Coming back home, you stoically endure the cute little play punches Sarah throws at your chest as you mess with her silky hair, vampirism always ensuring it is at its best (which was a given even beforehand, but the point stands).
Once she has appropriately relieved her emotional charge acquired over the meeting where you went to great lengths to explain just how wonderful your siblings are in-between stories of your exploits all throughout kindergarten and elementary school, you proceed to massage her shoulders for a bit before moving downwards across her back, then all the way down to her butt, the pert and muscled globes of which you take some extra oil for as you made sure to actually have some on hand in the drawers of your nightstand.
Naturally, it is quite lubricating, as you made sure to get the good stuff for your wives, and so it isn't long before you're slowly, but thoroughly fucking Sarah's ass, never stopping your hands as they knead the muscles all over her body.
According to her, if the whole 'becoming a high-profile criminal' thing didn't work out, you could have just made a career out of being a masseuse instead. You don't exactly disagree.
Instead, your sister gets a few kisses all along her neck and ears... Okay, maybe a lot. And perhaps you start what spirals out into a small orgy as more and more of your wives join in to take a turn. But you know what? That's alright, too.
You do love spending time with the people you love, after all. It's only natural.
That said, even the good things can't last forever, and you do have stuff to do throughout the city. Time to get moving once again, just as soon as Kate, Sarah and Nora tell you where they hid your clothes.
It's not like you like going somewhere else either, but they're just being silly by detaining you in this manner. At least Okita is having fun watching from the side and totally aware of where your clothes went herself.
The building most administrative tasks in the Dockworkers Association (also called the Dockworker's Union sometimes, though that's technically incorrect) take place in is, as might be expected for this time of night, dark, empty and cold in its entirety, anyone that might otherwise be present long having gone home.
Not much point in putting in overtime hours when there isn't any additional work to be done nor enough money to pay any requisite wages with, after all.
Except, that is, for tonight. For tonight is the night that one Daniel Hebert is staying in 'just a bit longer' again- significantly much longer than usual, granted, but once everyone else is gone nobody can tell the difference anyways.
The only place in the building, somewhat well maintained compared to its surroundings (which isn't saying much, to be fair) lit up on this nigh moonless night, dark clouds blocking the celestial body's light. Because of course you are going to be super melodramatic about this for no reason whatsoever; you really just kind of felt like it, and so here you are.
The actors: Daniel 'Danny' Hebert, well-meaning man that has far too much of his well-meaning sucked out of him by decades of economical regression, and the man, the legend, the unknown, Gabriel Wilbourn, elusive businessman extraordinaire.
The set, already explained. It is nearly midnight, now, and that means the time has nearly come.
Arranging a meeting to discuss a contract or two wasn't too hard, truthfully speaking; the issue was getting him to agree to a meeting at midnight, but your 'extremely busy schedule' and the hints at a very decent amount of money exchanging hands won him over easily enough.
Adjusting your suit, you pointedly look at your watch. Five minutes to midnight, or perfect, in other words. Naturally, it wouldn't have done to be late or anything, which is why you arranged to fly over twenty minutes ahead of time only to then pointlessly wait.
It also wouldn't have done to come too early, after all.
Either way, you go on ahead and ring the bell, knowing full well that one Head of Hiring is getting an alarm on his work computer right about now- Sarah was, uh, insistent on knowing how literally every step of this whole spiel would turn out, you blame her for everything you're doing- and using the building's systems to unlock the door for you.
Which happens with an audible buzz, you coming inside within moments and letting the door close again behind you.
You already know the way, so you simply move through the place, alost flying up flights of stairs to arrive at your destination. It isn't hard to find; even if you didn't memorize the building's blueprints, the light under the door is an obvious enough indicator.
You knock on it.
It takes a bit, but it does open in response, a somewhat lanky man with glasses on his nose and thinning hair behind it. It's not obvious, you do think you can see just a bit of family resemblance between him and Taylor. That said- action time.
"Hello there, you must be Mister Hebert," you greet, holding out a hand for him to shake, which he does with a short nod.
"Mister Wilbourn," he replies curtly, but not particularly unfriendly, waving you inside. "Excuse the mess, I was just working on something to pass the time."
Taking in the office around you, it doesn't look particularly messy that you can tell- it's a bit bare, and the desk is covered in paper off to one side, but really Henley's office looks much much worse than this when he's busy.
You're still sure he cheats using his power to keep up with his chaos.
Much more interesting, of course, is the shotgun in Danny Hebert's left hand, kept behind the door so far but always ready to be raised up. You don't comment, but smirk a little all the same.
"Do forgive the precautions, but you know how it is. One late-night ambush by a few thugs thinking everyone should do some gang's bidding or two are enough to teach anyone."
"I don't mind at all, on both accounts," you wave him off, your own left hand occupied with a heavy briefcase. "I have been menaced with much worse than a shotgun or two in my line of work."
"What would be worse than a gun that can turn you into paste at the pull of a trigger in your face?" You can tell he's just joking a little, satisfied that you are what he was expecting instead of, say, a dozen men with baseball bats and guns of their own.
"Two shotguns to the face, of course," you reply, following him and taking a seat opposite of his own position behind the desk. "Anyways, my apologies for the late hour, but you know how it can be with business. Speaking of- let's get right to it, shall we?"
"Yes, let's," Hebert nods, settling in opposite from you. "Honestly, I would like to know exactly what you need to hire the dockworkers for before we can agree to anything else."
"Naturally," you smoothly agree, bringing your briefcase up onto your lap. "A few terms and conditions might have been discussed already in preparation of this meeting already," or rather Sarah and Henley figured something out and added it to the message, "but the core of the issue is quite simple. What we need are a bunch of people to stand around and look pretty."
"Excuse me? I won't turn away paying work, but that sounds a lot more like you want actors, not working men and women," Danny interjects with a raised eyebrow.
"On the contrary!" You also couldn't be happier about him playing right into your hands. "You see, the idea is that some construction work will be going on, and so we need someone to be looking like they're doing the work. Including some machinery that the Dockworkers Association has access to. Quite simply put, this is the perfect place to get people to pose as construction workers in this city."
"... Why would you need someone to be posing as construction workers instead of just hiring some actual workers?" See, this is the kind of discourse that you like. Points are brought up, you explain them away, repeat until everyone does what you want.
"Because the actual work will be done by robots." Your blunt admission seems to have taken Hebert off guard, so you forge on. "We aren't talking about renovating a building or two, Mister Hebert. This is some large-scale engineering in the plans, the kind that would be ruinous in terms of costs when using normal methods."
Yes, even for you. Getting someone to casually rebuild an entire city would be too costly even for the kind of budget you can work with nowadays and take fucking years besides.
"That- that has to be illegal in at least twelve different ways," your interlocutor says, looking momentarily dazed by what you're suggesting.
"It would be... if there was any chance of us being found out." A small, but important distinction between committing crimes and doing business.
"I- The Association has been very resolutely kept strictly above board for the last twenty years, Mister Wilbourn, and what you're asking us to do goes completely against that."
Ah, he's saying that now. "Let me be entirely honest, Mister Hebert," you begin, "what we would be doing would, indeed, go against the law. That said, the dockworkers involved, if you do choose to accept this contract, wouldn't actually do anything illegal themselves. That would be handled entirely behind the scenes. This isn't a request to aid in smuggling, or to break a few knees or whatever the gangs would have wanted you to be doing back when they were around."
Fixating his eyes with your own and using the full extent of your (very mildly hypnotic) voice, you really get into it. "As I said, all that we need several someones to be doing, preferrably all over the place, is to do... nothing. Do this, and Brockton Bay will actually improve, for once."
He looks like he can't believe he is believing this, but Hebert swallows drily before continuing. "What... exactly... would be being built?"
Hah, you know you got him now. "Brockton Bay," you say blandly, indulging a little in the confusion dancing in his eyes. "The docks, the trainyard, some of the coastline. The poorer, shittier parts of town. The boat graveyard. All of these are... issues, at the current time, that can be solved, and it's the best and easiest way to bring some broader business back into the Bay that I can afford and get away with under the PRT's nose without being shut down."
"... So that's why you want people, for the legal fiction." There's a bitter tone in Hebert's voice, but you can tell he isn't going to say no- just still hesitant to say 'yes'.
"Think of the bright side, whether this works or not, your people are getting paid," you say, knowing full well that that isn't a given with the situation being as it is. The Dockworkers Association isn't doing well, hasn't been ever since some idiot parked an oil tanker so as to block the Bay's docks for bigger ships entirely, and what you're offering him is the one big change that would pull it out of the de facto ground. "And if it does... Well, how would you like to have functioning docks again? A city whose economy isn't dying? Some actual work all around?"
"You don't need to spell it out." Looking at you, Hebert chews his teeth for a moment, visibly thinking. "You are... doesn't matter, I suppose," he sighs. "If you're telling the truth, anyways. Speaking of, let's talk numbers. You've been making a lot of promises, but-"
You interrupt him by opening your briefcase, revealing it to be filled to the brim with fat stacks of money. Bill after bill, in no small denominations, making up exactly one hundred thousand dollars. Shaking the cash loose all over his desk and letting it fall to the ground, you show that under it were pinned several sheets of paper you now take out.
"You may find the terms intended to be... quite generous," you state as you hold the contracts already pre-approved by you and Henley out for him. "Still massively less expensive on my end, even with the... material costs involved, of course."
"I see..." Hebert, for his part, knows when he shouldn't haggle about something. Good thing, too- you aren't really interested in bothering, so you just decided you (by which you mean Henley) should just throw a bunch of money around, probably more than would be strictly necessary, and be done with it.
Looking over the example contract you handed him (the one meant for individual dockworkers to sign), he looks up for a moment. "I couldn't happen to interest you in reinstating the old ferries, while you're at it? They used to be the city's lifeblood before the riots and subsequent events left them... inoperable, without repairs nobody ever wanted to pay for."
That is a mild exaggeration, though not that much of one in the grand scale of things. "I'd say that was more shipping and the trainyard, when they were feeding into each other, but tell you what, I'm not against including the ferry terminals into the plans." By which you mean you were going to do so anyways, but if he thinks you're doing him a favor, all the better.
"You know what I mean. The ferries were integral in connecting the city's populace to its jobs and acting as the arteries, at least. Clogged arteries being a remarkably close comparison to its current state." You have to hand it to him, Hebert is trying to be jovial about this whole thing, at least. You're also fairly sure you just single-handedly tore him out of depression at least a little, though he's trying to play it off.
"Either way, read everything, feel free to ask for clarifications and minor changes before we get this show on the road." Because it isn't a question of if, anymore.
Half an hour later, you have a contract with the Dockworkers Association, complete and awaiting just a few signatures by other people before it takes effect, and provisional contracts to be handed out to its workers if they want to make double what their usual work would pull in in the current climate.
Once things with the Dockworkers Association were squared away and you were fairly sure you'd get what you want (a busy Daniel Hebert and lots of dockworkers to stand around in your name), you went on to join the greater operations of the Crypts.
Which, to be fair, is mostly boring cleanup, what with the E88 having that unfortunate case of dissolution. You need boots on the ground to take care of its leftovers, both new recruits just waiting to be offered a spot amongst your lesser minions and the disposal of anyone that doesn't want to be one, looting various safehouses (some of which you just take over) and 'convincing' local business owners that their new overlords are exactly what they wanted to have around all along.
And, of course, talking things out with less directly connected parts of the E88, as well as the rest of the city's less than reputable business that suddenly became your business. Which is how you found yourself in your current situation, face wreathed in shadows as usual in your Cain persona as you look at dozens of scantily clad women assembling before you.
As it happens, prostitutes do have a bit of an information network between each other, especially thanks to things like, say, cellphones making communication just that much easier.
So, the situation is fairly simple and straightforwards; the whores everywhere the E88 has been holding territory until recently have found themselves without the protection it provided, threadbare as it might have been. Not being slow on the uptake, they seem to have collectively decided to see about getting the Crypts, who are taking control of said area anyways, to take the Empire's former role in regards to them- make sure they're treated well and any customers of theirs know to behave, lest they get their faces kicked in.
That said, you do happen to have a few more options than a bunch of neo-nazis did...
"Okay, everyone listen and make sure to tell everyone you know," you announce once the van arrives, the disguised autodoc inside freshly made- it's one of the more minor upgrades to the things you made, but it does come in handy that you can simply put them inside a car and let them pop out on demand.
"This thingy here," you say as you release the various mechanical arms and tools hidden inside, "is something of a useful little toy. It's pretty straightforwards, you get inside, it heals... pretty much anything and everything, and it can also make small changes to how you look. You tell it what you want it to do, you let it do its thing and in five minutes at most you're in perfect health and got what you wanted. Every working girl in the city just got free healthcare."
Into the stunned silence resulting from your statement, you snap your fingers, pretending you just remembered something. "There's also a certain nightclub opening in the north of town, hit it up for jobs if you're interested."
"... Can we, like, open a brothel somewhere nearby?" Blinking under your shadow at the unexpected question, you shrug, making way for the first of the whores daring enough to come closer to try and fiddle with the autodoc's instructions, trying to give herself a boob upgrade and reshape her ears.
"Sure, don't see why not," you say. "I'll put it on the list." Shouldn't be too hard to add a fitting building or two when the time comes for your swarm of robots to get to work.
Mildly ignoring the light cheers you're receiving from the crowd, you instead take a look around, getting a few of the women present to organize similar gatherings to the one you accidentally provoked by taking off your suit earlier for the autodoc to be driven around.
Incidentally, you have two of Kate's girls do that, the two ion lasers always ready to fire at anyone too stupid to keep well the fuck away unless they're meant to use the machine they're carting around hopefully enough for your purposes.
One by one, prostitutes go in and come out changed in ways both large and small. Scars of all descriptions are fixed, hair colors changed, faces subtly rearranged, old wounds fixed up perfectly, skin made smoother and softer and even some more radical changes applied once the women ranging from just barely legal, if at all, to their fourties figure out just how much you're allowing them to do in granting free use of the machine.
More than a few tears are shed, especially as you take the time to exchange at least a few words with everyone, and you soon find out several of the women around got rather... creative, with long tongues and subtly tightened throat musculature to give better blowjobs, among other things.
You are also offered a lot of blowjobs, incidentally.
However, Brockton Bay is a city, a proper one with all the size you would expect from it, and that means that there are... quite a lot of prostitues all over it. For the most part, you just send the autodoc onwards as you take care of making the working girls organize spontaneous little get-togethers.
Before the sun comes up, Brockton Bay will be... like Thailand was, once upon a time. Just with female prostitutes, you suppose.
Watching as the teenaged girl clutches the ball of aluminum in both hands and using her new power, you make a mental note of the slowly deforming metal bending under the effect.
"Heat generation, restricted to touch range," Indigo reports, looking over the test chamber's scanners. "Hot enough to inflict serious burns on human skin, if you're interested. The AIM field is stable and in no danger of relapse, so no further treatment will be necessary."
"How would you consider this kind of esper power in comparison to what Academy City produced when you were there?" It's kind of important to have a bit of context for this stuff.
"She would be a Level 1, limited reality manipulation in a fundamental, but direct way," Yoshi explains. "Further training and practice may change this as she gains more flexibility, speed or general power."
"Good enough, good enough," you drawl. "To reiterate what I got from your memories, only teenagers or younger have a decent chance of gaining esper powers, but once they have one they can freely use and improve upon it with advancing age?"
"That is correct," Indigo confirms. "Then again, with your ability to change your physical age while retaining your mental capabilties, it is completely unknown what going through the procedure would do to you, though it shouldn't do any harm either way."
"... Are you trying to get me to use myself as a test subject?" You have to say, something this direct is new.
"I am. Is it working?"
"Maybe." Ignoring Yoshi's gaping mouth as he witnesses this interaction between you and the blue-haired female his former colleague has become, you resume watching the new esper play with her power, drawing her arms through the air and leaving short trails of shimmering air due to the heat she is giving off.
Carol Dallon was, without a single doubt, not currently picking out what to wear for the evening while her husband was visiting the Pelhams for the day. Indeed, she was merely making sure that she would look the part when the time came.
She would have to pose, but that was it. How could there be anything more when she viscerally hated every moment of it? Exactly, she was only... Doing her part of the deal.
That she had agreed to, for some godforsaken reason.
Scowling into the mirror, Carol twisted her lips a bit, assessing whether her lipstick went well with the red dress. She would probably need to choose another one, after all. Next off, she went over the rest of what she would be wearing; the shoes, the socks, how she would keep her hair...
... And the underwear. Though calling it lingerie was more accurate, but she practically had to wear it given how she already knew the evening would turn out. The disgusting pervert would play nice for a bit, then force himself on her again.
She obviously had to come prepared. It was for the same reason that she was currently inside the bathroom, come to think of it, using the late time she had to be at work today to prepare everything with everyone else out of the house.
Speaking of which... Carol glanced over at where she had laid out her razor and the associated creams and other skin care products she liked to use for... private reasons.
Obviously enough, she would have to shave down there, as well. She wasn't about to let that bastard try to wiggle out of their agreement for any reason whatsoever.
Posing in front of the mirror, she critically evaluated her figure. Years of married adult life had taken their toll, of course, but she kept fit when she wasn't stuck in the office all day, and her breasts were still free of any sagging, resting against her chest nicely. Her midsection wasn't as muscled as it had been once upon a time, but she had at most some light plush on herself.
She could still see some outlines of her old sixpack when she looked closely, so she would consider it just right, case closed.
In terms of her butt... Turning around and pushing it up a little, Carol looked backwards, but no, it wasn't too big. About as could be expected from a woman in her position with a job that required many hours of sitting in her office.
Turning back, Carol smacked her lips, cupping her vagina and feeling for... yes, she was getting a light stubble again. The shaving was more than required, in other words, not that she wouldn't have gone through the motions either way.
Now that she was like this already, though... No, she would shave first, then take her usual shower. With everything that entailed. And she would most certainly not think about the muscled form of the villain that had forced her into this... she was going to call it a relationship, whose charms easily matched her husband as well as her sister's...
Carol sighed in frustration. Now she couldn't stop thinking of the previous times she had been called to meet him, and what had happened then.
Would... What was New Wave even doing anymore? Things had been going slow, ever since the movement had stalled out after Fleur's death, but they had all kept on the good fight, never stopped fighting crime in their city.
But now all that was left were the Crypts, and... Carol was unsure if trying to oppose Cain was a good idea. He could destroy her family, for one, using blackmail and coercion and simply going public with some of the things she had been forced to do.
On the other hand, he was still a villain, and- Oh, this line of thinking led nowhere. New Wave would simply have to leave the Crypts to the Protectorate, no matter how much it galled her, and concentrate on smaller villains still allowed within the city.
In the meantime, Carol had best shave until her skin was smooth as silk and stow everything away just as soon as her shower was done. Her long shower, that would certainly not be spent touching herself in inappropriate places.
Giving the Cluster 6, as they've actually begun calling themselves lately just to have an easier way of referring to themselves, a new chore in the form of getting the esper treatment (because the more powers they have, the better and all), your next stop is, in fact, right next door in the rest of the workshop.
"Hey Isabel," you say, greeting the young mechanic you took along onto Earth Bet, "how you doing today?"
Isabel has, as far as you know, just been hanging around the workshop and fiddling with every bit of technology she could get her hands on. Although she was interested in tinkertech, she eventually just left it by the wayside as she continued her project of integrating the kinds of 'technology' she knows from Earth Fallout and Earth Bet's.
Currently, she's busy fiddling around with a big, bulky machine that, according to her, should function as a supercomputer with ion lasers. You do not know how or why that combination is necessary, but you didn't really bother to stop her at any point, either. "Hey Gabriel, doing good. Yourself?"
She's really relaxed a lot ever since she started working here.
The greetings don't take overly long and so you soon sit at your usual spot, not being a stranger to visiting Isabel every now and then in-between your other obligations, having taken your job as the talky guy pretty seriously and consequently made a point to actually talk to people, make sure they're doing alright and that no issues between your various underlings crop up unaddressed.
"So, you thinking about looking into another robot army?" The question, simple and unassuming as it is, does have a few reasons for being asked, honestly. If Isabel goes full Mechanist again, you'd very much like being forewarned.
Not that that seems likely from the way she pales at the mention of her dark past. "Not unless I really have to?"
You tilt your head at her, smirking just a little and making her blush.
"No, really, I remember what happened the last time I tried to get robots to help people. And there's way more people in this parallel dimension, so I just think it's best not to tempt fate. Or Murphy."
Thinking back on what you did in Remnant, you shrug. "Probably, yeah. I mean, just think about the many ways it could go wrong. There's a reason you were on that repentance trip for a while, right?"
"I'm telling you, as soon as you bring me back to Earth Fallout, I am making up for what I did," Isabel states resolutely, balling her little fists. "Also, I don't think I ever said this, but thank you for... You know, letting me know what a giant mistake I was making. And letting me try to make up for it just a little."
"Don't worry about it," you wave her off, grabbing a bottle of water from nearby. She really has been sweating a lot. "Something to drink?"
Isabel bends over a little, displaying her actually pretty generous chest due to the way she never properly wears her protective work clothing. "Umuuh~, only if you feed it to me."
Well, not much of a choice, there. "Alright, hold still."
It's always a bit of a very intimate experience, feeding someone whether it's food or drink. You look deep into Isabel's eyes as you gently lift the water bottle, keeping a constant amount of it flowing into her mouth without spilling anything- until she closes her eyes, just enjoying the gesture.
"You know," she finally says once you take it off, judging her to be watered enough, "when I was a kid, the settlement didn't always have clean drinking water. Not to even mention food. Nuka cola was good enough, just a little bit irradiated, but... sometimes we just had to drink whatever we had, see? Got more than a few diseases floating around because of that."
"You nod. "A post-apocalyptic hellscape like Earth Fallout, that's about what you'd expect."
"Yeah, it isn't really anything super strange, is it?" Isabel snorts. "Around there, anyways. I think... I think my big goal still hasn't changed. I still want to help people, and especially the ones that still live like I used to when I was younger. The robot army was kind of a bust, but you were right, way back when, I guess. You just gotta keep going and trying until you make it work."
"It does help I'm around to help out, doesn't it?" You grin at her, earning yourself a bashful smile in response. "Hey, why don't you tell me about how it was, a little? We can talk about solutions, while we're at it, how we can fix problems whenever we go back there."
"I'd like that, I think." And there you go. The trick to making an introvert talk, get them to talk about something they have a passion for.
"So, how have you been settling in Kayden?" Here you are, Gabriel Livsey, ambassador of peace and cooperation amongst all peoples of this planet. Or at the very least, you consider with a sly grin on the inside, everyone that actually matters, which means your subordinates and anyone that has sufficiently acknowledged your authority over themselves.
It's not their fault. That's on you for not announcing yourself as Earth Bet's Godking. You'll still massacre and eat them alive, but you can be reasonable about that, at least.
"Surprisingly well, Gabriel." You did make sure to properly introduce yourself, though the first name you used for your fake identity actually being the same as your real one had Kayden in a tizzy for a bit until you told her you're legally dead and buried (more literally than she knows). "There isn't too much I can work with outside of bigger projects like the one you first met me for, but with the budget I got assigned I could make a few constructive changes already. Have you seen the cafeteria?"
"I did, it looks pretty nice," you nod at her. And you aren't kidding, the eating space, as you like to call it, has been aesthetically improved on a fundamental level, mostly by replacing the benches and tables with nicer looking ones and a quick change of the walls' colors, keeping everything color-coordinated and giving it a nice atmosphere.
Not like it would have been all too hard to do it, naturally, given manufactories and the fact you're perfectly happy to throw around money for materials as required easily enough. That plus a few of the girls roped into repainting the walls was probably more than enough, really.
Though you do like the new benches, with padding and more comfortable backrests.
"Anyways, that's not why I wanted to talk, that would be... this." Pulling out a few sheafs of paper, you hand them right over to Kayden, who looks at them with a raised eyebrow. "You can read the details later, but for the time being, you not only have custody over Aster, you're also essentially Theo Ander's closest living relative, legally speaking, so you're pretty much his adoptive mother now. Congratulations."
"... Thank you." It's hard to read her emotions, but you're pretty sure Kayden is happy about this. Anyways, it wasn't too much of a problem to hurry up a few bureaucratic processes in the aftermath of Max Anders' death.
"I also wanted to ask about two other former E88 capes while I was here- Night and Fog. They should still be in Boston last I knew."
"Ah, yes," Kayden nods, growing just a little more guarded. "What about them?"
"Nothing much," you shrug. "I just wanted to make sure you'd let them know that they can come over to Brockton Bay if they ever need something. In general, if they're happy over in Boston, I'm content to leave them be as long as they don't somehow start up the Neo-Empire or something."
Kayden blinks, putting down the official documents you handed her earlier. "That is surprisingly open-handed from you. Most gang leaders wouldn't just let a pair of capes bum around like that- and don't worry, neither of them are the type to... take initiative like that."
"What can I say, the Crypts aren't exactly in need of manpower right now," you smile at her, enjoying the light blush on her cheeks that comes up whenever you do so. "That said, if anything comes up, feel free to contact someone over telepathy and we'll see what we can do. Speaking of which... I actually wanted to ask you to look into another project- not quite as big as the nightclub, but still something for you to do when you have the time."
"Oh? What is it?" At the prospect of doing her job, Kayden sits up straight and attentively.
"A brothel." You just do love simply and straightforwardly stating things like this when you can. Kayden blinks a few times, so you continue. "You see, prostitution is and will be a thing around the Bay anyways, so as a criminal gang, our policy is to make it as safe and simple as possible. To that end, beyond some health benefits any hookers working under our aegis get, we should look into actually setting something like that up, preferrably not too far from the club itself."
The villain opposite from you sighs, shaking her head and letting a hand come up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Why, oh why did I not already expect this?"
You pat her shoulder reassuringly. "Let's talk plans and ideas, we have some time."
When Carol stepped out of the car, she was struck at the difference in ambience between the place she found herself in and the previous locations Cain had called her to. Instead of highrise districts and bustling streets, the middle of downtown or the boardwalk, she was standing in a dark street in the north of town.
Then again, she shouldn't be surprised. It was the oldest bit of territory the man she had come to meet had claimed for himself.
Still, as soon as her red shoes hit the pavement, she saw movement from the corner of her eyes, the by now familiar figure of Cain stepping out of the shadow cast by the nearest street lantern's light. "Carol, such a pleasure to see you," the smug fuck said, holding out a hand for her. "I hope you found the way alright?"
"Of course I did." It wasn't that out of the way, she'd only needed to drive a bit.
"Very well then, let's get right to it." With an insufferably smooth movement, Cain took her hand, kissing its back without so much as breaking stride as he turned around. "Follow me, it isn't far."
It wasn't. Carol wasn't going to talk to him if she didn't have to, though she still made sure to memorize the way just in case, and before long they were standing in front of one of the many warehouses dotting this part of Brockton Bay- she was familiar enough with the area, having patrolled through it occasionally in her years of being an active hero.
Cain opened the door, letting both of them into the spacious building. Immediately, Carol felt the difference to how a normal warehouse would look like- for one, it was well-heated, kept at a pleasant temperature especially compared to the stiff breeze that was Brockton Bay's nighttime weather.
That was not the only unusual thing about this place, however- drifting through the air was the scent of fresh food, the kind that wettened tongues and created appetites even in those already full. "Welcome to one of my minor little safehouses," Cain said, gesturing for her to follow him. "Though it's really more a detached living area nowadays. Come on in, make yourself at home, the food will be ready in just a moment."
Carol was gripped with indecision for a moment. "You cooked?"
"Obviously," Cain confirmed, and immediately her mind conjured one reason after another as to why it was a horrible decision to eat anything prepared by a villain's hand, but- "I'm trying a new recipe and I can't wait to test it out with you."
The heat on Carol's cheeks was one of anger at being used as a guinea pig, nothing more and nothing less. "Let's see how bad your cooking is, then."
... She had not, in fact, inhaled the food that was good enough to be from a professional chef. Nor had she been tempted to lick up the last bits of the sauce and what might have been left of the extremely soft cubed beef on her plate.
"How..." How could this be so good? Carol was by no means a regular part of high society, her careers both mundane and heroic saw her far too busy for any of that, but she had been to her share of fancy restaurants, and this was the kind of food that she would expect from a star chef at least.
"My dear," Cain said, raising her hackles immediately at the close form of address, "everyone needs to have a hobby or three. I am more than just the masked- or sometimes unmasked- supervillain, just as I am not just a hobbyist artist or dabbling scientist. Is it really so hard to believe I would go out of my way to learn a thing or two about cooking?"
Slowly standing up and collecting the plates before both of them (Carol repressed the urge to grab for hers, after all), Cain took the empty dishes through the door he had brought them in from beforehand, undoubtedly to a kitchen of sorts. It was surprising just how much convenience he had been able to fit into a place like this, but the man's resourcefulness was out of question at this point anyways.
Coming back out, he continued as though nothing had happened. "Speaking of, let's get right to it- you saw the little studio when we came in, didn't you? That's our next stop."
She had indeed, not that it was hidden. Even now, on the loft containing the dining table she and Cain had eaten on while she had been too preoccupied to keep up conversation (To distract him with!) she could simply look down and see the segregated area on the main floor, where soft carpeting and various artist's paraphernalia dominated the room.
Repressing a sigh, she got up to follow the man she had no choice but to obey. Surely, it wouldn't be that bad, no?
Standing in the warmed air (How high were the heating bills for a place like this?) in the middle of the space arranged for, from the looks of it, artistic pursuits, Carol couldn't help herself but shiver at the way Cain's eyes bored into her, the chiseled features of his face betraying nothing but clear intent.
"Strip." The word was a command more than anything else.
"Why?" She hated how she felt like a child complaining when she said it, but held firm in her defiance.
Momentarily, but she did. "So I can make a statue, of course," the devilishly handsome villain replied, gently bringing a large slab of stone to stand right in front of her.
"You can't seriously expect me to-"
"I can and I do, and we both know you will do it," Cain interrupted her complaints, dismissively waving them off in a way that had her anger rise immediately. "So please just spare both of us the time and bother and just. Do. It."
He stood there, leaning against the stone and looking at her expectantly. Was she really going to-?
... Yes, yes she was. She had no other choice, after all. Carol had to protect her family, that was the whole point of this arrangement, and she wasn't going to give up now.
Swallowing heavily, she slid the straps of her dress down her shoulders one after the other, resolutely looking away as she slowly drew it upwards, revealing her matching underwear to the horrible scumbag in the room with her.
Once it was off her and tucked away on the small desk she would not be surprised to learn was standing nearby just for that purpose, Carol glanced at Cain, who was simply continuing to wait.
Right. Reaching around herself, she undid her bra, sliding it off her chest and hiding her breasts with one arm, turning away from the man in the room with her to remove her panties, pushing them down her legs and stepping out of them one leg at a time, wiggling the red cloth around her raised feet.
That done, she turned back to Cain... who didn't seem to be impressed. "Who told you you can hide yourself?"
Carol ground her teeth, but still took her arms off her privates, bringing them back around to her sides. "Happy now?"
"Not quite, but it's a start." Despite the words, the villain pushed himself upright, gazing at her form standing in the warehouse wearing only a pair of socks and shoes. "Those will have to go too, by the way. I want you naked naked."
She thought about using her power, just for a moment. It would be easy; a quick lunge forwards as she materialized a saber and she could bury hot, burning justice in Cain. But no, there were a million ways it could go wrong, enhanced reflexes, superspeed, invulnerability or just durability- it simply was not worth the risk in this situation.
So she wordlessly did as she was told, stripping down entirely. Receiving an approving nod (not that his approval was worth anything), she stared blankly as Cain's hands morphed into hard, metallic claws that he raked along the stone, tearing into it and leaving long gouges that he returned to and tore out in short order.
"Would you mind putting one foot forwards?" He asked, gesturing for her to move. "And cross your arms under your chest, just like that."
Blinking, Carol found that she'd done as she was told without thinking, repressing the urge to undo what his hypnotic, stupid voice had instructed her to do. Like this, she was pushing her bust up just a little and he could see her-
Carol closed her eyes. This was all for her family. She had no choice.
Cain, meanwhile, continued to rip away at the light-colored, almost white stone, significant amounts of it shed around the floor in clumps and chips to turn the remaining material into the rough rendition of a vague feminine figure.
He had said it, but to see it like this... it would turn into her likeness, formed under his hands.
Carol swallowed. This did not at all awaken memories she would much rather leave dead and buried.
"I have to say, you are looking quite lovely like this," Cain said, his careful, but strong and even strokes already defining shoulders and a head. "Almost a shame to leave it as just a statue after today."
"Just get it over with already," she hissed. The sooner this was done, the sooner she could leave and go back to refusing to think about- about things.
"If you insist." Contrary to his words, the villain left up from where he was carving a belly (slim, but nicely curved) and came towards her, raising an arm when she twitched in response. "Come now, I have to know what I'm doing, don't I? Keep the pose, just getting a better look."
Carol blinked, realizing she had lost herself in his voice and in his eyes while he went the rest of the way, coming around her side and stepping behind her.
She stayed in position, too confused for the moment to do anything else, and had to repress a shout in surprise when, after several seconds, a hand came to lie on her lower back, gently feeling and stroking along her spine and giving her goosebumps. "Mhm, good, good."
"What, you have standards all of a sudden?" Her voice was bitter, but directed.
"Of course I do, why else would I have come after you?" Carol's eyes clenched shut.
His hands, both now and soft and warm, the opposite of what they looked like earlier, came up to test her shoulderblades, whispering over her neck for a moment before wandering downwards once more, grasping her buttcheeks and massaging her thighs for a moment.
"This does not feel like artistic appreciation."
"Oh, but it is." Cain sounded amused, never stopping and soon lightly spreading her butt, looking at Carol's... back entrance, bluntly and directly. "I have to be as close to the real thing as possible, after all, don't I?"
She just thanked herself for making sure to... clean up everywhere ahead of time as thoroughly as possible.
A brief moment of teasing of certain parts of her anatomy later, Cain completed his circuit of her body, groping along the leg shifted towards the front and shamelessly groping her breasts as he looked right into her face, going down her taut stomach and gently sliding a finger along her lower lips. "Oh my, you're quite wet already, aren't you?"
Speechlessly, Carol watched as he gave his finger a single lick. "Such a dirty girl, aren't you?"
Old thoughts and fantasies came to mind. He was really- He was really-
Cain returned to his stone block, working along it with renewed vigor.
It was not long before his skilled hands had recreated a close approximation of Carol's pose, the details now being worked towards in painstaking detail. It was... weird, to watch him cup her stomach to carve a belly button, to see fingers faithfully copy the features of her face from her eyebrows to her chin.
To watch as he worked on the back of the statue, feeling the phantom sensation of his hands despite not seeing anything directly, and the contours of her breasts, almost lovingly using his thumbs to carve hard nipples at their tips- she almost involuntarily looked down for just a moment, and they were like that in reality, too.
Carol held back her scowl at her body's betrayal, but it wasn't the only one; Cain had not been lying, despite being a villain, as she could feel just a slight amount of wetness on her thighs now that she concentrated.
But it was a purely biological reaction, nothing more, nothing less. It was just... the situation, and... Cain using his claws to work between the statue's legs, the incredibly sharp claws sliding torturously slowly over the smooth stone they were leaving. She could almost feel the hard digits on her skin, the danger of being cut if she so much as moved a muscle.
She knew she was being silly, but her legs and stomach were still tense, her expression tuned towards complete concentration despite how much she wished she could scowl at Cain just for existing.
Still, he worked fast, and precise, and without so much as breaking a sweat. The astoundingly correct copy of Carol was soon quickly approaching its finish line, meaning she would be able to move once again... if it weren't for him stopping what felt like just moments beforehand.
"Hmm..." Looking at the statue much as he had been at her earlier, Cain gave it a critical eye as he compared it with Carol, who was still keeping to her pose. "You can relax now, most of this is done by this point," he said. "I still feel a few things don't quite match up, though. Would you mind taking a look?"
Rubbing her thighs a little after the extended time she had been tensing them up, Carol repressed a grimace both on their account and the order's. "If I must."
"You do." She held back the urge to give a scathing reply, instead coming up to her colorless mirror image.
The statue, she thought, was remarkably well-made, for all that she knew precisely how it had been created and by whose hands. Looking at it, she had trouble finding how it differed from herself, though perhaps...
"Go ahead, feel it," Cain said, coming up behind her without a sound and making her tense up again as she felt his clothes on her backside. "Take your time to find whatever doesn't fit."
Hesitantly, Carol did as the husky voice of the man now all but rubbing himself against her said, stretching a hand out to lay it on he statue's elbow.
A smooth hand followed along, rubbing her own elbow. She was tempted to bat it away, but a head was poking over her shoulder, whispering into her ear. "Go on..."
So she did, Cain doing everything to her that she was doing to the statue. Almost impossibly, she found what he had told her to, even with a hard, hot rod making itself known against her ass; a fingernail that was a bit too long, the underside of a thigh a bit too big, a spot between the shoulders that had the slightest bump she could only feel.
Like a scavenger hunt, single spots and pieces Cain had deliberately left unfinished for her to find while he groped and fondled her just as she did his work. And, of course...
Pushing back against that thick, heady sense of anticipation welling up inside her, Carol took the meaning to be what it was and began sliding a hand down the statue's belly, his hand following suit. Within moments, she was fondling and molesting the stone, her legs almost involuntarily spreading just a little to give the manly hand doing the same to her sensitive folds more space.
She could feel how wet it was getting, her arousal now open and clear to see, but she didn't care anymore. If anything, she felt regretful she couldn't finger the statue itself, to have him do so too.
"What did you find?" He asked, his voice breathy as he pushed his raging hard-on against her back.
"The... the clitoris," Carol brought out, making a pinching motion to be subjected to the same. "It's a little too big."
"Oh, is it now? Anything else?"
"The lips," she confidently said. "They're too dry."
"Mhm... Actually, speaking of lips..." All of a sudden, the almost constant stimulation she had gotten used to ceased, Carol feeling an immeasurable feeling of disappointment. "How about the other ones? Could you inspect them for me?"
She tried to reach for them, but Cain's hands were on her wrists. "Not like that, Carol... You haven't even greeted your new twin properly yet, despite what you've been doing to her, haven't you?"
She felt a light push between her shoulders, going along with it to find her face nearing the statue's.
Hesitating, she heard a sound from behind her, like... Like a zipper being opened. "Do it," Cain said, his hands bracing against her waist and something big, hard and throbbing rubbing on her well-lubricated entrance, the angle making it almost flat. "Do it."
Warm, living lips met cold, hard ones, Carol kissing the statue made in her image, and the cock she had been anticipating all along pushed forwards and up, penetrating her and filling her up as it hit all her spots.
It took barely three thrusts for her to cum around his length, the man behind her sinking his entire tool inside of her with every burst of pleasure she received and the sheer anticipation shortening her fuse until almost nothing was left. The only thing keeping Carol from tumbling to the ground was, of course, the statue, gazing at her imperiously but letting her hold onto it.
It was all she could do to let herself hang over its shoulder as everything from her waist downwards was used by Cain, her eager womanhood receiving his cock while she just moaned and shivered from how he fucked her forwards.
Her feet even left the ground entirely, but she didn't care; all she cared about was getting fucked hard and proper, so she spread her legs and took it like a good girl.
That's right, she was being a good girl again, and some part of her loved it beyond everything else she had done ever since she had killed the man that'd betrayed her, a featureless wand of plasma spearing through his chest when the time had come just like the big fat cock was spearing into her pussy right now.
"Just like that," Cain groaned, fucking orgasm after orgasm into her with hard, precise strokes, using her like a toy (again). "You love this, don't you? You love being fucked and used like this."
"Yeeh-es!" Carol bubbled, finally mastering her legs enough to wrap them around his, as much as this position allowed. "Fuhgg me mohre!"
"What would your family say if they saw you like this, I wonder?" Feelings of guilt welled up, but they were kept at bay by the large veiny cock giving her what she wanted. "Screaming to be fucked like a slut?"
She had no answer to that, so she didn't answer, just enjoying the... everything. The heavy pushes filling her up, the pulling out leaving her with an all-encompassing feeling of emptiness only to be filled again, the strong hands keeping her in (her) place, the sound of flesh on flesh all the while Cain's heavy balls slapped against the top of her pussy.
Her hot, needy pussy. She hadn't thought of it like that in... years, but it felt good to call it that again, so that's what it was.
She had trouble keeping her head up by the time he came close, lengthy manhood hammering into her depths and straining against her womb until it disgorged its heavy load, marking her with his dominance.
... She hadn't had something like this ever since she gained her powers, and some part of her felt glad for it. The rest was only afraid she was losing herself, but she had no idea what to do.
Cain was ominously silent for a moment. Then, in a sudden, but smooth motion, he pulled out, Carol's mix of relief and anxiety for more lasting only a few seconds before he came back... as he sat her back onto the ground, that was.
With the new angle, his cockhead was pushing against her back entrance as soon as he spread her cheeks again. "I wonder, what would your kids do? Oh, maybe they'd like this statue themselves, hm? Put it into their rooms, greet it every morning when they wake up."
Carol had never so much as considered thinking of her daughters in any situation like this, but as Cain spoke, pressing against her asshole, she couldn't help herself. "Maybe give it a good morning kiss, maybe they'd go a little farther... cop a feel, imagine how their hot mother feels like in person... Or maybe, just maybe, they'd like to have this same thing we do? Getting railed from behind while mommy holds them."
"Stay... away from... my kids!" If there was one thing in this world that Carol could not allow, it was Amy and Vicky being defiled by this fiend. Whether it was to protect them or to keep him for herself she had no idea.
But just as she spoke, her attention left her asshole, and with a sudden plopping sound, the head of Cain's prodigious member was inside her ass.
It wasn't the first time, but it was the first time like this. Carol shuddered with the slow, inexorable push into her insides, hanging halfways over the stone of the statue, and had a realization.
No matter what else would come of this evening, something had changed. And it would never be going back to how it was. She wasn't sure what that something was, or what the consequences for her would be, but right that moment all she cared about was taking Cain's cock as deep and as often as she could.
And she did. She took his alabaster seed into her pussy, more than a few times, into her ass, and even into her mouth, onto her face and her chest.
Cain was seemingly inexhaustable, and it was all she could do to drift off into blissfull, dreamless sleep in his muscled arms.
Writing up the little note, you stick it into the statue you played with Carol with, after putting in the finishing touches, of course. Wouldn't do to have any work of yours floating around that's worse than what it could be, after all.
With that done, you carefully scoop up Carol from where she dropped in the middle of taking your dick up the ass for the... eighteenth time, if you count that one time that you basically just took a few seconds to blow your load inside it.
It's a very nice ass, screw you.
Upstairs, again, you have a bedroom prepared, seeing as this warehouse is what amounts to a minor away safehouse for these exact situations- but first, you're giving Carol a quick wash. No matter how immensely amusing it would be to tuck her in with your semen covering her body, you'd imagine she would appreciate that much less, and you in turn would appreciate if this location is reasonably intact by the time she leaves.
Sure, you won't ever do anything actually sensitive in here, not after letting Brandish of all people know about it, but it's always nice to have a few... dozen... extra bases you can fall back on.
Anyways, Carol can take her time to wake up, eat some of the leftovers from earlier (you made sure to leave some just in case) and deal with her new home artwork at her own pace. You, in the meantime, are off to hang out with people.
Truly, you do the most work amongst all the Crypts.
Lea has really been working on her self-aiming glove a lot since the last time you saw it, to the point it's hardly even the same device anymore. Sleek, precise and you're pretty sure the black glove made of small curving black plates has better aim than it did before.
Setting it to automatically fire at the targets on the range, you turn most of your attention towards Lea, who is doing much the same next to you. "So, I was talking about something with Sarah the other time," you begin, figuring you may as well mention it now. "About how sex solves literally all problems."
"That's, uh, pretty out there, chief."
"I get that, but stay with me for a second," you request. "It's actually something I realized after reflecting on my life experiences so far."
"Alright, shoot." Both of you fire off a shot (low-power railgun, replacing ionized targets all the time is a pain) at the same time. "And, uh, not like that."
"So, basically, just about every single issue I've ever faced could be solved with correctly applied sex," you explain. "Like, I haven't, but theoretically, the ultimate lifeform is some kind of omnisexual shapeshifter that fucks everything that moves."
Lea blinks at you.
"Think about it, when was the last time I actually had to seriously fight a female instead of, y'know, pulling a Gabriel? I pretty much exclusively fight guys and non-gendered stuff."
"Gimme a sec, I need to telepath a little," your subordinate requests. "Because hey, no offense, but that really, really sounds weird."
"Take your time," you shrug in response.
"Okay, so from what I'm gathering here, Sarah is freaking out and doing everything she can to gather examples for why you're wrong. For starters, the E88."
"Counterpoint: Every female cape of theirs that would be open to changing sides is with us now, and if I was gay or bisexual enough to go after Kaiser and slash or Hookwolf, the nazi twins would have come along, too," you triumphantly proclaim. "Quod Erat Demonstrandum."
"This weird fantasy world, Thule?" Lea counts things out, now, seemingly faintly amused by the whole situation.
"Could've probably seduced my way through the enemy forces, again if I was into guys." You think, anyways, and your opinion is close enough to an expert opinion you're willing to take it. "Alternatively, the demon princess, Rose, had a problem and solved it by having sex with me. Still counts."
"How about the Grimm, in this Remnant place? Genderless, emotionless and endless killing machines. Also, I really have to actually come along somewhere one of these days, the pictures I'm seeing are lit."
"They're at least kind of controlled by some female entity called Salem, as far as we know," you grin. "Bets on that being sedicable? Also, sure, though I don't think you'd have fun anywhere without at least semi-modern tech."
"Point, on both accounts. So, you're basically saying sex is the secret to success?"
"At least as much as violence," you say, moving your arm around so it's over your head and can keep on shooting while you turn towards Lea. "It's one of those universal approaches to situations that just always work out somehow."
"I just want you to know Sarah is sending teary-eyed emojis around right now."
"Hey, it's the simple truth," you state, immediately sending hugging emojis of all kinds at Sarah. "Not my fault how the world works, I just take advantage of it."
"Whatever you say, buster." Lea is visibly holding back her laughter at this point. "Aaanyways, you got any suggestions for the gloves?"
"More fusion cores, link them into the teleporters and treat them as mini-robots. I've made good experiences with doing all of that to pretty much everything else I've designed while in Remnant."
Unfortunately, no matter how much you'd like to just goof off under the guise of upholding spirits and ensuring smooth operations amongst important personnel (and yes, that's truly, really a thing that is required for larger groups of capes to get along, there's a reason the Protectorate operates in small cells spread throughout the nation), actual work still calls in its inescapable way.
Hence Sarah uses her access to the thought channel you pretty much constantly blast what you're doing and experiencing into to actually make you do stuff. Gaaabe, there's a bunch of mutilated bodies in the south of town, could you go take a look?
Of course, Sarah. You don't sigh via thoughts, of course. If your adorable wonderful Sarah told you you should take care of something, she is naturally right. Any details ahead of time?
Could be several things, according to what I'm seeing. Some psychotic new trigger, for example. All we know for sure is that a building has been turned into an impromptu slaughterhouse and there's several pieces missing, getting you the address now. The Protectorate is sending someone to investigate, but they'll be a while.
Gotcha. At the very least, you suppose, you won't be too bored even with the nazis taken care of.
And here you were hoping for a bit of a vacation, just a few days to fly back home and have a little talk with your parents.
The part of Brockton Bay you're arriving at after just a short flight as a raven, your preferred guise when in urban environments like this, can be summed up as a middle class residential district. A few apartment buildings are around here and there, but as you go further most of it consists of single family homes lining the streets, with quaint little front lawns and all.
All the interesting, then, when you come upon the one house whose occupants' blood isn't contained within their bodies to your senses. Instead, the one address with police tape around it and some barriers set up to block view through the windows is partially covered in gore, you can tell that much just from landing on the roof and taking a look around.
And you aren't the only one. Disregarding the police officers securing the crime scene in preparation of handing it off to the PRT, if it should indeed turn out to be a parahuman crime scene, as is looking likely, you turn towards the other corvines attracted by the scent of dead meat, cooling blood and painful death.
Yes, your senses are kind of specific in that way.
Most of them are crows, carrion feeders that they are, but a few ravens are around, too. Good enough for your purposes. "Anyone see who did it?" You may be croaking and cawing, but your powers ensure that they understand exactly what you mean.
A bit of cawing later, one of them answers you. "That way. A few flew after them to look for more."
Following the outstretched wing, you thank the raven that told you what you needed to know and fly off, soon picking up the trail yourself in the form of a few traces of blood leading off.
Thankfully, you do have a very easy time doing this kind of thing, and so you travel onwards towards the south-east, steadily moving closer towards the coast and a few more industrial areas of the Bay. You actually thought the trail may have went cold for a bit, when there weren't any convenient smears of dried blood showing you the way, but a quick circuit of the area revealed another crime scene like the first.
It actually looked to be a bit older, actually, but being in a less well-off part of Brockton Bay, it hasn't been discovered yet, or if it has the authorities either weren't alarmed or are taking their sweet time.
Either way, a bit of flying around and narrowing things down bit by bit soon has you discover what you assume to be the right place. Around, what, two to three dozen people, staying inside a warehouse and positively covered in old gore, milling around or lying down.
You're pretty sure this is what you were after.
Okay, time to actually get serious, you suppose. Setting up your contact with Sarah once again, you make sure she has Coil summoned and on hand for what comes next.
You're tempted to hum the Mission Impossible theme, but you kind of have to concentrate and all. And also don't really possess the capability to do so, given you are currently a shadow using one of the windows, high up as they are, to infiltrate the building.
Thanks to your bloodsenses, the ability to be a shadow creeping along the ceiling and the fact none of these people are terribly observant in the first place, you can pretty easily get a rough overlook of the location. A few rooms with sleeping people, some more solitary ones and a lot of pretty grisly pices of clothing.
No, seriously, the clothes these people are wearing are full of blades, spikes and spines of all things sticking out, with teeth, eyes, desiccated body parts and bones stuck all over them.
It takes Sarah about half a second to identify these people as the Teeth. An old gang that actually originated from Brockton Bay, but was driven out long before you came to the city. They bounced back and were kind of nomadic between Boston and New York, with smaller cells in both cities and always on the move as they conduct small raids before running off again, but here they are.
At least you're pretty sure what they've been up to- semi-random violence as they try to make the point of 'being there'. Honestly, this is just looking to wind up immensely annoying before anything else.
The Teeth, annoyingly enough, don't really do 'costumes' as such; instead they all dress in what looks like their grandparents' clothes combined with their torn apart faces stitched onto them, judging by a cursory look around.
So they're kind of all dressed the same and without the decency of them using their powers overtly, you can't really tell which ones the capes are- in turn a roadbump for your plan to take the capes out first.
Simple and obvious stratagem, really, but it works. Take out the capes and the rest is done for. Of course, should the Butcher be present, being the psychopathic little problem child that they are, outright killing them might or might not be a good idea... but hey, you can work around that.
If you remember correctly (it was during your lifetime, you can forget stuff like that), the last time the Butcher was thrown out of Brockton Bay it was because they generally want to keep the Teeth around as their personal entourage of psychopathic assholes and most of the capes involved died to the Slaughterhouse 9.
In other words, just kill enough of the others and the Butcher is liable to piss off.
Luckily, just then you see a a man replicate himself. Darting through the dark of the ceiling, you soon find the guy in question, sitting on a sofa and watching TV while an exact replica of himself hands him a can of beer before summarily falling over, not dead but unmoving.
Spree, Sarah tells you. Short-lived self-replicator.
It is the work of moments to crawl above him, making sure you have the exit from immaterial shadowform covered and angled just right, you let yourself fall onto him, one hand coming up to hook into his cheek and block his mouth, the other holding onto a shoulder to keep him in place.
As soon as your weight impacts him, you unhinge your maw, well-practiced in the art of eating mortals by now... except as you do, you're pushed back by a trio of copies emerging from Spree's struggling form, trying to grab you and pull you off as they scream their heads off.
Not deterred in the slightest, you pull Spree off of his seat, swirling him around. Your physical strength is high enough to simply push the clones out of the way, and by the time he tries to use more again, your teeth are digging into the soft flesh of his throat.
Nothing he or his copies can do can get you off at that point.
"Spree? You okay in there?" And of course someone heard all the screaming, even as activity inside the room dies down with one cloned copy after another falling over, blankly staring into nothingness.
At least you got this one eaten, you suppose.
Spree was part of the Teeth for... shit, he didn't even know anymore, it was that long. Didn't really matter, either. All that did matter was that he was part of them, and a damn good part, too. Whenever someone needed to be pulled out of the shit, him and Animos would come and first disabled powers, then overrun everyone while they ran away.
Hey, it worked. And there was nothing like the good ol' Sunday raids, when they went out to shoot some shit up and fuck some pretty ass. Or get some, too, not like the Teeth cared who fucked what.
When the nazis got fucked out of Brockton, though, they all came back together, people from both Boston and New York and the ones that just kind of switched between both regularly to keep the heat down. Choosing who would go and take their slice out of the Crypts' hides, he was naturally with them- after all, he could just stuff a buncha copies into Cain's mouth while the other fucked him up.
Easy enough.
So they came and did their usual thing, but Spree never would've expected someone else would come do their own usual thing to him...
Quickly using your transformative powers to warp yourself into Spree himself, the soul in your possession meaning you can copy his appearance, voice and mannerisms too through overlaying him, you approach the door. "Yeah man, was trying to get my copies to do something and they just started screamin' all of a sudden. Anything happen?"
"Nah, nothing out here that we know," the voice of... Animos, Spree whispers to you against his will returns. "What were you-?"
You preempt him by opening the door, keeping most your body out of sight and just letting your head poke out, one hand holding up a top covered in gore as is fashion with the Teeth.
Yes, you literally just pulled it off one of the clones that you then kicked to the side. Either way, Animos can see that things are as they should be, now. Totally. "Was trying to see if they'd be smart enough to do a little human pyramid," you 'explain', equating Spree making them all jump you with that. "Then they suddenly all went Leeroy Jenkins and screeched 'fore tumbling over. Weirdest shit, man."
"Huh. 'lright, I'll have someone keep watch, I s'pose," Animos says as he turns around. "Never know, could be some cape or something."
"Gotcha." And with that, Animos leaves, despite the silent calls of the soul currently subordinated to your headspace.
Okay, so you close the door and pull Spree back in, turning back in the process. You can leave the clones where they are, you doubt anyone is going to particularly care, but the actual man's body you pick up off the floor and go shadow, taking it with you.
A quick dropoff later, you have the real Spree's body stashed on a roof not too far from the Teeth's current hideout, safe where it is for the moment.
Spree, according to Sarah, was actually a big part of the Teeth, his endless self-replication just massing up to waste time and delay enemy capes- in essence, he was their main tank and crowd control.
And now he's dead, of course, leaving the rest of the team in somewhat of a lurch, you suppose. They can still fight and all, but they don't have self-replenishing human wave tactics. Add to that that every cape is important in, y'know, small and less important gangs like the Teeth, and even this kind of loss is a hard hit.
A good first step, either way.
Hemorrhagia was with the Teeth not because she wanted some big, nebulous idea or concept. If she did, she'd have joined with, fuck, the heroes or some gang that espoused a fitting ideology. Nah, all that Hem wanted was to fuck around and use her power to fuck people up.
It may not be jumping into your face when you thought about it, but her power? It kinda hurt. A lot. So Hemorrhagia figured if she was gonna hurt every time she split open her skin and turned her blood into solid weapons and stuff? She was always gonna make sure someone else hurt more.
Had to make it worth it, after all.
It also helped that, with that being her goal, nobody minded when she went and used any suckers they wouldn't be taking with them for it- a big, fat cock of clotted blood worked just as well to rip open whatever orifice she aimed it at.
Humiliation helped sell the pain, too. And hey, gotta use what she had, right? Right. And if she took a bite every now and then, hey, that was just par for the course for them.
With the Teeth, Hem had pretty much everything she wanted. Fights, fucking and when they all settled down, they made some fucking chili to share. Not everyone could eat it, of course, but it was the one thing that kept the Butcher calm and in control when they were all gathering every now and then, so fuck it she would take it.
They may be weird rapist cannibal raider people, but sometimes, you chose family just as much as it chose you, and Hemorrhagia was fucking happy enough with hers.
Too bad they had to try taking a bite from the wrong motherfucker.
Reaver. Reaver, Reaver, Reaver... Honestly, he just kind of wanted to be someone, so he'd become Reaver. And it'd worked, too- no cape part of the Teeth was a nobody.
Sure, they were hated, but they were also feared and commanded respect, so he went with the rest too. Looting and raping all around the east coast took a bit getting used to, but at leats he was getting around.
He wasn't stuck in one place anymore, unable to move or to breathe under the weight of the pointlessness.
The Butcher still creeped him out, but he didn't have to like the woman or power thing or whatever it was. He did his thing, was part of the Teeth, and that was that. And apparently, the gang was coming together to return to Brockton Bay, get back some of their earliest stomping grounds with the chaos going on.
As long as they ate the usual chili, Reaver wouldn't mind... except they didn't turn out to be the ones eating.
So, with your first victim down and you interrogating him mentally, you get right back to the Teeth's current base, your powers allowing you to infiltrate with casual ease once again.
And, while you're on the roof for just a moment, laying a hand onto the building really quick. You haven't really experimented with this much, but... Concentrating on the place as a location in general, you formulate the chant. "The occupants miss the obvious."
With any luck, it'll help at least a little bit.
So, here you are, pushing yourself through doorcracks, observing and analyzing your targets. The Teeth honestly are some of the most unclean human beings you have ever seen, even counting the raiders you managed to find in Earth Fallout- literally all of them have severed human body parts all over their clothing (that they never take off), you don't believe you saw so much as a single shower anywhere around and, of course, none of them even wash their damn hands.
It's a miracle they aren't found all the time just due to the smell, really.
Still, through careful application of your incredible powers of observation, you can find out some more. For one, while most of the mooks seem to be resting, either asleep or just milling about doing whatever, some are actually doing something in particular- and communicating with each other.
"How long until the chili's done, Hem?"
"C'mon, Reav, you know this'll be all night. Just go sleep or something."
You know, for someone that knows that both Hemorrhagia and Reaver are capes that are part of this group, those nicknames would sound... suspicious, somewhat. Good thing you're there to keep any possible misunderstandings from happening, isn't it?
Heh.
Reaver, as you're pretty sure you've got the right guy, complains a bit, but still ends up wandering off to go to sleep in short order- a bit of patience is all you need to get an isolated target out of him, seeing how he has a room to himself just like all the other capes.
His power is some kind of superspeed, you think? It doesn't really help him when you jump him while he's lying down, and a quick bite takes the fight out of him easily enough.
As well as his life and his soul, but that goes without saying by this point.
Taking the body and bringing it to the same roof you already threw Spree's, you get right back to hunting- Hemorrhagia has finished doing whatever she was doing in the kitchen and, as you find out with a quick search, went off to join a couple of other teeth mooks in watching television over in another room.
Except you get her from the back, pushing Hemorrhagia's face against a wall and biting into her neck, driving one hand's claws through her left shoulder to disable it all the while.
Only for her to then go and try to use her power, somehow. Instead of being drained empty within moments, her blood actually coagulates rapidly around your bite, the skin around it splitting open to reveal more blood rapidly turning into sharp blades trying to pierce your face.
Your reaction is to physically tear her limb from limb as you use your electricity to shock her, charging it up again immediately as you follow up with your hemokinesis to drink the blood you're keeping from splattering everywhere while ripping her apart.
Note to self, human rib cages are kind of very easy to open up with nothing but a solid grip on both sides. Hemorrhagia's screaming in pain and outrage as she tries to use her bloodweapons against you (note to self, look into that at some point, it might be fun), but you don't even care anymore at this point; using your bloodsense, you can see at least one person that already started moving in your general direction and calling out for others even before that, so you decided you had to move fast.
It's a bit of a rush job, but Hemorrhagia can't, y'know, stay alive past a certain point of being literally torn apart, and so you finish slurping her blood down before the nearest door flies from its hinges, an irate person you can only describe as 'probably the Butcher' (Butcher XIV, to be precise) standing beyond it.
"Someone just fucked up big time," she growls, fingering an array of knives attached to her thigh.
"Oh, I'm glad you got the message already," you say, unable to keep the grin off of the shadow that is your face. "Guess I didn't even need to butcher your capes."
"Great, we have a comedian here. Let's see how many jokes you're crackin' when you're dead."
Feh, some people really just don't appreciate some levity. At all.
"I mean, if you wanted to keep your people, you really shouldn't have brought them to my fucking city, you know?" Idly shrugging, you also keep an eye on the blood signatures of what you're assuming are the rest of the Teeth gathering behind the Butcher.
"Your fucking city, huh? Newsflash, moron, Brockton Bay ain't got your name on it, so fuck off!" All of a sudden, the Butcher disappears. Which, given what you know about their powers and Sarah's shouting inside your head, has you immediately move forwards to go with the blast of the sudden explosion behind your back.
Whoever decided that explosive teleportation was a good idea, fuck you.
Looking around, you see that the room you've found yourself in is filled with a dozen or so Teeth mooks, together with Animos as you remember seeing him earlier and, presumably, Vex.
Given the fact you immediately bump into invisible forcefields that feel pretty sharp through your aura. "Dead end, motherfucker," Animos growls, turning into his alternate form- a big, monstrous creature somewhat reminiscent of a cross between a dog and a rhino, a little smaller than one of Bitch's dogs.
Butcher behind you, the rest of the Teeth before you. If you weren't as awesomely powerful as you are, you might just be in trouble, trapped between a rock and a hard place.
You are yourself, however, and so you simply gauge the distance between yourself and the one asshole in the room with you that looks like they're doing something actively- in the form of stretching out a hand and intently staring around he room.
Pushing yourself forwards, you feel the world around yourself slow to a crawl, your own movement the only thing going on as it should be. Technically, you're just very fast right now, but the distinction is pretty much meaningless in the first place.
Your body is still moving faster than your mind, of course, but you just need to keep going in one direction only right now anyways. Bursting through the resistance in the air, you can feel as the sharp, shard-like forcefields deployed around the room give way under the weight of your charge, being pushed away or breaking one after the other.
Within an objective blink of an eye, you've arrived before who you're just going to assume is Vex, taking ahold of her shoulder and front and not stopping. Just like that, you push her onwards with you, her eyes widening almost comically slowly compared to the rate you're perceiving the world in even as her back is pushed against the wall.
It's a little interesting, to see the force of the impact travel through her in slow motion and just barely arriving at your hands, but once again, you do not stop, instead using your momentum to break through the wall, simply put.
Using Vex' spine as your wrecking ball, because hey, why not?
Ramming the woman through, you bite through her 'costume' as you dash through the cool night air, swerving to the side as the Butcher explodes into being right in front of you, screaming but too slow to react to your speed.
Repeating the tactic you used with Victor, you run straight up the nearest wall while eating, rendering any attempts to struggle meaningless- not like Vex was looking like she would be doing anything of the sort anyways.
"'m gonna fucking feed you to the pigs, ya hear me?" Returning to normal time dilation, you can't help but feel the Butcher has to be giving you these openings on purpose, by this point.
Your reaction, up on the roof where you are, is to demonstratively burp and throw Vex' dead and broken body down at where the Butcher is standing. "Wanna bet I can eat all the Teeth before you can try?"
"You fucking-" You jump backwards, narrowly dodging Butcher XIV as they teleport after you once again. Those explosions are kind of a pain. "I'll fucking kill you, bitch!"
"No, Butcher, you won't," you coldly state, taking a step to the side and pushing out your intimidation aura hard enough to cause bird on nearby roofs to either fly off in a panic or keel over. "This is really all very simple, see, I'll just keep on eating your capes one after the other until you fuck off out of Brockton Bay. Then I'll move on to mooks. And if you still won't fuck off, I'll go visit Boston and New York and keep eating. Are we clear?"
The Butcher stays there, glaring at you for a moment, and you take that to be a good reason to go ahead and make your point. You just told her what you would be doing, this isn't that hard to connect.
Bursting out into a mass of bats, you fly off in all directions, homing in on where the rest of the Teeth currently in Brockton Bay are making their way through the hole you made in the wall. Animos is there, his quadruped form tearing open the walls as it forces itself through, and you don't waste any time, half of your swarm (exactly seventy-five bats right now) descending onto him and beginning to tear his blood right out of his thick skin.
It's hard, and takes a bit, with Animos roaring at you like that's meant to do something. In response, you shriek at him with all your might, tiny claws ripping at his skin, peeling it from his body even as you tear at his eyes, making sure that he can't see anything as his allegedly power-cancelling roar does exactly jack all.
His toughness makes things a bit more complicated, and Butcher comes teleporting in to try and fuck you up (which doesn't work), but in the end all it takes is one torturously long death as you never let up even when flying and fluttering all around your victim for him to finally die and let you extract some decent amounts of blood as soon as he doesn't count as alive anymore.
All in a day's work, really.
Vex wasn't always like this, y'know, she used to have a life and all. Then, though, well... Behemoth happened, and New York was kinda fucked over.
It was rebuilt, the Big Apple always had to come back around, but the issue was that it wasn't all rebuilt at once. And until there were some actual buildings back, well, they had to live somewhere.
Their old place, an apartment somewhere around downtown (whichever part of the city that meant, anyways, even back then that wasn't really clear), was still standing... somewhat. A little grilled, a little beat up, but still generally liveable.
... Or so they'd thought. But they had to go somewhere, the shelters weren't meant for people to live in them and it was better than living on the streets.
... Again, so they'd thought.
It was alright for a few days, but then, one night, Vex heard a loud creaking, like the world was breaking around her. She got up and tried to go get mom and dad, to ask them if they should do something, but as she did one of the floorboards broke, plunging her foot down under it.
It was like it was the starting signal. Piece by piece, their home fell apart aroudn them, little Vex deathly afraid she was gonna die every time something crashed down, but she couldn't get up, she was stuck, and fuck.
That's how she got her power. Her parents never did make it out alive themselves, they'd died first things first, crushed by a beam that was the first to come down. Vex had survived only because of her power herself, shivering in the night and creating sharp, little forcefields that were too weak to hold anything by themselves, but became stronger the more she put out.
Afterwards, well... One thing led to another, really, and Vex met the Butcher. And the rest... was history.
Shit replacement for a family, but the drugs and rape and the violence made up for that, she guessed. They were pretty fun, if nothing else. And if she eventually did it more because she liked it than to take her mind off of things, fuck it, who would know?
They were fucking winning, and they were doing their thing and she took the teeth off of that one bitch in high school that'd always looked down on her, added them to her belt. Years later and she had no idea who Vex was these days, but she didn't need to.
Vex did. Vex was strong now, she was powerful, and she was part of the Teeth. And fuck anyone getting in the way of that.
Yes, even the fucker that did her in. Bitch fucking hurt when he used her as a wrecking ball.
Animos wasn't really a big talker or anything. He just wanted to be left alone to do his thing.
Too bad nobody ever fucking got that, innit?!
That's why he triggered, in the end, to make a long story short. Burst outta his skin and screamed at that fucking cape and the fucker he was fighting when they just. Wouldn't. Shut up.
He had to keep his head down, after that, and avoid people because one of those asshats was a hero or something, and he ended up with the Teeth because they were the only game in town that could get him out for a while.
He could deal with the shit they were doing and they left him alone when he told them to fuck off, so things came along fine and just like that, the newly named Animos becoming a mainstay with the Teeth during their regular raids.
His power was actually pretty good, though he couldn't stay in his other form for long times, and with him fucking up powers and pinning down capes as necessary, there weren't really many capes that could stop them... until that one asshat came along.
Once you're done eating, as well as frustrating Butcher XIV by ignoring any and all bullets she (or her mooks) fire at you once she goes to get her minigun, you fly away again, using your dispersed self to your advantage.
For a while, you observe the Teeth, but from all appearances it looks like the Butcher is actually shouting at them to pack everything up. Looks like the message did get across, in the end, and so hopefully you won't need to get up off your ass for these clowns again.
Of course the Butcher also hates your guts now, but honestly, what're they gonna do? Being a bodyjacker might be nice and all, but that only works when they can die- and you're perfectly capable of inflicting a plethora of fates far, far worse than death, especially once your little minions figure out a few new ways of doing horrible and long-lasting things to people.
On a related note, seeing how your job here is done, you return to the bunker for the time being, a teleport back home being easy enough to arrange once you silently converge back into one being. Once there, finding Sarah and telling her about the Teeth situation's current status and asking her to keep an eye on it is simplicity itself.
Mission accomplished!
"Oh yeah, before I forget," you say, using a figure of speech given the whole eidetic memory you got going, "there was still that one girl, Kassy. The one I accidentally raped into triggering. You think it's about time I paid her another visit?"
"Right, one second." Sarah takes a moment to call something up on her laptop. "So she's been attending school like normal and seems to just be trying to pretend none of that whole thing happened, at least in public. If you want to follow up, feel free, though I don't think it's super urgent yet."
"Mhm," you agree. You can't really argue against that- she'll keep for a while.
With your powers and what you've learned, both by yourself and just eating others to pilfer their skills, it is trivially easy to silently come up behind people out of nowhere.
Which, honestly, is great for surprise hugs! "Hey Alice," is how you greet your little bomb tinker, "how has the most powerful tinker this side of the east coast been doing?"
Notably the most powerful, not the best. She hasn't earned that description... yet.
"Gabriel." Carefully laying down the pliers and the soldering iron she was using to connect a fusion core to a small contraption made of a wild collection of what you can only describe as a high-tech materials of any kind you can think of, Alice snaps a simple casing shut over the whole mess. "What did you need?"
"Can't I just come by to catch up with you anymore?" You ask teasingly, your fingers brushing over her exposed stomach.
"Not in the workshop, you can't. You know I don't want to blow myself up." Still very carefully, she pushes a button on the new bomb's outside, apparently setting it to not blow in the next few seconds. "I work with dangerous explosives here, you know."
"My bad, my bad." Sure, you know she's a bomb tinker and all, but she just gets so cute when she's flustered. "I just wanted to ask if you did anything particularly interesting lately."
"Just been doing whatever," Alice answers bluntly, shrugging and leaning back against you, her slim back finding your chest. "Got a few anti-friction bombs that just make everything in their area slip like fuck for twenty minutes, couple of fuck you bombs... oh, and one that just keeps on exploding."
"Really?" That does sound wacky, actually.
"Yeah, in case one boom isn't enough," the young asian-american woman in your arms explains. "Bomb goes up, then reverses itself and its components to explode again. Keeps itself in one place relative to the Earth's rotation and all, too. Only thing that isn't reversed is its surroundings and just like that, repeated explosions."
"That's..." Completely insane and stupid and fucking hax, you don't say. "... inspired," you finish. "Definitely an idea. Also great to block area off, I suppose."
"Mhm." Rupping her cute little butt against you, Alice soon finds out that yes, you're as hard as always. "Hey, wanna go get Sherrel and have a threesome?"
"Always." And there goes the rest of your night, you suppose.
"Ahn~! Yeees!!" With every smack, Madison grew hotter and hotter, her body doing things she completely approved of. "Moore~!"
"I told you to count, Madison." Taylor was, contrary to what she'd expected, a wonderfully cold and iron-fisted dom, but although she hadn't really seen herself being abducted and submitted to humiliating punishments like this, she sure wasn't complaining.
"Yes, Mistress~!" Madison panted, pushing her naked butt upwards so she'd hit her better and maybe catch a certain little place. "Twenty-one!"
"... If I told you to start over from the beginning, what would you say?"
"YES!" She blinked, realizing what was going on. "I mean, oh please Mistress, have mercy for my poor little butt?"
Madison wiggled the respective pleasure receptors.
"I am beginning to reconsider whether or not this is an appropriate punishment for you, Madison." The stone-like face of her Mistress peered down at her from where she had draped herself over her knees, as she was sitting on Madison's bed (she was sure to sniff the place she was sitting on later). "Maybe you are enjoying this too much."
Breathing heavily, Madison wiggled her whole body. "You'll be hard-pressed to find anything I'm not into, Mistress! I promise I'll properly take anything you do to me!"
"Even if I were to murder you gruesomely? I could always feed you to Cain..."
"Eeeh? M-mistress... if you're really sure..." Madison played with her fingers. "It would be my first and last time, so please make sure you take as much pleasure from my horrible demise as you can!"
Taylor sighed, long and drawn out. Then, against all expectations, another slap was delivered to Madison's butt, the righteous punishment of her Mistress resuming. "Never mind. I'll just stick to the plan."
"Does that mean," Madison gasped, "that I'll get to have ant colonies growing in my pussy and my ass later?"
"What the fuck is even wrong with you..."
"Oooh! Do you have giant insects that can use me to breed then?! I promise to be the best breeder ever!"
Taylor refused to answer, no matter how much Madison guessed at her future. She was such a tease~!
Well, while you do have the sum knowledge and experiences of all the souls you eat handily available inside your little library, meaning none of them have anything of real interest for you to find out aside from what few specialists you have on whatever project you give them, certain inhabitants of your inner world do have their own secrets and opinions you are at least tangentially interested in.
Not all of them easily divulge them, of course. "So you're sure you have absolutely no plans to betray me?"
"Yes, Master," the one Maid body you're talking to while you're walking says, giving you a bow without missing a step. "We are the Maid. We live to serve and no more."
"And you can't just tell me how exactly what you do works?"
She just stays silent and smiles at you, seemingly not even comprehending the question.
Not that you really expected otherwise, though, honestly. Still, it doesn't take you all too long to arrive where you were going- one of the many maintenance access points scattered throughout the palace.
Opening the hatch that, somehow, leads to a mountain range made of rock and clockwork with the sky shining overhead despite the fact it's inside of a building, you drop down and soon find that another Maid body has come by to join you.
The Timekeeper is, as always, tirelessly at work on expanding the limitless clockwork abomination that he is tasked with overseeing, but all the same he certainly does have the time to answer a few questions from you.
You ask it what exactly its continual work is doing, to which it ticks and tocks that while the results are not really obvious, it is actually ensuring that time is more or less running within intended parameters as determined by you.
... Which is a work in progress, it admits.
You ask whether you can do anything to actually help that along, what with the time dilation actually being massively useful to you, to which it suggests that, while it cannot tell you what to do outright, it can say that control over night and day in a more direct fashion than what you have now might allow you some additional influence in this regard, trading slower time periods for even faster ones than you have now.
This is exactly why you don't like the way your guardians are only selectively giving you advice. Some do, some don't and some just can't seem to say anything straight out for some reason.
Most of Brockton Bay, you idly consider, isn't really what you'd consider inviting or romantic in terms of atmosphere except maybe the boardwalk (or Cryptwalk, as it has begun being called after your little spontaneous repainting episode). All the same, downtown does have a few parks that a few of the minor mooks your people recruited all over the city went through to clean it of used and discarded syringes, among other similar paraphernalia, and so they actually make for somewhat decent walking now.
Neither you nor Kate actually give all that much of a fuck about those, though. "Okay, guns?"
"Check!" Your lover confirms.
"Cash?"
"Check!"
"Flashbangs?"
"Check!"
"Cooling box?"
"Why would we need one of those?"
"For the sweets and ice cream, of course," you say.
"Can't you just straight up create as many of those as you want?" An eyebrow begins to rise as she awaits your reasoning.
"You should never waste food, duh." This is the simple kind of stuff that brothers teach their siblings. "Even if you can have as much as you want, never waste any food."
"Ah, Gabe," Kate says, giving you a hug and kissing your cheek. "With me you can waste as much food as you want."
"Don't wanna."
You do make somewhat of an odd couple as you walk through Brockton Bay's streets, you and Kate; you in your Cain 'costume', which is really just your usual suit and your powers being used to disguise your face and her in her cape getup which is literally her civilian clothes.
You did ask her if she didn't want to get an actual costume herself, but according to her, that would just be a pointless waste of time and effort anyways and you didn't exactly feel like arguing the point, so there she is.
You're also both armed, though you did insist on the point that she hide her guns along her body at least a bit. More importantly, you also went out of your way to fill a couple of these little portable cooling boxes with ice cream and associated sweets of all kinds- a fact that does come in handy.
And not only for yourself, mind you.
So, you do use the teleporters to essentially evade a couple of heroes patrolling or, more likely, sent to keep an eye on you, but with what amounts to complete mobility around Brockton Bay thanks to the cell network you've hooked your own machines into, there's no real chance for them to get anywhere with that.
Therefore, you essentially poke up all around downtown and surrounding areas, appearing from backalleys and around corners wherever nobody is readily observing to disguise your method of transportation. Kate is absolutely loving the whole thing, of course, because, y'know, she's Kate.
The two of you spend a lot of time just talking about whatever, joking around a little and trading fun little stories as the mood takes you. You also do freely talk to people on the way, asking if there's anything on your face if people stare at you and stuff like that.
Then again, you also come upon a few more memorable encounters. Such as, say, that group of kids on the way to school you bump into after one of your random teleports, one of which you recognize to be none other than Missy Biron, aka Vista.
"Hey kids, wanna see a bunch of sweets?"
It takes a few moments of shuffling and exchanged glances, but before long the group of girls agrees that ice cream is a wonderful thing. Though not all of them seem to consider that the only thing they want, truth be told.
"Can I have an autograph?" One of them asks with big, hopeful eyes, both hands clutching the ice cream sandwich you handed out to her- one of the big ones, too, with some decent heft to them.
"Mary!" Missy Biron hisses, her own mass of cooled sugary goodness held to her side.
"Of course you can," you smile down at the former, grabbing a pen and some of your usual paper from one of your pockets. You did practice this quite a bit by this point, so writing your name down fancily isn't that big of an issue, and within moments Mary has her new fancy piece of paper. "And don't worry, you can have your own too if you want. Though you hardly need it, I did add my signature on the back of the picture I drew for you last time, didn't I?"
Missy blushes, and more so when you pat her head. Really, if you didn't know she's a Ward, you'd have considered grabbing her for a quick romp in some dark alley somewhere already, but as it is you just tease her a bit.
The girl to the side taking pictures seems to enjoy the whole thing the most, if nothing else. Though she also gets some ice cream.
Nobody escapes the ice cream today.
"So we can't actually touch the boat graveyard yet?" Kate's question, coming as both of you are standing on a roof in the North-Eastern part of Brockton Bay, draws you of your momentary inspection of what's happening to the south of your current position.
"Yeah, the derelicts cluttering the place are technically property of the city by this point," you tell her, mostly just paraphrasing what Sarah and Henley had to say on the matter when you talked to them about it. "Seeing how we can't just demolish the whole area without arousing attention, we're leaving it for later for the moment. Someone will probably have to 'talk' with the mayor at some point because fuck actually dealing with the bureaucracy, we have enough of that ourselves already, but as it is we have enough to do already anyways."
"Huh." She's silent for a long moment, joining you in watching on as as small army of Bobs methodically takes apart a building to put a new one back together from the insde, a bunch of dockworkers milling around the surroundings and carrying materials from one place to another, incidentally feeding some of those into the actual workers in this situation. "So I'm guessing we're starting with the trainyard first then? Get some actual transportation back to business?"
"That's the plan," you confirm. "Should make mundane import slash export of whatever we want to circulate much easier. Only getting on that once we're sure that nobody is trying to stop us, of course. Hence the testing phase over there."
Kate nods, tilting her head. "Think we can use a couple of those places to throw more of our people into?"
"We could. We're also moving towards the south a bit though, mostly to see how well we can fix up apartment buildings with just the robots," you explain, gesturing off into the distance. "May as well use a couple of those for that purpose, is all. Anyways, wanna go shoot at a few pointless ship hulls?"
"Always."
'Properly' introducing Okita to Emily is a move that, while it should have occured to you before now, only started coming to your cognition when you really considered the way she and Weiss got along surprisingly well back in Remnant and compared that to how she doesn't really interact with anyone here on Earth Bet.
Okita just... doesn't really seek out others. She's mostly content to sit around and do her thing unless she needs or wants something that involves others, such as the few occasions she comes to visit you with the purpose of having sex.
So in the interests of widening the big-tittied girl's social horizons and giving her more options to actually do stuff, you introduced her to Emily with the mention of shared interests between the two of them. As for the results and consequences, well...
"Hey, I'm Emily."
"Okita." Tilting her head, the asian teenager looks at the brunette. "Wanna have sex?"
"Oh, uh," she stammers, blushing a little and biting her lip. "I wouldn't be opposed, I guess? Never did it with a girl before but- mpf!"
Okita isn't beating around the bush, she pretty much never is, and soon enough she's fiddling with Emily's clothes while making out with her.
Your job here is done, you think to yourself as you cling to the ceiling as nothing but a shadow. All that's left is to watch a little.
You do, at this point in time, have three kids on the way, one with Nora, one with Sherrel and one with Sarah. The knowledge does fill you with mixed feelings; on the one hand, obviously, you're looking forwards to having kids. You can't fucking wait for it, even- the idea of being a dad and raising kids with your beloved wives is, to put it simply, your idea of paradise.
On the other hand, it also fills you with... apprehension. This is a big responsibility, a big change in your life and lifestyle and you do worry... Mostly about how well you can act as a parent when your only 'examples' were two shitheads you still have to get around to eating alive and your own flailing self when you were younger and basically raised your siblings.
So yes, it's not like you don't have your own issues. Naturally, you are trying to find ways to ensure your kids will have the best childhoods possible ever... and don't let yourself get started on the fact they'll be born as vampires, the first of your kind to do so, and the insecurities that come with that- what if they need specialized care you have no idea how to provide? Education? Socialization?
"Come on, Gabe, it'll be fine," Sarah says, drawing you out of your latest bout of panic and cuddling up to you as usual.
"Yeah, we got this in the sack. You know how vamps are way sturdier than living humans?" Sherrel, scribbling down something on a piece of paper she brought for this, waves a hand.
You just continue stroking Nora's belly, the swelling of child obvious when one looks. "Really, Gabriel, this will be fine. They'll be born into a loving family that will keep them safe."
Oh how you wish you had your wives' confidence in this matter...
One thing that does have to be said is that, all in all, your inner world's library does have quite a few useful functions whose uses aren't necessarily immediately obvious. For one, it can sort through just about any and all information stored within it, sorted by various parameters and even in different formats.
While it is, indeed, completely and categorically unable to display anything that isn't already part of its repertoire of knowledge, it can put together just about anything as long as it does... such as, say, distilling information in a very simple and learning-friendly way.
From that point on, all it took was to double-check the entirety of your knowledge base, ensure that everything worked out fine basically and just add a couple of corrections and additions to the way the material was presented, but all in all, you'd say this is pretty good as it is already- Everything from simple mathematics such as addition an subtraction upwards to advanced physics and how to assemble simple robots from scratch, there and ready for your kids to learn.
Now all you need to do is to do the same thing for all topics you want covered. By the time you're done, any and all progeny of yours will easily be able to learn everything from biology to psychology and back and then some more!
Though you will be the first to admit you actually called Indigo into the library to work on this for you while you were busy chatting with your pregnant wives, but hey, she is the leading expert on psychology among all the souls you have eaten so far, so there's no real other choice.
Incidentally, you will note that Nolac's experience and skill do factor into their own category, by the way. Your kids will also be able to instantly recognize how to best horribly hurt others and effectively torture them if you have anything to say about it.
You don't want to pressure your kids, but you do want them to have all the opportunities they need to grow, both as people and as horrible monstrosities against all that is good and right!
Sarah pondered over the list she was working on at the moment, tapping the paper as though repeated impacts would help it fill up some more. Not that she was particularly desperate for ideas, of course, she was just trying to think of a few to tack onto the rest.
Charity often accepted regardless of circumstances/Brockton Bay remains economically unstable/Amount of homeless reduced, but still significant
Yes, thank you, power, that much was still obvious enough by this point. Mmh... Additional soup kitchens then. With a critical eye, Sarah once more read over what she had so far and what she would pass onto others to put into practice.
For one, soup kitchens. Not every poor person was part of the Crypts nowadays, which, hey, their decision. Still didn't stop them from sending the ones that were to hand out a hot meal twice a day, and if that kept a few more people alive then all the better. Then there were other measures- outright putting up posters of her brother with a raised thumb and the words 'Cain For President' on them was obviously not what they were after, given the Crypts were at least toeing the party line as far as the USA were concerned, but that didn't mean they couldn't drum up some good PR otherwise.
For one, a lot of advertisement throughout the city was going to sport Crypt colors here or there soon enough, and the already present system of 'protection money' they had implemented on their territory would be widened as well... then there would be a few other minor things, community outreach, a bit of bribery here and there... Sarah still had to talk to Gabe about how they'd deal with what was left of Medhall or if they might want to look into replacing the old corporation with a new source of work for a decent amount of people.
Or maybe they'd just leave things as they were, let the Bay's situation deteriorate a bit more before they interfered. Couldn't hurt- them, at least.
Sarah grinned, leaning back in her chair. It sure was nice to be in the position of being completely unassailable.
Brother is extremely powerful and resourceful/Reliance on him is self-evident/Marry him already
Sarah huffed. Her power wasn't her boss.
... Even if she wouldn't exactly object, but it wasn't like they really needed the whole traditional family thing in the first place. She rubbed her belly, where her brother's baby was slowly and steadily growing.
Sarah smiled.
Uyehara Yoshiaki watched the screen in the lab area he was working inside of, torn from his methodical attempts at formulating an easy and cost-effective way to make insulin inside an average kitchen without contaminating it too much by the song he was hearing from it.
Blinking, he watched on, trying to make sense of the first-person perspective and what was going on. "Is... Is He singing what I think He's singing? While playing air guitar?"
Indigo gave him a nod, a finger coming to lie on his lips. "She is, yes. Do we have to have another talk about appropriate pronouns?"
"I refuse to acknowledge Him as anything other than a horrible monster beyond space and time. Gender pronouns are more than He really should be getting," Uyehara pouted.
"Hey, this shit rocks. Just enjoy the music." Of course Nolac had to start molesting him from the other side. "Gonna keep on listening to this shit later."
"Okay, wait. How?" What was-
"There's a replay function."
""There's a replay function?!" Both himself and Indigo were shocked, though likely for different reasons. Indigo likely wanted to analyze some part of His activities, but Uyehara was just shocked Nolac would be the one to actually figure something like this out.
... There had to be some sort of mistake.
Emily Piggot snorted, considering whether this warranted a moment of time from her busy schedule. However, what she was doing was more important after all, so she just stretched out a middle finger in the general direction of the city outside of her office.
"Up yours, Cain." Now how hard was it again to get some intercity missiles ready and pre-approved just in case she could convince Costa-Brown to just blow this hellhole up with her in it after all...
Missy Biron held her breath, feverishly reading over the lyrics she had looked up as soon as the song was determined to be the one coming up next, confusion swirling through her mind as she tried to decipher the meaning she saw in the words her brain just wasn't processing.
Dialing up the volume of her smartphone, she replayed the whole thing, because thankfully clipped versions of all of Cain's streams basically went up as soon as they were streamed.
Literally every part of the melodic and partially electronic singing felt like it was addressed to her in particular, from the question of whether turning around would let one find their way back to the chorus.
"What if we're on the same side?
Double Agents trying to reinvent our boring lives
Could it be that it's all lies?
Paranoia filtering the real world through my eyes"
It was just... Missy couldn't stop remembering the time they'd spent on that rooftop together, of the offer he'd made. He had to have known who she was, right?
He was essentially asking her to change sides, and he was doing it as a her using an androgynous voice to do so, all the while playing an electric air guitar and absolutely rocking it in the red dress she was wearing.
Missy had no idea how to react to this. And the last parts of it? 'What if it's too late'? Repeated several times as though warning her that she had to-
"Missy, what's that noise?" Shit, she was being too loud. Turning her volume down again, she sat up on her bed.
"Nothing, mom!" Shit shit shit the smartphone was from dad and mom was going to flip her shit at her again if she saw it.
"Missy? Missy, why is your door locked?" She was trying to get in, but Missy had locked her door just in case. She just needed to-
She heard the lock click, its mechanism unlatching. For- In a flash, Missy used her power, increasing the space between her door and everything else in her room by a hundredfold.
"Missy!" She could hear her mom call out, but it was much quieter now. "Missy, come here and explain yourself this instant!"
... Missy just increased the distance a little more and turned the volume back up. If her mom wanted something, she could bear a little cardio, jogging a kilometer or two wouldn't hurt her- much.
Screw her.
Rebecca Costa-Brown mechanically wrote a few pieces of paper full of notes, some of them disguised as nonsense and some actual nonsense she was just using to confuse David for when he peeked in on what he had come to call her Cainspiracy Board.
He really was making this too easy. Cain had literally sung a song from a children's movie produced on Earth Aleph, and no matter what one said about it, it invited to generous amounts of baseless speculation.
Speak of the devil, though...
"Rebecca," David said as he stepped out of the shining portal, coming up behind her as she prepared everything for the meeting. He wasn't even trying to hide it anymore.
"David," she agreed.
"... It's obviously a call for more heroes to come and be defeated by him now that he has defeated all the villains in his direct area of influence!"
"It's an obvious endorsement of heroism and what a hero should behave like!"
They were having fun today, too.
Sitting off to the side, Contessa chewed on her popcorn. The singing streams had less massive implications, globally speaking for Earth Bet, and so her added free time was somewhat shorter as the Path resettled itself much swifter, but she still had a few minutes at least.
"Why did you want to talk to us?" Taylor, bless her heart, is as business-minded as ever when you draw her away from her two 'pets'; apparently, disciplining the girls she has that grudge for takes up a decent amount of her time as is currently, though that's just one reason you called her up.
"Well, there's several reasons for that," you shrug as you enter the room proper, seeing both her and Tammi already inside and waiting. "Both of you are actually pretty powerful and important capes in case of emergencies, so I figured you'd best get to know each other a bit ahead of time. Do some team bonding, that kind of thing."
With a critical eye behind those glasses of hers Taylor is still wearing (out of habit and to look like she still needs them, you'd wager), she turns towards the other occupant of the small conference room. "You are... Rune."
"N-n-not anym-more," the stuttering ex-Empire cape disagrees. "I-it's Charmcaster now."
Naturally, you use this opportunity to step in, telepathically laying out to Taylor that Tammi used to be part of the E88 due to some mistakes she made earlier in life and is genuinely trying to be better now.
Because some people don't like literal nazis, figure that.
"... Okay." You know Taylor won't just forget all of this just like that, but as long as she keeps her mind open you'll be satisfied with this.
"Great, with that taken care of, let's all get to know each other a little better," you announce as you advance towards the two girls. "Then we can look into doing a joint patrol or two to get used to working together."
Like, completely objectively, their powers really are great for emergencies. Taylor does have limited omniscience within her power's area of effect as long as she uses it right and can interpret insect senses correctly, something she's shown a knack for already, whereas Tammi can grant both herself and others some pretty great ground coverage through simply levitating an appropriate platform and simultaneously play both artillery and mobile fortress.
In case you need to evacuate a large area or operate in delicate situations, these two would be your first call... Okay, second call after you got Sarah on the job and coordinating them, but the idea is clear.
Nonetheless, time to do some bonding. "... W-why are you und-dressing?"
"For what we're doing now, obviously," you say as you smile your best smile, both teenagers looking at you blushing at the combination of it and your naked upper body. They really are making this too easy for you. "Hey Taylor, would you mind turning around?"
You don't wait for her to actually do so, of course, instead rushing up to her and laying both hands onto her shoulders to physically turn her around, something she goes along with after a moment of hesitance.
Then your hands trail downwards to open up her jeans' button and zipper.
"G-Gabriel...?" This time it is Taylor who stutters, looking at you over her shoulder to which you return a reassuring look, slowly sliding her pants down off her hips.
The young woman you're manhandling is still slim and slight as before, but while the thralling still needs a bit to do its full work, she's actually subtly filled out just a little bit in all the right places, her belly showing just a hint of muscle under a thin layer of softness.
Her long legs, on the other hand, have a pair of very nicely, tightly muscled thighs you can barely restrain yourself from playing with. Much as you'd like to, you do have a plan in mind and you need to keep on going.
Speaking of... "Gabriel." Looking at Tammi, who is staring at what you're doing with wide eyes, Taylor gets your attention again.
"Oh, don't worry," you assure her, "Tammi here is getting her fair share of attention in just a bit... Unless you'd like to go first, sweetie?"
Taylor doesn't react outwardly, but you can feel the shiver going through her lower body about this whole thing. Tammi just swallows hard and, in turn, nods, opening up and dropping her own skirt. "T-t-take your t-time," she says, coming up next to you. "I can w-w-wait."
You smile at her. She's such a good girl, really.
Taylor's panties, black and just a little lacy, follows her pants in wandering down her hips and pooling halfway around her legs in short order, so all you need to do is push against her lower back for a moment to have her just where you want her, showing off and offering herself up to you without complaint. "You're so beautiful like this, Taylor," you growl, kneading her cute butt with both hands and looking at her privates as much as you want. "Makes me want to eat you up just like this."
Kneeling behind her, you do just that, kissing and licking her lower lips as they readily allow you inside of her pussy, Taylor gasping and leaning forwards to prop herself up on the desk in front of her. She tastes pretty nicely, and obviously doesn't need much encouragement to grow exceedingly wet.
"That's just how I like you," you whisper as you get up after the brief session of cunnilingus, "wet and willing and so very ready for me."
Your cock is freed to bob in the air just moments later, and Tammi wastes no time to mirror Taylor in lying onto the desk next to her, showcasing her own entrance for you in an attempt to get the same as her with a hopeful whine, the stuttering girl unwilling to trust her voice right now.
You chuckle and stretch a hand over to fondle and tease and finger her even as you tease your cockhead over Taylor's lips, letting it grow wet for a moment before pushing forwards, Taylor gasping as she envelops your lengthy erection.
Your free hand strokes her shoulders even as you lean over her. "Aren't you so cute? My cute little mass-murderer... Can't ever get enough of this, can you?"
Kissing her neck, you nudge her over towards Tammi, who freezes at the overt attention. "Can you see her face, Taylor? Can you see how much Tammi wants what you're getting right now?"
"Yes..." The brunette teenager under you moans, stretching towards her neighbour. You allow it, leaning back again and starting to properly fuck her. Tammi is the first to initiate, staring at Taylor's face and open mouth as she moans, first out into the air and then into her neighbour's mouth once she initiates the kiss.
For your part, you're busy burying yourself in Taylor's crotch over and over again, railing the slim girl's pussy like it owes you money. You really should be doing this more often than you already do every now and then as it is- she's absolutely great at taking your cock, you aren't joking when you tell her as much.
Muttering sweet nothings and encouragement as you fuck Taylor and finger Tammi's snatch, you don't bother holding back; pushing her into a shuddering orgasm once or twice, you feel your own peak approaching, your balls swinging heavily as your hips smack against her butt. "I'm coming, Taylor," you warn the girl making out with Tammi, "gonna fill you up."
She still for just a moment before continuing on, pushing her tongue further into Tammi's mouth. The one good thing that all the thralling you're doing does- it helps make everyone hot enough the others want a piece of them.
Brushing up against Taylor's womb, her tight pussy quivering around you tightly, you do as you said, pumping your seed into her as deep as you can.
Sighing happily, you glance over at Tammi, who returns a hopeful look of her own. Now how do you best...
"Hey Tammi, mind lying on your back?"
With Taylor stacked onto Tammi, the two girls rubbing up against one another, you can easily grasp her widely spread legs, the second teenager you're fucking this hour wrapping them around your own to draw you closer towards the little fuckpile you've created. Not that you mind, of course, the busty blonde being just as hot and tight as Taylor.
You think she might just be happy she doesn't have to stutter while the whole sex marathon you've just spontaneously started is going on, but either way you go on thoroughly railing both girls, Taylor's hair falling down and intermingling with Tammi's.
It's weirdly hot to see them like this.
By the time you're done with them, both girls are reduced to vacant stares and breathing into each other's mouths as they just let you do whatever you want with them.
Side note, their butts are very cute together, too. Unfortunately, you realized too late you have yet to fuck Taylor's ass, but you want her to be actually conscious when you do, so for the time being you just let the fluids you dumped inside both girls drain out to be collected and cleaned up by a quickly summoned slime maid.
Mhm... How much time do you have left for that patrol you wanted to take both of them on again?
The 'cluster six' as they're still calling themselves recently came to you with a request- a minor one, really, but they did want some help.
Specifically, they didn't want to 'waste your time', but they were thinking and debating over the list of plasmids and tonics you provided for the upper circle of the Crypts (the 'upper percentile', according to Sarah) and not really getting anywhere, so they decided to ask if you, as the apparently all-knowing overlord of the LSC, had any insights to share on the matter.
Your response was to go grab a cake from Ethan (hurray for him just always having a few on hand) and meet them in their room, whence you were promptly assailed by Jackie tackling you in a hug and climbing onto your lap once again just as soon as you got to sit down.
Consequently, you go ahead and talk the (blushing, for some reason) girls about what they want, what would help them and therefore what kinds of enhancements would work for them.
Incidentally, although you bluntly told them that vamping isn't in the cards for the time being due to just how long it takes to recover in-between turning others, they also still insisted on keeping the upper limit for both plasmids and tonics for vampires in mind. Whereas you told them to just take what they can for the time being and worry about what they'd have to discard later if and when they decide to take that step and an opportunity arises.
In the end, you came to the compromise of having them take more of everything than they could if they were vampires even if they won't get the absolute maximum of everything. It's a start anyways.
So the whole talking things out part took a decent while, but finally you have a concrete list of what everyone is going to get, thankful you actually went out of your way to stockpile a very decent amount of ADAM for opportunities just like this:
Kumi (Power Copier):
Blink 3, which synergizes with her ability to exchange places with parahumans she has used her power on and allows her an easier time in actually catching them in the first place, beyond the obvious advantages of teleportation
Telekinesis 3, again an easy way to grab onto parahumans by simply dragging them through the air. Also, again, fairly powerful telekinesis is a pretty great power in and of itself
Hypnotize 1, to serve as an easy way to sow confusion and essentially turn her into an even more powerful infiltrator and source of chaos amongst any enemies she can find
Decoy 1, just because it adds even more confusion and lets her shapeshifting get even more traction
Phebe (Projections):
Blink 3, to get out of sticky situations and essentially deploy her projections before teleporting out and controlling them from afar with even greater ease
Gravity Well 3, as tests have shown her projections to not be affected by its effects... as opposed to, say any enemies she's fighting, making this a powerful synergy when used correctly (not to mention the plasmid by itself being fairly powerful)
Decoy 1, to let her get out of sticky situations, combine it with blink and cause general mischief while staying out of harm's way herself easier
Jackie (Decoy-Deploying Teleporter):
Cyclone Trap 3, to leave funny little surprises behind while teleporting around and about or while dashing around afterwards thanks to her speed boosts after teleporting
Gravity Well 3, to cause more chaos, force nearby enemies to take their eyes off of valuable blindspots and as a general measure of repositioning foes into her power's power-negating decoys
Decoy 1, for even more decoys and confusion
Ayane (Object Accelerator):
Blink 3, to augment her power's teleportation abilities and let her have an easier time getting to, say, vantage points, which is something she quite prefers
Cyclone Trap 3, for combo shots with her power, as a few experiments have shown she can do some prime bullshit like ricocheting a projectile a dozen or so times in a small room thanks to her awareness of them even after the initial power use
Hypnotize 1, because the polyps the plasmid creates counts as an object for her power, 'nuff said
Beverly (Very Fast Learner):
Blink 3, to augment her already existing minor powers and let her really go ham with the teleports
Gravity Well 3, due to the way she prefers to fight, apparently, and the general uses of a powerful plasmid like this
Telekinesis 3, again because it's just very powerful as is and she can actually use her power to learn how to use her plasmids at accelerated rates, too, so it should become pretty powerful fairly quickly
Katrin (Information Gain Tinker):
Scout 1, just because it synergizes with her power and is generally useful for her
Blink 3, teleportation, quick escapes, everything
Hypnotize 1, to let her push some confusion and manipulate enemies if she ever actually faces any (she mentioned she wouldn't want to)
Aside from that, all of them get what you like to call the basic package; Sportsboost 3, Brain Booster 3, Charisma Booster 3 and Cain 3 to improve them all around in whatever they want to do and allow a few useful little additional tidbits here and there.
All in all, you'd say this turned out rather well.
"... Oh hey, Jackie being extra clingy again?" Sarah, as always, sees right through you just as soon as you come into the room.
"A little, how'd you know?"
"You have a white hair on your pants." Looking down, you immediately see she's right- the most horny, in your opinion, part of the Cluster Six insisted that as soon as her new additional loadout was determined, she should make effective use of her mouth, what with it not being needed for talking anymore.
"... You think she's shedding?" Because if so you might need to get a brush or something, gotta take proper care of pets and all.
Your sister, however, just sighs, her ears shifting along her head as it rearranges for her fox ears and her similarly vulpine tail popping out of her backside. "Just stroke my fur while we figure out something productive for you to do."
"Okay, Sarah." You can stroke the Sarah. You are the happy.
You and Sarah, along with everyone else part of your big weekly meetings, have somewhat of a plan, as far as your efforts revolving around Brockton Bay and its status as somewhat of a completely defunct port town.
Specifically, you all took a bit during your last meeting to hammer out a rough list of checkpoints to work through at some point- several of which you're currently taking care of, actually, in the form of the reconstruction of the boat graveyard's dockside areas you roped the dockworkers into by approaching one Danny Hebert- Taylor does probably have her own opinion on him actually having work to mediate from you to his people, but she's been mostly keeping it to herself so far, to your knowledge.
That said, you're far from done, of course, and one of the next steps to be taken is the removal of the boat graveyard itself, the massive amounts of derelict ships rusting in place and blocking the bay Brockton Bay was built into in the first place.
"Technically, by state law, the boats all belong to the city by this point, it's a default mechanism if no owners show up to make a claim and remove them at some point," Sarah explains, no doubt horribly dumbing things down for you to get them without too much added explanation needed. "So legally speaking, we would need to buy the rights of salvage from the city to get all of this crap out of the way. Which is bullshit, of course, but it is how it is."
"Mhm, city hall would be the place to visit for that, I reckon." It's the obvious place to look and get this underway. "Or a talk with the mayor, I suppose, whichever is the most expedient. He'll probably be sleeping this time of the night, but I doubt that'll be that big of a problem once I get to talking."
"Of course not," Sarah sighs, cuddling into you as you continue stroking her tail. Truly, her fur is purrfectly fluffy.
Ultimately, the best and easiest way to proceed does seem to be just... getting an appointment, after all. It's not exactly completely above board, but having Sarah hack into city hall's computers really quick by just guessing a couple passwords is the quickest and easiest way to assure yourself an open timeslot in the man's schedule.
With that taken care of within minutes, you're tempted to go back to just cuddling and talking while holding hands, but Sarah has other opinions, sadly. "Come on, Gabe, we do need to actually get this show off the ground. There's work to do."
"Aww..." You make a point to look at her with the saddest face you can muster- these are the eyes that got the school nurse to just ride you a couple of times and write you up sick for the day back when you were in high school.
"Haaah..." Sarah sighs, giving you a kiss on the cheek. "How about this, if things go well, we can spend an hour or two just messing around, Big Gabey~?"
Well, you're convinced now.
In the absence of a direct approach towards the mayor, you'll just have to make do with plan B, you suppose, if you want those cuddles. Meaning, it's time for you to deal with a couple of companies local to Brockton Bay- specifically, those dealing in construction.
Now, it has to be said that NEPEA-5, the whole reason you're going around making such a massive fuss about keeping the actual means of your involvement a secret, does very much apply here. The package of laws and regulations you're currently chiefly occupied with breaking could be taking apart and dissected into lots of relevant strings of legislation, but to keep it short, again, it's basically a bunch of regulations relevant to labour laws under the lens of the general existence of parahuman powers.
Which is a lot of words to say that it's basically the law saying that parahuman powers aren't supposed to be used to do 'normal' jobs with. Which sounds good when not considered deeper, but it's essentially a heavy dose of protectionism mixed with the admittedly real concern that parahuman powers are, unlike technology, not really replicable without the person in question and thus a bad choice to leave everything to.
Which really should be regulated with much more nuance than massive tax issues and essentially outlawing parahumans from holding down 'normal' jobs in any field even vaguely related to anything their powers could do, but alas, the law is as it is.
Hence you ignoring it with great amusement. At every opportunity you're given.
That said, the people actually 'affected' by you breaking these regulations may or may not be an issue on that accord. See, as Sarah (and Henley, upon being asked through telepathy) explained it to you, the fact that Brockton Bay is a shithole in dire need of repair is actually a good thing for companies that specialize in the repairing side of things- and the fact that nothing ever actually gets fixed up on the kind of scale or the kind of direction you're arranging them to be for doesn't take away from the fact that those businesses would see 'potential' business taken away from them.
The potential for profit can be profitable in itself, apparently- something you can't quite disagree with, in all honesty, you know how easy it is to sell that kind of thing to even people that should know better, but yeah. This is the big problem.
Simply put, you still do need construction materials to actually do the kinds of things you're doing, not being able to just make the material appear out of nothing (yet, anyways), and so you make up quite an interesting paper trail for anyone watching out- materials go in at a rate that would require much more actual construction to be going on to make sense than any outward indicators would show... and then there you go, restoring massive amounts of urban landscape at a frankly unrealistic pace.
Some people do watch out for shit like this, and the first of them to notice would, according to Sarah, be the local businesses that work with the same material suppliers you need for your own work. Obviously, them kicking up a massive stink is non-optimal; you want to get as much of your thing done as possible before the authorities that actually care about this shit get wind of it.
The plan may or may not involve orchestrating a massive distraction literally everywhere else in case the heat of you essentially taking over a city and restructuring it into actually working on a large scale becomes too much. Nobody wants to deal with the Triumvirate coming down on your head, should worse come to worst.
Hence, your current line of thinking. Get those people on board, pay them off or just sufficiently intimidate anyone that could otherwise make life difficult for you, one way or another. Luckily, that shouldn't be too much of a problem; these people aren't law enforcement by any stretch of the imagination, at worst they'll actively ring the bells to get law enforcement on your ass. The PRT, in turn, is not at all interested in getting on your case so long as you feign the appearance of keeping your head down, which was the whole reason for you going out of your way to do the whole thing with you paying the Rig a visit and all.
So, armed with a list from Sarah about all the people that are both in a position to know about things going on in the relevant circles, of a disposition to actually make themselves a problem for one reason or another and enough of a bother for you to need to take care of them, you give your sister a kiss and see about 'dealing' with them, one way or another.
Plus side, there aren't that many of them, their numbers small enough you can count them on both hands. Now how to go about doing this?
Honestly, most of this stuff went pretty well so far, really. Better than you expected, even, though you suspect the state of Brockton Bay to be playing into your hands for once- most of the people you're paying little midnight visits to do seem to be pretty used to being bribed and cajoled by criminals, at least.
It doesn't always go smoothly, of course, and not every last one of your interlocutors gets the idea that taking money from you also implicates them in your 'business' in case any of this crap ever comes to light so they'd best think very very hard about doing anything that might risk this scenario. Still a few stern reminders and mentions of what you did to the last man that 'disappointed' you having been on live national TV does seem to do the trick on getting them to do what you want.
You're fairly sure they got the issue at that point for the most part, anyways. A few of the minor CEOs, shareholders and businessmen (and businesswomen, for that matter) you visited also needed a mention of particularly sensitive topics, such as how beautiful or cute certain family members are, but some outright flattery like that is a surefire way of getting people to see things your way, you've found.
Some mix of all of these factors usually has people perfectly happy to just look away from any particularly 'suspicious' activities they might bump into while doing their usual jobs and the like... With notable exceptions, of course.
Some nails always have to insist on sticking out, don't they...
"No, I won't take any dirty money from you, and if you don't get out of my house-"
"Mister Watkins, please, you're just making more work for me here," you sigh, most distraught indeed. "If you don't want to be bribed, perhaps I could interest you in a few threats to your life or those of your loved ones instead?"
"As if you had the balls to actually do it!" The elderly gentleman you're conversing with does seem to be somewhat upset with the whole being woken up in the middle of the night and bodily hauled away for your little business talk session. "We both know you're too preoccupied looking good for the masses to actually do anything!"
Well, when he actually asks you for it like this...
"Yeah, no. Looks like I get to murder someone tonight after all," you shrug, both hands shooting out to grab the older man and crush his windpipe in the same breath.
A few weak gurgles are all he can bring out after that, his wide, suddenly bloodshot eyes darting around the room, but you don't give him any time to try and figure out a way out of this- not that he has much longer to live either way.
Eating him is done with the same attention one would pay to eating, say, a sandwich, and so soon enough his soul joins the hundreds of screaming damned you have already incorporated.
You roll the last of his blood around your tongue, using hemokinesis to keep it in a more or less solid ball while you consider what to do with the rest of his family- a wife and a teenaged daughter, if you remember correctly (which you do, it would be hard not to).
And as it happens, you can see said daughter getting up, too, her blood signature numbly stumbling around her room as she reaches for the lights.
Garin Watkins was perhaps not the most wily of businessmen, but he was well liked by the people around him all the same, often inspiring some genuine friendship through his open and frank manners. He, too, knew he was very much reliant on those he got along with to make it in life, and despite his frequent reservations often accidentally helped others to success whenever he asked them for help.
When the time came to settle down and found a family, he did what any man in his position would do- he confessed to his childhood sweetheart and hoped to any gods that would hear him she wouldn't reject him out of hand. Lucky for him, then, that she'd always kept feelings for him, and soon enough the two were first dating like awkward teenagers in love, just a decade older, then suddenly they found themselves having a lovely daughter to care for all the while Garin still had to frequently deal with his colleagues and friends- truly, there could be worse fates out there.
One of them eventually managed to find him.
All in all, your little round of shakeups went pretty well, really. You only left behind one burning building, got a quick bite or three in and even made a couple of new connections with people you may be able to use later- it's honestly better than many of your nights in college went when partying, really.
You are still never, ever telling anyone that fire was kind of maybe possibly your fault. Sure, you fucked that guy's secretary and wife while burning down the company building, but it was still in no way worth it.
Nor was the resulting inferno. You're especially never telling Sarah, but the night out with the twin nazis, that one time you called yourself the Alabama Ranger? It was... about in the top five of your most disastrous parties, you'll give it that, but it certainly wasn't the most... interesting one.
Either way, a quick application of some cooking oil later and you have a perfectly fine oil fire to take care of the rest of things for you, with the whole family 'tragically dying in the flames'.
You did remember how well this shit went back when you recruited Tammi, no need to fix what isn't broken and all that.
Still, you do have a little more time to play around, you suppose... although you also could go back to the bunker and get some Sarah time. Then again, perhaps playing with a few of your thralls or something might be fun too...
You're already back at base, cuddling up to your sister and driving your length into her as soon as you can, Sarah's tight pussy making for a perfect fit as always as you show her some of your love to the point she can't help but abandon what she was doing when it happens.
There you are, nailing your sister from behind in that way she absolutely loves and flirting with her over her shoulder, when Kate telepaths at you. Hey Gabe, couple of heroes coming towards your passions project's general direction.
Sighing, you shake your head. Which heroes?
Dauntless and some twat named Dovetail.
Who the fuck is Dovetail?
New hero, she does, like, forcefields and flight.
You grumble to yourself a little as you continue to kiss your sister's neck and shoulders. "Hey Sarah, since when was Dovetail a real hero? As in, not some independent schmuck thinking taking down villains makes you one?"
"Mhm, a few days, I think... Might have been a reaction to Skitter 'rising' in our ranks and her thinking she might be a counter, still working on the psych profile." She takes a moment to, presumably, ask around. "Did they have to choose now to be bitchy about that?"
"Apparently," you grunt and continue fucking her, harder this time. "And they wonder why people don't like them. Worst timing ever, all the time."
It does, sadly enough, go against everything you believe in, but you did end up pulling out of Sarah, much to your mutual disappointment. For the moment, however, you will have to show up in person, and so you take a moment to search through your wardrobe.
You do sometimes work towards accumulating some additional costumes and uniforms that might come in handy at some point, which is why you have exactly what you need right now on hand- a guard uniform, to be precise, one of several you made using your manufactories to make sure you always would have the right one for a given job.
"Okay Sarah, you on coordinating this?"
"I am," your sister glowers. "The least they can deal with for interrupting playtime is you."
Aww, it's moments like this that make you just wanna squeeze her cheeks and just spoil her rotten for weeks at a time.
Anyways, the dockworkers currently in place over at the workfront (as you like to call it, given how many Bobs you made when this whole show started to work at dozens of places at once) get to call it an early night today, mostly just shrugging and moving off (it's still a pretty great deal for them, even without the full pay they're receiving anyways) and the robots themselves are just hastily teleported out and back into storage for a bit.
You, on the other hand, are going right in there, appearing at the place the two heroes someone managed to spy on the way to your territory (Actually, do you have to have another talk with Director Piggot about this kind of thing?), immediately taking a seat in one of the little nooks the dockworkers you hired set up with a small portable TV and some snacks and beer.
They really are doing a great job, you gotta say. For real for once.
Anyways, it doesn't take too long for the guests to show up, all hail Sarah (plus Henley) for actually determining where they would show up in advance. Two kind of glowy flying figures, one with a consistent light and one drawing a trail of shining lights behind her that wink out of existence in short order.
That does explain her name, if nothing else. Yet another mild mystery solved, you suppose.
Making it a point 'not to have seen' the heroes yet, you watch some tripe shit on the portable TV, snacking on some chips you found left behind as you idly sit around in what amounts of a large tent set up outside of the 'construction site'.
In truth, it's really just a half-finished warehouse; the basic reconstruction of the places you mostly just want to keep as they are takes relatively little time, all in all, and so you've got dozens of exact copies of the large warehouse template going already.
Say whatever you want, but you're making some actual progress.
"Who's there?" You call out as you 'realize' there's the lights of the heroes, shining outside, getting up to grab your flashlight and confront the intruders. "This better not be those damn kids again."
"No kids this time, I'm afraid," Dauntless says as he lets himself in, taking a look around the place you could realistically mistake for the outside of a construction site. "I am-"
"Dauntless, ah know," you interrupt him as you wave a quickly grabbed bottle of beer in his direction. Once again, good work, dockworkers. "And some side kick chick. What'cha here for?"
A bit nonplussed by your nonchalant attitude, Dauntless nevertheless tries his best to proceed, Dovetail just kind of awkwardly standing a step behind him. "Ah, well we're here to take a look at these-"
"You got a visitor's pass?" You kinda like this, it's fun to just interrupt people at literally every turn. "A warrant or something?"
"... No?"
"Then have a round a' beers instead and piss off."
Hey, you just found another potential career outside of the whole male prostitute and masseuse ideas Sarah shared with you once. You'd make a ballin' security guard.
Dauntless tries a little more, but you get the feeling it's more out of principle than because he actually expects he'll get anywhere. Either way, your stance is clear- and seeing how extremely unlikely it is for anyone to get any kind of warrant on you anytime soon, you aren't too worried the PRT will be doing that kind of magic in the near future.
Turns out they'd need to get a judge to sign an order for that, and although you don't doubt they could get someone to do it, simply because an agency like the PRT is almost required to have a couple of judges in their pockets, it's also very clear this is more a courtesy call than anything else.
Dovetail, for her part, is mostly just awkwardly standing around and trying to look like she knows what she's doing. Also just kind of ignoring every time you offer her her beer, whereas Dauntless takes it good-naturedly and inquires what you're watching.
She'll get there eventually, you're sure.
Still, for all that the pair of heroes wastes an inordinate amount of your time, they literally can't do much of anything to get you to budge without breaking the law, and as you correctly judged in this situation that's the last thing they want.
So things eventually boil down to this weird equilibrium of a cold war where you and them stand off against each other and refuse to move before the other side does, until the patrol is called off by whoever is in charge of it just half an hour before the day shift of 'workers' shows up.
Finally, really. In the end, Dovetail agreed to drinking just so she'd have something to drink, by the way, and you got Dauntless a couple of snack bags you pilfered from what was lying around already. But hey, you doubt anyone's really going to complain, in the end.
Also, this best have been enough time wasted doing nothing for these fucks.
Honestly, it's probably a good thing you actually went out of your way to wear this uniform; while there is no intrinsic value in doing so beyond the disguise it works as, especially combined with you transformed into someone else among the hundreds of already dead and eaten faces and builds you have on hand by this point, it did make you actually look at your phone when you changed back into your usual clothes.
The smartphone that has two dozen messages from Vicky on it asking you to talk. You must've completely missed these, somehow- not that you let it bother you or anything, of course.
Instead, you text her back, asking if she has time over the weekend. Skimming the deluge of texts, it seems she's actually concerned about something and wants to talk to you about it in person? But, well, she very deliberately didn't tell you what it actually is through this medium, so it's probably not super time sensitive.
Anyways, next stop, city hall- you have an appointment with the mayor, wouldn't want to be late for that, after all.
Incidentally, Sarah did take a moment to lecture you about how to behave, specifically insofar as you are not allowed to flirt with his secretary. Or the receptionist. Or anyone you meet while there. In fact, she doesn't want you to so much as interact with anyone female more than absolutely necessary on your way in and out, and the specified that she wasn't trying to use innuendo there.
You had to pat her head a bit to calm your sister down, but such is the lot of an older brother. You shall bear it with dignity and pride as befitting of your station.
And yes, you did promise you'd do your best not to accidentally seduce anyone while you're there.
Brockton Bay City Hall is... well, you aren't going to call it a dump or anything, because it isn't one. It's a perfectly reasonable place, all in all, one of the first gathering places erected after the first settlers under the leadership of Captain Brockton (hence the city's name) landed like a mix of a swarm of locusts and packs of hyenas.
Like the early settlers did, really. America is a fascinating case study in- aaand you take a moment to make sure you didn't accidentally overeat on psychologists or anything. Nope, still alright.
Anyways, the beginnings of this nation you were born in aside, the city hall you're currently inside of, after a quick teleport and some brisk walking through the city's streets, is fairly standard as far as these things go, you'd imagine. Made of... stone, and with furniture inside and all.
You're just honestly not too impressed or anything. It's basically the same as any of the reception lobbies you've found throughout your adventures so far. Nothing particularly new or impressive, in other words.
Getting directions for the mayor's office, once you've ascertained that you are, indeed, Mister Livsey here to see him doesn't take all too long, and so you soon can knock on his door only to, in that moment, receive a burst of though via telepathy.
Mister Gabrieeel? You know this 'voice', obviously enough- this is Dinah, the mayor's niece, precog, one of your thralls and sometimes a little sweets gremlin.
Hey Dinah, what is it?
Well, I may or may not have used my power a little and figured something out, she says, obviously having fun about this whole thing.
Oh, and what might that be? You're mostly sure, of course, considering the small shape you can see through a few walls at least, a particularly Dinah-sized blood signature doing something inside the city hall.
I skipped school to come nag at my uncle until he does anything you want!
Well, why not. Good work, Dinah.
Ehehe!
Now to actually convince the man.
"Hello, Mister Christner," you greet once the door opens, stretching out a hand for Dinah's uncle to shake. "Pleasure to meet you."
"Same here, same here," the man insists. Mayor Christner is, by all accounts, no particularly remarkable man, fitting much into his office and the city hall he is working in- dark blonde blonde, short-cropped hair, a little bit overweight and his features bearing somewhat of a resemblance to Dinah's. If you squint a bit. "It was a bit of a surprise to find out I had an appointment at this hour, but you must have been quite convincing for my secretary to shift my daily paperwork hours towards you."
"Well yes, I can be quite persuasive when needs be," you assure him as you take a seat opposite of him, leaning back in the visitor's chair. "I'll assume you do not yet know about the exact reason I sought you out, so let's get right down to it."
Or rather, what you're about to tell him is actually highly illegal, which is why you didn't want Sarah to leave any records of any kind on any computers not inside your bunker and secured by more VPNs than there are states in the USA.
You know, you would poke Coil and tell him that his paranoid security measures are once again being put to good use, but seeing how he's with Sarah nowadays, you just make a mental note to ask her to do so in your place.
"Please do go on ahead, I am actually quite curious now." And your audience of one is also ready. Showtime.
"Well, Mayor Christner, let me ask you a question: When you look out of the window, what do you see?" Chuckling, you immediately wave him off. "Ah, but you must be getting that one all the time from anyone trying to sell you something, my bad. Let's try something different, for a change. When you think of Brockton Bay, what is the one thing you would remove?"
"The gangs," the mayor immediately says. "As it is, the city's economy is a sluggish mess because no sane investor would ever condone any company branching out into it. And with Medhall being what it is right now..."
Well, can't object to that one, really. "A smoking ruin, yes," you agree. "All the same, let's say we were thinking... bigger. Even before the gangs, what really killed Brockton Bay in the first place?"
"Why, decades of neglect and shrinking budgets. Global recession leading to the riots back in the day and..." You smile and snap your fingers. "You can't seriously be talking about the boat graveyard. Every mayor in office since the Lord's Port was blocked off has run the numbers at least once, and it's still there. The money to actually remove those hulls simply isn't there."
"Entirely correct, which is why I'm here in person instead of laying out a thorough demonstration and sending it to your office first," you allow, though part of that is also that you just couldn't be arsed to spend an hour or two on this. "That said, let's say there was a way. Let's say we could essentially reinstate shipping as an industry for Brockton Bay by reopening the docks- what would that mean for the city's economy?"
"A lot of effort in getting new shipping companies settled in, for one," Mayor Christner replies. Sighing, he closes his eyes for a moment to think it through. "And new ones, not that any local businesses from back then really survived. The trainyard, parts of the southern docks, not to mention getting the actual port facilities repaired, and most of this would be happening right in the middle of Cryp-"
"And what if all of that could be done in the same breath?"
"That kind of miracle solution only exists in fairy tales and tall tales."
"Well, I suppose we might have just entered a fairy tale, then," you say as you lean back in your chair, smirking at the man. "Of course we don't quite fit the bill seeing how we're missing a maiden of some sort to play the part of the main character or else the object of the story, and what I'm talking about is not strictly entirely legal, you understand, but I'm sure we can make do."
Just then, the shape of none other than what you're fairly sure is Dinah comes up behind you, fiddling with something at the door. Within moments of that, she has the lock opened (because the doors in here only open from the inside without a key, even when unlocked) and walks in. "Oh look, I am an impressionable young maiden just so happening to stumble into the council of the mayor she is in some way related to, making her a princess, and the wise wizard giving him advice!"
"Dinah," the mayor sighs, "were you listening in on us? I'm very sorry Mister Livsey, this is my niece Dinah. Who for some reason has decided not to go to school today."
"School's boring and I'm not learning anything new anyways."
"That's quite alright," you chuckle, pretending you didn't know anything about this beforehand- and that you didn't keep on updating Dinah on what's going on in real-time. "So, shall we get back to the matter at hand?"
"Yes, uncle, let's talk about why you would ever decline a solution to every problem ever."
Holding back a grin, you nod. "Indeed. So, about NEPEA-5 and how we are most definitely not breaking literally every single law and regulation within it, but merely creatively interpreting them..."
Mayor Christner does look vaguely ill all of a sudden, but he knows as well as you that he can't quite just say no and shoo you out of his office at this point- checkmate.
The whole story takes a bit to unfold, but all in all, while the mayor isn't exactly happy about you and his niece essentially strong-arming him into trampling all over federal law, ultimately all you are trying to get him to do is to not do something, that is, have certain controls be tad bit relaxed... and perhaps not applied all too much all over certain parts of the city, that is, the ones you're working over at the moment, but really, you are ultimately evil.
Therefore, all that you need to win is for good men to do nothing and all that, yadda yadda yadda, not important. What is important is that you can basically just hold Dinah into his face and let her do most of the talking, which is highly entertaining on your end. You're also fairly sure he realized fairly quickly that yes, you are very much 'connected' to the Lord Street Crypts, but again that's not important.
Ultimately, what you're dangling in front of his eyes is too good for him to care, is all. Being the mayor that had a hand in the horrid violation of a whole bunch of laws at least ostensibly hurting local businesses in immense ways (yeah, right) would be a horrible, no good thing for him, of course, but as long as he can plausibly deny having anything to do with it he can make sure the right eyes are looking elsewhere while you're busy, he stands to profit off of your actions just fine.
What you don't tell him, of course, is that you literally own all the properties that are being demolished and rebuilt at breakneck pace. Nor what you're planning to do with them afterwards. All that the mayor knows is that you have things handled on your end, one way or another, and that's all he needs to care about.
Now, the more... interesting, topic of the boat graveyard itself. Lord's Port is blocked all over, and all the sunken ships are currently property of the city. Meaning they could, in theory, be sold to you for you to do with as you please. Of course their sudden disappearance would be much more suspicious and likely to be found out in the middle of you doing your thing, but once again that isn't Mayor Christner's business.
You have your plans and preparations, all he needs to do is to arrange for the sale of the lot at a reasonable price of a couple dollars per boat- he is visibly pained by the whole thing, but does agree that there's no real point in trying to haggle over it.
Not to mention, again, Dinah being shoved into his face to make big puppy dog eyes.
The railways leading out of Brockton Bay, on the other hand, are somewhat of a more... delicate issue, mostly insofar as he, as the city's mayor, doesn't have authority over them. Technically, they're a federal matter to be dealt with in cooperation with the country level of things... or something, you suppose. You didn't really pay attention once Sarah started sending you naked thoughts.
Like naked selfies, just better, mostly because it's her.
So you're likely going to need to take care of that separately at some point or, more realistically, just have Sarah do so on the side once the docks are in functioning condition again.
Overall, the discussion goes rather nicely, and although Mayor Christner isn't your biggest fan at the end of it, he is very much in tacit support of your plans. Good enough, honestly.
Also, Dinah definitely earned herself a reward for this, much as she is ferried off to school with an ice cream in hand to keep her happy pretty much as soon as her uncle can push for it without being too impolite.
All in all, an admittedly rewarding morning.
Honestly, among the many things you tend to do on a daily basis, everything from the big talks to the action-packed moments you actually go out and do stuff all the way to the small things you behind the scenes- cuddling Sarah, catching up with your wives and minions, cuddling Sarah and your wives, helping to organize things as they come up and interrupt your cuddle time, cuddling Sarah and, of course, making sure everyone is doing alright and there aren't too many interpersonal conflicts for you to deal with, the one thing you favor the least is hands down needing to sit down and plan out your future actions.
You... aren't really a planning guy. Most of the time you just live day to day and fly by the seat of your pants, and hey, it usually works out alright for you. Big plans you do have, of course, sure, the harebrained schemes and mad ideas you come up with and just work towards bit by bit, but they're more... goals, for you.
You figure out what you want to do and what you'll do for the day, but the connection between your individual actions and your end goals is something you tend to just leave for later to figure out, by which you mean 'never'. You pretty much just take one step at a time and figure things out on the go.
It's gotten you this far, so you can't have been doing too bad a job of it, but for once you actually do take a bit of time to try and plan ahead in a more thorough manner. For one, your plans for Brockton Bay are slowly taking shape, which has you formulate a few steps to use what you have gotten down so far towards your ultimate ambitions as far as this totally quaint and not at all objectively ruined port town is concerned.
You have the night club, you have Kayden working on the brothel, which is that part of it covered. You may as well get those out of the way, seeing how you're planning on actually making the part of town you're placing both of those into an actual small red light district over time, which only requires a small amount of urban planning here and there to shift things around, but it's not like that's all that much of a change considering what else you're doing all around the northern third of Brockton Bay.
Making sure newly erected residential and commercial areas are where they're supposed to be, which is basically just checking over your already set plans as fed into the robots, ensuring that schedules are in place for regular weapons deliveries out of the city and materials are being brought into it at a decent rate, figuring out what kinds of things you personally want to work on both as a gang leader and as a cape with a power that can grow... it does take a while, all in all, though at least Sarah, Kate and Henley do seem to be thankful you're pitching in.
There is one other topic, though. You've been back on Earth Bet for a while now, and you can already feel the part of you that you use to jump dimensions winding up after its recovery, slowly readying itself for the next go. Seeing how you usually do these kinds of things, you'll have to decide where to go and whom to take with you, of course.
As it is, you're kind of thinking between Earth Fallout and Gaia, with an eye towards your next cocooning- it's not a must, but if you were to eat a massive amount of people to quickly gain power somewhere, it would be one of those two dimensions.
Mhm, most likely Gaia, you feel like committing some war crimes again once in a while. Then, of course, there's the issue of whom to take with you; Sarah is kind of a given, you don't want to risk a lack of Vitamin S or anything, but aside from that you're fairly open about it.
So naturally you do the obvious thing and as the people in question. The Cluster Six are unlikely to be on the list of your companions, with their whole unique situation and codependency going all the way down to their powers, but otherwise...
Well, if you do go to Gaia, Okita is interested in coming along, at least, whereas Kate would be up for Earth Fallout again, just as Nora and Sherrel would be fine with going there. Nora isn't super insistent on it, mentioning even as a vampire it's just overall more pleasant to live in actual civilization, but yeah.
Lea is mostly ambivalent of the issue, as are Jeremy and the miscellaneous vampires created by your spawn so far. And then, of course, there's the issue of who to take along and vamp while you're at it to take advantage of the easy meals and additional time, both for them to grow in power quickly and for you to recover from vamping.
Decisions, decisions...
Ultimately, it comes down to your choice of dimension. While Earth Fallout would be a perfectly fine destination, you have somewhat of a war to continue, and the piles and piles of bodies running around over there won't pile themselves up- at least not without some serious intervention on your part.
So many people to horribly murder in increasingly inventive and amusing ways, ending with you drinking them dry like blood packs more often than not. Yeah, your choice is made, after all- Earth Fallout just doesn't have the same kind of population density, even if eating raiders and similar would still fill you up nicely.
Which brings you to the next issue; whom do you take along? Making a choice, between Emily and Taylor, the two of your thralls you want to vamp soon-ish, isn't hard; though you feel both would do alright in Thule, for a given value of alright, Taylor's power would likely come in much more handy on Earth Fallout, with the giant bugs literally everywhere and the whole mirelurk situation that was slowly spreading throughout the south-eastern parts of Boston last you were there.
And, well, seeing how you have limited slots and the way that vamping takes a while in-between actually going for it, as well as your intention to see if they manage to get some particularly interesting unique powers out of it just the way your other spawn got when created by you personally (that they then handed down upon vamping other people in turn, rather than generating more unique powers), it just makes the most sense to go ahead and take Emily along, vamp her and take her back before doing the exact same thing on Earth Fallout afterwards.
If you feel like going there at that point in time, anyways. Plans can change , too, after all.
You do make sure to tell everyone about your decision before you get back to the usual drudgery. Really, there's a reason you usually delegate all of this stuff at light speed.
Who even cares where exactly you throw the residential districts, so long as they exist and aren't too close to industrial areas?
Paige McAbee looked around her new room. She was still getting settled with the fact that it would be her room in the foreseeable future, but- well, better this than the Birdcage.
She looked around some, making sure everything was perfectly in place. It wasn't that she didn't trust the people that'd taken her from that transport, but she absolutely didn't trust them.
Being sentenced to the Birdcage had been, well, her life had been crashing down around her ears anyways, Paige had already kind of given up at that point. And before she'd known it, she was being driven off in that Birdcage transport, to never see the light of day again.
Except then, without any forewarning or outward signs, she'd disappeared, only to reappear elsewhere. Being 'saved' like that had been the last thing she was expecting at the time, but there she was anyways.
A comfortable space, almost like a small apartment of her own. All underground, but she was free to set it up however she liked. Paige had absolutely no idea how things worked in the Birdcage, but this was probably better, even if she still was effectively confined underground for the rest of her life.
She had her living room, a bathroom, a bedroom and a small kitchen to call her own. It wasn't much, but it was more than she had expected she would ever have again after- after. She scowled as she thought about the sentencing, about the 'trial', about-
Paige took a deep breath. It didn't help thinking about it.
So, there she was, having been handed a place to live, a laptop as her only means of communication with the outside and free access to the 'public' parts of the villainous lair she had been sequestered inside of. She'd taken a few looks around, and nobody had been particularly bothered by her, regardless of what her power was supposed to be doing.
She'd asked, and one of the rambunctious women frequenting the cafeteria had simply mentioned 'the boss' would just take care of things if she was mastered, so why give a fuck?
She hadn't stuck around after that, Paige quickly fleeing back to the perceived safety of her new home.
Sometimes, the girl that'd greeted her when she was just teleported in out of nowhere was there, too, but she seemed to be rather busy, so not often in the public areas, at least.
Sitting down on her bed, a fluffy affair almost all in black, she took a few deep breaths, taking in the scent of the new fabrics. A lot of things flashed through her mind- her ex, telling him off. Being apprehended and going with the people that'd come to find her; it had been a mistake, a misunderstanding, it would be cleared up in no time.
Being cuffed and gagged, with these large devices she wasn't supposed to ever be taking off. Realizing the trial was rigged, but not being able to do anything, because every time she tried to squirm the security people were right on her. That moron of a public defender that hadn't even tried, because her funds had been frozen the moment an arrest order for her for her had been out.
Then, the sentencing. She hadn't been allowed to say anything or to communicate at all for months by that point, and knowing that her fucking ex had gotten away with her money had been the one thing that'd bothered her the most at that point.
That little dickless fucker better have fun trying to find anyone that helped him regrow it, because Paige McAbee had a laptop. And, well, she had been saved, but she'd never met the leader of this gang that had done so, and nobody had so much as insinuated they wanted her to do something for them, so...
If they tried to force her to commit a crime or something, she'd figure out what to do then. She couldn't- she wouldn't deliberately harm or master anyone, but she'd let future Paige deal with that.
For now, she would make a dozen accounts on various websites and spread various rumours about a certain ex. About how he would totally lie about any services and healing he received and try to press money out of any cape that helped him regain his manhood, he'd totally done so once already after all.
Bitch tried to fuck her over, well she would make sure he wouldn't hire hookers with her money at least.
Today, you and your little gang of tinkers and tinkerers are assembling to figure out a particular little problem, one that has recently come up in relation to a particularly frustrating issue; that is, a reliable way to capture enemies or similar without danger of killing them.
The Butcher is the main reason you're bringing this up, just in case that particular headcase becomes a problem again- you don't trust the literal insane person hearing all of the voices not to come back around and make trouble for you again if they believe to have a chance. Hell, that was literally the reason the Teeth came back around to Brockton Bay in the first place, with every other gang done in by you and the Butcher thinking... What, that you'd be weakened? Unable to cover all of the city?
Doesn't matter. You do admit you only caught on to their presence because they were morons and basically announced themselves with the piles of dead bodies they left lying around.
Anyways, having a way to reliably catch stuff instead of always killing would be nice. You've been doing perfectly alright so far just running around and eating people as you defeat them, or else having massive groups that your minions catch rounded up to be eaten, but well, you could do better.
You do remember Rapture, where the Thinker caught you literally all the remaining splicers in the city to chow through in a single massive orgy of a feeding frenzy. Those were the days!
So, the problem is clear, both to you and to your people once you explain what you want and why. And then, of course, come the ideas.
Trainwreck and Chariot, the two more male tinkers in your employ, get together with Sherrel and soon suggest a mobile capture device- nothing particularly fancy, merely a roughly humanoid mold on legs that can take in and seal humans and similar within moments once they are inserted. It still requires the victim to be inserted, but a few add-ons do make this process easier, apparently.
On the other hand, Lea, Alice and Katrin actually combine their own expertise and suggest a kind of brainwashing device. It isn't exactly going to let you force people to do your bidding, or do anything, really, but the closed helmet with a bunch of screens and broadcasting mechanisms inside is apparently supposed to keep a given prisoner dizzy and unfocused no matter what as long as it's on. Issue is, according to them, that it can be resisted, and has to be able to be taken off easily for maintenance and feeding and such.
Also to refill the miniature dizziness bombs Alice would make by the dozens for it. Tinkertech, really.
Also because it's tinkertech, you can't exactly combine these two; apparently the brainscrambler would interfere with the automatic prisonwheeler, as they were respectively named not long after.
As for yourself-
"Is that bondage equipment, Gabe?" Sherrel asks, peeking over your shoulder at what you're designing yourself.
"Yup," you confirm, popping the word like a bubble of gum. "First thing that came to mind when we talked about tying people down for later."
Honestly, the prisonwheels wouldn't really stop the Butcher, you assume, considering their power to teleport around and cause explosions by doing so. All the same, something like this would be mighty useful if you need to juggle a bunch of high-priority targets all over the place, and if it's just a matter of making sure you don't waste a great meal because they'd be a giant pain to get to someone with a soul palace.
It's a simple matter of priorities, really. The brainscrambler is still on the table, just not a priority- it simply isn't reliable enough for you to trust it to be the easy ticket to defeating the Butcher or comparable in a single, simple move.
Also, Alice's dizzy bombs are a little too explosive for you to trust them anywhere near the vulnerable, soft brainmeats of people you do not yet want dead.
On the other hand, though... "Hey Alice, would you mind getting a few of those bombs to make people dizzy ready just in case? They might come in handy."
"Sure, just don't expect them to do much outside a specialized device to increase their effect."
That is perfectly enough for your purposes, you'll admit. Bombs that break your concentration and trip you up can be a killer in a fight, pun intended.
So, the prisonwheels... Essentially a coffin of sorts suspended in a small car, except with lots of restraining features added onto it. For one, it can actually target people, as you just kind of welded a bunch of your robots' features onto it just to make this part easier- and indeed, that's what takes up most of your time, actually letting the simple control software interface with the giant mess that is tinkertech.
As for those features you mentioned? Well... the coffin can, essentially, move around on a very, very flexible undercarriage, letting it conveniently reach any position it has to to catch or release any prisoners it may be tasked with retrieving. This is made easier, too, though a whole bunch of robotic arms equipped with various implements instead of hands, from massively strong suction cups to bands of leather to a whole bunch of tasers and even a set of forcefield bubbles it can deploy and move around at will.
It's not meant to be able to take down hard targets, of course, just to... detain them, as well as possible. Hence the real magic hidden inside of the coffins. Restraints. Several forcefields. Electric barriers if anyone gets through those, as well as sedatives in gas form sprayed out to keep the target down. A whole bunch of stuff on the material of the things itself, of course, and then there's the stasis the coffins can go into, the self-propulsion, short-lived rocket flight and combat mode, whence the coffins themselves detach from the tinkertech vehicle carrying them to actively apprehend their targets.
And yes, plural. A total of twenty coffins is inside the Crypt Van, as it has been renamed, ready to be pushed outside or inter your foes for later eating on demand. Some of the usual additions to what outwardly looks like a completely normal white van, until it unfolds to let its insides out.
Then there's the usual additions, too, of course; turrets, expanded insides to actually hold everything it needs to, a 'turbo booster' that lets it speed up to ridiculous degrees and ram through most obstacles in its way and so on and so forth.
Look, Sherrel did most of that, and you're not sure even she knows everything that's in this thing. All that matters is that it can very effectively capture and hold high-priority targets.
"So," you say, clapping your hands once as you take a seat, smiling at the blonde woman in front of you, "pleasure to meet you, Bad Canary. I'm sorry it took me a bit to actually meet you in person, but I'm sure you understand just how despairingly busy someone can get at times."
Paige McAbee is sitting opposite you, at her small kitchen table, and is too busy blushing all flustered and all to respond for a long moment. "That- yeah. When I was doing concerts, I was just like that. Not that... Well, here."
Grabbing a laptop she stowed on the kitchen counter, the young woman shows you what she was watching- the shot of you eviscerating Kaiser from above, with some headlines under it you don't really bother reading. "Catching up on the news, huh?"
"Yeah. They didn't really let me get... anything, during the trial," Paige scowls. "The endless waiting day in and out was really the worst of it."
"Totally getting that. Think of the upsides, though, at least you're through with that whole experience now," you cheer her up.
"Until someone finds out where I am, anyways." A few taps, a new tab and just like that you have a prime view of another news feed, this time showing an article about a certain little blonde public cape.
"Oh hey, they actually showed one of those?" You can't help yourself, this is just too fucking hilarious. "Did you know they took those before they started muzzling you, but then immediately put a seal on them and only ever took pictures of you in the Hannibal Lecter getup?"
"Don't remind me, I wore that stupid muzzle for months," she groans, smiling. It's gallows humour, but at least she's trying, which is, like, half the battle already.
"And once again, we have found an upside to your new living conditions."
Paige shakes her head, but still can't help herself from smiling. "Come on, let's just... get this over with. Why did you get me out of there?"
"Because I could," you shrug, grinning at the look Paige gives you in response. "No, seriously, I just love pissing on the PRT's shoes all over the place."
"I don't know..." For some reason, she does, in fact, not seem convinced. Time for you to turn on your charm!
"Well, it does help you're cute," you admit with a wink, provoking another blush from Paige.
"A-anyways, aren't you worried? I might be mastering you right now for all you know." Aww, it's kind of adorable how she tries to play over her nervousness.
"Sweetie," you laugh, leaning onto the table, "I'm literally immune to that. Those kinds of powers don't really work on me right, in general. And even if they did... You wouldn't try to master me, would you?"
Flustered, Paige looks away from your eyes staring into hers. "I- that- maybe. Still doesn't- ugh. Can we just talk about what you expect me to do now?"
Paige McAbee was many things, in her own humble opinion. One thing she was in particular, however, was not equipped to handle this situation.
Still looking her in the eyes, and god no why were her cheeks heating up again, the absolute hunk of a guy opened his stupidly beautiful facehole again. "Up to you, really," he began, shrugging again in that way too smooth fashion of his. "I don't want the whole me breaking you out thing known for the time being, but that's pretty much it. If you want to be a cape, we'll have to hide your powers, if you just want to hang around, feel free."
That was almost unbelievably generous, but if Cain wanted to keep talking, Paige would happily keep on listening. His voice was fucking amazing to listen to, and she knew what she was talking about.
"Actually, I might be able to just bring you to some parallel dimension where bird features aren't really that uncommon and they've got a huge thing about art and music."
"... Wait, what?" Paige blinking, brought back to the topic at hand.
"Gotcha," Cain grinned at her. Did he just-
Making a sound that was not at all like a little chirp, Paige held her nose, the tip of which had just gotten flicked. "Hey!"
"Not that I'd say no to a singing lesson or two, of course," he continued as though nothing happened. "Also, we could probably get you an entirely new face, if you want, though I have no idea if removing the feathers would actually work."
"If you keep moving those lips, I'll give you all the lessons you wan-" She caught herself in the middle of saying as much, slapping both hands over her mouth.
Cain just laughed, the jerk. And no, a first try showed that she couldn't just have the feathers surgically removed by that weird machine he showed her.
Though it could do other things. That said, Paige was undecided on whether she really wanted to start 'body modding' herself all over the place. It was kind of a slippery slope thing where you started because you didn't like some minor thing and fixed it up and ended up as some insane flesh blob with ten faces and twenty mouths or something if you weren't careful.
And no, Cain calling her 'too cute to change anyways' was stupid! She was a flipping pop star (or had been, at least), she wasn't cute, if anything she was cool!
Your night club, such as it is, is coming along rather nicely when you look over it. The wide main room, now bearing little resemblance to the factory floor it used to be once upon a time, already sports most of its new accoutrements; the long bar, wide dance floor and cages set all along the walls and even on them, suspended above the ground, make it fairly clear what this whole space is going to be used for.
Also, note to self, create a whole bunch of bartender minions to lactate all the booze you want this place to be stocked with. Truly, overpriced alcoholic drinks are one of the greatest inventions mankind has ever made from the perspective of a club owner.
The side alcoves, too, are mostly already in place, and you can even observe the Bobs in their tentacled glory as they install the last bit of essentially completely remade wall along one side of the main floor. Once finished, this will essentially be a series of doors that can be locked from the inside, though there are overrides, of course, and beyond them will be comfortable seating areas and even a few minibars.
Not just everyone will have access to the locking mechanism, of course, but it's there.
Then, naturally, come the... other side rooms. Your personal contributions to the plans, here on the ground floor. Several rooms, separated from the rest of the club through short corridors and very much all the soundproofing, filled with various kinds of... 'equipment'.
Sex swings. Leather straps on every surface. Mirrored walls and ceilings. Toys of all kinds, but none of them meant for children (for some reason, not like anyone cared- you got yourself a couple paddles when you were ten just fine). Drugs are not supplied with the rooms, of course, such as various kinds of aphrodisiacs- if anyone wants to get funny with those, they can damn well bring them themselves.
All kinds of bondage stuff, though that shit is staying in those rooms. And you literally had chips put in all of it. You don't want anyone getting stupid ideas in the middle of using the facilities and trying to steal from you. Or at least not twice.
Incidentally, the remodeled factory machines are also scattered throughout these particular back rooms. Little cranes, rotating hooks, mechanical dildos and just about everything you could throw together using 'authentic' materials, as soon as you replaced them all with sanitary equivalents.
Because yes, sanitation is important. Hence the generous amounts of disinfectant the cleaning personnel consisting of robots hidden in the hallways' walls will be using at every turn as soon as any particular group of occupants is through and leaves.
Again with various ways groups of people might find themselves in there- the sex rooms are technically invitation only, it's just that people that are allowed inside are also allowed to invite just about anyone they want to, within reason. It's not like you want to keep the existence of these places an absolute secret or anything, you just also don't want to massively advertise it.
Speaking of, there's the upper floors. With the loft area set up for VIPs and meant to be much less crowded than the rest of the club, sporting discrete access to the sex rooms on the lower floor as well its own set of backrooms for equally discrete meetings, whether for business or for pleasure. As well as more medically minded spaces where select 'customers' can avail themselves of the use of the auto-docs prepared for this exact purpose, including addictol treatment, among other things.
With attendants of various kinds making sure nobody fucks around being a core part of the experience, naturally.
And then you do, of course, have the other direction the elevators can take you, so long as you have the little card that you have to swipe across a scanner to be able to take them there. The little market area you're arranging in the spacious basement, now pumped free of water and fixed up all around, is still a bit rough, but you do have a whole bunch of weapons of various kinds and drugs galore stockpiled and ready to be sold to paying customers.
It'll take a bit until everything is securely in place, but you already have a few salespeople up your sleeves, scouted amongst your street level mooks as soon as they started streaming towards the Crypts in search of membership. This will be the last part of the whole building to be finalized, but at the end of it you'll be able to rent out some space for others who are interested in selling any kind of wares, too.
Oh, and then there's the Crypt merch that Kate and Sarah insisted on selling here. Exactly why the Cain dildos in various colors and with differing additional functions and the Crypt colored bedcovers need to be sold here of all places instead of just organizing an internet shop, you have no idea, but hey, you aren't going to question either of them.
In other news, the toilets, too, are looking pretty good. You weren't super big into clubbing, back when you were alive, but one of the worst parts always was the queue in front of the toilets. Actually...
Right, you did include a bunch of glory holes all over the building, and the toilets are no exception. In fact, while you have a few of them in the VIP lounge's area, with thin walls and rooms specifically made for this purpose, the toilets do have the biggest concentration of glory holes to be found all around.
The hookers you kind of got into contact with, you think anyways, are already aware of this sudden need for people to suck and fuck, as well as for someone to dance naked in the cages out on the dance floor and to man some of the sex rooms, as well of the pretty decent amount of money any such person is going to be paid.
Hey, you have a whole bunch of now extremely beautiful and in some cases particularly exotic women distinguished by their willingness to spread their legs in exchange for cash, for one reason or another. Of course you'd have a few of them take care of this.
That said, you feel the club is a bit... bland, even with all of this. Not a single guest has stepped foot inside of it nor has anyone had sex inside it so far, almost like a field of virgin snow. Maybe... You could look into adding somewhat of a personal touch to it, ahead of time?
No time like the present to get to work on the VIP area, honestly, and so you... do.
Getting the materials you need set up takes a couple of minutes at most, and just like that you get to work, drawing and carving and sculpting a variety of subjects you just kind of spontaneously figure out as you go.
Several smaller pictures of various, almost random scenes you proceed to hang onto a few walls here and there, for one- not too many, they're more a placeholder than anything else. But those are just the beginning; oriental themes, especially these long, vaguely snake-like dragons are taken and applied here and there, from a picture of a river and landscape painted onto a wall in a fitting style to one of the glory hole rooms now having an oriental dragon painted onto a wall, in a deep green and with one of those dragon pearls they are sometimes depicted with in one clawed hand.
The other hand, of course, clutches a glory hole, inviting anyone willing to trust the (admittedly very hyperrealistic) painting not to crush it to have a go.
Naturally, the obvious references to the ABB and Lung in particular aren't the only things you do, however. For one, a few of your works also depict robotic soldiers made of steel, and you place a small wolf made of iron your claws carve the finest details imaginable into on one of the several counters set all around the loft lounge.
Then there's the lesser and minor victories you feel the need to immortalize once you actually get started. A ring of teeth biting down around a butcher's knife, drawn onto a dark red background and thrown in some random corner. Up to others to figure it out, really. The same goes for the bridge you draw onto one wall, with a line of archers on it letting loose a rain of arrows onto some unseen enemy or perhaps the viewer.
Oh, and you just about copy that one piece you did with the corpses of those Yangban dudes you nailed onto a wall to draw a graveyard all around them. It's a reference people will get, you're sure. And if not, well- Who really ever cared about a couple of Chinese asshats running to their deaths anyways?
All in all, you just have a decent bit of fun, get some of that artistic itch worked out in a productive manner and in doing so get the VIP loft prettied up a decent bit. Give it character and stuff.
Oh, and while you're at it... "May inhibitions shed upon entry!"
There, nice little curse. You're still kind of crap at location-based stuff like this, but in a nightclub of this kind? The mild nudges you can give out need the right opportunities to really work, and in a place where people are spontaneous, unthinking and often drunk? With literal sex rooms, naked dancers and lots of poles, both occupied by paid hookers and not?
If nothing else, this will be a great test of how all of these factors combine to affect people. Oh, and before you forget it, you'd best ask around about how the little 'marketing campaign' you had a few of those former slaves do most of the work on. You do need some way to actually get people into your nightclub, so they have to know it exists in the first place. Sarah insisted that only the ones attending high schools and the few you sent to university actively do so for some reason, though.
Probably for the best. While you don't really object to elementary schoolers getting an early start of their life, people would probably talk and stuff.
It's been quite a while since you actually actively thought back to the time before your death, that indistinct stretch of time you sometimes have trouble recollecting due to the way your perfect memory only reaches back to the time after your little stay inside your coffin.
One of the things you always felt you lost out on, back when you were a kid all the way from kindergarten and into high school, was actual male friends. For some reason, all the other boys kept on either avoiding or openly disliking you, and you never really figured out why- even when the girls and the female teachers told them to cut it out.
It didn't help that no matter how friendly you tried to be, the other boys just always kept on being more and more aggravated, even though in every of those little popularity contests the girls held you were voted in as number one, little Gabriel for president and all that. It went so far that you had to play on the girls' team when you were all separated by gender because the boys uniformly refused to let you on the team.
And it just became worse once you started going to school. Every class, at least one of the girls would be there to 'protect' you from the other boys, some of whom started making up ideas of you sleeping with their girlfriends- you said it, every time you heard anything about it, that you'd only do it if they really, really wanted you to.
Cue you doing so, because if they start daydreaming about it then it's obviously a kink thing for them, right? And then you had to factor in the teachers, some of whom would keep you behind in sports class for 'private' lessons while the other kids went swimming and stuff, and if you were allowed to go the girls just kept molesting you.
And none of the boys helped you out of there! Really, you'd wondered a few times if your own gender was just one big disappointment, after all. But now, now you're here! Being yourself and having a total of two male buddies to hang out with, finally!
Sure, Ethan is as gay as they come and Henley is only around because he works for you, but that doesn't change they're both guys you can hang out with.
"Aah, darlings, it's been far too long since we really took a little time to talk. Are you still eating well, Gabriel?" The three of you are sitting around a table in a side room of the cafeteria, which has essentially become Ethan's break room whenever he does something else than cook and bake.
"'Course I am, you know my metabolism is different as a vampire," you tell him, leaning back and looking over at Henley, who just sighs.
"Very well, I won't say anything," he says, raising both hands as the light of the light fixture hanging overhead reflects off his bald head. "So what exactly are we supposed to be doing?"
"Okay, I think this should be everything," you say as you adjust the collar of your shirt. You got yourself, Ethan and Henley into matching outfits- just black pants and white tops, really. This is the joy of men's clothing, everything is just so much simpler and straightforward compared to trying to dress up women.
"Why exactly are we doing this again? We could have just waited until the new club in town opens," Henley suggests, stretching out his neck as the three of you are walking towards the Palanquin.
"Just think of it as testing the waters and getting an idea of how other places like this work," you shrug. "Anyway, before we go in, anything else the two of you wanted? Like, you've been doing good work, so if there's anything I could do to lighten your workload or help you out in general, shoot."
Ethan takes approximately a tenth of a second to answer. "Oooh, how about a roll in the hay, big man?"
"Not into guys, sorry. If I was, I'd totally hit you up, man."
"Figures," your underling laments. "Why do all the prettiest boys have to be straight?"
"Cheer up, I'm sure you'll find someone where we're going. Anything else you could think of?"
"Weeell~, there's still that medical license I never did get after my parents threw me out. I've kind of lost sight of it, but it would be nice to be a certified doctor, just in case we need someone on base- even with the machines, a human~ touch~ can do a lot, you know?"
"You do know you don't need to speak like that with us, do you?" You ask, more bemused than anything. You know full well Ethan isn't like this all the time, but he does like to play up the part of the hyper-effeminate gay guy.
"Oh, but where's the fun in that?" He grins at you.
"Hey, you do you. And sure, we can have someone look into that, I doubt you'll have trouble. How about you, Henley?"
The bald accountant that lucked into a power and practically never uses it while working for you adjusts his glasses. "I'm married to my work, so no propositions from me, I'm afraid."
You just roll your eyes and wave for him to continue, the entrance to the Palanquin already coming into sight.
"If you do insist," he sighs, "we could use a new coffee machine in the break room. We could just buy a new one, but someone keeps on getting something stuck inside them that makes all coffee taste sweet all the time. It has to be one of the new hires, but it doesn't really matter who it is when we need some way to prevent this issue from happening in the first place."
"Oooh~ Henley, if you'd just said something earlier, I could've... helped you out, I do know a thing or two about a good coffee..."
Ignoring Ethan, Henley shrugs. "I don't really care about how to do it, honestly. I just want my damn twelve daily coffees just how they're supposed to be. Only other thing I can think of would be going out to watch a comedy show live, but I've got a salary and access to the teleporters for that."
"Mhm, gotcha," you say, looking at Ethan. "Would it be a huge issue?"
"Not at all, just get a few coffee machines and I can have them pre-loaded so nobody gets any funny business stuck in them."
Good enough for your purposes, you suppose. Now then, time to walk right past the queue and get into that club.
Getting into the Palanquin is perfectly easy enough, thanks to all three of you simply walking right along like nothing was wrong with skipping the line (which, to be fair, there isn't) and Ethan flirting with the bouncers until they're distinctly uncomfortable enough to just wave you through.
Once inside, it takes you only a few seconds to sound out the situation and split up with a few nods, silently determining who goes where. Henley makes a beeline straight for the bar, taking a seat and raising a hand to order something to drink. And funnily enough, a woman almost immediately takes the seat next to him, beginning to flirt.
Ethan, on the other hand, goes off for the dance floor, seeking out the biggest and burliest man he can find to challenge him to an arm wrestling match. "If I beat you, I'm getting a date, big boy!"
Making good use of his enhanced strength, of course.
You, meanwhile, make off to dance yourself, popping your shirt's collar like you used to back in the day. As per usual, all nearby females get that look in their eyes, beginning to circle you like, say, vultures, or perhaps piranhas. So as you continue to undulate and move in rhythm with the music, some bass-heavy electro stuff, more than a few club chicks in requisite clothing come in close and all but molest you- not that you don't return the favor as thoroughly as you can.
So there you are, both hands in a woman's short shorts and masturbating them while you continue to dance, while Ethan spots one guy in particular coming stomping into your direction all over the dance floor. Being the incredible guy he is, he immediately takes his new... boyfriend? Boytoy? His new buddy he's been flirting with and blocks him off.
You don't know what he says, but it works, a blanching macho man backing off with both hands raised.
This scene repeats a few more times, and you all but have actual sex right there out in the open, but you're mindful of the posters telling you not to do that. If Faultline wants to be a prude about it, that's her prerogative, after all.
As you continue to dance and get handsy with the horny women all around you, you soon realize that one in particular is keeping an eye on you, but also staying well away from where you are, eyes darting around the room to glance at both Henley, who is busy with now two busty women leaning onto him from both sides as they all sit at the bar and Ethan who is taking a break while he talks his guy around.
Whelp, someone is just discovering they may just be bisexual or something, if you had to guess.
Back to your mysterious little observer, she's a young woman, on the shorter side and pretty slim, with black hair and a streak of violet-red running through it. Looking at her circulatory system, she seems to be in average health from what little you can make out like this, though her pulse is slowly accelerating.
You find her eyes with your own, giving her a lopsided smirk. A flash of panic runs through her, but she doesn't bolt, at least.
Now she's just begging to be chased like a small animal, with how she's behaving like one. But first, while you have her gaze already...
Daddy catches her/Dying without having achieved anything/A void in the world, no thoughts or emotions chasing her down
Cute. So the context you get through this power is limited, but by what you can tell, she's running away from her family, with some significant fear her father in particular might get his hands on her, and she's somehow driven into doing something significant. Not doing so, on the other hand, has her absolutely terrified.
Oh, and she's afraid of you. Because for some reason, she's an empath and you don't show up on her empathic senses. Obvious parahuman power is obvious.
Patting a particular woman's nearly naked butt as you pass, you decidedly steer yourself into her direction, your gait now resembling that of a predator stalking its prey.
The girl looks around, now panicked and in a hurry, and starts to walk away. Not running, just moving quickly in a way that's much less obvious.
What she doesn't seem to know is that you can literally see her heart pumping no matter where she goes, and now that you've got a target, you won't lose her easily.
The mass of people you started out in is an issue, but soon enough you're free of the dance floor, keeping an eye on your prey's movement and following her footsteps. Around the corner here, through the door over there...
Ah, there you go. One unconscious guy in a uniform you see off to the side explains how she got the back door open; you don't exactly trust the bottles of tequila she left behind along with a patch of alcohol on his clothes in the least considering you literally saw her fiddle around right around this spot earlier.
Mentioning to Ethan and Henley that you're off to do a thing really quickly via thought connection, you shove the door open and close it behind yourself again, sniffing the air a bit.
Hey, you're getting into this thing, may as well have fun with it.
Catching her scent over the smell of old cigarettes and neglected cityscape, you dart off, soundlessly jumping from place to place using a mix of levitation and spiderclimb. At the speed you're moving and with your ability to see and avoid anyone else than your target, both of you deliberately keeping away from any bystanders still lingering at this hour, it doesn't take you long at all to find her again.
Breathing deeply, she finishes changing her clothes, having run all the way to some kind of backup point she prepared with a backpack full of clothing. A jacket over the rest of her stuff, a cap to wear on top and she looks entirely different from how she did in the club beforehand.
Just too bad she never had a chance in the first place. "Hey there," say as you drop from the roof, coming to a stand on the wall just above her head and freaking her the fuck out, "fancy meeting you out here."
"Gkh!" Choking on her own saliva, she coughs a little as she turns aroudn and backpedals hastily. "What- You're Cain, right?"
You follow after her, sedately walking down the wall until you right yourself and stand on even ground again. "Oh? What gave it away?"
She looks conflicted, but still balls her hands into fists while backing away. "Only one male cape in town that might not even show up for my power."
"An educated guess, then," you smirk at her with a tilt of your head. "And your power is some sort of emotional manipulation one, right?"
She visibly twitches, but nods. "What about it?"
"Well, just saying, but those people coming this way better not be having a particular reason to," you say, the girl's back hitting the wall of the alley you found her in meaning you can put a hand onto it and loom over her wonderfully. "Wouldn't want there to be any... accidents, would we?"
Glaring up at you, she grinds her teeth, but still does what you want, the blood signatures you vaguely felt in the area not coming any closer anymore. "Well if you are gonna corner me like this, I may as well piss on your shoes afterwards anyways, right?"
Oh, how cute. "Aww, you think I'm trying to harm you."
Hey Sarah, guess what's happening again?
I swear to you, Gabe, this is just not normal.
At least we're in agreement that I count as a deity to swear upon, you mirthfully think at Sarah before giving her a quick rundown of what happened so far, just to get her up-to-date about what you're currently doing,
Outwardly, and with your sister getting a real-time transmission of everything happening around you, you smile at the girl you've cornered. "Really, hurting you is the last thing on my mind... unless you want we to."
Gazing deep into her suddenly shocked and wide-open eyes, you capture her lips with your own, hungrily devouring her mouth and tasting every bit of it you can.
She, for her part, wraps both arms around your shoulders, enthusiastically returning the gesture. Making out in a random dark alleyway isn't anything new for you, truth be told, but you do enjoy the opportunity all the same- especially given the fact you don't need to pretend to be unpowered.
So she gets the full Cain treatment, your lengthened tongue wrapping around hers and licking her teeth. When you release her, it is mostly because she forgets to breathe after a point, a couple of deep gasps shaking her body as she looks up at you.
Not phased in the slightest yourself, you grin down at her, both thumbs hooking into her shorts and just waggling against the cool skin hidden underneath them. "So, not to toot my own horn too much, but the Crypts do have some fantastic employee benefits..."
Breathlessly, your current 'victim' chuckles a little, slowly devolving into full-blown laughter with both hands shooting up to hide her face. "Did you, haha, did you really mean to pull a recruitment offer right now?"
Pulling her against you by the shorts, you kiss her forehead. "What if I am? You're still getting laid one way or the other, but I thought I'd put it out there."
"Alright, lay it on me big guy." Fiddling with the buttons of your white shirt, she glances up at your face. "What do the Crypts got that I couldn't get elsewhere?"
"Full dental and in-house health insurance, plus never really having to do anything unless you actually want to." Slooowly nudging the black cloth down her hips to get at where you want to go, you make a point to show off your vampiric musculature apparently formed specifically to be attractive. "Bunch of side benefits, too. Ever wanted to have half a dozen extra powers on top of what you already got?"
"I was convinced at this bod already." Her hands sliding over your chest, she looks up at you. "Name's Cherish, in case you were curious."
"You know already, but I'm Cain," you reply. "Nice to meet you."
Cherish opens up her shorts' button, the constant pressure you've been applying immediately pushing them down to her thighs and revealing her smooth mound, as she isn't actually wearing any underwear whatsoever. "Same here."
It takes you about half a second to get your dick out, erect as always and straining against the air. You can't wait to fuck this chick stupid.
"An absolute pleasure~!" She moans at the sight of your cock, reaching down to squeeze it in her hand. Breathing shallowly, she looks at you. "Can we-?!"
You interrupt her by grabbing her ass, fingers digging into its soft flesh as you lift her up, resuming kissing her as you drag her up to your height. "Always," you answer.
You drop her onto your cock, spearing her between her outstretched legs in one smooth motion, and her lusty scream drills through the night air just like that. "Ahh, yeah! So big! I'm feeling so full!"
"You ain't seen nothing yet," you growl- and start fucking her just like that. For anyone without enhanced strength, casually lifting her up and down bodily like this would be nigh impossible, but your enhancements are pretty excessive for the task at hand, honestly.
Cherish hugs you again, wiggling her legs until her shorts fall to the ground so she can wrap them around your waist in turn. "Ungh! Yeah, fuck me hard!"
Well, looks like you've found someone that you can keep happy rather easily, for a change. Feeling her tight body around your cock, you do exactly as she asks of you, pumping her up and down with all your power and soon driving her into a screaming orgasm, once again expounded upon in a shrill, wordless shout.
And another. And one more, for good measure, before you allow yourself to get close in turn. Cherish is reduced to kind of just hanging around you by this point, never having gotten a single moment to rest, and barely reacts when you tell her you're coming.
Your spooge shoots into her in great pulses, slowly dripping from her pussy in small drops to meet the dirtied asphalt of the dinghy alley you're in. Just staying like that for a long moment, Cherish breathing hard and deep and looking at you with at least some amount of infatuation in her eyes, you give her butt one last squeeze. "Hey, you done for tonight? Power lets me just keep going forever, but there's not much point if you just black out halfway through."
Suddenly, there's sparkles in her eyes...
Grinning up at the unexpected hunk that'd fucking literally come out of nowhere to whisk her off her feet and onto his big fat cock, Cherie Vasil, or Cherish as she decided her cape name should be, thought over what he'd told her.
He literally never flopped out? She already knew what she wanted, then. "Hey, what's your opinion about anal?"
Normally, she'd just reach into his song and make him horny about the idea, because men were like that, but since her power didn't really work on him as far as she knew (she'd tried despite not hearing his song, but he didn't even seem to notice), so she actually had to, ugh, ask.
Cain's response was to pull his dick out of her by lifting her up again, its fat head drawing all across her insides and letting a small deluge of seed flow out of her once it didn't stopper her pussy anymore- he really did come a bunch, didn't he- and turn her around.
"Guess," he growled in that voice that made the hairs on her neck stand up in that sweet, sweet way, and she could feel his hot, slimy cock poking between her buttcheeks.
She didn't resist, relaxing like she knew was best for this, and it easily parted her asshole around itself. Cherie moaned, not willing to hold herself back with nobody around anyways, and the strong arms holding her up pulled her closer to fuck her little asshole harder.
She loved this, being assfucked and held. Normally, anyone she did this with was still under her control, and the new experience of being at Cain's mercy was... pretty cool, actually.
Surrendering to his treatment, she settled in for a good time, her legs swaying in the air while she basically sat on his hands. Moving the muscles to squeeze on him and make herself feel even better at the same time. "Gooood."
"That's one thing I'm called sometimes," her stud joked from behind her, completely composed as he drilled his cock into her backdoor.Which was just unfair.
"Hey, can you... Can you keep on going when I drop? I wanna feel what it's like to just keep on being used like this," she asked. If Cherie was going to use him as protection against daddy, she needed to make sure he'd be loyal to her... and if her power didn't work, her ass would have to.
That and she wanted to try it out.
"If you want to be sore and unable to move for half a day, be my guest," Cain snorted, adjusting his grip and nearly folding her in half, her thighs now up against her stomach.
Doing all that fucking yoga ruled.
Strong hips meeting her firm ass again, because Cherie had a great fucking ass, too, she slung her arms backwards, her head twisting to make out some more. She wasn't looking right then, but she was sure if she did, she would see an honest to god bulge in her belly just from how deep and hard she was getting fucked.
Cain had to be, what, twice her size? It sure felt like that, anyway. She had to spread her legs wide just to let him fit, but fit he did. Fuuuuck, he was fitting well into her insides.
"I hope you're prepared, Cherish," he growled at her, "because you asked for it."
A quick tilt, and she was bracing herself against the wall with both hands now. "And I'm making sure you get it." His pace increased, going from brisk to absolutely rapid as Cain fucked her against the wall like a machine, still holding her up like before and his big balls slapping against her poor little pussy.
"I'll fuck your ass raw and then some, and if you still want any when you recover I'm always ready." And true to his words, he just kept on going, even when she came from how hard he was using her ass.
Cherie Vasil grinned. This was going to be the best mistake of her life, she could already feel it.
Teleporters do, in fact, make everything easier. Bringing Cherish down to the bunker, you get her situated right on your bed, never stopping hammering her ass.
What? She's got a very nice ass.
"Okay, so let me get this straight," Sarah says as she comes to join you, naked as a matter of course and soon groping Cherish's breasts from the front. "You just found her in the middle of the club, chased her down when she ran away and now she's all up for working for us?"
"I think so? At least she didn't say no when I made the offer, you know she didn't," you reply.
"... Sex is not the solution to all problems!"
"It is, much like violence. It's just a matter of applying them correctly."
She sighs, looking at Cherish's face again. "Anyways, just leave her here, I'll take care of the rest once she wakes up."
"She did request I keep fucking her ass while she sleeps..." You trail off, tilting your head at Sarah while you keep on going.
"Too bad for her, it's me time now," she just grumps, prompting you to pat her head. "Just go get cleaned up and we can go at it."
Time to go shadow and back real quick!
The CCTS technology, that semi-miraculous glorified information transmission system using, as far as you can tell, a mix of lasers, radio waves and quantum transmission to do its job. Or, as Yoshi called it, it is 'an unholy mess against all proper science'.
Which, hey, you didn't say it, but you aren't disagreeing.
Still, to actually do all of this, it requires a fuckton of dust, accursed material that it is, and massive towers to effectively use its main functions with any efficiency. Now, you don't exactly take these problems and solve them, so much as you steal a bunch of ideas and shove them into a single overall device, or rather add-on construction to your already existing teleporters.
But hey, if it works, it works. You have no idea how likely it is the resulting frequencies of... well, everything, would be caught by whatever monitoring equipment or maybe Thinker powers are around, but if you need to teleport all over the nation, you can do it now. Progress!
Emily is, to exactly nobody's great surprise, very much peeved at you for the way you just spontaneously develop aerial tag as an art form as you play against her in her owl form, but in your defence, it's not like you were planning to accidentally throw her around the way you did!
"I demand you kiss it better," she says as she peels her shirt upwards, pointing at the side of her chest where you can just barely make out a bra.
"You do remember we've both got aura?" You ask, bemusedly and still coming closer anyway.
"Doesn't matter!" Emily blushes, looking away as you stroke her side. Really, it's not your fault you sleep around when everyone around you is just being so cute.
And if you proceed to playfully nibble a little, well, who can tell?
When Cherie Vasil next awoke, it was to the feeling of lying inside a soft bed, as in one of those really soft and high-quality ones, as well as to her ass being absolutely split open.
It didn't hurt as bad as she'd been expecting, though, which was a plus. Her asshole still did hurt a lot, in other words, but at least she wasn't wishing for death at the moment.
Next to her, she could hear the sound of someone typing on a keyboard even though there wasn't any music, so against her better judgement, she slowly opened her crusty eyes to look over at Cain.
Except it wasn't Cain, it was some blonde girl sitting on the bed, completely naked and with a laptop on her lap. "Cherie Vasil, born to Nikos Vasil and one of his random and uninteresting fuckpets," she said, not bothering to look at her. "Cape name Cherish, emotion manipulator and sensor. Ran from home a decent while after Jean-Paul Vasil, cape name Hijack, did and your father's guard relaxed. Kept moving and jumping from one city to another on the way south in search of a way to protect yourself from your father and siblings until you heard rumours of the Lord Street Crypts. Everything correct so far?"
"How-"
"Thinker powers. And your missing brother actually staying with us, I just asked him." Cherie pushed herself up. Jean-Paul was here?!
"Relax, you can meet up with him later. And figure things out between yourselves in a way that doesn't need me to throw any mangled bodies into the trash, are we clear?"
Cherie swallowed, nodding wordlessly. The girl was obviously very much determined to make good on her words, and until she found a way around the power immunity she and Cain seemed to share, she-
"Oh, also, don't bother trying. It won't work. Before you ask, I'm psychic, I know your every thought, yadda yadda yadda." She turned around, showing Cherie her beautiful face framed with golden locks. "Now, let's talk about the many, many reasons why seducing my brother to twist him around your little finger won't ever work and what you'll do instead."
Shit, this was bad. Cherie needed to distract her. "The Slaughterhouse Nine are in town!"
"... How would you even know that? I know you're not lying or at least believe what you're saying, but..." The girl sighed.
"I was following them once I realized where they were going?" Cherie tried.
"Goddammit, you were actually thinking about joining them? The fuck is even wrong with you, they kill their own members just as often as they murder capes!"
"Look, I had limited options I had to work with, okay?!"
"... and so that's how I found out the Slaughterhouse Nine are in Brockton Bay right now," Sarah finishes recounting what happened while you were off playing aerial tag. "We should probably deal with that before it becomes a problem."
You, however, are already busy thinking through everything you know. "If the S9 are around, why don't we know about it?" It is a pretty big inconsistency with what you know. "They usually either announce themselves a few days into their stay inside any given city or stay under the radar while murdering capes left and right, but I'm pretty sure we would've noticed that, at least."
"Best bet, they're gearing up for something big," Sarah shrugs. "Two of their members are tinkers, at least. I do agree it's weird they'd try to target Brockton Bay, though- they usually hit smaller towns with fewer capes around less danger of them being overwhelmed."
You both simultaneously look at Cherish, or Cherie, as you now know she's named, who is sitting off to the side to let her butt recover. Naked, of course. "I, uh- Some of them were super angry whenever one of those streams of yours were on? I'm pretty sure one of them was Mannequin, but it's hard to differentiate them without meeting them at least once. Tracking them was easy because they were all abnormal in some way, but..."
Eh, not everyone can be as perfect as yourself or Sarah. "Alright, not that surprising after the cancer cure. Still, what are they doing?"
"Actually, thought. Shatterbird might be a problem, do the turrets have silicone in them?" That's Sarah for you, asking the important questions in life.
"They do, but more importantly, so do the teleporters," you instantly say, knowing very well how the things are made. "Which means things might just get... dicey, if they know where we are. Okay, the murderhobos are all very much problematic, time to figure out a plan."