise their child for just about anything."
"I mean, we both know worse parents, but I can see where this is going now."
"Yup, she did well enough for herself in primary school from what I could dig up, but as she grew older, it turned out she just... wasn't as much of a genius as her parents kept telling her she was."
"Of course, with dedicated study, she probably made it through most of her schooling, I suppose, keeping the illusion going?"
"Exactly. She kept on getting full marks or close enough, but she just didn't have a life outside of school and studying for pretty much as long as she was alive."
"So here we have one little Alice, obsessively trying to keep up the appearance of a genius effortlessly outdoing all her peers when doing so really took pretty much everything she had, but while that was a lot of pressure, she managed for the longest time. Until university."
"Until university. The thing with lies you keep telling yourself is, you more often than not can't bear them not being true. So when she inevitably couldn't get everything perfect..."
"Or at least not perfect enough, well, someone else had to be at fault."
"Which brings us to this." Clicking over to another document, Sarah shows you a newspaper article about the attempted Cornell bombing. "She's a genius, obviously, so when she didn't get the appropriate grade? Obviously the university was at fault, or whoever gave her a bad grade. She'd been a genius so far, she hadn't done anything differently, so the difference had to be something external."
"So she triggered over her lie being proven false, and proceeded to try and take revenge on whatever might've been the fault of it, assigning guilt to the place of education she couldn't get to recognize her 'greatness'. I suppose appealing to her sense of pride might work when I confront her, though asserting that she obviously is a genius and we want her on board specifically because of this would work better."
"Yup, anything that proves she is a 'genius', an immensely smart and intellectual individual of some kind, would probably at least pique her interest. Though if she ends up thinking you're just using 'obvious' bait, she'll probably feel insulted and try to prove her intelligence by blowing you up."
"Man, I hate it when people don't just jump onto anything I say when I offer them what they want, but alright, we'll just have to see how this goes."
"Hi Sherrel, you ready to go?"
"Always. Though I'm not too certain about the naked teenager in the back seat."
"Oh, don't mind Aisha, she just refuses to wear clothes unless absolutely necessary."
"Wait, you can see me?" Aisha throws in, poking her head into the front row.
"Yup, I turned her a while ago, so she got the same immunity to the mind fuckery your power does as the others."
"Neat."
"So, you some kinda nudist or something?" Sherrel asks as she engages the van's cloaking, getting out onto the streets.
"Nah, I just think it's cool. Like, just yesterday, I ran around a candy store naked while stealing all their stuff!"
"Not everything, just what the two of us could carry."
"Wait, is that where the pile of sweets in the cafeteria came from?"
Suffice to say, you have some good fun as you summon your living compass, giving it a name and picture as you set forth, out onto Brockton's nightly streets, a pair of fusion cores sitting snugly in your pocket..
Where you arrive after following the directions of your minion is, not all surprisingly, not the place you discovered yesterday night. The place seemed to be more of a possible future workshop being set up, or perhaps a distribution center for Alice's stuff.
Instead, you now find yourself looking at an apartment complex of some kind, Jared, as you recall your compass being called once upon a time, pointing downwards. So she's set up somewhere in the basement of one of the ABB's strongholds or something, then, as you refuse to believe they would just throw a tinker into a random apartment building.
"Okay, so how're we doing this? Like, we got my minion power, but we don't exactly have a floor plan for this place," Aisha asks.
"Okay, for now, you stay in here while I scout the place as a shadow."
"You sure about that? You didn't seem too up for testing whether those bombs could work on shadows yesterday."
"Well yeah, but I'm fairly certain I won't be triggering any bombs either way. People would have to be literally jumping at shadows to try and secure their places against shadows, you know? It'll be fine. You, in the meanwhile, just play with Sherrel or something."
"You can just say so when you just want me out of the way without making up excuses for what you'll have me do."
"No, I mean that literally, this thing's got an integrated game console."
Pressing a few buttons, Sherrel leans back and grabs the controller jumping at her, a second one coming for a surprised Aisha's face as two screens extend before them. "Smash Bros sound good to you? Would be better with more players, but keep trying to find the time to try it out."
"I take everything back, go fuck off while we get to business over here."
Really, why do you feel more like a father than anything else more often than not?
Don't go to the left, nothing that way.
Gotcha, sis.
Heeding Sarah's precognitive advice, you leave the left hallway be, instead concentrating your efforts on the righthand one once you've found the stairway, shadowing along it as you use your senses to look out for any... interesting hit, really.
As it turns out, you do find some, too.
For starters, it looks like the ABB did, indeed, repurpose this apartment building for a variety of functions, in this case meaning you can see a bunch of old blood traces beyond one set of doors, further away from the doors leading outside, while the doors on the opposite end seem to lead to gangmember apartments, from the looks of it, with a bunch of them currently filled with a bunch of blood signatures doing, well, something, you can't see that clearly.
Oh, you just found a corpse in one of what you're rapidly coming to believe to be torture rooms, or at least a signature that isn't flowing. Not too surprising, there's a reason the ABB has a bad reputation about this kinda shit, even more so than the literal nazis regularly killing minorities during initiation ceremonies.
The rest of the rooms, opposite from the apartments and filling up the space closer to the exit, seem to be some sort of storage rooms, as a quick look inside on confirms, you not having seen any blood, new or old, inside.
The places you recognized as apartments are... well, more or less as you expected. Simple dwellings set up to accommodate gang members, some of which are in at this time of night, some of which aren't. Presumably, people are being circled through these places, staying in one of these apartments as necessary.
Most of them are pretty much identical; a simple living room centered around a desk, a bathroom, a modest kitchen and a bedroom. It's not much, but these people aren't supposed to feel all that at home, this is communal living in the service of their sometimes scaled overlord.
No surprise, of course, that they're sharing bedrooms and all. Honestly, if you didn't have a giant underground base that has been heavily modified and enlarged over time, you might've thought about setting up something similar when your warehouse lair ran out of space.
Though you would've obviously gotten something better for the girls.
Anyways, you search the places in your very inconspicuous form, slipping through doors, into drawers and around lines of sight for those present and with the lights on equally. You don't find anything too interesting, just a few bags of weed, coke and other assorted drugs, one or two of the gangers you find in the process of using them.
In general, most of the ABB goons you find are either asleep, eating or maintaining weapons, though there are... exceptions.
Well, there aren't many female ABB members, based on both your experience and expecations, but they do exist. Mostly a matter of the ABB's usual method of operation, really, as any prospective member would have to avoid being carted off into a rape farm of some sort before being able to join.
You'd like to say you're joking, but depending on what members you're talking to, that's an entirely possible outcome. Knowing people definitely helps.
What all of this comes down to is that female members kind of have to be either vicious and brutal or manipulative enough to keep other members from raping them at the first opportunity, from what you can tell. Like, you could be wrong, but that's kind of the impression you got from living in Brockton Bay for a while as well as listening in on conversations.
Meaning, the fact that this woman is lying there in her bed, maniacally pushing a dildo into her snatch while fingering her asshole with the other hand, legs spread wide and the straw she was presumably using to snort suspicious white powder, the residue of which is still spread on the table, still stuck in her nose... well, she certainly seems to be comfortable.
She's either sure nobody will be able to take advantage of her current state or doesn't care if they do.
Ah well, your initial plan called for scouting the area out first, but hey, if the food's basically begging to be eaten...
Hey Sarah, you wouldn't guess who just found an ABBitch jilling off while high as a kite?
Sighing via telepathy, Sarah answers. I swear, Gabe, only you. Only you.
If it makes you feel better, I don't really have the time to rape her or anything, so I'm just eating her to use for other stuff.
Still fucking bullshit.
Hey, people are inherently perverted. They do shit like this all the time, I'm just in a position to stumble on it.
That's bullshit and you know it. Anyways, get on with it, we don't have all night.
Agreeing with the sentiment, you rise from the shadows, casually putting a hand over the woman's face and slamming your opened maw into the side of her neck... Not that that seems to stop her from enjoying herself, keeping on masturbating all the way until she dies.
Well, this was easy.
Mingmei Chang was not the brightest of girls, but honestly, she was brighter than many others she knew.
That wasn't vanity talking, nor some sense of weird pride. She was just clever enough to keep her head down and ingratiate herself to the right people, whether teachers back in school or gangers back home.
That's why she learned early on how to shoot a gun and how to suck a dick. That's why she made it this far, with her own room and none of the little shits daring to try and come for her so long as she sucked the lieutenant in charge off regularly.
That's why she was alive, and her best friend Laura never made it through high school, her body just one of the many, many pieces of meat filling first some shitty brothel, then a shipping container thrown into the bay.
That's why she went ahead and inflicted that same fate on so many others, just to buy herself everything she had, her life, her position, what little recognition she could get.
That's why she'd never, ever just give up when her time came.
No.
Alright, that's that, you suppose. Now all you need are a few muffled casts of your corpse modification spell, smoothing out your jagged bite marks and repurposing a small bit of muscle mass into blood filling her veins- you're fairly sure a dissection would have peopel wonder how blood went literally everywhere inside her body, rather than where it was supposed to be, but if your plans pan out, there hopefully won't be enough of a body left to have anyone wondering.
Making sure to hide the body under the bed, you give the room a quick sweep, but aside from a few spare blood splatters you swiftly hide with the bed covers, there's no real trace of you left. Good enough.
The storage rooms opposite the filled apartments are... well, used to store stuff. You'd taken a quick look through a few earlier, but a closer investigation proves they aren't devolving from the basic idea.
Most of this stuff is, somewhat unsurprisingly, made up of packaged drugs and weapons, with ammo, of course. Your best guess, this is a major redistribution center for illegal contraband the ABB is smuggling, whether to sell it off to other cities or to use and sell it themselves here in Brockton Bay.
Honestly, this shit should be worth several hundreds of thousands of dollars if sold to the right buyers, though you aren't exactly about to actually go through each and every packaged container and peek inside. All you know is that it's unlikely any of this shit was alive at some point, given the lack of blood, circulating or not, and that the ABB likely isn't going out of its way to bring old TVs in here.
Correction, the ABB is totally doing so, but, judging by the vicinity of junk-filled rooms to the stairs, you'd say this shit is likely meant for Alice, if her workshop is, indeed, down in the basement.
Alright, enough sidetracking. time to look at the girl of the hour. Making your way towards the stairs, you slide right on downwards, towards Alice Nakamura and whatever she has prepared down there.
You're absolutely sure this couldn't possibly go wrong.
Wait, wait, wait!
What's up? Anything snakeboy said?
Yes, there are actual light sensors in the room ahead, other version of you went and triggered an explosion.
Gotcha. Anything I can look out for?
Some kind of lightly flickering light indicates the security's circling through light detection, just hold still and it won't detect you.
Thanks.
Don't mention it.
Carefully sticking your head through the gap under the door at the bottom of the stairs, you internally curse at the rapidly blinking light going on and off inside the room. No wonder you could've triggered this shit, even if you hurried, you'd be hard-pressed to make it through the room without this thing being active.
Okay, so here goes. Trusting Sarah to have one of your alternate selves stay behind and be the true one if you fuck this up, you shove yourself through the door, hold still, move a little, hold still, repeat until you've passed the door on the other side of what looks like a maintenance hallway, pipes visibly running along the walls, with several layers of obvious tinkertech, judging from its haphazard construction, blinking and beeping away underneath.
At least you're fairly sure you're in the right place, at least.
On the other side of that door, you see another small corridor, with several doors leading in three different directions, though you can hear the familiar noise of welding from one of them. At least there are no more traps lining the walls.
Alright, no point in not taking a quick look around before anything else. Going towards the one farthest from the one you suspect Alice behind, you creep inside, quickly realizing that this is probably her quarters.
Nothing too exorbitant, it's basically a cellar room of barely adequate size, with a bed, a dresser, a small desk standing against the wall... Pretty standard, really. What stick out to you, though, is the tube of what a quick look confirms to be burn cream lying next to the bed's pillow, as well as the fact that you can find hardly any clothes inside the dresser.
Looks like Alice has spent most of her time down here ever since Lung recruited her, no doubt anticipating getting 'adequate' accommodations prepared for a genius of her station.
Lung, on the other hand, probably just wanted her tucked away somewhere reasonably secure and easy to resupply.
The next room over is somewhat less interesting, looking more like Alice's materials storage for whatever she needs in her presumable lab slash workshop one room over, as well as where she throws any completed work, as you spot a case full of what you recognize to be similar to the bombs the idiot duo blew themsevles up with yesterday night.
Aside from that, there's just a bunch of appliances and raw materials the kind you'd inagine to find inside a tinker's workshop- old TVs, toasters, copper wire, knicknacks of all kinds.
Okay. Time to go and face her, then.
Alright, here goes nothing. Sarah, you on the job?
Sure am, go for it.
Emerging from your flattened form, you adjust your suit for a moment before putting on your best smile and casually stepping through the door, ajar as it is.
"What the fu-" a feminine voice begins, cut off as you quickly take a look around, trusting your shadowed face to conceal your eye movement and simultaneously speak.
"Hello, Alice." This room is, honestly, a mess. A bunch of wires and tools lie on a desk to the side, wildly entagled, a hydraulic press is stuffed into the corner, and the desk Bakuda was working on prior to you entering bears a half-disassembled microwave combined with a half-assembled bomb casing.
Bakuda herself... isn't looking too well. Half her face is covered in burns, the other one twisted in a mix of pain, surprise and wariness as her hand snaps towards something on her waist. Aside from that, she's wearing a tough leathery apron over casual street clothes, though you don't think she's had any fresh showers or clothes for a while judging from the smell.
"Hello Alice, I am Cain, and I am here to recruit you. Please, do listen before you act."
As you say the operative words, you feel a mental kind of pressure build up, flowing out with your words and into Bakuda's head. You feel it settle there, pressing down on her thought and her psyche not really able to muster the force of personality to shrug it off as you know to be possible.
You got her.
"You see, I am planning to take over this city and expand beyond, in fact, I already own more of Brockton Bay than any other gang, and no one has the slightest inkling about it."
It is at this point that you begin pacing about what little room the location allows you, ensuring Alice's full and undivided attention remains on you even as you gesticulate to accompany your speech.
"I want you because you might be the only mind in the world capable of creating what I need to truly rule, a weapon to destroy rivals, heroes, Endbringers. Once my territory grows to the point I want it to, they will eventually attack it; they always come, inevitably. It is merely a matter of time."
Scoffing, Alice finds her voice, resting her hip on the desk behind her without relaxing her grip on whatever tinkertech bullshit she has ready to try and defend herself.
"Oh, so that's what you want, huh? What if I don't want to give it to you?"
Her voice is a little rough, as though she is recovering from screaming or talking overmuch. Perhaps she's the kind to mutter and talk to herself as she works on occasion, with her screams when that burn wound was inflicted being the initial main reason she's so hoarse?
"Oh, but you didn't listen to the end yet, I am sure I can convince you. If you agree to join me I will offer you a state of the art lab with machinery capable of producing almost anything you could want for your tinkering, other tinkers also use the lab spaces and you can work together so your specialties synergize as possible. I will also offer an overall enhancement that will extend your lifespan to centuries as well as enhance your body and mind, you might be a genius already but the perfect recall always helps I've found, and of course I will fake your death so Lung doesn't pursue you in the few weeks he has before being... dealt with."
Time for the coup de grace.
"I promise you luxury, comfort, healing, power, a lab, materials and the freedom to work on what you wish. Of course, we also have a really nice cafeteria where one of our members loves to experiment with all the fancy cooking equipment we get him. Everyone loves Ethan," you finish with a smile, even if she can't see it.
Now to see whether she took the bait.
Hacking out a dry laugh, Alice takes a look around her 'lab'.
"You know what? Why not. Why. The fuck. Not. You get us out of here, and I'll at least take a look at whatever hole you've got for me. If Lung catches wind of any of this, I'll just claim you kidnapped me or something."
"Perfect. Now all I need is for you to get ready to leave while I take care of the rest."
"Be back in a moment, I'm ferrying a few corpses in here in a moment. Could you disable the security measures along the hallway really quick?"
"Who do you think you're talking to? I have the controls right here."
"Great. In the meantime, hang on tight."
Racing off as a shadow, confirming the tinkertech boobytraps are silent as you go, you soon return to the van, interrupting Sherrel and Aisha's game as you transform back. "Alright, she's ready to join us. I'll need you to come with me and give her teleportation to get her out of there, we just need to plant a few corpses to make it look like she blew herself up now."
"Sure, just gimme a minute and lead the way." Leaving Aisha to finish up their game and transform, you open the door into the luggage space to the back of the expanded cabin, dragging the pre-prepared corpse out of the freezer installed back there (note to self, have someone disinfect this thing later).
Getting going with Aisha in tow, your shadow-self carrying the shadow of a corpse under one arm, you lead her into the now empty apartment, picking up the second corpse as you explain to her how you found its former occupant, much to her amusement, the two of you soon enter Alice's current location, the woman of the hour hastily packing a few of her tinkertech bombs into a briefcase.
Popping out, you drop the corpse you made to resemble her to the ground. "Got everything ready?"
"The fuck is that and why does it look like me?"
"That, is your body double. The plan is to blow this whole place up while making it look like this bitch here," you heft the other corpse, "fucked things up somehow. This is all tinkertech, so nobody's gonna question it if someone fucks up and tilts this whole building by a good bit. You got any bombs making it nice and hard to tell any potential differences, this thing is unlikely to be perfect and all."
"Again, who do you think you're talking to? Give me a moment to rig something up from what I have on hand." Grabbing a tweezer, Alice goes to work on two of her bombs, bending wires goung through them and linking them into each other, shaking the end result briefly.
"There, nice little firebomb with a decent bang. I've rigged it to blow as soon as the next fucker comes to bring me food, shouldn't be anything left in here afterwards. Maybe the ground floor, too."
"Perfect." Surreptuously motioning to Aisha, you watch as she touches the shoulder of the woman meddling with the door leading to her little section of the basement. "You also now have the power to teleport, temporarily, so just jump outta here and into the invisible van waiting right around the corner from the entrance."
"Oh? What's to keep me from just 'porting right the fuck out of here and never seeing you again, then?"
"The fact you'd be recaptured, by the ABB or the Protectorate, before you had the time to really build anything up. Tinkers work best if they have an organization to supply them with both safety and materials. This isn't rocket science, so screw the rhetorical questions and let's go. Just go with me, it's easier to teleport into places you don't know if you activate it along with someone using the same power to get there for some reason."
Touching her in the same place Aisha did to give her teleportation, you fire your own copy of the power, all three of you finding yourselves inside the invisivan immediately after.
"Hey there, new girl. How ya doin'?" Sherrel asks, having folded the game console and everything adjacent back into wherever tinktertech goes when not needed at the moment. "I'm usually the first face people see after the big boss here, name's Sherrel. I drive and stuff."
"... Alice. Good to know, I suppose," Alice grumbles.
"Aww, look at that, you're getting along right away! Always nice when colleagues can just work together without major issues."
Alice scoffs, Sherrel smiles and Aisha, unheard by the former, cackles, immediately knowing what you're doing.
Ah well, time to go home.
Well, looks like the days ahead will be rather... busy, all told. Things are coming to a head with both the ABB and, by necessity, E88, though you have so far managed to 'officially' keep out of it. At the same time, the date of the auction you insisted on approaches, along with the continual need to keep track of your own people and ensure they play along and the whole mess that is recruiting as many of the nazi capes as you can, preferrably thralled to ensure they get out of the whole white supremacy mindset at some point.
In short, you're busy. And that means you're delegating as much work as you can while dealing with anything you can without too much effort, such as talking to and manipulating people. Before any of that, though, you're calling another urgent meeting a day after the last one, yourself, Kate, Henley and Sarah sitting inside a room to talk things over just as soon as you've stuffed Alice inside your autodoc prototype.
AutoDoc Upgrade
Cryopod (can double as a cryopod to preserve incurable or recently deceased subjects) (3 points)
Body Modding (simple changes to body shape, can be outside human norm) (4 points)
Stealth Mode (let it camouflage as a freezer when not in use) (3 points)
"Alright everyone, sorry again about this impromptu meeting, but with the way the situation out there is going, I thought it prudent to get a grip on it sooner rather than later, which is why I called you all here today." Looking across the room at your most thinkiest of advisors, meaning Kate, Sarah and Henley are all present, you hand out a copy of the dossiers of all the E88 capes containing all the information you have gathered so far.
"The big issue is that other gangs exist in this city, an untenable situation in the long term, as I refuse to let them continue to exist. Issue is, of course, none of them will be particularly happy with just fucking off and being kicked out, and while we actually outnumber all other gangs cape-wise and could potentially win out in a long, protracted open gang war against them, yes, even against Lung, the guy's not invincible by any means, that doesn't make doing so the smart option.
To this end, I have, naturally, already begun investigating possible alternatives to trying to bang through the wall, so to speak, and have found a few doors we may take. In fact, step one of most promising strategies, stealing their capes for ourselves, has gone rather well so far, with Alice Nakamura, the somewhat unstable bomb tinker Lung may or may not have put into a literal hole in the ground to work in, and Tammi Herren, aka Rune, have already joined us, though I'll probably have to work on the former a good bit before she gets over her plethora of potentially problematic issues.
That said, weakening the other gangs by doing this has its limits, limits I am rapidly hitting, which is where the next phase of my plan so far comes in. Simply put, I am planning to assassinate Stormtiger and make it look like Shadow Stalker did it, using the rumours caused by yours truly," you take a slight bow at this, "to sow as much dissent in the Empire as possible. Hookwolf is rather close to his two sub-lieutenants, you see, and the death of his friends at the hands of a proven or 'proven' nazi-killer will enrage him, hopefully, so kaiser will be forced to either go after a Ward or shut Hookwolf down, and we all know which he'll go for.
I am not assuming this will cause open rebellion, as it were, but with Rune's disappearance, my little stroll as the Alabama Ranger and other little things like that, I am hoping to weaken Kaiser's position, hopefully pitting a fracturing Empire against a Lung still pissed over losing his new tinker.
Any thoughts?"
After a somewhat lengthy pause while your three advisors look at each other, the first of them to speak up is Sarah, wisening up to the fact you know exactly why they're all looking at each other like that.
"Don't get this wrong, Gabe, we just didn't expect you to have such a... complete... plan."
"Hey, just because I usually leave my plans vague enough to avoid hindering improvisation doesn't mean I can't plan, okay? This is simply amassing enough puzzle pieces to assemble a reasonably complete picture of the personalities and motivations in play, then providing the correct stimulus to tear down the entire house of cards that is this city's power balance. The pieces are all already there, I haven't even factored in us actually acting beyond the one turning point to pit Hookwolf and Kaiser against each other."
"Yes, yes, we all got it. Okay, let's talk business. How could we put the screws even tighter on everybody involved?"
The following discussion, while a fair bit haphazard, brings up a lot of good points on how to better follow up on your initial idea, as nobody finds any actual problem with your basic draft.
Everything from framing more heroes for various crimes over to strategically attacking various gang assets with both forces recognizably affiliated with the Crypts and the Undersiders.
Still, none of this will be immediately relevant as such, and so you simply note down the best ideas and dissolve the meeting for the time being.
That said, Sarah did ask whether she should have the Undersiders widen their efforts towards the ABB, as the E88 is tightening security on the places they have left and they've been slowing down their assaults for a while now, none too interested in facing off against any actual capes for now.
Sending Sarah off with her instructions in place, though she looks like she may just outright ignore your suggestion to spraypaint racist shit all over the places they hit, you next turn towards one of your other little projects- a few days ago, you'd sent a request to the lair's shared chat room, asking the girls to put together a bunch of online guides and instuction manuals of different kinds.
Time to see how well they did and if you can't learn anything from what they got for you. Perfect memory really comes in handy for stuff like this.
"Ugh, this is fucking terrible. Now I know why I stay downstairs all the time."
"Didn't you never leave the bunker even before I turned you?"
"Just goes to show my wisdom in getting used to it beforehand."
Here you are, you and Sherrel, lying naked on the hood of an uncloaked invisivan parked in the hills outside the city, taking in as much sun as both of you can. Not that either of you is all too happy about it.
"How've you been doing with being a vampire, actually?"
"It's honestly not that big of a difference. Lea pushes bloodbags instead of sandwiches into my face when I keep working for too long now, and I can keep just a little cognizant when fugueing. Might be just my imagination, but I think my power's working better than before, too."
"Come to think of it, is tinkering really the only thing you do all day? Not judging, just wondering."
"Pretty much? Like, ah just don't really have any other hobbies. Sometimes I hang around the canteen, just take an hour or two off. Not needin' sleep really, really gives me more time in the day to work with, though, it's great."
"Actually, you know what? Let's drive back and see what Ethan's been doing, hang out a bit. Fuck the sun."
"Yeah, fuck the sun! ... You don't wanna do the dirty before we go, though?" Sherrel smirks as she looks down your body, stretching to showcase her own curves.
"Mhm, inside the van. I'm not sure I even can get it up in the sunshine."
"Heh, fair 'nuff."
As it later turned out, Sherrel, to little surprise in retrospect, actually really had a thing for sex while driving, staying capable of following traffic while you pounded her from below.
Also, Ethan has taken up baking lately, so the Crypts' canteen has its own, handmade bread now, in addition to the occasional plate of cookies or two. You watched him cook, and honestly, you have no idea just how he managed to do everything in the kitchen at once.
"... so you already saw it, but this is what's come to be called the Engineering Bay, though we do a lot more in here than just engineering kinda stuff. I expect you'll likely take a part of the place for yourself at some point, Sherrel's got her stuff set up over there and beyond this door is where we're putting together a proper high-tech laboratory."
Opening it for a moment, showing Alice Yoshi fiddling with some lab equipment, you usher her onwards.
"Most kinda materials people need are stocked in here, just remember to sign off on one of these forms whenever you take stuff so accounting can keep track of it and replace anything used, and right over here... We got my own babies."
Presenting a manufactory Lea is currently refilling, you explain to her the idea behind them.
"Didn't take you for a tinker," Alice throws in as you expound on the wonderful ability to just save designs for stuff you designed on the touchscreens.
"Oh, I ain't. This is just applied superscience. One of my many, many powers is just being smarter and better able to apply physics and stuff."
Alice's stare at you is... nigh-unreadable, so you simply continue explaining.
"Incidentally, it's also one of the things I can share easier than most, so if you want in on it, don't be shy."
"... Sure."
"But let's not get ahead of ourselves, you've already seen your room, but if you want any specific furniture, here's how you can design it yourself..."
The cafeteria, as it turns out, is the place you finally get Alice to really open up, talking over a stack of waffles Ethan produced out of nowhere the very moment you led her inside.
"An' I told them," she says, stuffing her face with deliciously fluffy pastries, "I toold 'em that was bullshit, that I can't have gotten that shit wrong and the prof was getting it wrong, but the asshole dismissed me without giving a fuck! The fuck even is that, huh?"
"One of the most annoying things I can think of is when people just categorically refuse to accept they could be wrong. What you do next?"
"Well, I went home and was super pissed for hours, 'til I black out and next thing I know, I'm disassembling the microwave to put a localized dimensional blender together, so the next day I march up to the fucker and just let him feel what it's like to be dragged into a dozen directions and inside yourself at once."
"Honestly, I probably would've done the same thing, just not openly."
"Yeah well," she begins, taking a sip of the warm milk Ethan had given you with the rest of the food, a conspirational wink on his face covered with a light layer of makeup at the time, "you haven't spent twenty years getting perfect As across the board."
"Fair enough." Finishing up one of your own waffles, you fork the next one onto your plate, grabbing for the sugar shaker to deposit powdered sugar onto it. "You put any thought behind the idea of getting some powers from me, by the way?"
"... Know what, fuck it. Why not, hit me up."
"Oh, don't bother stopping eating on my account, this'll take a bit, anyways. Open wide~!"
It is now night
Amusingly, it seems Ethan pressed a few of the girls into rotating dishwashing duty between each other, at least until his dishwasher arrives
Pasting your trusty mustache onto your face- upside down this time around, just to mix things up a bit, you also don your lab coat and wig, preparing everything in the little 'lab'room.
"All of you got the script memorized?"
"Got it."
"This isn't that hard."
"I literally don't have any text to speak."
"Duh, you're jsut supposed to sit there in the background, to teach the children how to treat the elderly, hence the name Old Man Marduk."
Avery Carmichael was not in a good mood.
To be fair, he felt he had a decent case as to why he earned himself the right to be in a bad mood, the reason of which was currently fumbling along the screen.
"It's me, Abraham! And you're looking into... the world of Professor Abraham and Assistant Prometheus! Today, everyone, we will be looking into... Looking into... Prometheus, what are we doing today, again?"
"The memory thing, professor."
"Ah, now I remember. Alright, children, first off, let us talk about the difference between long- and short term memory, and why you all have varying levels of both!"
The little shit had his fake moustache on the wrong way around.
"No, no, not that memory thing, we did it last time already!" The other assistant chimes in. "This episode we were supposed to talk about things not to forget."
"Poppycock! I'm sure I would remember having done any of that! But if you insist, I shall pretend we have done the previosu episode already, I am sure our viewers will call you out on it."
The little fucker. Was. Still. Making fun of him as he ruined people's livelihoods. THAT GODDAMN MUSTACHE!
"Now then, let us begin by going through all the very many things you should not do in a laboratory."
He was done. Just, done. He'd been running himself ragged trying to keep the company on course, organizing the necessary layoffs and reorganizations and watching share prices plummit all the while ever since that GODDAMN BLASTED FUCKMUGGERING CURE WAS RELEASED!
Shuddering with rage, Avery Carmichael fell off his chair.
[DESTINATION]
[AGREEMENT]
Avery Carmichael saw things beyond human understanding before the knowledge thereof was erased from his mind.
[TRAJECTORY]
[AGREEMENT]
Jess and Ness looked at their boss, long experience with him clearly letting them know how he was feeling, at that moment, even if he tried his best not to express his rage.
His knuckles turning white from how hard he was clenching his fists as he watched made that clear enough.
"And always, always remember, do not touch any chemicals or sharp, pointy or otherwise hazardous things with your bare skin!"
All of a sudden, they were reminded of their little escapade the other night, the corners of their lips quirking in sync. Unfortunately, not something Max missed, in turn.
"And what's so funny, Jessica?" He often did this, addressing one of them when he really meant both, though if it was supposed to be some psychological thing, they didn't get what he was trying to achieve.
"Nothing, nothing."
"Good. I do hope neither of you has been thinking about legging it, I'm not letting either of you out of my sight after what you did."
Simultaneously rolling their eyes, Jess and Ness sighed their agreement. ""Yes, boss.""
"Ah yes, here we go! Is it the right set of cards this time?"
Nicholas, or still Nick, if he could swing it, clenched his fists. His previous actions had borne fruit, EasTec was in possession of a wide range of chemicals as described by that little 'game' last time the madman on screen had gone and shown something.
"Now, same rules as last time. Match up the cards and every matched pair of cards accounts for one part of the recipe."
Of course, they'd had people look at the ingredients, experimenting and trying dozens of processes and treatments he wouldn't even be able to pronounce correctly, but... Well, there was a reason research and development was a slow and costly process.
"Redfield? You're watching it too? Yes... yes... I know, go for it. Immediately start clinical trials once it's done."
In spite of himself, Nick couldn't help but be nervous. This would be it. The future of EasTec would be decided in the coming days and weeks, and he'd put all his faith and hope into a proven madman.
... On second thought, perhaps a bit nervousness was appropriate.
Amy switched tabs, taking a moment to watch as the second part of the puzzle was shown. Yeah, she wouldn't actually get any out of that, titration the most advanced term she recognized from high school displayed among the cards taking up the full screen.
Still, Cain and his many personas hadn't lied so far, and so she'd accept it as true for now. Screw him being a villain and all, she had higher priorities.
Such as the niggling sense of doubt, that perhaps she wasn't doing enough, that perhaps she could help so many more people if she were to just... Not break, but redefine her rules, perhaps slowly work on brains, on what made people people...
But now? Well, if Cain kept pulling miracle cures out his ass like this, maybe she wouldn't really need to heal people at some point, because they all were fine without her.
Snorting, she shook her head, thinking over the unending stream of patients she laid hand on day by day. Not all of them were sick; many were hurt in accidents, through violence or through sheer idiocy. No way would the time ever come that she could just... stop.
But still, reducing infinity by a few bits and pieces here and there would make it less urgent to attend to it, or at least let it feel less urgent. That was good enough for her for now.
Exiting her room once she shut down her computer, Amy made her way over to Vicky's room, knocking properly before she opened the door to look at her sister, still getting a little teary-eyed when she saw her like the silly goose she was.
"Hey Vicky, wanna go hang out at the mall or something?"
Rebecca looked at David.
David looked back.
David then reached into the bowl of popcorn he was sharing with Contessa, cramming a mouthful of popcorn under and behind his mask.
"Don't mind me, go ahead. I'm waiting."
Using body language to efficiently impart a death glare, Rebecca took a seat, pulling a picture of the first subject of discussion this evening.
"This is a picture of Cain's fake mustache, the first time that he has worn it upside down. I believe this is a means to convey his intent to upend society on Earth B-"
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!"
"DAVID, I SWEAR TO GOD-!"
All was as usual, or as per the new usual, anyways. Good enough for Custodian, anyways, idly sweeping crumbs of popcorn to the side.
"Hey Tammi, want to go clothes shopping? Unless you already got a bunch from one of the manufacturies."
"O-o-oh, s-s-s-s-sure, w-we c-c-can g-go," a startled Tammi replies as you stand in the open door, your best smile plastered onto your face.
Dressed like you usually are when going out intending to be seen, that is, having Kate and/or Sarah pick your clothes out for you, you escort Tammi to one of the base's internal garages connected right into an underground garage.
Tammi's coming dressed in a lovely dark dress, a fact you waste no time telling her about, having her blush nicely as the two of you get into a decent car- you don't have the first idea about cars, but it was one that looked sleek and expensive, so it'd work for you.
"Let's go to the mall, then."
"N-n-not the b-b-boardwalk?" Tammi asks, more confused than anything else.
"Mall's the best place to go clothes shopping in this whole city. The boardwalk has a bunch of overpriced stores for brand clothing, yeah, but you can get some good quality clothes at Hillside Mall with a much larger selection. It's basically the boardwalk without the tourist trap part."
"R-r-really?"
"Yup, it even has its own versions of those little coffee shops and ice cream places. I can take you out for one if you want while we're there already."
"O-o-o-ok-kay." And there's her blush again. Score.
Getting out the parked car as a teenager, both to roughly match Tammi's apparent age and to ensure that if people film you, you won't necessarily be connected to your usual public persona through Tammi or something.
Also, Tammi is currently suffering from an atomic blush over you matching with her, which is adorable and lasts until shortly after you get inside,
"Okay, let's go take a look at the stuff in... that shop, first, it comes recommended by my sister."
"O-o-okay."
Tammi keeps on clinging to your hand as you walk, you get the feeling she may not be too used to crowds... or to malls, at least. You just tuck her towards your side as you go, at least the nighttime crowds are significantly lighter than during the day, though not that much, from your experience.
Capitalism is doing well today, too.
"Okay, let's take a look around and have you try on a few of these dresses if you like 'em."
"Y-y-yeah, s-s-sure. H-h-help me p-pick s-s-something o-out?"
"Of course."
As you sit before the changing rooms, having picked out a few dresses of various colors for Tammi including a few lovely sundresses, both because you're fairly sure they'd look wonderful on her and because she got incredibly embarrassed when you pointed them out.
Waiting for her to change, you can't help but notice a pair of girls, about your current age, browsing the store themselves. "C'mon, Amy, you'd look so great in this!"
The blonde of the pair, holding up a frilly black dress, pushes it towards the brunette of the pair. "I said no, Vicky! I know where that goth idea comes from, but it wouldn't suit me."
Whelp, you recognize these two. You've seen pictures of and even sketched and drawn both before. Victoria and Amy Dallon, also known as Glory Girl and Panacea.
Who woulda thought?
"You know, I think she's right, you'd really look cute in that." Intruding on their conversation, you lean against a clothing rack to the side, eyeing up Amy. "In fact, how about this to add to it?" You hold up a black scarf with matching frills.
"Who're you?" Victoria asks, instinctively drawing herself between you and Amy.
"Oh, my name's Gabriel, I'm here with..."
"... my friend Tammi, she's changing right now. She's a bit shy, so please be nice to her?" You request with an apologetic smile, handing your tribute over to Victoria.
"Come on, you don't need to be like this," Amy complains, shoving her sister to the side a little. "So what makes you think I should take fashion advice from you, Gabriel?"
You answer her raised eyebrow with a smile. "Why, because it's self-evident you'd look good with this combination. Not that there's many clothes in here you couldn't pull off."
"I'm afraid I have to object, as your statement is objectively false."
"I am appalled at your objectively false rebuttal. Now you have to try these on, to prove me right if nothing else."
"Oh, I have to, now, do I? And why would that be?"
"Because I fear your sister may explode into glitters and sparkles if you don't counterbalance her soon."
At that, Amy looks over towards her sister, taking in her shit-eating grin and the way she's literally vibrating, hovering just a few inches off the ground.
"What're you- ugh! Just give that here and wait while I change."
Amy storms off, leaving you and Victoria behind. You just slightly awkwardly make your way towards the seating area you started out in, getting right back into your seat.
"Sooo... you doing anything after this," Victoria asks, trying to make small talk. Just moments later, before you can answer anything, the changing stall's door you left Tammi behind opens, revealing her standing there in a pure white sundress.
"H-h-how do I l-l-l- Wh-who's th-th-that?"
Honestly, if you didn't have the kind of self-control your state gives you, you'd be doubling over in laughter at the reversal of the situation from earlier.
"Oh, don't mind her, this is Victoria. We just happened to meet while you were changing. You look beautiful, by the way, we definitely should buy it. Once it gets warmer outside, it'll be lovely to have around."
"O-o-oh, y-y-sh-sh-yeah."
"Any thoughts, Victoria? Feel free, you gotta get the practice in sooner rather than later."
"Oh, um, yeah, you look lovely, Tammi, was it?"
"That's right. Would you like to go ahead and try on the next one, Tammi?"
"Y-y-yeah, b-b-be r-right b-b-back."
With a last look over her shoulder, Tammi gets going back to the changing rooms, leaving you and Victoria sitting on a bench covered in red leather.
"What did you mean I'd need the practice?!"
"Well, you're taking your sister out, so I figured a crash course of boyfriend-hood was appropriate."
"I- Ugh, Gabriel, she's my sister, not my girlfriend. I'd have thought you'd recognize either of us," Vicky half complains, half jokes at you.
"That just means you can take turns, doesn't it? Like, don't get me wrong, but if you told your sister you wanted to fuck right this moment, I don't think she'd say no."
Freezing up for a moment, Victoria shakes her head. "That's... a pretty complicated topic I'd like to just not go into right now, okay?"
"That's perfectly fine, don't feel pressed on this, 'kay? Just telling how I see it. Oh, and feel free to call me Gabe, okay?"
"Sure, Gabe, call me Vicky. My full name gets really old really quick. So, your friend, huh?"
"Yeah, don't mind the stutter. It gets worse when she's nervous or meets new people, little friends because of it, yadda yadda, you know how it is."
Around there, Amy emerges from her stall, black scarf draped around her neck and shoulders as she comes to a stand before the two of you. As it turns out, her baggier clothes earlier hid some nice sweater puppies, and though you wouldn't think it, with her freckles and curly hair, she can pull the look off just fine.
"See? Told you you'd look good. It seems I won the bet, after all."
"What bet?" Amy scoffs. "I agreed to put it on for you, what else do you want?"
"Why, to have you stay our dress-up doll so you can keep leaving your sister speechless, of course!" With a sly grin, you nudge Vicky in the side, leaving her scrambling to respond.
Also, man, that some kinda forcefield or physics negation she's got going? If you felt normal pain, your elbow would totally pulse angrily for a moment or two.
"I-I mean, you look good! Really good. You should totally get this, it'd work as casual wear just fine."
"I believe what Vicky means is 'please step on me, my dark goddess', but hey, we can work on those communication skills."
"Gabe!"
"Just saying it how I see it."
You spend about an hour in that shop, taking your time to get to know the two Dallons the best you can without letting Tammi feel alienated, making sure she gets to talk to them, too.
Over this span of time, you even get Amy to try on a whole bunch of clothes, from more goth-y stuff to dresses and even a few skirts, though she strenuously objects to those despite trying them on after you and Vicky egg her on to do it.
Vicky manages to get the hang of the whole 'boyfriend bringing girlfriend to buy clothes' thing, taking a page out of your book and properly complimenting both of the girls showing off how they look and even giving constructive advice and tips on occassion, in turn buoying Tammi's spirits as she gets some positive reinforcement for trying to express herself. Now, to be fair, you're not about to claim she never got any of that, but she's still visibly brightening at how an older girl is spending time and attention on her like this.
In the end, you end up paying for everything, the show of generosity of course having Amy question your motives as you have the cashier ring up a prodigious pile of clothes both you and vicky approved of, though claiming you're perfectly fine with paying for such a wonderful show gets her to shut up and blush right quick.
Good girl.
"Actually, while we're at it, would the two of you like to join me and Tammi for some ice cream? My treat."
"I don't know... It's getting pretty late, and eating sugary stuff before bed is-"
"Oh, get over yourself Vicky, I'll just use my power to keep you from getting fat."
"Really?! You always said-"
"I know what I said, now I've changed my mind. Now come on and stop making a scene."
Dragging her sister off, you bemusedly follow them at a more sedate pace, Tammi lagging behind you as she clings to your arm. "Th-th-thay'r-re N-new W-w-wave, r-right?"
"Yup. Doesn't really matter, though, if anything, that just makes them prospective members if we can swing it."
"Y-y-you s-sure?"
"Trust me, it'll be alright. Now let's go before they suspect something's up."
And with that your merry little group got a table at an ice cafe just one floor up, comfortably seated and browsing the menu.
"... but you have to admit, Vicky, if she wasn't your sister, you'd have totally banged her already. I sure would have."
"Gabe!"
"It's alright Vicky, let the man talk."
"See? She agrees!"
"Amy!"
"H-heheh. Th-th-this is p-pure c-comed-d-dy g-g-gold."
As it turns out, flirting with teenagers is bumfuck easy, all you have to do is be at least passingly handsome and engaging. Though you're certainly not complaining, mind you.
"Actually, with us all about done, how about some waffles to finish things off?"
"W-w-waffles!"
"Sure, why not. Can't hurt at this point, anyways."
"You're really making sure I don't become fat? Promise and all?"
"Yes, i promise, dammit, now lemme go!"
Ah, teenage love. "I believe what you mean is that you wouldn't complain about having more of your sister to grope."
""Gabe!/Gabe!""
"Man, this has been fun, but we really gotta get going soon. It's getting pretty late."
"What, the big bad superhero doesn't want to stay out too late?"
"Parents are still a thing, Gabe."
"Eh, fair 'nuff. So I suppose I can't interest you two in a visit to Victoria's Boutique?"
Staring at you for a moment, Vicky breaks out in giggles when you keep a stright face. "You gotta be joking, right? I mean, this has been fun, but that's skipping a lot of bases there."
"Not at all. I just know what I want and right now what I want is to spend two hundred dollars each for way too little cloth for each of you." With a cocky smile, you pull out a wad of hundred-dollar bills, waving them through the air.
"How do you even have that much cash? This aren't your savings you're blowing here, are they?"
"No worries, I got some decent cash from a legit part-time job. SO, you want in or not?"
When Vicky doesn't immediately deny, of course, Amy rounds up on her sister, incredulously. "Wait a sec, you can't honestly be considering this-"
Only to be stopped by a finger held to her lips by that same sister. Leaning in, she whispers the magic words that are about to enable all that is to follow. "If we do this, it means free lingerie for me to prance around in... for you."
With a blank face, Amy gets up and tries to grab everyone sitting at the table at once, only to be evaded by you as you laugh. "Calm down, we still gotta pay and the goods aren't running away."
"Don't care. Smutty lingerie store, now."
"D-d-do I-I h-h-have t-to g-g-go, t-too?" Tammi asks, withdrawing into herself a little, though she perks up again as you take her hand. "Only if you want to, and you don't have to do anything you're uncomfortable with."
Her shy smile as she looks up at you is just too cute.
It took a moment of quick talking, aka subtly showing off the fact you had craploads of cash on you, to make sure nobody complained about your group being in the local Victoria's Boutique, but soon enough you were in and treated to a parade of barely concealed teenage flesh, a bulge in your pants subtly positioned to be noticeable without being obvious about it.
"Make sure to wear this for your sister, I'm sure she'll appreciate the glorygirls as much as me."
"Gabe!"
"You know, you should show those panpans off more often, I'm sure your sister would appreciate them, too."
"As if, you little perv."
"H-h-how d-d-does it l-l-look?"
"Quick, we need to hide you, lest someone tries to keep your cuteness for themselves!"
Suffice to say, fun was had, and you made sure to get both of the sisters' numbers before you bid them farewell, Tammi winking after them as she hid behind you.
"It's been a long day, or night, rather, time we head back home?"
"Y-y-yeah."