Once you've parked the car back at the garage and gotten Tammi back to her own little place, making sure nobody noticed that you actually drove, as you're pretty certain at least some of your people think you can't and you want to keep up the hilarious illusion, you return unto your own chambers, glad to be finally rid of all these clothes you've been spending all this time in.
You're not a nudist by any means, but going clothes shopping with three teenagers of varying ages still fills your weekly quota of clothing.
"Hey Gabe, had fun?" Sarah asks, lounging in the main office chair.
"Yup, even got to meet a few new people and stuff. Guess who got both Glory Girl and Panacea to give them their numbers, as well as show themsleves off in lingerie?"
"You know what, I'm not even going to question any of that. Let's talk about nazis instead or something? Nazis are a safer topic than whatever it is you do unsupervised."
"Alright, Kayden Anders. Purity. What do we know, what's changed since the last time I went out stalking her?"
"Well, she's moved out of the whole agency in general, officially unlisted from any of their sites, all the good stuff. She's got a decent amount of money saved up from working her job for over a decade now, but that won't last forever, and she knows it.
Right now, she's trying to make end's meet as a freelancer, but I've looked up the rates and client density in Brockton Bay and, well, it's not looking too great for her. Any people in the business that get out of an agency for whatever reason also tend to have issues finding another, what with, you know, already having quit one for some reason and people not liking the potential risks in letting a drug dealer set up shop in their offices or whatever, especially in this city."
"Makes sense. So, money troubles. She won't realistically get enough clients the way she's going due to the fact people prefer to contact agencies for this kind of thing, simply because it's convenient and gives the whole transaction a measure of trustworthiness, because what agency would have untrustworthy people working for it?
Next question, is she aware of the issues she's facing beyond the immediate term?"
"To an extent, yes. Return customers tend to be rare in the business, because why would you need a professional interior designer after you've already had one design your interiors? So instead, she's trying to get clients through referrals, former clients recommending her, from what I've read of her net presence. She's been at this for a while, as I said, so she might very well keep her head above water for a longer while than you'd first expect, but I've got all the data and fed it into my power and, well, she'll probably have to face she isn't making enough money in a few weeks, tops, though she could keep trying while bleeding out beyond that."
"A good start. What about her daughter?"
"Aster Anders, one year old. Occasionally babysat by her half-brother, Theo Anders, Kaiser's son from his previous marriage and someone Kayden seems to trust, or at least tolerate, enough to let him take care of her daughter. Overweight and seemingly not on best terms with his dad, because apparently, he has a conscience or something, and dislikes the fact he was born into the local big nazi honcho's family."
"The conscience may be a problem, but hey, we may be able to get him around with promises of his father's demise or something."
"And yeah, that's about all relevant points we've got, unless you have any questions?"
"Just one question, Sarah, but I'm afraid it may just be instrumental to how I handle Kayden."
"Out with it and I'll see what I can do."
Patting Sarah's head, you sigh. "What do I do if there's a fire?"
"... If that happens... IF, Gabe, then just do what you always do. Can't make things worse at that point anyways."
"That's fair, I suppose. Oh, also, should we look into getting a place ready we could have her work on, maybe as a way to keep her paid and out of Kaiser's hands, maybe just as a nice hook to catch her with."
"Hmm, Kaiser may try some legal fuckery at some point, Aster being his daughter and all, to force Kayden into doing his bidding, but it could work, I suppose. Any preferences in that regard?"
"I mean, we were planning on opening that nightclub, weren't we? May as well have a professional design the interior."
"Hah, not sure that's her usual wheelhouse, but there's nothiing that says we can't try. So, what'll you be doing in regards to her tonight? Not much time left until sunrise, you know."
Holding up her smartphone, Sarah flicks the radial to navigate to an actual app keeping track of the sun's status based on the user's current location.
"... Why the hell didn't I ever think about getting something like this back when I still got sunburn?"
She just pats your hand consolingly.
Your treversing the city is as quiet and simple as ever, just a shadow gliding through the night. With the relatively early hour, for most people, instead of the middle of the night, you see a bit more traffic than usually when out and about at night, letting you people watch as you go, though there's still fairly few pedestrians about, mostly anyone needing to be out at this time preferring to drive if possible.
Still, here you are. An apartment building in the better parts of town, slipping up through the stairwell as you count the floors you're going up, and there it is. The door to Purity's apartment.
Slipping under the door, you immediately begin looking around. First impression, well, this place looks like an interior designer lives here. From the hallway to the living room, and in every door you see leading away from it, the rooms are color-coded in a way that doesn't have them clash with each other, the furniture is put together nicely, all that good stuff.
The entrance hallway is very wooden in nature, laminated floor and similarly structured furniture, while the living room you find yourself in is kept in a subdued green, a green carpet providing the illusion of a forest floor, lamps and furniture evoking rocks and trees around the room.
That said, the most... interesting, aspect of the place is the somewhat chubby teenage boy sleeping on the couch. That would be Theo, you suppose, Kayden's step-son and regular babysitter.
Well, best let the boy sleep for the time being. Instead, you'll be creeping right into Kayden Ander's bedroom, because that's not creepy or strange at all.
So, it takes a little navigating, what with how this apartment is set up, but soon enough you're poking your head into what you're pretty sure is Purity's bedroom.
Cozy, kept to brown and beige, and honestly, a place you could see yourself living in if you had money without being a villainous vampire overlord planning to take over the world. Carefully rematerializing in the middle of the room, you make sure to only use the sides of your claws to touch stuff, just in case, as you search the room.
For starters, she's got recent newspapers lying on the table next to that little armchair, so you have an idea of what she's likely doing while relaxing in her bedroom if she has a few minutes to herself in the evenings. The newspapers themselves are nothing newsworthy, just the same ol' rich people papers you already know about from your time pretending to be sophisticated in college.
Opening the dressers on the other side of the room, most of the drawers just contain folded clothes, though you take note of the drawer of panties for later.
On the lowest drawer, though, you hesitate for a second as you open it. Was it just you, or did you feel something roll around just now?
Carefully taking bundled-up socks out as you make sure to memorize the order they were inside, just to make sure you can put everything back just as it was, you soon find a shoe box at the bottom of the thing's back, carefully raising the lid.
Well.
Well, well, well.
Looks like poor old Kayden has been lonely in the wake of her divorce, or maybe ol' Max just wasn't up to the task, because the trio of dildos you see isn't small. A dark pink one, made to look like a slightly curved human penis with veins and all, just slightly smaller than your own member, a red one shaped more streamlined and without being specifically realistic and, lastly, the most amusing one, a huge dildo shaped after a horse dick of all things.
Aster's mom got it going on, ladies and gents. Though you aren't going to begrudge her the kinkiness, to be honest, if anything, it makes Kaiser's obvious insufficiencies you've just decided have to exist just that much more amusing.
Keeping the chuckle in, you put everything back like how it was, then get up. You still have that bathroom to look at, though a cursory examination reveals nothing of particular interest, just a fairly standard bathroom and a whole lot of feminine hygiene products. To be expected, honestly, in fact, you recognize some of these brands as the same you used to buy for Sarah.
At least Kayden's got some taste.
Maybe you should be surprised, but somehow, you really aren't. Taking a closer look around, yeah, somehow, Kayden got what feels like an exact replica of her office in that agency inside her apartment, even though the room layout is completely different and you know those are different chairs.
Heck, she still transplanted a bunch of the knicknacks you saw when you broke into her other office right into this room, to boot.
Still, this amusing measure of stubborness isn't what you came here for. Again using only your claws to touch things, you begin to look through the drawers and cupboards, pouring over any and all documents you can find.
Hm-hmm, hm-hmm... Most of these are fairly uninteresting, just the usual paperwork you have to deal with when you're an adult person living your life and not a supervillain without identity after officially being declared dead and all, though you do find some documents of impact next to the renting contract and a few miscellaneous bills.
So, from what you're reading here, if you get this legal lingo right, Max Anders and Kayden Anders divorced amiably, without court proceedings or the like being involved, as the absence of the same is explicitly mentioned in the physical copy of the documents you're reading.
What is, noticeably, not mentioned is any agreement not to involve the courts in the future, which you suspect to be Kaiser's trap, set up for the eventuality that he wants to try and force his ex-wife back into his organization through threat of legal action and curtailing her civilian life, as court proceedings cost money, far as you're aware, and Kayden is pressed for cash as it is already.
In fact, you wouldn't be surprised if Kaiser was planning to get her thrown out of her agency at some point in the future, anonymously of course, in order to put her into just the situation she is in now and tighten the net, so to say, of the trap he's lain.
You'd bet you could use this against him somehow, if you got in the position to tell Kayden.
You're fairly sure you've found pretty much everything of import inside the flat, as it's relatively unlikely for any important documents and/or sex toys to be stashed in either the kitchen, the baby room or the living room currently occupied by Theo Anders, but... Well, nothing speaks against taking a look, right?
The kitchen is fairly normal compared to the rest of the place, with a decent amount of cooking implements in the various cupboards around the room, though nothing especially crazy that your quick and quiet search reveals.
You know, it's kind of sad, the way your streak of indirect arson is cut short, though maybe you can claim Purity wasn't in the building and so unable to set her place on fire by herself, or maybe the whole building wasn't torched because she's kinda not in the E88 and thus doesn't count?
Either way, you get back to your lair, hug Sarah, 'hug' Sarah in the more intimate way, spend a few minutes writing out everything you remember of that legal documentation and make a quick sketch of those dildos, all of which is added to Purity's file, before you go bother Kate a little, to keep her mind off of violence.
It's a lot of work, keeping the women in your life happy. Worth it, though.
As it turns out, your request for 'technology to know if you suddenly find yourself in medieval or primitive times' was received surprisingly well. Or rather, your girls put the question out on several web forums and nerd sites, then just waited for the eventual explosion and harvested the results afterwards.
This must be what it feels like to have just so many people think for you you just have to pick out the good ideas from the bad.
"Do we really have to do this?"
You look up from where you're busy figuring out where and how to stick which cable. "Well, it was either this or me pushing my sister into your face while she spit out all your deepest, darkest secrets, so I figured some socialization under the guise of video games would work better."
"And why do we need 'socialization'?"
"Because the better we know each other, the less likely I need to find out just how well you've booby-trapped your room in an attempt to murder you."
"Hah, fair 'nuff. Okay, what the fuck are we doing here, exactly?"
"I have no idea, I'm no gamer by any means. Just grab a controller and let's see what happens."
Hours later, roars could be heard out in the hallway before one Alice Nakamura's room, its' main resident unable to resist the urge to scream.
"THE FUCK, YOU DICK! I JUST SHOT YOU IN THE FUCKING HEAD!"
"AAAAAH, THE FUCK EVEN IS A BLUE SHELL?!"
And, of course, the always popular "RRRAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!"
On the other hand, at least you had a lot of fun. Also, the girl really needed to get that off her chest. Seriously. Apparently, her parents actually enforced the whole 'genius' thing, so she never really played video games. Or had time to herself that wasn't studying, for that matter.
"Alright," you say, rubbing your hands, "let's get this show on the road."
"This is gonna be great," Isabel grins, sorting through a small pile of electronics.
Igniting her blowtorch, Sherrel begins welding a plate of steel zo the wall. "Enough talking, let's go!"
The three of you are standing inside the Doomtruck, as calling it the 18-Wheeler of Doom all the time is kind of a pain, a pile of materials to work with at your back and a project up front; assembling a complete robot manufacture line, which is basically one of your normal manufactories, just remodeled to allow easier access to the material intake, as well as stretched out with all the parts not strictly needed to build robots stripped out, allowing a whole bunch of them to be stacked side by side in here.
All that remains is to improve upon their initial prototype and build a giant bunch of them, with some kind of shared intake. You can probably do that. And speaking of shared intakes...
You look at Isabel and Sherrel.
About an hour into the construction process, you conspicuously stop working on installing one of the internal robot arms ferried in from a manufactory outside, turning towards where Sherrel is busy partially disassembled parts already put together and adding her tinker-hoodoo-voodoo.
"Hey Sherrel, let's take a break."
"Why? We don't really need to, with what we are."
"Yeah, but a break could let us break in Isabel."
With a pensive look on her face, Sherrel puts her overengineered monstrosity of a screwdriver down, snapping the monomolecular disassembly blade in. Useless out of her specialty your ass, even if it's a recent development.
"Know what, sure. She's cute enough."
Thus, the two of you go to meet Isabel, who is working on the outside of the manufacture line, busy laying out the cables that will, hopefully, allow someone to control the output of over fifty robot manufacture lines with a single tap on a touchscreen.
Though, when you do find her...
Honestly, it's like she's asking to be ravished, behaving like that.
"Ugwah!" She yells out, hastily trying to lower her t-shirt... catching it in her screwdriver in the process, meaning she keeps her tits on display for you and Sherrel just that much longer.
"Hey Issy, no need to bother."
"Huh?"
"You won't need clothes for what we're about to do," you explain, stepping forwards to slide her shirt over her head.
"Relax, it'll be fine... if the bossman here can restrain himself a bit, otherwise you're gonna be sore."
"Speaking from experience, I see," you snort, starting to strip down yourself.
"Ugeeh?"
"I-I'm really not sure-" Isabel begins, only to be cut off by a finger on her lips, Sherrel shushing her as her other hand slides down, playing with the younger woman's pants.
"Don't worry. What's about to happen to you isn't scary. At all."
"We just want to have sex, and we want you to feel good, too," you add, your hands encircling her stomach from behind.
"I-I, okay. Okay, I can do this." Aww, how cute, she's squaring herself up!
"Shh, sweetie, it's alright. Just calm down and let me, okay?" Not waiting for a response, Sherrel pushes Isabel's pants down, making sure not to catch them on anything, and smiles at her as she crouches before her. "Oh, what a cute and pretty little pussy! Hard to believe what we'll be doing with it."
Drawing a fingertips up and down, along Isabel's pussylips, Sherrel smiles up at you as you put your head over Isabel's shoulder, now firmly molesting her breasts. "She's got a cute little landing strip, too!"
"Really? That's adorable." Nibbling on her ear, you delight in her gasp at the sensation, especially as you extend your teeth to do it. "Were you hoping for this to happen? Did you shave while you imagined one of us telling you to just strip out in the workshop, and use you until we were satisfied?"
At the shake of her head, you let go, switching sides and watching as Sherrel carefully begins sinking a finger into Isabel's soft, vulnerable walls, slowly rotating it so her wrist is facing upwards before crooking it.
"Maybe you were thinking about something else then... Maybe being called to my secret refuge, where no clothes are ever allowed and everyone inside is pursuing a permanent state of wild hedonism?"
Rolling her nipples between your fingers, it isn't long before you and Sherrel have Isabel produce the day's first orgasm. Though neither of you is planning to stop at one...
It isn't long before you and Sherrel have Isabel sitting on a hastily manufactured couch, the both of you lounging to her sides and exchanging kisses with her in sequence as you grope and fondle her all over, waiting for her to recover.
"I'm r-really not s- Smooch! Sure about this- mnaah, this is the first time I- Slurp- did something like this!"
"Oh, then it's high time you did," Sherrel airily exclaims, gently pulling on Isabel's shoulder until she's lying down, face up and resting on her thighs.
"Just look at me and relax, okay? That's it, sweetie." Over the telepathic connection between the two of you, though, she's singing another song, entirely. C'mon, Gabe, fuck her silly, that cute innocent face is just asking for it!
Not one to disappoint, you reposition yourself a little, letting you kneel between Isabel's legs as you idly play with her clit.
"Your ready, baby? Here it comes. He's about to go into you. You're gonna love it." As Sherrel keeps talking (and pawing at Isabel's breasts), you place your head at Isabel's sensitive lower lips, gliding up and down on them to gather a bit more of the clear fluid she's steadily secreting, leaning forwards as you push inside just a little.
"There he goes. How's it feel, sweetie?"
"Ugh... weird, but... good."
Keeping up your steady push, you don't stop even a moment as you feel a slight resistance, snapping Isabel's hymen and irrevocably deflowering her.
"Hnguh!"
"Shh, shh, shh, it's alright, this is normal. The first time always hurts a little. Just concentrate on my voice and ignore the pain, okay? You're feeling good, right? Focus on that, not the pain. Focus on what else you feel."
"Haah, haah..."
It isn't long before you hit another, less easily penetrated barrier; her womb. Having gone as deep as you're going to be able to inside Isabel, you lean over her, holding yourself in place as her inner walls massage your dick in rhythmic convulsions and gently drawing one of her teats into your mouth, licking and nibbling on it.
I'm about to fuck you, Isabel. I've made you a woman, and now I'm gonna ruin you forever.
Following up on the thoughts you sent her, you withdraw out of her, slamming your ramrod of a dick into her again and again, her legs soon wrapped around your waist even as Sherrel keeps on encouraging her, and before long, your jackhammer-like pace has her cum around you, trying to milk your dick into her depths.
And again.
And again.
That said, there's only so long that you can keep her going, the new experience simply too much for her overstimulated body, and so by the fourth time she clenches around you, you raise your upper body, hands still wrapped around her butt for stability, and announce what has her eyes widen.
"I'm about to cum inside you, Isabel."
She pants for a few seconds, just drawing breath through her wide-open mouth, but when she finds her voice after what you just put her through, it isn't quiet about what she thinks.
"DO IT! INSIDE ME! GIVE ME YOUR BABIEEES!"
Almost incapable of resisting your chuckle, you do as she asked, your pulsing meatrod spewing rope after rope of cum right at her womb. As that happens, Isabel's eyes wander a little, her widely smiling mouth wide open, and she just... slumps backwards, the tension in her back keeping her up explosively releasing her back onto Sherrel's lap.
"Well, that's a thing now."
Staying inside the comfy confines of her pussy for a moment longer, you look at her questioningly.
"You literally fucked her unconscious. Never thought I'd see that happenin' for real without booze and drugs, but here we are."
Patting Isabel's head a little, she leans backwards on the couch. And huh, now that you think about it, you'll probably have to throw it right back into a manufactory, just because you doubt that blood will ever really get out.
"Now who's gonna get the rest of the work done?"
"I'd have thought the two of us, with Isabel out of commission."
"Sorry stud, but I can't get up now. Might wake her up. And you see, this whole little 'break' was your idea, so you get to clean up."
Rolling your eyes with an indulgent smile, you gently remove yourself from Isabel's insides, a steady stream of cum beginning to run out of her. "Have it your way, then. After-sex-cuddle is important, I know."
"Hey Emily, I brought the good stuff."
"Do you have to call it that? Makes you sound like you're dealing drugs."
"My bad. You're right, though, dealing drugs is what we got minions for. Here, I brought Ethan's pastries."
"Better. Alright, I found a video with the chat attached to the side, you ready?"
"Couldn't be readier."
Grabbing a cinnamon roll and sharing half of it with Emily, you settle in to watch a compilation of recorded streams you've produced. Time to really put yourself into your viewers' mindset.
"Alright everyone, thank you for joining us on this meeting. Before we begin, I would like to propose we all go through the usual updates on everyone's operations, as is becoming somewhat common."
"Yes, let me begin," Kate says as she gets up from where she sits to your left, looking at everyone in the room in turn, "to get it out of the way, Ethan has sent us all a thank-you basket with a few of those little cakes he baked yesterday, along with a letter, to thank us for arranging an actual budget for the kitchen and basically giving it to him. I've left it all over by the snack table in case anyone wants to take a look later.
Next off, our operations on the less legal side are expanding, with a certain amount of leeway afforded to us as is common for powerful gangs, meaning the cops don't even bother going after our people anymore, leaving that to the PRT instead where they aren't just being corrupt and supporting us outright."
"Wait a sec, the pigs are actually being helpful?" Lea raises an arm, before remembering she isn't in high school anymore.
"They are, actually. Turns out they're people too, and when they have a choice between taking a bit of cash and nomically supporting the guy that cured cancer or get reports to the PRT without so much as a thank you, most in this city know what to do. Helps that our people on the streets are dealing drugs at worst, and really, what's the harm in pawning a few mentats to a few college students before exams?"
"It helps, of course," Sarah chimes in, "that we 'inherited' a few helpful contacts from Coil when we took over, copious amounts of blackmail included."
"Indeed. Next off, our out-of-town ventures are paying off so far, with two deliveries of 'heavy machinery' to 'business partners' in Boston, with only minor amounts of executions necessary before the locals fucked off when our girls rolled up. The Teeth may have some beef with us now, but they have beef with anyone anyways, so fuck 'em."
Sitting down, Kate gestures towards Henley, who adjusts his glasses as he gets up himself, clearing his throat. "Yes, we have made steady progress on purchasing the properties we unofficially claim as our territory through various shell companies, though the city has, somewhat naturally, noticed someone is buying up debunked buildings from it. That said, if you would look at this map," at this point, the overhead projector you'd noticed earlier springs to life at a click of a button-device Henley is holding, "this is a rough breakup of the territory held by all gangs residing within Brockton Bay."
"As you can see, our territory covers mostly industrial areas centered around the northern bay, making it easy to purchase it, whether from the city itself or various companies holding onto them as tax writeoffs. The border between our area of control and the PRT's, however, has produced somewhat more mixed results, as residential buildings and the like are at least somewhat profitable even in, frankly put, the shit parts of town. We have purchased a few so far, as well as several burnt-out ruins just not worth the cost of being restored, what with the area they're in, but it's a process in work.
On a side note, we have a place purchased for that art auction being planned, though I believe I should repeat that the... well, 'political' situation may very well mean it will be attacked, by rival gangs or the Protectorate or whoever else. Things are tense."
"Anything about the night club idea?" Sarah throws in, having apparently declared herself the question fairy for the time being. Not that you mind of course.
"We're looking into it, but actually finding an optimal place to put it requires thorough analysis, as well as the security issues in case it comes under attack by various enemy forces... It has been firmly relegated to an afterthought this week."
"Alright, so uh, we've made progress. Some real good progress, too," Sherrel explains when it's her turn to present results, "though we probably shouldn't ever actually admit the results unless we're, like, in a position of power. It's, uh, pretty bad from the optics of it."
"How bad are we talking?" Henley asks the big question.
"Well, you remember how the bossman has those manufactories we use for everything, that can also make robots?" At the general nods in the room, she continues. "So if me, the boss and Isabel, the one guest he brought with him last time, made a giant truck that is basically a moving Eagleton, just with lasers and forcefields, I don't think we should let anyone know until we actually need it."
A few moments of silence reign over the room.
"Well, okay, I guess that's a thing now," Kate mutters.
Lea just facepalms as she gets up herself. "Alright, ignoring the 18-wheeler in the room, I've mostly been keeping order inside the workshop, helping that summon get his lab together and fiddling with the Aimfist this week, so nothing of particular impact to report beyond that."
"Are we calling it aimfist now?" You ask, an amused eyebrow rising.
"No offense, boss, but I've seen what you've called your 'bots. You have no room to talk."
Ouch.
"Heeere!" Cupcake, being her usual Cupcake self, salutes as she stands on her chair, trying to appear taller. You'd let off a snide comment or two about putting her feet where she sits, but it's honestly too adorable, so you just smile indulgently. "We've been mainly fiddling with addictol this week, ran a few trials on how exactly long-term dependency and addictol tend to interact. We have enough test cases wandering around the streets, after all. Preliminary results indicate that even if physical dependency isn't a factor, the psychological addiction remains just fine, which has a whole slew of implications. Nell's been bugging me about putting it all into a report, but I've been ignoring her."
Before you can go over to pat her head, Sarah gets up, clearing her throat to call attention. "As you may or may not know, after we managed to wrangle everything Coil left us, I've been busy organizing and widening the spy network he had in place, with moles in literally every local group he could find. With unlimited access to my power, I've been compiling dossiers on all of them, organizations, people, structures, the works. In fact, my brother has been immensely helpful in this endeavour during this last week, spying on and infiltrating the E88 a lot, as well as recruiting capes from both them and the ABB. Oh, and before I forget, we've also identified several potential new triggers through Coil's old channels, something to talk over later. Gabe?"
"Indeed, I decided to get on that little issue with other gangs existing in our city. As it happens, I've also been working on a preliminary plan on how to deal with them, based off of Sarah's observations and my own experiences."
"Is it really true you were the Alabama Ranger, boss?" Lea throws in.
"Yes, that was me. Fenja and Menja were completely wasted and accidentally set their penthouse apartment on fire while I was sneaking in, so I just went with the flow. And yes, I wore nothing but a domino mask and a cowboy hat, now can we please ignore that whole topic?"
"Go ahead, Sarah, I can see you're just itching to play exposition fairy from over here."
"Why, thank you, dear brother." Oooh, that's her name for you when she's playing at being upset. Honestly, if she wasn't so cute when pouting, you'd tease her way less often... though you suspect that's exactly why she pouts at you so readily whenever the occasion calls.
"Okay, so the plan, as it stands, looks like this; Using the fact that Shadow Stalker, the Ward, is semi-publically known to target E88 mooks with lethal force thanks to what Gabriel already did, despite the PRT's attempts to scrub the video from the net and suppress rumours along those lines. Meaning if someone were to, say, assassinate an E88 cape, and anonymous hints as well as videos putting her at the place of the attack? Well, people might talk.
Of course, if that specific cape might or might not be someone like Stormtiger, who is close to Hookwolf in both personal and professional contexts, why, he may demand revenge for his friend's death. He also just so happens to be big enough, power-wise, to be a match for Kaiser, who will be damned before he actually declares a Ward an open target, and if tensions within the E88 were to keep rising as certain outside elements kept pushing them, they may very well descend into civil war at some point... or at least remain sufficiently preoccupied if we just move in and eliminate them in a single push."
"How about other groups? Depending on how long this takes, the ABB or Protectorate may very well interfere," Lea posits, Sarah nodding in response.
"Exactly, and we're betting on that. Kaiser will try to keep his organization together by having an external enemy, but if that external enemy happens to be the Protectorate, he only risks for the situation to escalate, as well as for his own people to sympathize with Hookwolf over himself, which is the last thing he wants. If it's the ABB, we've still gotten two rival gangs to fight while we position ourselves to deal the loser the finishing blow, because we sure aren't letting them de-escalate if we can help it. It's a win-win-win, but only for us."
With a smug grin, Sarah regards the room. "Any questions?"
"Okay everyone, with the current state of affairs clear, let us move on to other plans and ideas to pursue in the immediate future. For starters, Sarah, you mentioned a list of new capes in Brockton Bay?"
As you speak, you, unobtrusively, stand up, move around Sarah and just grab Cupcake under her armpits, lift her up, get back into your seat and plop her onto your lap, her confused flailing having stopped within moments before you even had the time to.
Now she's just pouting as you pat her head.
"... Right, so first off, there's rumours of a tinker out in the trainyard, if a bunch of homeless people saying the same thing is to be trusted. Something we should probably look into, there's an area junk keeps going missing.
On the other hand, a confirmed tinker Coil was actually in contact with is one Trevor Medina, caught out by watching out for the usual signs of a new tinker. Some kind of mobility-based specialization, from what I found. He's been just quietly supplied with money and materials on the side so far, continuing his arrangement with the snake, but if we wanted to really take him in in some way, the possibility's open, though he still lives with his mother.
Another option, Circus, nomadic villain mostly committing theft and robberies. Grab-bag cape, but with a lot of potential in a fight if equipped correctly on account of a hammerspace they literally use to use sledgehammers in fights, negating momentum when appropriate. Gender unknown, they're really putting work into the whole secret identity thing.
Lastly, we have the mayor's niece, Dinah Alcott. Got caught out due to suspicious hospital records detailing strange headaches and psychological issues, I looked into her and she's almost assuredly a thinker of some kind. High-profile, but getting her under our thumb might be worth our time."
As Sarah slides a picture across the table, the second one since she began talking, you look at it thoughtfully. "Huh. You know, my standards got just about obliterated when I got my power, but even I'm not sure if she's not just too young."
"Hah, you worried you can't just seduce her like you do any other female cape you meet?"
"No comment."
"On an entirely different note, I would like to return to the topic of an entirely legal company profiting off of us making the world a better place. For starters, I have access to easy to set up water purifiers capable of easily refining sea water into potable water I could scale up for massive production easily enough, along with, frankly, hyper-efficient solar panels and wind turbines, the kind of which could generate so much energy we may as well supply the entire eastern seaboard with it just from Brockton Bay.
Of course, actually pulling this through would almost assuredly have an Endbringer come for the Bay, because we'd turn it into an energy and freshwater source, the kind Leviathan tends to target, but otherwise? We could save the world right from where we sit. Just need to figure out how to reliably throw one out of our city and repair any damage done in the process."
At the mention of the Endbringers, the room goes very, very quiet, though everyone keeps on listening intently as you go about outlining the potential issues with your plan.
"I thought nobody managed to figure out what they target cities for?" Henley asks, his hands folded into each other hiding his lower face.
"They're hard to predict, yes, but if you actually look at all past Endbringer Fights and what happened in them, certain regularities do come to light. Leviathan tands to target large freshwater sources when he isn't sinking landmasses into the oceans, just as Behemoth targets large power plants and the Simurgh's attacks tend to cause social upheaval in the long run. This isn't a hard rule by any measure, just something of a vague tendency, nothing more. Turns out actually studying the history of these things does show some things, at least."
Even if it was depressing as fuck at the time.
"Incidentally, we may as well go all the way and just replace the entire economy of the US' market with copious use of the manufactories, just ship massive amounts of both raw materials and goods to be recycled and churn out new products of all kinds. Technically, the things can create just about anything, as long as they have the raw materials in some form, they're the equivalent of a dedicated series of workers acting with quite literal machine precision, capable os using any tool imaginable so long as it's installed inside the machine.
That said, in order for any of this to happen, we'll need to take over the Bay first, get all that infrastructure in place and probably have a legion of lawyers ready, what with all those pesky laws like NEPEA-5. In general, getting some decent lawyers on retainer would probably be a good idea anyways, as well as a few more accountants for Henley to push around, once we've found a few candidates willing to work for us."
It took the group a little while to really digest the sheer depth of the rabbit hole you intend to lead the gang into, though eventually you can get back to exchanging thoughts and ideas.
In summary, putting Purity's civilian identity on retainer under the name of a fake persona for you is unanonymously agreed upon, as is putting up one of your current autodoc prototypes inside Bitch's lair to work on any hurt dogs she can find.
Similarly, the revelation the vampires actually can turn others by themselves does go over rather well, with Kate and Sarah already thinking about whether or not to turn someone, and if so, whom.
As it happens, having a virtually endless source of blood to feed a population of vampires with means you don't really need to worry about overpopulation for the time being.
Here you are, having successfully concluded the meeting and retired to one of the target ranges, having convinced a couple of the girls to stand by and use their laser rifles to shoot down the ice walls created as you practice, allowing you to do this without leaving a giant bunch of ice walls everywhere.
Towards the end, you're really just dicking around, already having achieved your goal for the moment, when you're surprised by the fact your smartphone begins ringing in your pocket. Looking at it, the caller is one of the only two people you gave this number, unsurprisingly, though you just engage in telepathy to talk instead.
Hey Sarah, what's up?
Gabe, we may have... a problem.
Well, that sure doesn't sound ominous.
"Okay, what's the situation."
"Simply put, Lung may have taken it a... teeny tinesy bit badly how we robbed a dozen places belonging to the ABB, including a casino, a drug plant and an asian restaurant used as a money laundering front with the Undersiders."
"What's the sucker doing?"
"Gathering a bunch of his people right now, planning to push into the area the loft is in from what our spies know. He has no idea where exactly the loft is, but he's just rushing through the general area hoping to flush 'em out."
"Where are the Undersiders right now?"
"Alec's on base playing video games as usual, Brian's running an errand in town and no idea whatsoever where Rachel is."
Lung, all in all, is not that hard to find.
Some may presume this to be because the leader of the ABB, despite his many, many other, sometimes questionable, qualities was not a subtle man in what he did. Some may instead wonder if it was the gathering of asians flocking to his banner that alerted you to his position in an ABB safehouse near the Downtown South.
You, of course, would tell any such people to go fuck off and get back to their shitty 9 to 5 jobs, because obviously they didn't have any fucking idea what they were talking about.
Like, think about it, Lung, for all that capes in general are larger-than-life as far as the public is concerned, is still a single man. Brockton Bay isn't an especially large city, but it is still a city. Finding a single person, or a group of persons, isn't easy by any means.
So how'd you do it? Duh, by having information on the address a bunch of asian dudes are awkwardly standing in front of. As it happens, having a bunch of spies ready and in place to get you the information you need is paying dividends, and you never even needed to get them in place in the first place!
So, with Sarah guiding you through Brockton Bay's streets, it isn't long until you arrive. Lung is nowhere to be seen, but you can sense an unusually large blood signature inside the building the ABB gangers are gathering in front of, along with a few more of the same, just smaller and clearly keeping their distance from what you assume is Lung.
Luckily, you don't have to wait overlong, even if the accursed sun has the time to go down before Lung gets his scaley ass out onto the street.
The gangers, awkward and silent until this moment, as let's be honest, none of these guys really look like they want to be here, go from awkward silence to respectful silence, the attention all on the half-naked two meter tall asian dude coming out the door with a knife in hand, his many, many unimaginatively dragon-themed tattoos all over his upper body almost glistening in the light of the street lamps nearby.
The ones that work, anyways.
"ABB!" He half shouts, half intones, "You are gathered here today, to punish thieves for their insolence!" You're not sure if you should be surprised at the only very mild accent or admit you honestly don't give a fuck.
"You know who I am talking about, I will not waste words. Find those who have stolen from me and bring me their dead bodies!" He actually begins to grow a little by this point, a patch of scales here and there breaking out of his skin and the knife in his hand beginning to glow with heat- pyrokinesis, in addition to pyrogenesis?
"You will go and if you see the children, just shoot. Doesn't matter your aim, just shoot. You see one lying on the ground? Shoot the little bitch twice more to be sure. We give them no chances to be clever or lucky, understand?"
A murmur of assent followed, none of the people present daunted by the prospect of shooting kids, and as one of them lit up a cigarette, leaning over to do the same for the guy next to him, you could clearly see the guns openly carried amongst them.
Too bad for them they aren't going to find the 'children' they're looking for.
All of a sudden, you notice something peculiar- the bugs.
Insects in the area are starting to move with a sense of unified purpose, from flies to suddenly emerging cockroaches coming out of the woodwork, converging on the general area. This is not normal by any means.
Taking a quick look around, you soon spy a blood signature just standing there around the corner, most likely your mystery cape. Now, question is... What do you do?
Within moments, you make your way up on a roof next to the mystery cape, carefully distributing your weight on the gravel filling up most of it and breathing out Kason with his weakening aura, Emita to imitate one of your souls, that one Yangban guy with the power distribution power and Nolan, your all-purpose evil mad scientist.
Keep quiet and try not to move.
With instructions given, you turn to look at what's happening downstairs. And, well... It's something to look at, all right.
An enormous swarm of insects is accumulating, an almost solid black mass rushing through the streets. Lung has noticed, too, and so have at least a few of his goons, but there's nothing they really can do about what's happening, screams sounding out as they're knee-deep in the cockroaches feeding off of the refuse of the city around them.
Lung, though, just spews streams of flames from his hands, popping the tide where he can while ignoring that it's starting to overwhelm him, now visibly growing in size with the patches of scales from earlier spreading along his chest and back, down his arms and (presumably) legs.
He's started ramping up, but it's going slow all the same. Whatever this new cape is doing, they'd best have a plan to take him down, because he's starting to methodically burn the insects out... until they gather at and around his still screaming underlings, flashes of red along their skin clearly showing they're beung bitten and stung. All of a sudden, Lung screams, a wave of rolling flame bursting forth from him as he holds his eye, setting one of his own men on fire.
Insects immediately begin to fill the void left by the ones just wasted, swarming around his face especially and presumably going at him, only to be blasted off in another explosion of fire as he roars again, his guys now finally getting a hint and running off.
Shit just got interesting.
You see the mystery cape look around for a moment, before the fire escape to their left seems to catch their eye... of course, that just has to be the roof you're on.
As they begin climbing, Lung, down the other side of the roof, halts in his regular explosions for a moment, seeming to try and listen out for a moment from how he stills, even as more and more insects begin drifting onto the roof, and you don't rate your chances to hide five people up here for much longer, in case this cape can sense through their minions. You're going to have to act fast.
It takes a bit of fiddling, or scratch that, a lot of fiddling, but you manage to desummon all your souls and resummon them on an adjacent roof, using the thick strands of insects flying through the air right now to mask the silvery mist that is the transitioning phase of your soul summons.
Apart from that, you just carefully step around and avoid any bugs you can see, more an awkward dance than anything, but hopefully, this means this cape can't sense you through their power, unless they can see through them or something, in which case any attempt at stealth is a waste of effort anyways.
You were actually thinking about attacking Lung instead, him being the largest threat around right now, but you ran the possibility by Sarah, who... who gave you a veto.
No. No, Gabe, I will not allow it. The Alabama Ranger must stay dead and buried, I refuse to let him surface for any reason.
Well, you're just staying up here for a moment. The cape, and it's a she, as you now see, gets up to the roof, momentarily recoiling when she sees you standing there, surprised. At least you guessed right earlier, you suppose.
Also, that costume, dark and edgy as it is, reminds you of something... Right, that one picture you drew once. A fan, maybe?
On the other hand, Lung is still growing, and the way she just jerked backwards and hit the fire escape with a leg immediately has him perk up and run at the building you're on, his oversized form jumping right onto its facade and beginning to climb upwards.
Well, no time like the present. The moment Lung's now quite reptilian head rises above roof level, his eyes locking onto both of said roof's occupants, you begin moving, ordering your souls to act at the same time.
Within moments, Lung has to grab for the building he's humping right now again, nearly losing his grip as he weakens, even as a steady stream of a sickly-green fluid begins to approach him through the open air among the thick swarm of insects, who lightly get out of the way where possible, only for both to be evaporated in Lung's next blast, causing you to duck down to avoid the shockwave, broken by the roof's edge as it is.
Not that it stops you from grabbing the two water bottles you'd emptied and refilled before setting out for this little scuffle, a quick movement assisted by the blood inside the caps itself twisting soon having his face splashed with the same, though you had to use both bottles at once just to have enough blood it didn't just dissipitate in the blistering heat surrounding him.
Incidentally, though his mask has fallen off at some point, his newly revealed draconian face looks a lot like it. Prick probably had it modeled after himself.
"Hold still, relax, don't fight!" WIth what might be famous last words for lesser men (or a serial rapist's motto, for that matter), you leap onto Lung's neck, just barely taking hold of his shoulder and swinging yourself around using your claws, going right for his neck before his scales grow too thick for you to bite through, with your command keeping him from so much as trying to shake you off, or just blasting you away with another load of fire and heat.
Doesn't stop you from digging the claws on both your hands between his scales, letting off a blast of electricity as you do so, though!
Well, here you are. An oversized tick sucking away at a larger organism's blood after attaching yourself to its skin.
... Somehow, you always imagined this to be more fulfilling.
Anyways, Lung is stunned for a moment, his muscles locking up due to both your command and the way you just jabbed a current through his body near his brain, so you just keep on drinking as hard as you can, utilizing the fact you don't need to breathe to just keep on chugging enough blood to fill two adult humans, without visibly slowing this fucker down beyond what your blood, soul minions and the many, many insects delivering their payloads through his skin in the brief moments they have before perishing to the heat still suffusing his body already are.
In fact, you go so far as to use what hemokinesis you can muster to work under the thick, leathery and scaled hide of your opponent, drawing more blood towards where you're guzzling it down from all over his body's surface regions.
Nolan, incidentally, also finally has had a few moments to get some of his neurotoxin into Lung's system, the constant stream of fluid now flowing right into his still open mouth, the same opening being used for a wide variety of flying insects to ferry spider upon spider onto still vulnerable parts of his body... before he begins roaring, having shaken off his temporary paralysis and gathering heat again, an explosion gathering right under you!
The boom of the explosion rocks your entire body, the heat of it, you're fairly sure, enough to cook an unpowered person alive if the blast didn't just tear them to pieces in the first place, but you hold fast, clinging to Lung's oversized shoulder and continuing to drink everything you can get.
In a moment of petty revenge, you return the favor by firing another charge of electricity through your claws, Lung's muscles locking up once more, though he visibly has an easier time shrugging the paralysis off this time around- his regeneration is growing stronger.
That said, the arm on the side you're clinging to is starting to droop a little.
Lung is slowing down, you can feel it. Really digging your face into the wound you've been chewing into Lung's back, your head inside it blocking his regeneration even as it keeps trying to push you out. In fact, you're pretty sure your chin has just hit one of his shoulderblades as he keeps shifting around you, your supernatural draw on blood inside bodies you're biting almost the only thing keeping blood on coming towards your perch at all.
Incidentally, his armored plated scales have also grown closed around where you've jammed your claws in between them, even as you continue trying to push them into his think skin underneath.
That said... while you're in here already, you may as well go for the eyes up top, loosening up your hemokinetic feeding support and instead concentrate on where you can see his head's blood signature. This is the first time you've used your hemokinetic abilities pertaining to surface blood vessels, but...
With a clearly audible sploosh, even from where you are, Lung's eyes spill all over the roof he is still clinging to, a roar echoing through the area as he shakes his head all along his elongated neck, flame starting to spew from between his scales and scorching your skin, your suit having been a lost cause for a while now, though you just use the pain as motivation to keep drinking faster.
Fuck's sake, how much blood does this motherfucker have? Die already! Time for another electricity blast!
"H'l g'l uoh!" An unintelligible Lung roars, his fire roaring to life all around himself and decimating the bugs surrounding both of you as well as scorching your flesh as Lung, now grown large enough he doesn't have to cling to the building nearby to see the roof, his standing eye level putting him above three floors easily, and, with deceptive speed, pushes himself off of it.
Just as he does so, however, your temporary ally, having remained motionless on the roof while all of this was going on, tucks something out of her belt, takes a step forwards and throws it right into the angry dragon's mouth, even as it snaps towards her at the sudden motion, only to rear back when a mild explosion rocks its skull, a roar of pain and rage escaping it.
You have a hard time actually seeing all of this, though, as you're mostly going off of what you can see of their respective blood signatures moving about, what with your entire face currently pressed into Lung's shoulder joint, you yourself stuck inside his flesh.
No matter what's going on, however, Lung does not stop in his overall motion, his gargantuan body now pressing itself backwards and down, intending to crush you under his bulk. This is gonna suuuck!
The impact is... well, not fun. You kinda have to regenerate your entire lower body from being turned into a smear on the ground, which is a larger challenge than it would usually be, what with you being caught underneath a small mountain of reptilian muscle, and one that's still moving atop you, though you manage as you continue on working on that last issue.
Drinking all the blood you can, you can feel a vibration going through the flesh all above and around you, maybe Lung's trying to speak? Not that it matters, in contrast to the burning heat grilling you for one last time before, finally, the big bugger bites it.
Hey Sarah? Not to bother you or anything, but it'd be really great if you could, you know, get Sherrel and the invisivan to where I last fought Lung. No idea if his corpse will fit into the van, but I sure as all hell am gonna try.
You killed him? That's kind of a big deal, Gabe. Also, are you alright? YOu do remember you could just thoughtmail her, right?
I would, if I had any idea where I am.
The silence is short, but damning. Not that you haven't dealt with worse, mind you.
Alright, I'll send her for you. That said, you may want to be prepared to, y'know, deal with anyone trying to get at your catch. You weren't subtle and the PRT's been notified already, so expect heroes inbound.
Noted. Now give me a moment to go see this new cape that helped me, may be a new recruit.
Go ahead, but keep me on the line. I'll try and assist the best I can with secondhand information.
Popping your head out of the hole you dug yourself inside Lung's shoulder, you begin to use all your not insignificant might to push the big lizard upwards.
And up. And up.
At some point, you're simply standing up, the now lifeless body heavy, but not unbearably so, Pushing it off and behind you as you walk out from under it. Making a show of wiping your shadow-veiled face, you look over at the roof you jumped off of what feels like hours of hardcore combat ago, though it's been more a few minutes than anything else.
She's still up there, you can see her blood signature. "Hello there."
Lung. Kenta. The Dragon.
All these and more were names he was called throughout his life. Born as a half Chinese, half Japanese child, he was well-known to discrimination and crime, not having taken long to join Daiichi's gang once he was old enough to do so, though this was never meant to last for long.
One day as they were doing their usual thing, Daiichi came to them with news he'd overheard, about a drug deal and the money being exchanged. Blinded with desire, Daiichi never listened when Kenta warned him against interfering once they saw the gaijin woman in the suit.
When they were all defeated one after another, Kenta refused to leave his friends, his comrades, behind, only to be beaten down and faceplanted into a sack of cocaine, kept there until he couldn't help but try to breathe.
He may have had a panic attack when he thought he was getting a heart attack. He may have triggered. But most of all, what he did was play dead.
When the woman left, Kenta got up only to find his friends dead or dying, going so far as to hold Arata's hand until he faded before his very eyes.
When Leviathan came for Kyushu, Lung watched the battle progress, waiting until his power let him grow enough to fight the Endbringer, answering he was neither when asked about whether he was a hero or a villain. Eventually, it did, battling the living tsunami amidst the waves of a sinking city.
However, at some point, he began to weaken, his power not finding anything to fight against. Recognizing the truth for what it was, that the Endbringers were not a foe that could be fought so much as a natural disaster to be weathered, which was why he refused subsequent offers to join the Protectorate, the american organization focused on fighting a pointless fight holding no prospects for him.
Three years after the End of Kyushu, Kenta and his mother moved to Chaohu, in China, or the CUI as it called itself now, where he was arrested by the Yangban another two years later.
Life was hard as a half-Japanese, though he soon learned the rules of prison. Though this did not, ultimately, help him escape, being recaptured inside a pit he could not escape.
Every two weeks he was asked to join the Yangban and reveal his connections with Americans. After enduring it for a year and four months, Kenta realized that this would not stop and the Yangban would eventually erode his will and steal his powers, so he decided to risk joining for a chance to break out.
Successfully escaping to America, Lung joined the gang called the Azn Bad Boys and, having sworn he would nevermore be subservient to or defeated by anyone, Lung went on to defeat anyone that challenged his might, from heroes to other gangs, only one member of which he left to serve himself, Oni Lee making for a useful tool in ensuring his power could be used to its full extent.
Having incorporated any and all asian gangs inside the city he was in and put their populations to work, Lung went on to prove his undisputable might against anyone foolish enough to wake the sleeping dragon, plotting and planning on how to avenge his previous humiliations. He was waiting now, but soon, he would crush all who had dared to touch his scales.
The loss of the tinker was a disappointment, just as the mewling children stealing from him were an irritation. But he would put all things right, sooner or later.
Nobody could be allowed to defeat him. Nobody.