When you reappear, you do it as you usually do, without any fanfare nor fancy flashes of light or the like. Everyone lands on their feet and, with a general mild level of grumbling, picks up the clothes dropped all around to put them on again.
If there's one thing to be said about having a secret bond villain base, it is just how unlikely it is for anyone to interrupt you unless there's anything big or important going on that you actually need to deal with. However, in local time, you literally just went and murdered the entirety of the Slaughterhouse Nine yesterday, a significant accomplishment that has led to no small amounts of revelry around town- long story short, mostly anyone local to Brockton Bay is currently preoccupied with either a hangover or else sufficiently cowed by the Crypts' might to be a problem.
So instead, all you have to deal with is explaining the many cool new functions your telepathic bond with everyone involved, quickly setting up a few viewing permissions and what the fuck how much memory-footage is on that Gabeislife site?
... On second thought, nevermind. You'll just ignore this entire thing.
A few quick checkups to ensure everything is on track reveal that yes, both Bonesaw, or Riley now, and Burnscar slash Mimi are still stable and not currently a public health hazard requiring the use of your Vita Pod.
Good, good. Everything is more or less stable, right now. Though it looks like some of the girls picked up someone wandering around your secret bond base without supervision- as in, someone not actually intended to be in here. Turning to Okita, you ask her the one operative question.
"Hey, anyone know anything about a cape named Parian and why she's down here?"
"Mhm," she nods, but doesn't explain any further.
... Alright, you guess.
Now then, before you go on with your day, you do have a few things you want to get done on a more organizational level, and thanks to a good moment you can catch inside your inner world, sped up to frankly insane speed for a few minutes, you can get right on those.
One interesting little factoid, the systems inside your soul palace thingy, inside the library and the lab and a few outlying terminals with access to them you know to be sitting in some places, can actually access some of the , both accessing and giving access to things either in a less directly interactive manner or giving the full experience through the little chairs with a head cap installed that can do so.
Simply put, you can actually do stuff like this. Hence your first action once you realized as much back when telepathy became more than the equivalent of infinite phone calls was forbidding any of your souls to actually write anything into it without your supervision or orders to do so (no way will you let any of these punks insert their trash memories all over the place, the real internet is already bad enough).
And now, now you're taking a bit to sit down and dictate to Yoshi what he is to put together to create a hopefully complete and easily adjustable complete repository of all information and recipes relating to the topic of alchemy as you know about it.
Considering the possibility (and, indeed, likelihood) of others taking a shot at alchemy, as Alice has already begun making inquiries about having her powers changed to get access to it, having a centralized and decently frequently list of everything possible with this power should come in handy. Pretty much everything, aside from transmutating materials around, is more a matter of knowledge and simple execution than skill or supernatural power, so pretty much all recipes can simply be looked up and exchanged easily enough between users of this power.
Though that, of course, is not all you're doing. Certain considerations mean you need to continually keep on updating your tech- something you do not freely share on an open thought board- and so you'd better get right on it.
Message to Crystal to invite her out- sent. Quick update to the manufactories and a set of instructions on how to upgrade them to be able to manufacture Lutece Particles (it does require particle colliders and all)- prepared and left lying around where someone will find them. Resource undead- got some orichalcum and adamantite you smuggled with you inside your shadow stuck inside them and can now start producing.
It's always kind of a lot of stuff to do when you come back home, but you shall simply get it all done and over with so you can get back to lounging around and fucking around again.
Another part of that is calling for a meeting in the evening, as there is kind of a lot of stuff to talk about. The information you gained through that one reincarnated soul recalling having read about some version of Earth Bet from Taylor's perspective but then never going beyond the first couple of chapters needs to be discussed and acted on as appropriate, after all.
If you end up acting based on it at all, anyway.
Next up, the Parian situation. Last you know she was in the base's cafeteria, being brought there to get something to eat and hopefully calm her down a bit, so you'd best get over there and have a talk with her. How that talk will turn out, you'll just have to see, you suppose.
You come in dressed in what may pass as 'business casual' on another man, the only kind of business clothing you're liable to wear outside of your proper 'costume' just because you happen to like having clear-cut categories of clothing to fall back on. It's an old habit from when you had to make do with three sets of clothes, before you figured out a regular, mild cash flow for 'helping out around the house' in the area you lived in in your youth.
And yes, you know it's just some stupid old habit. Doesn't stop you from looking good whenever you want to, though, and that's all that really counts, in the end.
So you stroll right in, face turned into the shadow you usually keep it as in place of a mask, and for one you don't immediately capture the room's attention- the gang members nearby notice you, but you're a common enough sight nobody is making any big hubbub about your presence.
Though the sweets fairy inside your inner world immediately begins complaining about having to hide all of her bodies inside the kitchen on Ethan's orders, the man having ordered them to keep out of sight until any outsiders to the gang are gone.
Knowing him, he's probably also feeding them with a couple of muffins or something, though it isn't like you would've listened in the first place. You have no idea what part of your subconscious these particular fairies take their attitude from, but you sincerely doubt it really is a part of you sometimes.
Anyway, the cape dressed in casual clothes and wearing a domino mask someone had to have gotten for her is sitting at one of the tables, quietly eating and looking around uncomfortably. Coming up behind her, you promptly take a seat at her side, surprising her first at someone coming to sit- and then at your identity, your 'mask' serving to distinguish yourself even like this.
"Hey there, come here often?" You joke to lighten the mood.
Parian chokes on the muffin she was eating. Ethan does do some good chocolate chip muffins, as you know from experience.
Giving her a moment to finish clearing out her airway, you grab one of the muffins on her tray for yourself; judging by the sheer number of the things you're seeing around the room, you'd wager a guess that Ethan decided it's muffin day today and he's just baking them by the dozens since six o'clock or something.
It's what he would do, you think.
Regardless you take a couple bites as Parian coughs a few times, judging her to be done by the time you next speak up. "So you still do have my number, yes? If something like with the Nine happens, I'd at least send someone over to help you out, just so you know."
Parian clears her throat, finally regaining the ability to speak. "When Hatchet Face just suddenly showed up, I didn't exactly think about that, okay? So, uhm... This is the Crypts?"
The question is particularly vague, but you grasp her meaning still. "Yeah, this is our base. That Okita took you to when she decided to sleep with you, she already told me about all the details."
The cape sitting next to you squeaks in embarrassment.
"Oh, don't worry, she's just like that. You must've seen some of it when you met her, at least." The sword-waving vampire you're talking about is many things, but she's certainly not subtle about her idiosyncrasies. "You had fun at least?"
Parian nods, slowly. "Can we just, not talk about this?"
"Suit yourself," you shrug in response. "On to more important topics then, I guess. As I said, the offer to help you out if you need it is still open, and if you ever want to join the Crypts you're more than welcome to- it's not like we really have many compulsory events going on and it's nothing anyone's going to stress out over one way or another."
"Yeah, I figured. This place isn't exactly small and... Where exactly is this place?"
"Now that would be telling," you grin into your shadow. "This still is an at least technically secret supervillain lair, mind you. Speaking of which..."
"Me being here," Parian follows your meaning. "I'm-"
"Oh, no need to worry about it too much- you teleported in with Okita, right?" You did take a moment to go read through the logs, so this isn't really much of a guess. "I do expect you to keep quiet about this place and the fact we have a teleporter, but as long as I do't need to worry about that, you don't have to worry about me, either."
"I understand," she says, looking you straight in the face- a little under your eyes, but it isn't like she could actually see them. "I'm really grateful Okita saved me and I would never betray that by letting anyone know anything I learned here. She isn't going to get into trouble, is she?"
"Hm? Oh no, I actually expect this kind of thing from her," you wave her off. "She's actually been surprisingly well-behaved and caused very little collateral damage to date, so I'm not going to make a problem out of her taking a pretty girl back home."
Just then, you hear a sudden rumbling or explosion echoing from another part of the base, audible even for normal human ears.
"Ignore that. It never happened."
"... If you're sure... Oh, can I eat up before you let me leave?" Holding up her plate, Parian presents a stack of pancakes for you. "This might be the closest to paradise I've ever been."
You take a moment to observe her eye movement, glancing at the various exceedingly fit and very casually dressed women frequenting the cafeteria, Kumi and Beverly just leaving carrying a bunch of food (presumably for the other four part of their group).
"You should see my section of the base," you remark faux-idly. "It's a no-clothing-zone and much closer to it than this."
Parian blushes. Again. "I don't believe you."
"I'd show you, but we'd need to get naked beforehand and I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be with you ogling my personal harem of nubile young women."
"Oh, shut up." It seems she is comfortable with you by this point. Yay.
Okita watched the screen, scrolling back a few seconds to listen to a particular part again. The internet was really great for things like this.
Her memory was there to remember things. The internet had a lot of interesting stuff on science and physics. Thus, to let her memory do what it was supposed to, she'd decided to watch at least one hour of science stuff a day.
Right now, though, she was busy thinking about a thing. "Motion," she repeated, "no absolute motion..."
Everything was always moving, but inertial reference frames were a good way to explain why things were staying in relative place anyway.
"... Only relative motion." She wondered if she couldn't use that somehow...
Taking up her nearest sword, Okita tried testing it out, swinging it fast enough to... To negate the earth's motion. Yes.
Next thing she knew, Okita was two walls off from where she was supposed to be, having broken through everything in the way. She looked down at the toilet bowl still half where it was supposed to be.
"Huh. It worked." That was nice.
Parian is teleported to a nice, relatively isolated area near the boardwalk by the end of things, reasonably capable of taking care of herself and finding orientation to get wherever she needs to be from there.
You never really intended to use your secret base as a place to, y'know, house guests you don't intend to either keep inside it permanently or that are part of your organization in some way, but as it turns out, despite the incredibly lacking levels of security in regards to Crypt secrets enforced within your base your people actually managed to avoid giving away too many things, after all.
As opposed to outside the base, of course, where you do make a point to keep things you want kept quiet quiet. Jokes on the nature of secrets taken to the grave notwithstanding, you don't have to get into the dad jokes quite yet.
A stance to reconsider once your kids are born, perhaps. Also, as you are kind of the one guy responsible for this kind of thing, you're using a few quickly constructed Mister Handys, the upgraded version you use these days anyway, to fix up the massive damage that nearly triggered a base-wide lockdown when Okita... did a thing, apparently.
She just said something about inertial reference frames, but how the theoretical physics of why things don't just fly away whenever not touching the planet they're on relate to her playing wrecking ball you have absolutely no idea.
Anyway, next off, you're busy building up your local potion brewery, using your semblance minions specialized in this kind of thing to add yet another wing to the workshop area all of your tinkers and associated personnel (aka Lea) are usually hanging out in.
And yes, Alice did come over to bug you about getting access to vampiric alchemy and sharing the space used for production and research related to the same straight away, being a thrall as opposed to a vampire you wouldn't be able to change around like that. Cupcake, for her part, seems content to just regularly send you a message asking about the topic ever since she found out about this whole thing, often containing just the thought 'please please please' for a minute or two straight.
Meanwhile, Sherrel and Lea are just kind of pouting at not having any direct access to this new area of bullshit as of yet. You suspect it may just be an occupational hazard at this point.
Once you're done (with part of what you need to do to finish up on a completely alchemy lab, at least), you soon head off to the usual meeting room for situations like this, the time you specified for a quick get-together between the 'department heads' of the Crypts quickly approaching.
And yes, you may or may not have had to drag Cupcake away from brewing herself a potion to enhance her physical strength by a considerable amount by literally picking her up and slinging her over your shoulder. Alice, at least, had the good sense to just wish her luck while mentally browsing and adding her own semi-random notation to the telepathic repository on alchemy.
And yes, you added a part exactly for that, because you damn well knew people would want to do this. There's a surprising amount of design that goes into purely mental constructs, when you get down to it.
So there you are, Taking a seat and checking over the usual refreshment table with a quick glance. Apple juice, orange juice, both mineral and normal water, donuts, some of all of those muffins (thanks Ethan) and a freely accessible coffee machine.
Good. Everything's there. One may be forgiven for thinking it gratuitous of an immortal creature that needs no normal food to put so much emphasis on this, but you firmly believe that it's the small workplace perks that keep your employees happy and on track. That means you can and will go the extra mile and make sure that damn refreshments table is stocked whenever you're having a meeting.
And, of course, that Aisha hasn't sneaked in to snack on it before a given meeting. Afterwards, all of this stuff is free game, but you want it filled right the fuck up whenever you get things started.
That said, enough about the stupid snacks. Around you are pretty everyone with executive power within the Lord Street Crypts; Kate, Sarah, Henley, Cupcake and Lea in place of Sherrel are sitting around your round table with you, settling in and awaiting the incredibly urgent reason for this meeting.
Too bad for them, this is mostly a session meant to let everyone important know about a few key points.
"Hello everyone, glad you could all make it on short notice," you begin with your business smile firmly in place. "Except for Sherrel, she had a sudden task to take care of, as I understand it, hence Lea being in her place today."
"By which you mean she decided to put a second truck into the transformer spider truck, yes," said woman grumbles. "Tinkers, you know how it is."
"Be that as it may, we are here mostly so we can talk a few things out in person. First off, the Slaughterhouse Nine have been disposed of, with the exception of two of their number we have recruited instead. If anyone sights Burnscar and Bonesaw, though we may need to figure out new cape names for them at some point. More importantly, I once again took a trip to another dimension and came back within moments of relative time and if anyone would like a complete summary of everything relevant, I have put a complete list of everything new and interesting up on the thoughtnet... Which is also something I created while I was gone, as you can see."
Everyone simultaneously receives a mental package with the exact name they need to look for to get at said list.
"I will let everyone that feels the need to go over this at their own time, but to cut to the chase, one, we now have access to weird magical metamaterials I have already begun replicating with the animated regenerating masses of flesh we have for this purpose and I have managed to find the soul of a guy that seems to have been reincarnated after reading a few chapters of a story about a certain Earth Bet.
It is annoyingly incomplete, as he died in a car accident shortly after he stopped reading because the story was kind of bad, but there's a few interesting details to be taken from what he did read. Also, he does recall some about the fandom, but most of it concerns some weird space whales and conspiracy theories, as well as a possible attack by Leviathan on the East Coast sometime this month. Any questions?"
Henley, slowly and almost lazily, takes off his glasses, rubbing his forehead and giving off a demonstrative sigh. "Can we... Actually talk about most of this? Because I believe there are... concerns to be had."
"Not to worry," you reply with a winning smile, "I've already checked and the base is waterproof."
In the end you actually do have to sit through a whole planning session and oversee discussion of various measures to be taken just in case, with Henley and Lea leading while Cupcake and Kate are mostly keeping to the background, having little interest in this topic beyond the possible use of superior firepower and drugs in a fight against an Endbringer.
Sarah, for her part, is decidedly for taking a few simple precautions against Leviathan in particular. In her words, when doing so is practical, there's no reason not to be sure either way.
Common sense, of course. Something you immediately agree to.
What it all comes down to is that while you originally meant it as a joke, Henley will be making sure any actually important documents he handles shall henceforth be laminated just in case of flooding, while Lea will be going over any electronics throughout the adjusted Endbringer shelter you took over, making sure things will continue to work in case of flooding.
If Brockton Bay is actually attacked, you will be prepared.
Part of that is also the evacuation plan you had to come up with. Using the base's teleporter, it is entirely possible to just displace all personnel inside elsewhere, the big question being how and where in this case.
Simply put, should your headquarters come under attack by an Endbringer (or comparable entity or fighting force, for that matter) and hold no true chance of holding back whatever is attacking, new protocol is to await emergency teleportation through a few sets of scanners letting the teleporter identify all your people just in case not everyone is keeping their phone on them.
The destination is variable, of course, but you do have a few backup bases and safehouses throughout the city, as well as one reasonably secure site up in Boston. Considerations of actually opening up a secondary bunker somewhere further inland are also now being made, but Henley said he'd get back to you on that eventually once a decent location has been found and the funds allocated from somewhere.
In other words, you don't currently have the budget and manpower to take care of this, but he'll look into squeezing something from elsewhere to make it work. At least everyone remembered your suggestion from way back when, you suppose.
Now then, it is Sunday, and for all that it's been what feels like years, relatively speaking (yes, you know it was about a month, shut up), you do genuinely enjoy getting back to doing your little streams, just putting on a mild show and doing some art.
It's almost sadly hard to get the time to sit down and draw outside of these moments sometimes. So there you go, putting on your very tight muscle shirt and your shadowed face, sitting down to get things started.
"Hello everyone, and welcome to Painting with Cain," you greet the camera, enjoying the minor fame you've achieved as a guy streaming art and drawing. It's not what you would've seen yourself doing when you were a kid, but it's sure up there in ways you would be happy to live if not for, y'know, all the stuff happening. "You wouldn't believe how much I've been looking forward to today. Now then, the poll already has everything you need, so why don't we go ahead and start off with what I have prepared for our first picture today?"
"The first object to start things off today," you say as you bring out a few paints and adjust the canvas you brought along just for this, "is something I've been waiting to do for a while now. After all, for a streaming channel calling itself Painting with Cain, there is very little actual painting going on here usually. So to start, we'll be taking a small step to rectify this, by making use of the properties of watercolors."
And there you go, popping open the elementary school case containing everything a kid may need to express their creativity. Well, aside from colored pencils, anyway. "That's right, we'll be going back to the basics today before I let you viewers take control of what we do. Now pay attention to what I do, and more importantly, what I don't do."
And there you go, holding a half-lecture on the use of aqueous colors and the differences between 'professional' paint (which you also use to let the viewers compare) and what one might see with a complete beginner, as well as how to make use of deliberately diluted colors to gain access to more shades to work with.
"As you can see, most of the picture uses only three colors for the most part- four if you count the yellow for the street lights- and yet it doesn't look quite as monotonous as this would suggest. And, of course, the smudging; there's no such thing as actual mistakes in art, you just have to be creative enough to somehow make use of the things you didn't intend in the beginning. Or did, in this case, but I do have a bit of experience with doing this, to be fair."
Naturally, the scenery you are painting attracts notice, too, and as a few comments have questioned it, you finally find yourself replying properly, too. "No, guys, this is just a nameless city completely made up for the purpose of painting it. It isn't a depiction of a real place and it certainly doesn't have anything to do with the Slaughterhouse Nine- or was it Slaughterhouse None now?" You ask, remembering seeing a discussion on the topic earlier at the beginning of the stream- it just seems to be the only thing the audience can talk about right now, you think, though you've kept from responding to any questions on the matter so far.
"Seriously, not everything is some grand conspiracy or secret message or whatever. Don't believe anyone telling you otherwise, either. Art may stimulate fantasy and cause emotions, but in the vast majority of cases, it's still just that: Art." Chuckling, you continue your last sentence a little softer. "And this is just what it looks like. A picture. Nothing more and nothing less."
That doesn't stop the comments from wildly speculating whether the dead members of the Slaughterhouse Nine may be hidden as one of the figures somewhere, but hey, that's on the people that make them. You've said your piece, everything else is on them themselves.
"Next off, let's see what you have for me, shall we?" You ask, pretending to be doing something on a screen to the side of the camera; you do have one there, of course, but you can see the poll just fine as is anyway, right next to the comment section scrolling by. It's really just a matter of making it look right, turning things into a show.
Which you do, as always. That's ultimately what this is all about, after all, and you do take this kind of thing seriously.
"Oh, it seems the 'adorable animals series' is getting another entry," you remark bemusedly, already thinking about how to interpret the picture prompt. 'More little owls' doesn't really narrow it down by itself.
What comes to mind when you consider the words? Young owl chicks. Hatching from an egg? Learning to fly?
... You have a theme here. At the edge of your mind, on the tip of your tongue- You got it.
"Alright then, back to the usual for the time being," you say with a small clap of your hands, getting all the tools you'll need ready. "Buckle up folks, because we're going into space."
An egg as a suit, improvised and with some tape covering up a small crack. The top of it is off, replaced with a bulbous piece of glass serving as an astronaut's helmet, and with this perspective you need one hole visible through which a wing is stuck outside.
The other wing is out as well, of course, and a short bird of bird tail plumage (or however it's called) is visible as well, with a small pair of taloned feet peeking out underneath. And, of course, a trail of dust showing the long way your little astronaut took to get all the way out here.
Which is space, of course. With a few little pieces of stone floating around and all, it isn't really nearly as empty as people usually think of it.
Also, the totally required big eyes really sell the look. "Makes you wonder what place this little bird is seeing, doesn't it?" You finish up. You didn't really say much of essence while drawing this, aside from demonstrating how you got the dust and the soft edges to work out.
"Oh my, that did take quite a bit more time than intended," you say, 'noticing' how long you accidentally spent elaborating on the owl's backstory- its name is Oslow, it decided it would be an astronaut right after it hatched and then it went around auditing university classes on astrophysics, among others, to build itself a launch pad with which to explore the universe.
Hence the space suit, which is the egg from which it hatched, kept and later undergoing a retrofit to serve as a space suit. You know, the usual things you just imagine while thinking about a picture.
"Okay, we should still have time for one more picture today, what's at the top right now?" Polls determined by your audience can be... mercurial, going from fairly stable with a clear, pretty much defined winner to being completely reordered and accusations of 'samefagging' thrown around in all directions.
It's a fun time.
"'Madame Red', huh?" You muse, amused by the random thought you threw in there before the beginning of the stream. "Let's see what we can do, then."
You already have a general idea, of course. A 'portrait' of a pale woman, almost androgynous in her facial features and very... red, with a few areas of black where appropriate just for accent.
Heck, even her eyeshadow will be both black, as it might usually be for most women, and red at its bottom half.
A wide-brimmed, red hat with a rose on it (and a black band terminating in a ribbon), all just a little out of focus. Red hair, red eyebrows, red eyes themselves and very much red lips, as well as wearing a red suit. Maybe with a white blouse and properly visible ribbon underneath it, plus black under-sleeves and gloves. Just one visible and only worn halfway, perhaps.
And that's pretty much it already. Now you just need to define the details a little more and do some shading work. A... lot of shading work.
"I do hope you guys appreciate just how hard getting the shading right will be for this. We've already talked about the topic before, of course, but..." And so you launch right into a lecture on the topic, while you're at it.
It's what Madame Red would've wanted, you're sure.
The internet took to the reappearance of the cape villain known as Cain like a fish to water, or rather, like a swarm of demented fish happening upon a buffet of algae.
This was the closest possible analogy, as there were few things as riveting as a cape regularly and casually interacting with the wide public. And so it was that today, too, many a discussion was turned toward the recent destruction of the Slaughterhouse Nine (a few local 'Brocktonites' had already recovered from their hangover and begun drinking again), the persona Cain was portraying, or the various personas in any case and, of course, everyone and their dog having an opinion on him.
A mostly positive opinion, globally speaking, just for the cancer thing alone.
Of course, as the internet went, many a meme was created as well, expressing said opinions and generally being memes, images copied and spread across several boards and messaging platforms galore. Internet culture at its finest, really, transcending dimensions and platforms in all its iterations.
A certain dimension, raw and untouched safe for a single, enormous building clearly of artificial nature, was once again witness to a meeting between certain individuals with certain agendas divided between them, each working towards the same fundamental goal nevertheless.
In other words, Eidolon and Alexandria were sitting opposite from each other, engaged in a staring contest for the ages. Next to them, Doctor Mother was patiently waiting, reading through the summary and official report on the latest Cain Incident.
"How long will you two keep doing this, by the way?"
"Ten minutes twenty-two seconds until Eidolon has to blink despite his current powers," the Number Man stated, currently personally drawing up a chart detailing various expertise levels of Cain and their development. "As Alexandria does not need to, their contest will inevitably come to an end by this point."
To the side, Contessa surreptitiously glanced at the case of watercolors she obtained earlier that day from a parallel Earth.
Knowing he was on a time limit, David decided to go on the offense. "He clearly stated there are no hidden intentions behind what he's doing."
"And I am telling you he knows exactly what is happening in this very meeting room and it was a message directed at us," his opposite countered without breaking a sweat. Not that David thought she could, but that was beside the point. "The situation is clear, the reference to conspiracy theories is simply him pointing out he is aware of Cauldron's existence and what we think about him."
"... Alright then, fine, another one for the Cainspiracy Board," he allowed, throwing his hands up in the air. "Out with it, then, what crackpot theories are we talking about this time?"
"Well, for starters, the faceless people were clearly the people he has killed to date, including several members of the Slaughterhouse Nine," Rebecca proclaimed, growing serious for once. "Also, can we take a moment to acknowledge that it really was high time they met a bigger fish after all these years?"
"You won't hear me disagreeing."
"What happened, happened," Doctor Mother said. "If they're dead, they're dead. Though it seems their absence and the means of which means several of our long-term predictions will need to be readjusted rather rapidly."
"You can say they were eaten by Cain, the internet's already adopting the expression," David remarked. "Remind me to go get Keith and get drunk together later. I'd invite you too, but..."
"Today is the first time in a long, long while my eye has stopped hurting. We'll get smashed together, and if I have to pretend," Rebecca proclaimed. "Assuming no other disasters require my attention in either identity, anyway."
It went unsaid who they were really drinking for. All three of the Triumvirate missed Hero, for all that his death meant they could market themselves with that label. He'd always joked about it, too, about one of them needing to go so they could call themselves by something better than the Quadrumvirate.
"Anyway, I'm sure you have some more haywire theories prepared for us all," David said the thing Rebecca had been waiting for. "Why don't we just get it over with at this point?"
"The first picture was about the Slaughterhouse Nine he already defeated. The next one, about a bird in space, is clearly a message to the Simurgh," she smirked at David victoriously in that way that almost took Thinker powers to even perceive. "That it is next."
He slammed a hand onto the desk. "Dammit, another failed go at Conspiracy Bingo."
Contessa raised a hand making the victory sign. Every time Eidolon missed, he was getting her a couple bars of chocolate- and once more learning that one should never bet against a precog, even if their power didn't actually work in the situation at hand.
"Huh. I think I just realized something."
"What is it, Gabe?"
Looking over the picture of Madame Red you drew, you slowly draw out what is occupying your mind at the moment.
"It's... really important to just always look good, no matter what you're doing and how inhuman your current appearance is. I think."
"See, that's why I don't ever transform into a bat!"
"But Sarah, you're really cute as one!"
Ah well. Certain sudden revelations that let you advance your weird subdermal armor into an exoskeleton of sorts aside, you still have a date to get to tonight, something Sarah is regretful, but accepting of as she stops hugging you for the first time in half an hour after you finished up your streaming business.
"Now that I've refueled on Gabetonium, I guess I'll just have to let you go play a little. Not like you could knock anyone up I don't already approve of."
You tilt your head, smiling at her tone. "Not sure 'Gabetonium' is a thing, but if I ever discover some weird, magical element I'll definitely make sure to name it that."
"Just go off and be a manwhore for a bit, the Crypts won't break down the moment you're gone," your sister waves you off. "Oh, and make sure not to somehow find a way to reproduce with living people, okay? I'm serious!"
"I'll try my very best not to," you promise. Can't ever be too sure about how things go, after all.
You're meeting Crystal not far from the Boardwalk, or Cryptwalk, how it's apparently being called after your little redecoration stunt, within walking distance of the place you've got a reservation at. You, naturally, arrive on foot, having teleported most of the way, while Crystal doesn't take long to join you dressed in a blouse and the closest thing to formal wear you'd imagine a college student to be found in.
"Hey, Gabriel," she says, somewhat breathless as she comes in power-walking. "Hope I didn't make you wait."
"Not at all, I just got here myself." And thank everything that's holy (mostly yourself) she isn't one of those women that need half an hour after the agreed time before they show up. "You're looking good today."
"Please, I always look good." Despite her words, she's still happily abashed, a hand rising to subconsciously adjust her blonde hair worn in a braid tonight. "You wrote something about a reservation? Normally I wouldn't be out so late on a Sunday, but..."
"Oh please, college is the best time to spend all night out before you crash at your first couple lectures the next morning," you wave her off, fondly reminiscent of that one girl you knew that was really into roleplay. "But if the lady demands her tribute of food, mayhaps we should accede her wishes."
Also, you note to herself, Crystal's breasts are absolutely enormous. Like, among the biggest you've ever seen. The rest of her body is mostly the same as the last time you saw her, but she could easily rival Okita in the chest department.
No mean feat on anyone, especially not on someone you know to have been subjected to a recent growth spurt... or maybe something else.
The food is about what you'd expect for the price- some good steaks served with fries and spinach and vegetables, in your case, Crystal choosing to get the same in short order. Personally, you just really like the carrots and peas, to be honest.
When she was younger, Sarah often insisted she was the 'pea princess'. You may or may not have caused that, but she demanded you call her 'Pea' for a few months, way back when. It was absolutely adorable.
But this is no time to get caught up thinking about your enchanting little sister, though, when you have a beautiful young woman sitting right across yourself.
"You know, I didn't really expect this kind of treatment after, you know, last time," Crystal says, daintily cutting into the juicy, nicely grilled steak she's trying not to just devour full stop in an effort to present a picture of a girly university student.
"What, you mean the first date involving sex in a toilet stall with your cousins?" You ask with a smile, eyeing the still bloody core of your own food. It's not quite as good as human blood, but it does give the meat a nice little kick for your taste buds.
Crystal, for her part, takes a moment to suppress a cough, chewing her current bite to its end before answering. "Yes, that."
"Well, I just figured we all had a good time, so we may as well get to know each other a little better," you lightly flirt with the blonde superhero, taking a swig from your wine glass before you finish. "Unless you'd prefer to just skip to having sex, anyway, I won't mind."
"No, no, please, let's first wine and dine me." Crystal seems to be enjoying how frank you are, at least. "I have to say, I'd never have expected to be fucking someone my cousins introduced to me and are also doing themselves, but you get some credit for actually being good in bed."
"And outside of it," you note idly.
"And outside of it," she agrees carefully. "Just, we don't really know each other and all, so I just want to make one thing clear. I don't really care who Amy and Vicky are getting freaky with, but if you ever hurt them or try to use them somehow, remember we all have superpowers and not everyone in the family is good at holding back with them."
Oh, this is just cute. Though you do agree to the attitude as a big brother and father-to-be, admittedly. "Relax, I'm mostly just in it for the sex and good company." Potentially company as in 'committing crimes together' company, but nobody needs to know that.
"Mhm, I'll take you at your word." Yes, the words every conman wants to hear. "So what do you say we do this properly, exchange a couple questions about each other while we're here already anyway?"
"Oh, I would've thought you'd prefer to keep this relationship a bit simpler, meet up, get frisky and get out again," you smile at Crystal.
"We can do that after the meal," she states all prim and proper. While still having to hold back her salivation at the meal she's eating.
Surprisingly, being able to so completely read a normal person just makes some people cute instead of the alternatives.
You and Crystal do just what the conversation suggested, you continue to make a little small talk about a couple of random topics as they come up. The ability to just casually and naturally talk without saying much of essence is and remains one of the core parts of your personal skillset, of course, and so you navigate the rapid waters of socialization with relative ease by the time you get a good idea of Crystal's character and how to best approach her.
Once you've paid up (because of course you're paying in this situation, that's just how social convention goes), the two of you soon leaving the restaurant and yourself marking it down as a decent steakhouse (though you could do just as good if you really wanted to cook, naturally), you ask the big question that has been floating around since you first met up. "So... Wanna get some?"
"I thought you'd never ask," your date responds with a smirk. "Hey, just curious, but... did Vicky ever take you for a flight?"
"Not really, no," you shrug, already getting an idea where this is going. "Nowhere above a couple feet in the air, anyway."
"In that case..." Coming in, Crystal creates a crimson bubble around both you and herself, lifting the two of you up into the air. "Be careful and don't kick against it or anything, but what do you think about this?"
Crystal bit her lip, nervously thinking about the last time she met this Gabriel and the state he left her in afterwards. Was she really about to do this this high up?
Yes, yes she was. Floating closer to the other forcefield bubble, she slowly let both of them merge starting from the point of contact, joining the one occupied by the one guy nearly half of New Wave had a thing for. Gabriel was looking out over the Bay, making use of the small platform she usually included in her fields to move herself and others, but turned towards her quickly.
"Oh? Couldn't wait for a nice roof?" He teased her. He was... pretty damn handsome, Crystal quickly decided as she took a moment to look at him properly for once, with a nice build and just the right amount of muscles to him visible even under his clothes. Overall, he was a ten out of ten, even if she wouldn't be caught dead admitting it.
He was also waiting for an answer. "I just thought the view was nice," she told him, playing with the top button of her blouse. "Good enough to... spend a little time?"
"If by 'spend time' you mean you're asking me to play with your suddenly giant tits, I won't disagree." And there it was, that spry, dry charm Gabriel could spray with a cocky grin and every word sometimes.
Without waiting for a response, he reached for her, fixating Crystal's eyes as he unbuttoned her top, sliding it off her shoulders and to the ground of the forcefield bubble. Doing so revealed the lacy black bra she was wearing, something he commented on with a quirky grin as he began massaging her breasts.
Crystal had to hold back her moan as he did, because damn, this guy was one tiddy fiend. He was just as good as Amy, and that said something. Before she knew it, the bra was gone, too, and Gabriel was making out with her as she did everything she could to french him as deeply as she could.
Hands roaming each other's bodies, the two of them got up to some pretty heated making out, protected from the wind and the temperature by Crystal's power. Somehow, this was surprisingly romantic.
Then Gabriel's hands slipped down into her pants, kneading her butt and edging around her panties, only for him to pull back up top, giving Crystal a cheeky wink and lean down to kiss one of her nipples, letting his lips close around and suckle on it.
She nearly creamed herself right then and there.
Hope are you ladies are enjoying the show?
Both Amy and Vicky heard the voice inside their heads, though they were rather preoccupied with the thoughts and sensations directly streamed into both their brains, getting to experience how it felt like to feel up their cousin's, Crystal's, body while growing a boner.
The weirdly expanding capabilities of this mental link had caught them off guard, but it wasn't like either of them was going to snoop around the mental internet (most of which they didn't have access to anyway) and risk the good thing they had going at the moment.
Amy hoped. Vicky better had keep her mental paws to herself.
Anyway, as it happened, the both of them were inside of Vicky's room as they sent agreement back to Gabriel, if that was even his real name; not only that, they were also both naked. And in Vicky's bed.
In short, they were so horny from what they could see and feel and share that they'd unanimously decided to have sex right then and there. So Amy was currently eating out her sister and feeling thighs that most certainly saved lives wrapped around her head- in other words, she was experiencing a form of heaven, or maybe nirvana or whatever,
Hard to think when the urge to masturbate with one hand while the other was busy elsewhere was this bad.
However, her bliss was not meant to last; Vicky was already opening up, though still keeping a grip on Amy's curly hair. "Hey Amy? Do you think Crystal's breasts are a bit weird, too?"
"Mnot at all," she replied, tongue quickly retreating into her mouth. "Why?"
"Oh, it's just that they're a bit... big."
"... Okay, I made them bigger and more sensitive as a way to let me play with them regularly after she asked me about it, now can we get back to the important things?"
"So that's why Crystal's been around more often lately..." Vicky released her grip and leaned back, letting Amy get back to work. Just then, though, both of them groaned at the feeling of getting a big, fat cock stroked by a horny blonde with giant tits looking up at them pleadingly.
"Amy..." Vicky was perfectly capable of just pushing her thoughts around already, and so Amy knew exactly what she wanted. Licking up along her clit, Amy worked her magic, forming the sensitive little nub into a bigger one that grew bit by bit under her careful attention using some biomass from else where Vicky wouldn't miss right this moment.
Without coming up, she slowly sucked and stroked the steadily growing erection, Vicky's literal girlboner right where it belonged- inside of Amy already. And just as she really started sucking on it properly (though this really wasn't something Amy had experience with), she received a second thought-feed and could feel exactly what she was doing to her sister, see her head bob submissively and feel her own hair curled around slender hands.
Amy learned very, very quickly. Also, she was going to need to refill Vicky with a bunch of water and maybe something to eat, with the sheer amount of sperm she was making her produce already, but it wasn't every day she got to shower in this stuff.
Not knowing anything about the various thought-streams being exchanged back and forth (including toward Gabriel), Crystal was paralyzed with indecision; though she wanted to get fucked hard and fast just like last time, Gabriel was playing with her so very sensitive nipples, keeping her very much occupied and squirming in his surprisingly strong arms.
For all that she was the one keeping them up in the air.
Lucky her, Crystal didn't have to wait long for her lover (Was that the right word?) to solve this conundrum- a few moves, and her pants were slipping down her legs, her panties following them in pooling around her feet. All of a sudden, she was almost entirely naked, all the while stroking the cock that'd brought her such pleasure the first and only other time she'd gotten her hands on it.
And Gabriel wasn't exactly stopping his persistent playing with her teats, either.
"Careful," she warned him again as he pressed her back against the bubble, but she sighed in contentment at him swiftly positioning himself and pushing inside her all the same. Taking his rigid erection inside her tight folds, it was all Crystal could to to keep them in place up in the air, wrapping her legs around the stud so fervently pushing into her.
Like last time, she felt... full, like he was just the right fit for her. One of his thumbs was rhythmically circling her right nipple now and Crystal felt it might have become even more sensitive than they usually were already, igniting a sticky heat at the bottom of her stomach that made her want only one thing.
More.
Her breath was stuck in her throat when Gabriel bottomed out, filling up every bit of space and nudging against her deepest depths where she hadn't really thought anyone would ever be going before meeting him. Then she let out a whorish moan as he began the long and slow process of pulling back out again, his cocky smile never wavering while he played her like a fiddle.
If only it didn't feel this good to be played...
Just like that, Gabriel started to fuck her hard and proper, his hard rod pushing in and pulling out with immaculate precision and hammering into her insides to stoke the fire burning until it exploded with a sharp tweak of her nipples between his fingers and teeth.
She had to have been ripping into his back with her nails, but he just blinked up at her and went right on.
No less that three times did Gabriel drive her to and over her peak, her voice rough and coarse from the screams she was holding in (someone might just see them no matter how high up they were) before he followed suit, giving her a heavy load of his seed right against where she shouldn't be taking anything until after marriage. If, that was, college wasn't meant to let girls like her play around like this, anyway.
Of course, once he was done, he let her go, pulling Crystal off of himself to give her a satisfied smirk. "I take it you enjoyed the dessert?" He whispered into her ears.
"Yeah..." She couldn't really do more than that at the moment, just enjoying the afterglow a little bit.
Of course then a probing finger poked at her back entrance, making her seize up and sharply remember exactly what had happened last time... And the reason she'd made sure to be ready back there just in case.
"Good, because I'm far from sated yet." It didn't even take long, one moment Crystal's back was leaning against the oh so fragile field she very well knew they'd been overtaxing- the bubble was being pushed through the air in hard pushes all the time, she actually had to really concentrate to bring it back to where it was supposed to be- the next she was turned around, hands instinctively resting against the crimson surface while she bent over at the waist.
Was she really just going to let a relative stranger fuck her up the ass just like that, offering it up like a wanton slut? Yes, yes she was, she thought as she felt Gabriel's still hard penis prod her asshole.
It felt even bigger than it did earlier, spreading her open and making her take it. This was exactly what all those stupid liberal arts students were missing out on. "Yes," she hissed more to herself, "fill up my dirty little ass!"
"Someone's feeling randy tonight, huh?" Gabriel chuckled behind her, one hand coming around to knead her freely hanging giant tits. "Don't worry, I'll make sure you won't be able to walk nor sit tomorrow."
And as her insides were being molded to fit his member, Crystal privately thought to herself that those were the most wonderful words she'd ever heard.
By the time you finally let go of Crystal, it's late into the night and she is quite unsteady, as in, has trouble focusing her eyes and do pretty much anything that isn't pushing her body into your general direction and play with the twin wonders attached to her chest. Little surprise, considering the small bulge in her belly from all the times you shot your never actually depleting loads into her from any position you damn well pleased.
You've also had to make a crashlanding after she ceased being able to keep you steady in the air thanks to too many concurrent orgasms, you just didn't let that stop you. With your lover for the evening thoroughly tuckered out, you quickly nudge Vicky into getting her mind out of the gutter and picking her up later, as soon as she's done recovering from the shorter, but no less intense session of lovemaking between her and Amy.
Sibling love. It's always a joy to see, even if they're 'just' adopted step-siblings. It's the affection that really counts.
And the sex. Not only the sex, but it does go a long way.
Anyway, with Crystal out of commission, you'll just go ahead and go back home, maybe call it an early night... Or you would be, if you weren't permanently buy with one thing or another.
Ah well, at least you had some fun for once. Even if your telepathic senses detect an increased amount of activity on that Gabeislife site.
Now then, off to proceed to build your homemade little distillery. For alchemy purposes, of course, if you wanted to get at large amounts of alcohol you could just buy it or something.
Vicky was very much not amused at having to come fly out and help Crystal home, but at least Alice and Cupcake have the big distillery ready for their own experiments now. Alice in particular said she can't wait, whereas Cupcake seems to be busy with the potion brewery part already- several of your potions for greater physical strength are already brewing by the time you arrive and she seems to be entirely too pleased at the results of experimenting with her first batch already.
As for Alice... She's created several even more illogical tinkertech bombs by incorporating several of the recipes you've already figured out so far. You'll just leave her be for the moment. Also, you made both of them promise to brew a couple of the good healing potions for the Crypts to keep stocked for field healing just in case.
The gardens inside your inner world continue to be somewhat of a marvel, bedazzling the senses with sights and scents galore, not to mention some of the more 'out there' plants growing in some sections of it- they can make sounds depending on their environments, have a peculiar and intriguing feel to themselves or, of course, taste absolutely delicious.
You know for a fact the Cook is accessing some of the things growing in here for her work, you remember a couple of plants you're seeing being served in one way or another. When she isn't just, y'know, transforming the ingredients into something else wholesale.
Of course no visit to your gardens would be complete without a chat with the three little guardians of this place, the trio of fairies with a particularly developed sense of humour buzzing around you despite their usual idleness.
"So rare for us to receive visitors."
"We really do deserve more. We just want to do our part, really."
"Not our place to complain, though. Not to our ruler."
"Oh," you ask, "what would you even do to any poor lost souls daring to step foot into your domain?"
"Throw 'em to the grapevines."
"Use them as fertilizer after milling, for however long they take to rise from the ground afterwards."
"Or just have a little extra fun and strip them naked for whoever else comes by."
"Oh, have the grapevines hold them in place."
"Aah, it's such a crime we don't have anything to occupy our time with..."
"Mhm, I didn't know any of the guardians had any actual interest in such things," you idly remark as you continue to wander around. It's really far too rare for you to have a moment to just take a walk in an environment like this.
"Of course we do."
"Especially us."
"But the Cook is a naughty little minx, too."
"Can't reach our heights though, oh no."
"You should see the inside of your little house, one day," one of the color-changing fairies ponders.
"And the Gravekeeper, oh, she wouldn't ever admit it, but she wouldn't mind sharing coffins, if you know what we mean."
"And you know what we mean." One of them is stroking the side of your face now, using her whole body to do it.
"And how about yourselves, then, would that even work?" You ask.
All three of the fairy sisters share a glance, grinning slyly at each other. Then, flying as fast as they can, one begins floating right before you, playing with the hem of her dress, with the other two attack to your pants, one going down toward your foot to crawl upwards while the other starts wiggling her way past your waistband.
"Only one way to find out, isn't it?" The one visible to you responds to your raised eyebrow, giving you a little striptease as you feel two small, delicate but still surprisingly strong bodies nestle near your crotch.
"The real crime is him wearing pants at all," is the last thing you hear from inside your pants before the two inside begin rubbing and stroking, small, wet tongues exploring every nook and cranny of your cock as it soon rises to wakefulness.
And yes, you do indeed soon discover that these little fairies are almost completely illogically stretchy. For all that their size makes them extremely tight, you still think they enjoy discovering this more than yourself, even.
As you watch Alice at work, you can't help but marvel at just how... nonsensical what she is doing is, even by the standards of both tinkertech and your vampiric alchemy. Though you aren't exactly complaining, mind you, it's more just amusing to see her juggle several of her bombs as she slowly but surely fills them with various powders she's concocted in seemingly entirely random patterns.
"What? I'm tinkering," she just says in response to your look, stirring a pot of what smells like chamomile tea before adding it to one of her mixes.
"Nothing, nothing, I was just enjoying the sight." And you are, Alice is a beautiful woman stretching her limbs in all directions at the direction of her power. What's not to like about that, except perhaps the clothes?
"Whatever," she rolls her eyes. "Didja want anything or are we just making small talk? Because I'm about done and I have a couple bowls of cookies waiting for me."
"... We really should talk to Ethan about all his baking sometime," you remark. "Nobody's complaining, but I think he's overdoing it a bit."
"Word is they're setting an entire room aside as a storage for his whole thing right now. I'm just eating whatever is lying in the cafeteria at this point," Alice shrugs.
The conversation goes on a good bit, you and Alice slowly returning toward the more general workshop area where your manufactories line the walls and churn away- one of the people hanging around or the other must be actively engaged in creating additional ones with the materials slowly, but steadily churned out not too far from the storeroom also connected to this area, for all that your violation of the conservation of mass is comparatively small in this dimension, all told.
You've just never really been particularly engaged in enlarging that part of your operations, not on Earth Bet, at least. No real need when you can just buy pretty much everything you need. Being richer than god is sure handy at times, even if you need to be circumspect about the things you're having delivered.
Having Henley be circumspect about it, whatever.
Anyway, one thing leads to another and soon enough you and Alice are talking about a new robot design, some way to dispense large amounts of explosives over an area or concentrated in spot, that's the least of your worries thanks to the advanced robotics you have access to. Much more importantly, you need to be careful about pretty much every part of this project- if there's any malfunctions, you have no idea exactly what will come of the possible tinkertech bombs that will be stored inside of these things.
It's simple in principle. A big, flying piece of metal capable of firing off lots of stuff, with the firing mechanisms a bit adjusted to account for Alice's specialty but still capable of just blowing stuff up with normal payloads if desired.
If you're doing this, you're doing this right, and that means you may as well make use of the design even without easy access to the things that make it really shine.
So you get started, naturally basing everything around a controlled Lutece Particle and several thrusters as is your bread and butter these days. It is, literally, a platform flying around, containing a bunch of ammunition and several standard turrets with specialized launchers around its sides serving to fulfill the main purpose: Bombing everything in sight.
You get the feeling the innocuous machine may or may not count as a war crime in itself, considering its entire purpose is to one-sidedly demolish any and all life in the target area, but hey, technically, artillery was used in both World Wards and nobody made any stink about that, either.
"Kinda bland, isn't it?" Alice asks when you show her the finished end result, lying silently on the floor of the workshop in its rest mode. "Could've painted it red, at least."
"If you want to paint it, go ahead, but I designed these to look as unassuming as I could make a flying death dispenser." You refuse to defend your design decisions. Instead, you are explaining them. "That way anyone that doesn't know what they'll do will be caught off guard easier."
"It's still flying, easily visible tinkertech."
"Yes, but it's PR-friendly tinkertech," you emphasize. "Until it starts to blow up entire city blocks, anyways."
"Whatever floats your boat, I guess." Yes, you have successfully gotten the message across. Nobody can tell you otherwise.
Ultimately, things go as they usually go and you end up escaping from the workshop after just a couple of rounds with Alice, Sherrel and Lea (the latter two having shown up at some point, it's not like you track wherever they go or anything) to go take care of a couple of things; for one, you complete everything you know you can do in terms of the alchemy workshop, adding the mass converters and a couple of miscellaneous devices as necessary.
It does help you can just steal the lab equipment lying around elsewhere to work off of. Most of this stuff is fairly simple to reproduce anyway, but you like to make Yoshi go through the bother instead.
That's not exactly all you're doing, though. On the contrary, you're also getting an early midnight snack in and introducing the various dolled up prisoners in the deeper levels of the bunker to your spell for extracting soul fragments from living people, for all that it requires a little more time than just scooping everything floating freely in an area up.
Furthermore, once you're done with the next go-around of the workshop (the girls there asked for a little of your time, what else were you going to do), you go and meet up with Henley, casually greeting Taylor who is currently down with you on the side when you walk past her.
With the state of things as they are, it's totally doable to boot up that tech company and make some big bucks by selling permission to make use of advanced technology, right?
"Unfortunately, while we do have some monetary means to use at the moment, doing this would push back the plan for a secondary hideout with a backup teleporter," he tells you, adjusting his glasses to let them reflect the light of his office. "Not to mention certain plans for local purchases and the work toward the train- I assumed it would take a non-insignificant amount of money in bribes to get taxpayer money directed toward this, as individual citizens are not capable of owning railways as such."
Annoying, but alright. You have your priorities. No starting the globe-spanning multibillion company network until your foundation is secure, that being the actual criminal enterprise you're basing everything else off of.
So that's a bust, for now. However, luckily you have something to make yourself feel better about this stuff... And it's high time you finally got to it, come to think of it.
Horribly murdering your parents is definitely on your to-do list. It has been for a very long time, but in the end, for all that you absolutely hate them, your parents just... don't rate that high as a real priority.
You've been torn between wanting to put a thorough end to their lives and simply considering them as incredibly unimportant for a long, long time. And now you shall finally get down to it, just in case you won't have a good opportunity later- you don't want any of your children to be born in a world they still exist within, so they just have to go.
It was an inevitability, really. So then, whom to take with you on the trip to Los Angeles, the city you were born and raised in? It is a bit of a distance, admittedly, but it still has cellphone towers for you to hook into... Once you get a couple signal repeaters set down along the way.
Man, thinking about going all the way back to California, Sarah really trekked pretty far to come visit your grave. And get away from home, but mostly to come visit you.
"Alright Sarah, you ready? I can't wait to get this all done and over with." Leveraging yourself into the driver's seat of the big fancy car you're taking for this, you reach over to open the opposite door and pat the place your sister shall be sitting in.
"And here I thought you wouldn't ever want to see them again," said lovely sister snorts as she sits down. "Oh, it really shows how expensive this thing was for Coil, it's comfy as hell."
"I know, right? And yeah, I guess I can tolerate their faces if it's just until they die, I suppose," you wave her concerns off. "Anyway, we got everything?"
"Signal repeaters are in the trunk, we just gotta drop one after every teleport to actually bridge the gaps between cell reception fields."
"... Is that a technical term?"
"It is now," Sarah declares proudly. When you gave her a patient look, she tilts her head. "Gabe, I am not going to put on a seat belt."
"Why not? You know how safety always goes first, especially for you." An old point you liked to make- Sarah is extra precious, so she has to be extra safe at all times. She always listened to you.
"Gabe, I have aura and I'm a vampire," she explains, trying to reason her way out of this. "A car accident is hardly even able to scratch me as I am now."
"And yet you're still pregnant with our child," you point out. "Like it or not, but you need to be extra extra safe nowadays."
She looks up at you, pouting and crossing her arms. By contrast, you continue to patiently smile at her.
"I'm waiting, sweetie. And I think you'll find I can keep waiting much longer than you." And if you have to stare her down until she gives birth, you will not start this car until she has that damn seat belt on.
"Gabe, I understand you are traumatized about cars and driving after your dea-"
"I can be traumatized all I want, that doesn't change my position." Really, did she think psychoanalyzing you to your face was going to work? "Remember who taught you how to do this. Now think about the lengths I will go to to ensure you wear that belt. I know you know that I know you know me, Sarah."
You will do this however long you need to. That much is clear to both of you.
Your sister sighs. She knows better than to push when you're being like this.
Ahh, Los Angeles, the City of Angels. Not that the old name with lots of religious motivations behind it is something literally anyone gives a shit about these days.
One of the largest and most prosperous cities in the world, rivaling and sometimes even beating New York City in this regard, and cultural and technological center of the entirety of California at the very least.
It was also never attacked by and Endbringer, in contrast to New York. Take that, you damn snobs.
Hollywood, aviation industry, theaters and general culture, this city is the place to be. As someone that had a knack for art growing up, you did appreciate the image of this place, for all that you were entirely aware that in the end...
Well, in the end, it's really just a city like any other, to be honest. It's got the same people you can find everywhere wearing the same numb and soulless expressions. You aren't sure whether that's because it's a large city or because there aren't any places not permeated by the sense of depressing realization that everything is demonstrably spiraling down the drain for humanity, but that's a largely moot point considering you never really went to any places that aren't actual cities in this dimension.
Nevertheless, this is still home, for a given value of the word. "Guess we're Angelenos instead of Brocktonites for a few hours, at least," you comment, taking in vaguely familiar streets you can just barely recall, your new mind cataloguing everything around you by pure habit. "Go figure."
"Didn't think I'd ever come back." Oh, you know that tone of voice. Flicking Sarah's nose with one hand, you turn the steering wheel with the other, already looking for a place to park- this may just be the hardest challenge posed to you by this entire venture, finding a free parking spot can be hellish around here.
"Stop fretting already, it'll be fine." You don't know exactly what the problem is, but cheering Sarah up has never steered you wrong. "Also, do you remember the way from here? It's been a good while."
Sighing, your sister leans back. "Just take a left up ahead and keep driving for a bit. And also keep an eye out for a par-"
"Already on it," you shush her. "That much I can recall easily enough."
"Good, would've wondered about brain damage otherwise."
The two of you continue to bicker back and forth lightly just like that, slowly but surely making your way towards the one place that always filled you with all the bad emotions you grew up with just by thinking about it. Home, sweet home.
Though you kind of moved that toward your secret bond villain lair. It's a much better home and you've made some good experiences with it. 10/10, would recommend.
Anyway, you soon spot a place to tuck away the car inside of, so without much ado you get right in there, cutting off some other schmuck that tried to fill the same opening. And, true to form, you soon have an enraged middle-aged dude stopping his car still halfway on the street storming out and stomping over towards you.
Too bad for him you don't have the patience for any of his shit.
"Now listen here," the guy begins, only for Sarah to send you a thought- you lower the window to let her do the right thing in this situation.
"Drive into the bay and drown," she orders him, and bless him as stupid as he probably is he manages to connect the dots and stop in place, his mind squirming in place and processing the words.
Without another word, he turns right around and gets back into his car, starting the motor and making his way towards the Santa Monica Bay.
"That was a little risky," you chide your sister as both of you get out yourselves. "What if he manages to fight the compulsion off or call for help?"
"He was angry, but not angry enough, a little tipsy and had a bad day at work," she shrugs in response. "He'll go kill himself like a good little lemming and people will probably just assume suicide."
"Eh, good enough." You were honestly not really paying attention to him, mostly just thinking about how to dispose of the body, so this more elegant solution works just fine for you.
Speaking of paying attention, though- a young woman is passing by, taking a jog by the looks of it, only to blink when she sees you. "Gabriel? Gabriel is that you?"
"... Oh, Evie!" It took you a moment to recognize her- people change all the damn time and it's been more than just a couple months since you went to Brockton Bay. At Sarah's look, you expound a little. "Don't you remember, Evie Donnower, an upperclassman of mine way back when. She lived in the house right next to us, her mother always made the best cookies?"
And fed you with them back when you were too young to feed yourself and you didn't pressure your parents into hiring help around the house to look the part of rich people yet.
"Gabriel, I thought you were dead! This is... Come on, we have to go tell mom, she was absolutely devastated when she heard about the accident." Bright and hopeful, Evie gives you a shy smile. "Not only her, either. And who's this, little Sarah is all grown up? You look a lot like your brother did when he was really small."
Gabe, you totally had sex with her, didn't you? I don't even know how to describe your relationships otherwise anymore.
Of course I did, you send back at Sarah. Her and Mrs. Donnower.
Incidentally, both mother and daughter have a real thing for anal. They're the ones that first introduced you to the concept when you were, what, seven, eight? No matter. What does matter is that both their backsides were, or are, really, incredibly tight and hot, gripping your cock like a vice no matter how much you pound them. Taking Evie's anal virginity while her mom talked both of you through how to do it right is one of your fondest childhood memories- and was a really big deal for her, too.
"Sorry, but we have somewhere to be," Sarah says with one possessive arm around yours, pulling away at it lightly. "We have to go home first of all."
Evie pouts. Sarah gets that stink eye look she always had when she was annoyed at someone. Well, that sure is a dilemma.
Ah well, nothing in for it. "Yeah, we have to go see our parents first, sorry," you apologize to Evie with a smile. "I'm pretty busy these days, but as soon as I have the time, I'm definitely paying you a visit, okay?"
"Okay, but you'll owe us an explanation, mister! Unless it's, you know, some stupid thing your parents have been pulling again," your, you guess childhood friend, says, pointing at you. "Hope whatever you need to deal with goes well."
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that." Unless your parents unexpectedly have Alexandria over for dinner or something, you don't see any way they're going to survive this. And even then, you aren't letting them off the hook, necessarily. "You go on and have a good one, yeah?"
Stepping closer towards your old acquaintance, you give her butt a good squeeze, your smile growing impish as you feel something rather solid and mildly vibrating between her cheeks. Evie blushes, aware you caught her out- though really, it was obvious from how often you know she runs around with something filling her up.
She's always been a somewhat kinky girl.
However, you still have a Sarah nudging you to get going already, so after just another set of quick, temporary goodbyes you're splitting up once again. A you walk onward, slowly reawakening memories already half-forgotten at this point (a strange feeling with your perfectly clear recall of everything you've experienced since becoming a vampire somehow, you still should figure that out one of these days), you pat her head, calming her down a little.
"C'mere, Sarah, what's got your hackles raised like that? You don't normally mind me being with other women."
"... She was with you before, when we were still living together," your sister pouts, latching onto your side even harder than before. "And I never even noticed. Also, I blame her for how you are?"
"Oh, am I really that intolerable? I would've thought you liked me by this point..."
Sarah sighs, shaking her head. "Don't mind that, let's just keep going. Won't be much longer now."
On the way over, you somehow manage to bump into a few more of your old acquaintances, from one of your elementary school teachers that almost goes to suck you off right there in public out of reflex to one of the cheerleaders you sometimes tutored in various subjects way back when. She's doing well incidentally, having landed herself a nice, well-paying job as an editor.
You always knew she could do it, even if you had to incentivise her to actually sit down and learn. Much like most people you tutored, come to think of it, but hey, if it works, it just works.
Either way, and with Sarah growing a little more possessive as she begins to realize just how much of a social life you had outside of your siblings, you don't take all that long to finally arrive; your old home is... just like you remember it, really.
A large house, somewhere on the boundary between a normal house and a small mansion, ringed with a fence and, just beyond it, a small garden right up front, kept in shape scrupulously. Knowing where to look, you quickly grab your hidden spare keys from a small opening in the outer 'wall' containing a small, dark pouch, specifically chosen to be near invisible where you stashed it.
And just like that, you have access to the whole place.
The front door is little problem for you, either, and so you lead Sarah right on in. The insides of the place looks much like its outsides, kind of pretentious and trying to look bigger and more important than they really are. In case it wasn't obvious yet, yes, the interior decoration does, indeed, mirror the owners personalities.
On the way to the stairs, as you know your parents are pretty much guaranteed to be upstairs somewhere at this time of day, you actually manage to stumble into one of the two maids regularly making sure the house is in order, along with letting your parents put on airs. Yes, that is indeed a theme with them.
More important is that she is much more likely to do what you tell her to as opposed to, well, not, so after a quick and mildly tearful reunion you send her off to lock up both the front and back doors just in case.
"... Gabe, did you fuck the maids, too?" Sarah asks as the two of you climb up the stairs, rapidly approaching the final confrontation with two people you have always despised.
"Of course I did, I kind of doubt anyone would voluntarily work for our parents without the side benefits," you explain. "They also did help me take care of you and Rex, so they definitely did earn those rewards."
"How." Your sister seems more than a little disbelieving. "How did I never notice?"
"Well, I do have my ways," you say, not about to explain you just made sure you knew where everyone was at any given time and what rooms are sufficiently soundproofed. "But hey, we're just about there."
"Mm," Sarah hums in agreement.
Both of you have lots of ways to notice where the two adult human beings you're looking for are located, though you mostly rely on your good old blood-sense to know exactly where two go. The two of them are together, which saves you some time at least, and so the pair of you two soon stands before the door to the 'parlor', or really the living room here on the second floor.
"I'm a little nervous. Just because, you know," Sarah says, subtly letting electricity spark on her palms.
"Don't worry, you can leave the talking to me if you want," you smile at her. "I know exactly what to say."
Just like that, you open the closed door and head right in, barging in on Mr. and Mrs. Livsey. They don't really deserve the luxury of having first names, hence you won't be bothering with those.
The very picture of outward beauty, but hidden indifference and even outright malevolence awaits you, the pair of people that served as DNA donors for you and your siblings and nothing more standing inside.
"... Gabriel?" Your father asks, his voice mildly incredulous, but nothing more.
Well, you didn't expect him to care you died or anything, so that's about what you expected. "Father," you return, "I have come to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage."
Because yes, you're still going to marry Sarah properly, as well as your other wives. You have priorities and stuff.
""... What?""
Heh, both of them are very much not capable of dealing with this as quickly as they would like to pretend they could. However, they're still just about completely at your mercy now that you've found them, so... Time to deal with them once and for all.
"Anyway joking aside- I don't really care about anyone's permission on the matter, ultimately," you continue while your parents are still stunned, pulling your dear Sarah to your side. "Instead, I am back from the dead and very much going to end both of you, the only question is how."
"How d-"
"Shut up," you demand with the full weight of your being behind it, your father's mouth shutting hard enough his teeth clack together in response. This is what having authority over someone feels like, though it'd be even sweeter if you didn't need to use your powers to make him obey.
Ah well, you'll be shutting him up rather permanently quite soon anyway.
"The only question now," you ponder aloud, "is what exactly to do to you now that I finally have some time in my busy schedule. Of course just a quick bit of murder would work, but... What do you think, Sarah?"
"I can't believe this," your mother interrupts, surprisingly having withstood your mental assault just now even as she just makes things harder on herself. "We conceived you, we clothed you, we fed you, and this is how you thank us? By faking your own death, stealing your sister away and coming to threaten us in our own home?!"
Wow, someone really isn't getting with the program. Though you do have to admit your mother is just like that; always berating and demanding gratitude from you, even at the times she came to 'release some steam' at night, regardless of your opinion on it.
Narrowing her eyes, Sarah's grip on your arm tightens dramatically. "Waiiit a second, you actually raped Gabe, mom?"
Must be her power at work, truly.
"As if!" She snorts derisively. "I can do whatever I-"
"Okay, no, shut the fuck up!" Now she's genuinely incensed, and even your mother gets to realize that she isn't just facing her wayward children; no, both of you may or may not be capes as far as she knows, but either way Sarah's much more practiced version of the power to dominate minds works wonders on her. "I was always wondering, you know, why my Big Gabey was so screwed up in some ways, but I think I finally found part of the answer if you actually forced yourself on him."
"Aww, love you too, sis." She really is a dear when she gets angry on your account.
"No, seriously, he doesn't even really conceptualize the issues most people have with rape because he doesn't have a concept of actively opposing having sex. And you know what, I think I know exactly what we should be doing now." Smacking a fist into her palm, Sarah turns towards you. "Gabe, can I eat dad for the whole bit where they made me overuse my power to farm money off the stock market in yet another vain attempt to rise in societal status by being rich and we keep mom as a permanently gagged sex slave? You know, chain her to the bed and use her like she used you?"
"Sure, why not." No sooner have you spoken the words that your father throws himself towards the cabinet standing against the wall, obviously trying to defend himself somehow, but whether there's a secret weapon in there or not doesn't really matter- Sarah is on him within moments, the animalistic act of a vampire let loose on life prey throwing him to the ground as a large bite is placed squarely over his neck.
He dies in moments, his soul absorbed just like any other. Your mother is shocked at the sudden violence but, still unable to make a sound through her mouth whether by shouting or screaming, simply takes unsure steps away from the freshly mutilated corpse. You, however, go forth to grab her, throwing your (struggling, though you hardly notice) mother over your shoulder.
"Should we go? Figure we've wasted enough time on these two," you ask, patting your mother's slim, shapely butt over your shoulder. She seems to be realizing that yes, this is really happening, taking a momentary pause to work through reality as she knows it and how suddenly it changed.
"Just a moment," Sarah asks, licking your father's blood off her lips. They look quite kissable right now, but- well, they always do.
She breathes out your father's soul, motioning out toward the hallway. "Go and write a murder suicide note declaring you are killing your wife and yourself for some plausible reason. When you're done, think it aloud for me."
"Making sure there's some plausible deniability for their disappearance, huh?" You ask. "Probably for the best. What do we do with the house and the maid service?"
"Figure we can just take it all over," your sister shrugs unconcerned. "Use it as a vacation home, just pay the maids to be full-on housekeepers in the meantime. Not like we don't have more than enough cash to do whatever we damn well want."
"Eh, point." You didn't really think through much of this whole operation, you realize- something inside of you just kind of assumed you'd go in, brutally murder your parents and fuck off again, now that you can just teleport around LA trivially. That plan changed when Sarah decided to keep your mother, but... ah well.
No, really, ah well. So long as your parents are taken care of, you're fine with the end result.
"And as for you..." Sarah walks around you to come face to face with your mother. "There's a lot of happy fun family time to catch up on, and I'm happy to tell you you're our bitch from now on. And I mean everyone in the big polyamorous pile of relationships Gabe has plus any and all kids we end up having, which will be a lot. Hope you're looking forward to the rest of your life, because I sure am!"
You roll your eyes at the renewed pointless struggles you mostly just ignore entirely, keeping an iron grip on her waist. "Want me to go ahead and bring her back home while you finish things up here?"
"Sure, that sounds nice." Your mother shivers when, you suspect, Sarah lets a hand glide somewhere over her body. "Make sure to treat our evil little slut here just right."
Yes, yes, you do know how this works. Tearing her clothes off, applying the requisite amount of chains and a gag of some sort, going ahead with the thralling to make sure she doesn't break, the works. Not the first time you're doing this.
Securely stowing away your mother, you make sure everything is in order- installing a set of manacles at the foot of the bed didn't take long with the staff of janitorial robots you keep on hand, whereas you went to the lengths of personally choosing a pillow to set down for your new pet. The only times you're going to allow her to get on the bed is if she's been a good girl or is being used, after all.
"You can't do this!" She's also since regained speech, of course, but you don't really let it bother you. "Release me this-"
You interrupt her by taking hold of the collar of her dress, letting your claws out and rest against her skin for just a moment. "It seems you still do not quite understand how this will be going," you note idly. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll catch on quickly enough. You aren't stupid, no matter how you behave like it sometimes."
With that, you tear straight down, parting the cloth finely thanks to the extreme sharpness of your digits and leaving your mother standing in front of you in only her bra and panties, hair still made up. She glares at you, but both of you know you neither care for it nor her 'authority' over you- you only ever pretended to give a fuck about that one ever since you came to the early realization your parents had you to fulfill societal obligations of the upper class and nothing more.
Instead, you take her by a forearm, leading her over to get a taste of the chains she will be bound to for a good while to come. Your grip, superhumanly strong and unforgiving as it is, leaves her no choice but to follow, and some quick claw work leaves her underwear, too, fluttering to the ground as scraps of cloth.
Well, here you are, in a weird reversal of those times in elementary school onward. You never know what unlife will bring, huh? Anyway, you quickly up a selection of gags, courtesy of Sarah stocking all kinds of toys inside the bedroom you took over from Coil, and ponder over which, exactly, to use.
"You can't believe you'll get away with this. We-"
"You're two unimportant people and we're on the east coast, no you won't ever be found," you wave her off. "In the first place, I'm a cape, one of the out there ones; I can literally do whatever I want, in case you didn't realize it yet. Also, which would you prefer, a ball gag or a ring one? I'm partial to the latter, but I don't mind letting you choose."
"I will never submit to this farce you are playing out." Oh jeez, she's in her 'denial of reality' mode. Your mother really is kind of a pain most of the time.
Ah well, enough talking for her. Going with the mildly flexible ring gag, still more than reliable enough to resist even a thrall of yours going nuts over it, you force open your mother's mouth, just pushing it inside and tightening the band around her head to ensure it stays in place.
With your mother now restrained, hands kept in place behind her back and feet bound to ensure she can't really walk much, if at all, you give the bound little toy one last look, finding nothing amiss... And hey, as long as she's unable to formulate any real words, your mother may just be tolerable.
That's when Aisha busts into the room, of course, currently wearing nothing but the collar you gave her and a pair of sneakers. And pink socks, you realize with a quick look. "Hey Gaboss, what's hanging? And who's the new addition to the room?"
"Hhh! Hhhh!" It seems she's turned her power off, too, as said addition reacts to her presence.
"Oh, this is my mother. Me and Sarah finally got around to dealing with our parents, so she'll be a permanent fixture in here indeed," you explain. "Feel free to mess with her however you want, of course, she's free access to anyone that's allowed in here."
"Sweet." The naked girl proceeds to open a drawer in the nightstand right next to your bed, grabbing a fistful of sweets from inside. "Anyway, don't mind me, just hanging out a bit. Oh, can I make her watch children's cartoons for my amusement?"
"The remote's over there, you know how to use it," you shrug. "Giving her a little extra to get an idea of the exact situation she's in before I go, though."
The memories you transmit to your mother through the thrall-link you've already established earlier are by no means a complete rundown of everything you've seen and done ever since rising from your grave, instead serving as more of a quick overview of various highlights- important events she might recognize from the news, various massacres and related atrocities you've committed, that sort of thing.
Your mother stills a moment, the alien sensation of memories that are not her own distracting her, and just like that you move right on, leaving her to acclimatize to her new role with Aisha's help. She's probably going to demand the new toy eat her out or lick up sweets to feed them to herself, but that's really about the least you expect her to do.
Now then, about what else you were planning to do tonight...
Sabah Abadi took in the waves lapping away at the edge between ocean and land, elbows propped onto the railing to one side of the boardwalk. Not far from where she'd chosen to take a moment for herself was a whole bunch of PRT tape declaring an area as off limits- the same place she'd been saved by the Crypts showing up out of nowhere with a new cape and one known one that apparently joined them.
It didn't took long to look up Hellhound, not many capes in the city worked with animals in the way she did, so apparently the Undersiders, some minor gang that'd been messing with the other gangs before the Crypts stepped onto the scene, had joined them.
That much was obvious from the one known as Tattletale revealing she could apparently beat Jack Slash thanks to Cain doing some sort of power sharing, but Sabah didn't really know any of that at the time. All that she'd known was that she was running for her life when a cape serial killer showed up and negated her power, chasing after her until she thought she was dead for sure only to be saved at the last second.
By a beautiful young woman with huge tits and an even larger sword and a bunch of giant lizard dogs beating him down repeatedly until he stopped moving. And then she followed the woman, named Okita (Was it a cape name or even her real name?) into the Crypt's secret bond villain lair through teleportation and tried to jump her bones, only for the tables to be turned immediately.
Okita had been... forceful, but in a gentle way. She'd also been exactly Sabah's type and let her play with her breasts, so there was really nothing that would keep her from kind of proposing if she'd been clearheaded at the time.
She knew how things had all just... happened so fast, despite exchanging a bare few words with the villainess. Suspension bridge effect was a hell of a drug and normally she'd never just get intimate with someone she met for the first time like that, but... Well, she had just been saved from a certain, horrific death.
So she'd been riding the adrenaline high. And the endorphins at being saved, coupled with her admiration of the female form, didn't help. So now she'd be taking a step back, thinking about things and going over her memories- yes, all memories of what had happened- and try to recontextualize them,
Because as tempting as it was to just take Cain up on the offer he'd made in that strange cafeteria, she had to keep a clear head. She wouldn't just become a villain over chasing pussy, even if ever fiber of her being pushed to go to that place populated by over ninety-nice percent attractive women that were apparently open to casual sex whenever.
Right?!
Amanda and Celine Searfield were, by all accounts, the kind of people that would never have to work a day in their lives unless something terrible happened- their parents made downright obscene amounts of money, ensuring that they would be well taken care of all the way throughout university and beyond when they would be expected to get themselves a husband each or else attach themselves to a particularly rich and attractive man as his mistresses.
All the more unusual, then, to see them actually process and file paperwork of their own free will and even show concentration arising from enthusiasm for what they were doing. However, perhaps it shouldn't be surprising, as for the first time in their lives they were getting the feeling that what they were doing actually mattered.
Teenage gossip and playing the game in high school was nice and all, but here, in the secret underground base of the supervillain gang they were part of (Amanda insisted the Crypts were supervillains, as calling them villains didn't really do the organization justice), they were an integral part of the running of things; them keeping things in order was what allowed the Crypts to function smoothly and in turn they were trusted to make decisions that could and would change the lives of others forever.
Their signatures on certain pieces of paper caused gangsters armed with tinkertech weapons to go out and kill, kidnap or save people on the streets, their groundwork on the allocation of funds could make or break thousands of people and they literally had a map with plans for half the city detailed building by building, incorporating the directions handed down by the higher-ups.
It was intoxicating to wield so much power. To know what they could do by simply filing the right pieces of paper. Sometimes, the two of them even felt regret at having to spend half their days in school and bother with teenage politics and drama when there was so much more to be done in The Lair, though there admittedly was something to be said for the more personal touch they got from doing things, well, in person.
Their direct superior, just Henley, as he insisted they call him, was often busy with various tasks, but that just meant they could exercise even more power in his name during his absences. This, they both thought, was power, pure and simple, and it made perfect sense why so many people fought and died for the sake of more.
Screw the paltry drugs they'd consumed before, as well as the inheritance standing ready whenever their parents bit it. Power was where it was at. And where else would a pair of high schoolers ever have a chance to gain power over life and death like this, if not with the Lord Street Crypts and their absolute lack of care about who someone was as long as they could do their job? As Henley had said when they first met him, connections and money were nice, but didn't really matter when they were managing both on a massive scale like this.
The man was also a genius when it came to motivating them, given the first thing he did was offload a stack of paper describing a series of people- old gang members of the Merchants, later the ABB and Empire, telling them to decide what should happen with each of them, from making them disappear to having them hired.
It had been the first time Amanda and Celine had held lives, actual literal lives in their hands... And no matter how much comparatively boring paperwork they had to do in the meantime, that alone had been enough to get them hooked. Over and over again.
The night air is cool and pleasant against your skin, the moon not yet easily visible but its light shining somewhere on the horizon where your nocturnally optimized senses can make it out already. It's a pleasant night in Brockton Bay, is what you're trying to say, and you're out and about right now on a leisurely walk around the city's streets.
Or 'patrolling', technically, though it isn't as if you're particularly pressed to do so; most of what you're doing while moving is community outreach anyway.
With you tonight are both Tammi and Jeremy, or, as they're in costume much like yourself, Charmcaster and Thunderstruck. It's important to ensure things like cape names are well-known and often used, just for branding purposes- the Crypts have so many (known) capes running around, the danger of just having any one of them be considered background actors nobody cares about is omnipresent.
Which you can't have, of course, you didn't assemble one of the biggest parahuman groups in the USA right after the Protectorate and the Elite just to let them drown each other out in the public consciousness.
Thankfully, most of the capes around that don't have much to do take care of that by themselves simply by patrolling around firmly Crypt-controlled areas, stopping crimes committed by anyone not part of your gang and generally doing, as you already outlined, community outreach. It's basically what heroes would be doing normally, just better by sheer virtue of your guys doing it instead.
Speaking of which, although half of downtown is still kind of in ruins, you have pretty much taken over the area by this point with Crypt gang tags (designed by yours truly, of course) and quite a bit of 'humanitarian aid' is coming this way from your gang, from the first few days of search and rescue after the fighting to medical aid and quickly constructed shelter for anyone that needed it.
Most of that is gone now, of course, as the reconstruction of things has begun and the need for it has ceased, but none of that changes you basically own the area now, territorially speaking. The Protectorate sends a couple of their own patrols through every now and then, but just as the E88 once had an iron grip on this part of town, so do you now, and not only do they try to avoid directly meeting your villain patrols, they actively go the other way if that's what's needed to keep their distance.
Say about the PRT ENE whatever you want, but while they did virtually nothing about the gangs once the past equilibrium set in with Lung and the E88 opposing each other, they're adopting the same stance against the Crypts, knowing full well a confrontation with your guys is the last thing they want.
You all have an... arrangement of sorts, one could say. You did go and actively make it in person precisely to avoid hostilities, of course, simply because you don't want to have to fight the Entirety of the Protectorate either, but that's beside the point.
What all your background ramblings add up to, ultimately, is that the Crypts have reached that sweet spot where it's not worth starting a fight with you while the threat you represent is considerable, but not so overwhelming as to require being dealt with anyway. Hence the PRT just kind of taking a hands-off approach so long as you stay in that same sweet spot. The only thing you really need to worry about are rival villains coming in to tr and disturb the peace, but, well...
That's going to be a slow process because not exactly everyone is going to be brave enough to give it a try.
Of course sooner or later your comfortable position will have to change, whether because circumstances change or because of your own machinations already in place, but for the moment you have some nice old peace and quiet. And time. Time to thoroughly take over the city of Brockton Bay and fortify your influence before you proceed with the next steps.
And all of that is pretty much completely unrelated to the situation at hand as you walk around with Thunderstruck and Charmcaster, the two of them teaming up for this patrol. "So, how have things been lately for you two? Any trouble out in the streets?"
"Nothing big, no," Thunderstruck says blandly, his power quiet and not in use as long as he's moving slowly. "Just a couple of the usual crazies and idiots that don't know to keep away from capes."
"N-n-nobody says anything ab-bout me even though m-m-my p-p-power is d-distinctive," Charmcaster adds, floating along on a bench made specifically for her. "I w-w-was afraid of that at the s-s-st-start."
"Pretty sure people just don't want to piss off any Crypt capes in general," you remark with a small shrug.
The three of you go on like this, occasionally going out of your way to actually talk to people, get in some interaction and stuff like that. You even pose for a couple of pictures, in fact, quickly noting that Thunderstruck seems to have a knack for this kind of thing.
When asked about it, he just sighs a little, though. "Yeah, I guess I do, huh? Truth be told, I actually used to be a little uncomfortable about this when I started this whole gig, but it was... easier, to walk around the old docks. Guess I just got used to it. Oh, and becoming a vampire, that helped a lot."
Well, you guess shame might just be a thing vampires don't really feel normally, come to think of it. At least you haven't ever felt any since the whole graveyard stint you pulled.
"A-a-about that," Charmcaster interrupts with a question, "wh-what is this vampire business all ab-b-bout exactly? People talk about it on b-b-base, but there's a l-lot of rumours and..."
"Oh, you know, I probably should clarify things at some point then," you say, never really having considered how the rumour mill would take to you beginning to create more vampires on occasion. "Simply put, being a vampire is kind of what my power is at its core, with drinking people's blood for power and powers. I can turn other people into more vampires that get a smaller selection of my various powers over time, but the process is a bit fiddly and takes a long time for me to repeat, which is why I didn't just vamp out everyone yet. Why, would you want to be a vampire, too?"
"I-I-I'm not s-sure, that's why I'm ask-k-king," Charmcaster says with a shake of her head, letting her long hair swish around. "It's k-k-kind of a big d-deal for someone to get the p-p-power-d-deluxe p-p-package."
"Yeah, people have actually been asking me about it ever since they found out I joined the suck club," Thunderstruck mentions. "I generally try to just tell them how things are, but you know how it is when the girls get some juicy gossip to chew on."
"Is it really that bad? I mean, I'm usually busy and don't just hang around to chat much, but I always got the impression the HQ is pretty laid-back as far as things like that go."
"It is."
"It r-really is."
Huh. Go figure, you suppose. Ah well, you'll just go ahead and put a quick thought package together about vampirism and how it really works- and only send it to the thralls you deem trustworthy, of course.
Back at base, once you're done with your fairly calm and even walk around the city, you take a quick detour back to your place, witnessing Sarah lecturing your mother on 'proper ways to submit to her eternally superior master and mistress' while spanking her with just very slight surges of electricity from her palms and quickly abandon ship, instead choosing to go ahead and check in on the two members of the Slaughterhouse Nine that managed to survive its destruction; both Burnscar and Bonesaw, or Mimi and Riley in civilian identities, have mostly just been cooling their heels down in the bunker, so you go ahead and pay both of them a visit.
Mimi is, surprisingly, quite fine- she's a little sad about what she did as Burnscar, but now that her power isn't having a near-constant influence on her, she is... Well, still a mass murderer, but one that can calm down and just relax in a safe place.
Incidentally, Emily has been paying her company from time to time, seeing how both of them have fire-related powers (in a very broad sense, of course, the way they work is like night and day when compared with each other) and are fire-proof, though you think it started out more as Emily wanting to keep an eye on Buenscar just in case, being one of the few people on base that would be reasonably hard for her to kill using her power.
Things just kind of went from there and the two of them are fairly good friends now, you'd say, especially after Emily got vamped and has gained the power to literally turn herself into fire; though this does mean Mimi's power overrides her mind a little in the presence of open flames, even in her completely inhibition-less state she's still pretty much just playing around with Emily.
Stuff like teleporting through her friend's body and similar. But hey, as long as they're both having fun and the ticking timebomb that is Mimi can work it off with relatively little collateral damage, that's very much fine with you.
Now, as for Riley...
"Have I been a Good Girl?" Is the question the little blonde asks you as you come in, hugging her frilly pink dress. "I did everything auntie Kate and auntie Sarah said and I even washed my own clothes so-"
"You've been a very good girl indeed, but it's not like you absolutely have to in here, you know?" You ask, going down on one knee and holding out a hand for the girl responsible for perhaps the most gray hair in PRT officials to date. "This is my little kingdom, and being naughty is perfectly fine as long as you do it right. But last we talked, you were nowhere near this concerned about that, so what's up?"
Riley hides her face behind her hands, leaving only her eyes uncovered as they avoid yours. "Don' wan' to be unthankful," she mutters behind her balled fingers.
"But?" You coax gently, open hand still stretched out for her to take whenever she's comfortable. "You don't need to worry, nothing you tell me will make a difference in you being part of our family, hm? You're not getting rid of anyone here that easily."
"..." She takes a little longer, but finally, Riley clasps her hands over yours. "I wanted to ask... if it would be okay... if I tinkered a little? Not much, I just want to find something out!"
"Mhm, that depends on what exactly you want to do," you tell her, carefully letting your palm touch her rosy cheek. "Details first, then we can talk."
"It's just an idea, but did you know parahuman powers come from something I call passengers?" Now if that isn't a non-sequitur, you don't know what is. But asked her to explain, so you just gesture for Riley to continue. "They're the beings that make powers possible. The corona pollentia and gamma are just the ways they interface with people and if you change them carefully, you can actually change power expressions and-"
Once Riley really gets going, she seemingly can't stop talking, detailing every bit of information she has on powers and how they work; some vague beings that are hard to get information on but that likely are somehow related to other dimensions make coronas grow in select people, activating powers by growing the corona gemma under the influence of a psychological trigger; hence the state of mind at time of triggering is what determines power expression, as the process happens entirely within the brain and takes cues of what is happening inside of it.
She calls these beings passengers because they just kind of ride along and tap into the host's brain, both before and after the trigger, seemingly content to just observe what is going on and how powers are used- depending on what they see and how they like it, they can then influence the brain through the corona in various ways.
To you, that sounds a lot like one of the many theories on the origin of parahuman powers just much more in-depth, something you waste no time in mentioning and swiftly discussing with Riley.
She seems both amazed and excited that you have an at least theoretical background in this field of research (though you go to great lengths to ridicule the incredibly insufficient state of actual proper research in regards to parahumans as you are aware of it) and can't wait to talk about this more and more.
"-so you see, I am very sure that the powers you have access to and can spread aren't passenger-related, neither directly nor indirectly, which is an astounding discovery if true, and I wanted to experiment to see whether or not the phenomenon can be replicated with my own power somehow," she concludes. "But I'd need live test subjects for that and I didn't want to look like I'm just doing the same I did before and-"
"Don't worry, I trust you." The simple words seem to have stunned the nearly hysterical kid into calming down again (managing Riley is surprisingly easy once you get an idea of the right buttons to push). "Simply put, all you need right now are a few disposable people to tinker around with, right?"
"Yes! I'd need to open up their brains and try to create an artificial corona, then link it with mine to see if I can replicate the effect somehow." You're pretty sure that shouldn't work, but well, tinkers. Especially biotinkers. Can't ever really be sure.
"Welcome to the blood farm," you say as you step out of the elevator, letting Riley follow after you. "Don't mind the decor, it's not really meant to receive guests by any means, but as you can see, there are quite a few potential test subjects stashed away here."
The whole setup is rather simple, now that you take a moment to really think about it; long hallways leading along several rows of rather very restrained blood dolls continually being drained of a small amount of blood, to be stored in bags and transported elsewhere, or else resting and waiting to be bit into by any vamp that wants a bite.
"Vampires like me feed off of blood, you see, and so while it's much tastier and more filling to just drain a human body dry in one go, that isn't really the most sustainable in the extremely long run, at least not if we want to keep missing person reports to a stable limit," you joke. "Hence, this little operation here. We just kind of expand it on occasion as more supply is needed."
Riley, her eyes lit up like a kid that just got shown to the toy store, clasps her hands before her chest, looking up at you with big eyes. "And I can use all of these?"
"Not quite all," you chide her mildly. "We do need a certain amount of blood being produced at all times just in case there's a problem, so I'd like you to restrain yourself from emptying the whole place. That said, well, these are all people nobody is going to miss one way or another, so feel free to take as many as you need within bounds."
"I'm going to make them all produce extra blood just in case, then I'll start clinical trials right away." Well, as long as you get enough blood to meet all the needs in place and keep on stocking surplus, you don't really mind. "Thank you so much, big brother Gabriel!"
Aww, she's adorable like this. You just muss up her hair a little. "Don't worry about it Riley, that's what family's for."
Having the time to sit down and leisurely chat with Kate really is far too rare an occasion, something not helped by her actually also being fairly busy and often running around the city as an enforcer now that the great paperwork crisis has been resolved for a good while and she could excuse herself from giving a fuck.
Which she does, quite often, as Kate just never really stopped being Kate, leading to some rather extreme tendencies towards sudden outbreaks of ultraviolence whenever she takes one of her 'enthusiastic walks'. Still, she is perfectly capable of keeping things relatively quiet and mostly is shooting up anyone that hasn't managed to get with the Crypt program yet, so you're all for her working through her temper like this.
Either way, none of that changes what you're doing right now, that is, doing a quick review of the various capes part of the Lord Street Crypts, how they're doing, if there's anything to be done as an organization to help them be better at what they're doing, that kind of thing. You, Sarah and Kate are embroiled in this part of the business, kind of being the ones that just ended up with this responsibility.
Yes, you are actually doing your job when you run around interacting with and assessing various individuals you've sunk your hooks into.
So you go down the list, making it a point to pay extra attention to the various teenage capes you're employing and their notorious tendency for self-destructive, short-sighted and all-around non-optimal behaviour. Look, you don't want to be overbearing or anything, but if they need help, it's kind of your job to ensure they get that help.
Most of the usual problem kids are fairly alright as it goes, at least; Rachel is fine as long as she gets to be a wolf and play with all the dogs she's apparently 'recruited' with the powers you've given her by now, Alec and Cherie, the two kids of Heartbreaker you've picked up, are generally going on each other's nerves but otherwise non-critical at the moment and even Brian is mostly wrangling with the fact he now knows Aisha is a cape and full-time employed by you, too.
Better that than him having self-confidence issues and growing more and more resentful over it. And yes, you're aware that most of these so far have been the Undersiders, but they're just at the top of the list as far as this particular list of things to be concerned about goes.
As for Aisha, she's a little gremlin to everyone and a menace to society, but also actually helping out around the place with her abundant free time, whereas Dinah Alcott may require a little more active participation on your part as her power continues to be an issue in her every day life and she apparently keeps on looking up that one site about erotic thoughts and images of yourself.
Another note to self, letting yourself trace back mental network traffic was a good idea, after all. It's kind of a bitch to work with, but as long as you know a site already, you can kind of follow access procedures to find out who was on it. Depressingly, this one particular site has a lot of traffic, incidentally.
The most interesting entry on your little list, however, is someone else. That is, one Taylor Anne Hebert, insect-themed Master with a surprisingly use- and powerful powerset and literally all the issues.
"She's doing just fine so long as she can channel her negativity into doing something," Sarah says, explaining her psychoanalysis of the girl a few years her junior. "That's why she pushes herself into pushing her former bullies and training whatever we tell her to."
"Yeah, about that, she's actually a fucking amazing shot with a gun," Kate adds. "Way she explained it, she's got proprioception of all her bugs, so all she needs is a bug on a target and on two spots on her gun, she just needs to line them all up and boom."
"At least within certain ranges," you note with immediate understanding. "Traditional firearms would mean bullet dropoff and wind conditions complicating things and even with the better stuff available to her, there's an upper limit on range."
"Pretty sure her own range isn't far enough for most of that to be a problem, Gabe. More importantly, how's her other training going?" Sarah asks.
"She can shoot just fine wearing high heels and with a dildo in her ass nice and fine," your girlfriend slash second in command grins. "Also doing fine with nipple clamps, but I didn't wanna overload her. Yet."
"Good choice with the heels, girl's got legs for days," you note with a sage nod.
"Emphasizes her butt, too. You think She's gonna get some tits now that she's thralled, too?" Sarah asks.
"Maybe, maybe. One can hope, at the very least."
"More importantly, while we're grooming her to be an enforcer already..." You trail off, thinking about it for a moment. "Let's put together a balanced training regime and let her know about it. You know, really condition her body and mind."
"Do we really need to?" Sarah drawls. "Girl has literally killed the Siberian before. She's pretty out there already as is."
"And yet she hasn't beaten the snot out of Alexandria. My point stands. So, any suggestions? I'm thinking we keep it simple for now, just add some gymnastics and body conditioning to her schedule and get her started on hand-to-hand training."
"Are you sure it's a good idea to dictate something like that? You know how teenagers can be, heck we're all still like that," Kate mentions.
"Oh, it'll be fine. Taylor is almost desperately searching for ways to affirm her self-worth at the best of times," Sarah waves her concerns off. "Keep things flexible and she'll do the rest herself. Also, just imagine making her do gymnastics with dildos involved."
"Objection withdrawn."
You, on the other hand, are already drawing up a comprehensive set of guidelines for Taylor to follow like a good little puppet of yours and preparing to send them right to her, hopefully giving her a new motivation in improving herself for your use.
Ahh, you do love it when people just dance on your strings. And looking forward to making use of her for a long, long time to come.
Sherrel is, unsurprisingly, easily found inside the workshop area, currently idly tinkering away at one thing or another; you would be more precise, but it's simply impossible to tell what exactly she's doing and where those balls of machinery wrapped with cables are supposed to be going.
Not that it matters, for all that you are secretly annoyed at the way tinkertech makes absolutely no sense. Perhaps you should ask Riley about how she thinks it works one of these days, see if she has any insights to offer on the topic. But that's for later, as right now you're busy striking up a conversation with Sherrel.
Yes, it's not just your thralls that you go out of your way to ensure the mental health of, though vampires thankfully tend to be a great deal more self-sufficient in this regard.
As it happens, though, you're curious about something, and so after just a few exchanged words about Sherrel's pregnancy and how hers is technically the least developed so far thanks to all the time shenanigans you pull on a regular basis, you soon hit upon the exact thing you're here for (after seeing if you can already feel your child growing in her belly, of course).
"So I've noticed you generally aren't really up for traveling dimensions for one reason or another. Is there a deeper reason for that or do you just not feel like it?"
"Ah, figured you'd figure it out," the blonde wearing a bikini and jeans shorts says, leaning her back against you where the two of you stand in her vehicle workshop corner. "It's... Shit, I could say I just don't want to be a wasted spot in case there isn't anything my power could work with on the other side, but chances are I could just improvise something anyway."
Probably," you agree, silently urging her to continue the thought.
"Guess I could go with the absence of the internet and flushing toilets or something, too, making everything stink worse than I did when I was on week-long drugged benders, too."
"To be fair, I've made sure to reintroduce the concept on Earth Fallout while Thule already has something to that effect," you note idly.
"Ya did, didn't you?" Sherrel snorts. Reaching out to pick up a length of wire, she idly plays with it, wrapping it around her fingers and weaving it into a glove. "I could claim a lot of things, but I think most of those would be excuses. What' really having me want to just stay home is... Well, I ain't afraid of leaving or anything, wouldn't be even if I still could do that kinda thing."
Hurray for vampirism once again, you suppose.
"It's just that, Earth Bet's a shithole, but it's all I know, ya dig? Even if I could just leave, I'm kinda used to how things work here. With the capes and the culture and all that. It'd be super bothersome to deal with a whole world that doesn't get what a cape is or that powers are a thing and honestly, I'm not sure I wanna bother."
"So instead you prefer to just leave working in other paradigms to others that actually want to, huh?"
"You got it! Dunno what that says about me, but that's just not really who I am. Now if I was actually needed, I'd come along in a heartbeat, but otherwise... Well, you know."
You hum, resting your hands around Sherrel's hips for a moment. You guess you do.
Ah well, as long as she's fine with it, you don't really see a need to interfere... And yes, you do realize you've been having this exact thought (or adjacent thoughts) very often recently, to the point it may as well be a catchphrase of yours soon.
Nevertheless, you better had respond to the genuine self-reflection Sherrel just shared with you with only minimal prompting. "That explains that, then. If you prefer it this way, there's obviously no need to ask if you'd like to join those little trips, just be sure to tell me if that ever changes."
"Really, that's it?" Sherrel asks, blonde hair moving across your front a little. "I'd've thought Mister Motivational Speech here would give me a pep talk, at least."
"Nah, this is really just a matter of preference, no need to try and convince you of anything," you casually deny, letting your thumbs slide along her shorts' waistband. "Only thing I could say would be to keep an open mind and try new things every now and then just in case you end up liking them, but if you want that kind of thing, we could just hang up a couple of motivational cat posters in here instead, too."
"Pff, figures." The Tinker grins as she stretches her body, back curving as she pushes her butt at you in the process. "Did I ever mention how sweet this whole gig is? With you, I mean."
"Maybe," you respond, shifting your weight just a little. "Though I guess we have more important things to consider right now."
"Oh, such as?"
"Surprise butt sex," you say, slipping her pants down her waist (she isn't wearing any panties whatsoever) and undoing your own, letting your cock spring free and prod Sherrel's asshole in one smooth motion.
"Sweet fucking gig, as I said," is all she has time to say before you dive right in, parting the flesh of her buttcheeks and penetrating said butt as deeply as you can- quite deep, for all that the hot, constricting sheathe immediately begins to squeeze down on you.
As you begin to really pound forwards, railing the Tinker's ass like an industrial jackhammer, all Sherrel does is lean over a little more so you can better have your way with her. "Oooh, anyone ever tell you you have a great cock?"
"A few people here and there, yes," you mildly remark, filling her tight sphincter and reaching both hands out to stroke and tease her whole body, from the tight belly containing the growing unlife of your child to her bountiful breasts and soft, squeezable nipples thereupon.
"Well it's almost as great as the way you use it," she groans, pushing her behind out just a little further to take you as deep as possible. "You got size and skill and don't ever let anyone say size isn't important."
"I'll keep it in mind," you chuckle, both of you mostly unconcerned by the rapid pace you've set ever since you decided to surprise Sherrel with something nice. "Wanna bet I can make you black out right inside one of your cars?"
"Screw fucking bets, just fuck me harder!"
You've never been one to disappoint a lady, so...
Of course Sherrel doesn't manage to outlast you, in the end; despite being just as undead as you, she ends up with her face lying on one of cars she is either taking apart or rebuilding (you genuinely can't tell) and her ass raised high up in the air, leaking the copious amounts of cum you pumped into her during the course of your 'playing around'.
Still, you'd like to think the grin still plastered onto her face and the unfocused eyes almost entirely turned up too far to see anything are a sign of her having enjoyed herself just fine. Either way you'll just leave the tinker be for the time being, she'll be fine on her own.
... Probably. Maybe you'll adjust her position so she can't fall into anything just in case.
Anyway, with that out of the way you'll just go ahead and- oh for fuck's sake, something is happening again. Receiving the telepathic call, you feel the urge to either sigh in annoyance or go punch a bitch.
Not Rachel, you mean some idiot that pisses you off.
It would seem that renovation work around the docks has been halted temporarily, as the presence of several heroes suddenly showing up and investigating is throwing kind of a wrench into things. You'd kind of thought you didn't need to worry about any of that, but it seems you'll just have to halt everything until they decide to fuck off for the time being.
You don't need Sarah to tell you what's going on; in all likelihood, they know that something fucky is going on and are taking the opportunity to prove they haven't just given up entirely to the people around. You'll just have to wait, or else go and deal with them but there's honestly not much open crime for them to take issue with in your territory.
Incidentally, Henley sent a request to reallocate the dockworkers you hired to play the part of construction workers elsewhere, given nobody assumes the heroes will be fooled by the charade you put on for the wider public. You don't really care either way, they'll keep on getting paid however long this takes and whether they pretend to be construction workers or help out around the southern part of the city where the E88 raged prior to its downfall is irrelevant to you, whereas it seems the brains of your operation decided to step up the humanitarian efforts in the area.
You doubt anyone will complain, honestly.
You've been working on this little side project on and off ever since you first received the schematics for this stuff, but now you can finally say that you have, indeed, managed to rework pretty much all of your robot models that can incorporate a set of Lutece Particles with the required additions and changes in mind.
In the first place, the particles themselves are pretty much static, essentially just being defined as particles that are at a certain height and subsequently moving to be at that height no matter what, lifting and/or breaking anything in their path to get to the height they're supposed to be. Of course 'height' is actually very vaguely defined and the technical definition is distance from a given planet's core, but that's beside the point so long as you're mostly acting within a planet's atmosphere.
Because you kind of need a defined height or similar set of coordinates to set the particles onto, and good luck finding some absolute unmoving point to work off of for free space flight, schmucko. That's not how astrophysics work.
Anyway, back on topic, many of your robots aren't really the kind of things capable of free flight even with the Lutece Particle involved. However, that does not stop you from just adding a small amount of the things inside one of the (honestly quite complicated) control mechanisms required to selectively negate the force pushing them upwards at all times and simply give effective jump packs to most of your ground troops.
As well as the big, vaguely spider-like SP1D3R heavy assault robots weighing up to a couple tons depending on their loadout. Their jump attacks just got a whole lot scarier and they even already have assorted rocket-inspired leg additions meant to let them jump further and control their landings; effectively, they can just fly now, even if only for short amounts of time.
You may need to rework the rocket legs to somehow draw from the fusion cores. They still can move freely for a few minutes, but there's only so much fuel in the things at the best of times.
Now, as for the robots that already hover, such as the Bobs and the Sickles, as you named them back then... Well, suffice to say, it shall be quite doable to have them build and maintain skyscrapers from the inside and the outside both.
Only issue remaining now is the material cost of fabricating Lutece particles- not only do you require a finely tuned particle collider and several heavy elements, which can be kind of a bitch to pull out of your ass, pretty much everything about them is just expensive as heck in terms of materials when you also consider the control casings and related technology.
In short, while this stuff is pretty amazing, you are still keeping the unaugmented robot schematics on hand just for those dimensions where flying robot death armies aren't as important to have as normal robot death armies.
That's not the strangest thing you're dealing with at the moment, though. That would be the man that just showed up inside the lab inside of your soul's inner world.
The man you didn't actually eat or anything.
"So... How exactly did you get in here?" You ask none other than Robert Lutece.
"The same way one gets anywhere, just through roads less traveled." And somehow you think that may be a joke at your expense.
"And your better half?"
"Where she always is, right across the door," Rosalind says, notably not quite inside the same lab room as you and Robert- right outside the door leading inside instead, as she said.
"Well, if you are here already, make yourselves at home, I suppose." The Lutece twins' strange state of being seems to go much further than you would have assumed, given they can literally walk right inside you, but you're fairly sure they won't be messing around with anything in here (nor that they could even if they wanted to).
"There was actually a matter we wished to talk about," Robert notes.
"A matter," his twin scoffs. "A thing of import."
"It matters," Robert insists.
"Yes, but to whom?"
You clear your throat. "To you, clearly, else you wouldn't be asking me about it. What's the matter, then?"
Robert looks around for a moment, playing it up you're pretty sure. "How do you even satisfy everyone you sleep with?"
"You really shouldn't compare yourself; performance can vary, as Comstock proved."
"On the contrary, one should compare. None of us ever tire and yet you wring me out like a wet cloth every time."
"Clear biological advantages, if one wants to call it biology."
"Does one, though? And if-"
"Look, would it help you if I just let you look through my memories on sex?" This is honestly getting ridiculous.
"You know, I find that despite all the talk, I haven't actually done much of anything to you," you note aloud, sitting down on your bed. Your mother, tied up and unable to leave the room, glares at you, but otherwise merely tries to keep her saliva inside her mouth, the ring gang making it impossible to keep her lips closed.
She is also sitting on the ground, as actually getting on your bed is pretty difficult with her limbs as they are right now. It is generally questionable whether she'd go for it, but it would be more comfortable at least.
Not that it matters to you. "Time to rectify that, then."
You lift her up and throw her right onto your bed, the arms tied behind her back and legs similarly shackled together meaning she can't move much at all when you climb after her, already unzipping your pants.
"Heeh!" She struggles, but can't stop you from doing whatever you damn well want with her; pushing her down by the shoulder, you bury her face in the soft mattress for a moment.
"You see, I genuinely don't really care about you, but you're a warm body and reasonably pretty face so now that you're here already," you narrate as you position yourself, the weight of your body keeping your mother in place and letting you nudge your lower head right against her entrance's folds despite the angle, "it'd be a waste not to use you, don't you think?"
She lets out a croaking moan to the feeling of your cock entering her, never having been able to hide her pleasure at this point. It's that that usually, she would be the one pinning you down on your bed instead of the other way around.
You grip her jaw with one hand, forcing her to breathe into the open instead of hiding her face. "I hope you enjoy this; you always did before, after all. I am going to be hiding from the Protectorate for a short while so you'd better get used to paying me company."
Your other hand graps for her butt instead, thumb circling her pink rosebud and slowly, but surely slipping inside to begin loosening her up a little. Your mother tries to protest, never having been touched back there (by you anyway), but since when did you care?
"Because no matter what, you'll always be second choice at best. Just something to whet the appetite before I go to have some real sex." Like that, you properly jackhammer into her, treating her insides more like a toy that part of a living person. Each of your powerful thrusts sends her reeling under you, her constricting tunnel going wild around your cock.
She actually does like it a little rougher despite what her desperate wiggling indicates, huh? Go figure. That does take a little out of the fun, but you sure aren't going to stop now.
On and on you go, more interested in permanently deforming your mother's insides to match your rod than actually coming inside of her, though you can't say you don't do so either. She writhes and twitches, too tired to fight back when you fill her up balls deep.
That changes when you pull out, only to change targets to the other orifice you've been using your whole thumb to work open all this time. "Hhh! Hhhh!"
It always kind of bothered you, you see, to leave that ass untapped. It may be some kind of weird completionist urge driving you, but you aren't leaving until your mother's ass is full of your spunk, too.
By the time you're done pounding the tall blonde woman that gave birth to you, she is entirely insensate, indeed leaking your cum from both her pussy and asshole- one of those things she never knew to appreciate before but still came nonstop with now- and Sarah is finally coming by. "Oh, hey Gabe, having fun?"
"Just killing a little time before I go experimenting on myself. Wanna join me?" You ask, pushing the numbly wobbling body of your mother off the bed.
"A~ny~time~."
"Alright, time to do the first trial attempt on a vampire," you say, voice quite a bit higher than it would normally be- you've used your powers to de-age yourself until you're, what, eight? Ten? It's hard to estimate from the inside and you've never been good at this kind of thing.
"Are you sure it's a good idea to do this? We have no idea how the process might interact with your state of being," Yoshi counsels, having been summoned for a while already and currently forced to assist you.
"Funny, I would've thought you'd be all for me risking negative side effects," you say with a raised eyebrow.
"I have no idea what happens if you die and I do have some measure of self-preservation instinct in me."
"Fair enough. And yes, let's just do this already- vampires tend to just shrug off anything that's actually disadvantageous, so there's not actually much of a risk." You climb into the pod that you will be spending the next couple hours inside of. You do hope this is going to work, the Cluster Six managed to get away with a lot of cool powers.
The whole esper thing can also be trained, so even if you get something weak or useless, you can just work on it until it isn't. If, that is, you find the time, of course.
"Half of this won't even work on you, you're immune to the hallucinogenics and your senses operate on a wholly different level." And despite his grumblings, Yoshi runs through the preparations, giving all systems a last check. "Are you ready?"
"Hook me in already, time isn't going any faster from gaffing around." You lean back into the capsule, about as ready as can be.
The thing closes up around you, a visor of sorts lowering over your head. You can hear music playing, a weird scent comes up and the screen in front of your eyes starts showing you an everchanging graph that shows... wavelengths of something, you think?
Then the lounger you're half-sitting, half-lying on starts to vibrate and move you in place, disorienting you mildly. Man, this has to be what a drug trip feels like or... something.
When the mild torture you're subjecting yourself to finally ends, you jump right out of the halfway opened pod. You actually did have to concentrate on what was happening to you instead of distracting yourself by chatting or viewing thoughts and memories via telepathy or messing with your souls, meaning that yes, it really was mild torture.
You aren't unsteady on your feet by virtue of your perfect control over your body, vertigo not being a thing for you since going undead, but it's a near thing. This whole process, as Yoshi likes calling it, is really disorienting.
"How do you feel?" The Japanese high schooler hiding an old man's mind asks, having actively modified things on the outside while you let yourself be inundated with all of the weird sensations.
"Like I just rediscovered how it felt like to be beaten up in middle school," you growl as you begin the process of growing back to your usual size.
"Oh, uh, please don't do that- it might mess with the process. Just, stay in about this physical age. Also, you got beaten up in school?"
"A couple times, yes. The girls always avenged me afterwards, but the boys never learned," you shrug. "More importantly, are you serious or are you just messing with me?"
"I am serious to some extent. This is honestly new ground we're treading," your science minion says.
"... Whatever. I'll stick to this form unless I need to be normal-sized. Be down in the bloodfarm if someone needs me."
Time to go extract a few soul bits to regain your emotional equilibrium with the aid of casual cruelty.
Francis closed his eyes, breathing out in a long stream of air. Then in again, lightly opening his mouth on the next pass.
This wasn't really working out. They had a trail to follow back in Boston, but then apparently things happened and Accord had still been pissed about things, their lead in Brockton Bay had died off from one moment to the next and they couldn't stay anywhere long- Noelle was getting worse, the incident in New York was still a problem and with things as they were... Yeah, better to move on.
They weren't the Travelers for nothing.
Speaking of which, there came Mars. "Hey."
"Hey." Now what did she want?
"Noelle's acting up again, think you could talk to her?" Yeah, that would do it.
The Travelers were based out of a warehouse at the moment, having smuggled in their largest member with the truck Accord had given them to get them out of Boston. It had been a tight fit and Mars had had to burn off a bit of her sides, but it worked, that was all that counted.
"Francis..." Noelle wasn't feeling too well today, he could see it in the eyes peering at him. Most of them were a little more misformed than usual. "I'm so hungry..."
"We'll just need to feed you then," Francis said, going over to the large meet freezer they had right in the next room- Noelle couldn't be trusted with food in her reach. "Just a moment."
"The cold stuff doesn't cut it anymore. I think... I think I need something warmer..."
He repressed a grimace. This was exactly why they'd had to leg it out of NYC. "That's your power talking, Noelle. Don't worry, we'll find a cure and get you healthy again, just like you used to be."
"It hurts, Francis. I'm trying to hold it back, but it isn't getting better."
"I know, okay? It'll be fine. It's all going to be fine."
Later that day, Francis was looking out over the street, sitting on a roof not far from their temporary base. He needed a solution and he needed it fast- the Travelers needed a new destination. Issue was they didn't have any clue after Brockton Bay fell through.
Maybe it hadn't though, though, Trickster thought as he watched a pair of birds take flight. Maybe they'd just have to take a stab at the city anyway. The timeline meant that this Cain guy was probably the one that'd torn Coil down, so he figured he owed them a cure for Noelle instead.
Watching the flapping wings, Trickster nodded. He knew what he had to do now.
Teleporting down and back inside, he cleared his throat. "Good news everyone, we have a destination!"
Now then, most of your matter producers down in the base are busy getting you various materials needed for the production of drugs, machines and whatever else you need on a permanent basis, meaning the ones that actually produce more immediately useable biomatter are relatively small in number and their output not actually all that large, but you do have all the corpses produced by normal gang activity stored in various meat freezers still.
Good thing you do, too, for although current murder rates aren't actually particularly high among the Crypts, you have a decent amount of bodies stored from all the fighting involving the removal of other gangs throughout Brockton Bay. Now that you're back at mass-producing undead, you do need the raw materials to do so, after all.
Specifically, you're busy putting together a round twenty of the Mr. X template minions, in addition to working over the large number of them currently active all over the docks and north side of the city already. Which is kind of a pain, as you can't just command them freely anymore, but a bit of improvisation lets you do your work anyway.
Next off, with a small army of meaty soldiers up your sleeve, next you shall be getting into a few subtler uses of necromancy... By which you mean undead spirits, of course. A couple of sneaky souls mixed with a bit of extra soul fragments shall do for the moment, you think.
Influencing the emergence of your spirit-based undead as you combine several soul fragments with a whole soul to give the whole thing a 'core' of sorts capable of being more than a vaguely existent, non-physical body of information, the various parts converging into a few concrete faux-existing beings.
They all have some decent skills in terms of staying unseen and though you would never trust any of them outside of your complete control courtesy of the standard package all your creations of this kind get, they are perfectly normally intelligent individuals capable of following your orders at all times.
Which is what you need for your little expendable spy group. Anyways, you just bid them to go slink off to a corner somewhere and await your instructions. In the meantime, you're off to play around with a few more demons- it's never the wrong time to go and smush a bunch of lesser essences together to give a few of the various ion weapons your gang's core elite is usually running around with a little extra pep, after all.
That this also doubles as training and mild entertainment for you in messing up the Corrupted you conjure for this purpose is a nice side benefit, of course.
"Gabe? Are you doing it again?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about, Sarah."
"... Is Aisha choking on your cock right now?"
"Mgh, glk, mgh."
"Well, yes," you shrug. "What of it?"
"... Nothing, I guess," your sister sighs. "Just make sure she actually breathes a little."
"Don't worry, Aisha's a big girl. She can figure that out herself."
Instead, you'll just continue to deal with the logistics of the girl kneeling between your legs slobbering all over your dick while you're summoning and mauling demons at the same time. Finally, a challenge.
The whole esper thing takes as much time as yesterday during which you continue to put yourself through the whole... unpleasant-ness, which describes the whole process pretty well.
Still, no pain, no gain and you honestly have gone through worse shit. You can't readily think of it, but you probably have at some point and are just subconsciously repressing the memories.
That's just how things work. The only thing powerful enough to defeat your perfect recollection is yourself.
Still, with the big suck out of the way for the day and only a few minor inconveniences left for a couple of minutes, you soon make your way over to the chemistry lab where Cupcake usually hangs out with that one other chemist you recruited from the Merchants while destroying the gang (as opposed to afterwards). Time to go ahead and bother her until she spends time with you!
... No, your current physical age doesn't have any bearing on your mind. You're just normally like that anyway.
Cupcake, or Addy if you feel generous enough to use her nickname, has been hard at work methodically throwing anything she can think of into a pot and letting it brew for a while to see what happens.
Fast forward to now and she is standing on the little stool she requires to access things at normal person height, hands on her waist as she beholds your glorious mini-self. "Haaahahahaha! The size increasing potion works! I am finally looking down on you from above!"
"I'd say that's more me having de-aged myself temporarily," you say drily. "You're still as puny as ever."
"Dammit. Back to the drawing board with that one."
"Anything else you figured out so far or was your puny height the only thing you could think about again?" You faux-mock her.
"Just you wait! I will become a giant that shall crush entire continents underfoot!"
"Please don't encourage her," the only other person inside the alchemy lab requests. Nell, former drug mixer for the Merchants and currently Cupcake's caretaker, pretty much. "There's only so much maniacal laughter she can produce before she gets hiccups again."
"Nell! You aren't allowed to tell anyone!" Cupcake shouts with an outstretched finger. "Also, I have already succeeded in producing magical drugs and suffered a mild overdose from them! Though that's more a general potion overdose, I think. The drugs themselves don't actually have any side effects beyond giving you a good trip."
"Was that why you were running around naked and insisted the return of the owls was near?"
"More importantly," the miniature chemist continues, willfully ignoring Nell's comment, "I've been working on something to distill the effect of strength potions into a single moment of aggression to better serve our cause."
You translate that sentence in your mind for a moment as you look up at where Cupcake is posing on her stool. "So you mean you wanted to be able to punch as hard as possible?"
"I know what I said!"
"Alright," you shrug. "What did you try so far and where do we go from there?"
Nell sits down at her own desk again, sighing and whispering to herself. "So long as nobody attempts to complete the formula for the Hyper Potion. One waist-height whirlwind trashing the place was bad enough."
Silly wig, check. Matching lab coat, check. Simple lab, various chemicals bubbling away in the background, materials required for the demonstration, check, check and check.
Oh, and of course your shadowed face. Can't forget that one.
You also do have your motley crew of assistants, but those are kind of a given when you put on this particular show. And 3, 2, 1, action!
"Welcome, to Professor Abraham and Assistant Prometheus' Lab! And why, am I glad you are here today, for we are experimenting on humans!"
Yoshi, in his Prometheus outfit and makeup, clears his throat. "You mean to say we are conducting experiments on how the human body works."
"Yes, yes, whatever," you wave him off like the annoying gnat he is. "To be precise, we will be finding out what sugar does inside a human body and what it is needed for, as well what various health conditions can do to mess with it. So watch carefully, especially if you've got a soft spot for sweets!"
All over the nation of the United States of America, people that made their living by jacking the prices of insulin up artificially felt a sudden pull at the bottom of their collective stomachs out of nowhere. Some might have shit themselves right then and there.
The PRT was called on to investigate, but aside from a few suspicions could not conclude the presence nor absence of parahuman action in this matter. It also just had more important things to do.
Hannah- Miss Militia- repressed a sigh, her face kept impassive in the face of the expected tribulation laid upon her.
New regulations were being set in stone and then changed out by the day ever since Cain rose to prominence, but as it stood one Protectorate hero was required to watch any official internet activity coming from Cain. Out of all of them, she had been the only one largely emotionally unaffected by the villain, whether it be in the form of Armsmaster's strange behaviour going back to the night the ABB had been destroyed or Dauntless' strange psychoanalytical urge to almost admire him being the reason none of the others had been chosen for the duty.
Assault and Battery, she was sure, merely did not want to and made up a reason, but if that was the case then more power to them. Miss Militia would simply suffer through this, though the choice on this role surely was helped along by her noctis cape categorization meaning she would not need to change sleep patterns.
"Welcome, to Professor Abraham and Assistant Prometheus' Lab! And why, am I glad you are here today, for we are experimenting on humans!"
This right there, for example, was precisely the reason she couldn't stand the self-absorbed villain ramble on endlessly. What the public found in a mass-murderer playing cute she doubted she would ever understand.
Nevertheless, she had to watch just in case anything immediately obviously important slipped Cain's tongue, not that she would notice anything the small army of analysts watching along in real time wouldn't, and she was the only local Hero to do so just in case the broadcast involved a Master power of some sort. Both possibilities were exceedingly unlikely, but that was simply what she was supposed to be doing.
So she would, as always. Miss Militia wasn't wearing a flag over her face because she would shy away from a mild challenge like this.
MON, JAN 17, 2022 AT 02:27 PMNEW COMMENT24 CHAT
Inside of a certain place that did not physically exist, the soul of one Avery Carmichael, posthumously noted down as 'Twisted', raged aloud, screaming his lungs out and running from one room to another.
Adam Taurus, only around because misery loved company and similar souls holding particularly great and personal grievances against their mutual captor tended to gravitate into a single group, watched the rich fuck make a nuisance of himself with crossed arms. "About time," he snorted. "Was wondering how long until he went mad again."
The soul of the parahuman gang leader known as Lung sat back, crosslegged as the mountain of a man was sitting. "It's his trigger, what did you expect?"
"That he'd get wise before long, but it seems not." And indeed a squad of Maids appeared to beat the crap out of the rampaging man the moment he threw around too much furniture to be tolerated. "Not that either of us can talk."
He knew Lung by now. The man was a bomb waiting to explode, just pretending to be a real man in an unconvincing act of such. Not that Adam could talk in this regard, either.
"Yes, you do make for great entertainment whenever he fucks the whore he took."
"Blake isn't his whore, she's mine and-"
The rest of Adam's tirade was reduced to muffled sounds as the Maids, deciding to be thorough, apprehended him too.
Lung tipped back the tea he'd taken from one of the cafeteria rooms.
Catrin watched as Beverly made use of her manual dexterity, juggling several colorful balls with perfect hand-eye-coordination even as the others did their best to inconvenience her in doing so at her own request. Ayane was using her esper power to create wind, for example, while Jackie had turned herself into a cat and begun to paw at her clustermate's shin.
The latter was probably a lot more effective, come to think of it.
Phoebe, meanwhile, was tilting her head at the blonde ace of their team. "Are you really sure I should do it?" The ashen-skinned girl asked.
"Yes," Beverly confirmed with her usual monotone voice. "It is for the sake of training."
"Okay!" The next moment, the blonde juggler began to grow a little unsteady on her feet, but otherwise kept on going and moving just fine.
"You need more practice," she chastised Phoebe.
"Hey, there's a lot of things to practice with, okay? The esper stuff is on my list, I just haven't gotten to it yet!"
Kumi, having been relaxing with a vacant smile on her face until now, stood up off her bed, coming over to pick up the white cat Jackie had turned into and giving her a few pets. "Did you know Gabriel has already started yet another stream? He is even transmitting it telepathically for everyone's convenience."
"Well, duh, I'm saving it up for when we have time to watch all the recorded ones together," Ayane shrugged. "Also, weren't you supposed to use your esper thing on the blonde wonder, too?"
"What makes you think I haven't been?" Beverly sped up, nearly making a mistake and dropping her balls. She caught all six of them in her arms, quietly pouting at the black-haired leader(?) of them all.
Catrin could only tell because they all knew what the others were thinking at any one time.
"What, did you not invite us to all train together?" Kumi smiled beautifically.
"P-please don't argue?" Catrin asked, feeling her eyes go teary again against her will.
Everyone looked at her, including cat-Jackie, and moments later she found herself in a group hug, a warm and soft paw pushed against her cheek.
This wasn't so bad.
Accord surveyed the report, feeling satisfied vindication at the new developments taking place. His criminal enterprise was generating enough cash flow to allow regular expansion through the vials sold to him by Cauldron, but even so he often invested in various businesses to increase profit margins by a not inconsiderable amount.
Sheer irony, considering his past work history, but nevertheless, it allowed him to influence economic developments to no small degree.
However, it would seem predicting the next target Cain would strike at and selling any and all stocks related to pharmaceutical companies that were about to take major losses ahead of time put him ahead of most other wide-scale investors once again.
The chaos caused would be outweighed by the cheapened insulin prices easily. More importantly, this could be a major Public Relations win for the cape pulling the strings in Brockton Bay. Accord really should consider openly cooperating with the Lord Street Crypts- as soon as they introduced a unified costume scheme of some sort.
Hi nerves simply wouldn't bear it otherwise. Just thinking about it raised his metaphorical hackles and getting into a conflict over his issues was the exact opposite of what he needed to do.
Blasto was enough of a thorn in Accord's side.
You honestly feel like you may be a little bipolar at times, but... Nah, that's probably just being back on Earth Bet. With how subjectively little time you spend here, you just feel like you should make the most of it whenever you can, whether by pulling your little stream stunts or by just sitting down and relaxing by watching some mindless movie that doesn't require much attention.
Just because you can keep on going at 100% at all times doesn't mean you don't like having a little leisure moment here and there every now and then. Also, watching movies and stuff like that is a pretty common way to switch off one's brain for a couple hours, it seems. You were never really big on this kind of thing yourself, but that just means you have a wide range of movies to watch for the first time.
Also, Aisha is joining you for some reason. "So if we're doing this, we definitely have to watch Transformers. Do you got that in here?"
Wordlessly, you let the large screen descend, navigating the menus with the remote that came with the place. "Huh, I do," you say, finding the name Aisha was talking about. "Guess we can watch this, then."
You shrug, your naked body going with the motion all over. Because yes, of course you're naked- this is still a clothing-free zone, after all, it'd be weird if you were wearing anything. The same goes for Aisha, of course, though she hardly ever wears clothes as it is anyway- and your pet, but she gets to sit in the corner and be ignored, as she should.
"Yeah! Heard this shit is hot on Aleph, so let's see what it's all about!"
"So you didn't even know, huh..."
"It's something something alien tinkertech robots that can turn into cars. Just put them on, there's more than one part already."
"Fine, fine." You'd have just chosen something at random anyway. "Wanna sit on my lap?"
"Where else?" With a mischievous grin, the girl you've taken to just treating as a mix between a pet and a friend clambers atop your legs, her dark, chocolate-colored skin feeling warm against your own. Within moments, she's making herself comfortable, rubbing her butt against the erection you stop holding back in response. "Oh, someone's happy to see me!"
"Always," you casually affirm, hands wrapped around her slim waist and head lowering a little to kiss the top of her head, unruly black hair tickling you a little. "You sure you're comfortable enough?"
"Almost." The girl in your lap pushes her slim back towards your chest, a hand darting down to grab at your cock. Her tongue licks across her lips as she pushes herself up just far enough to angle it correctly, slowly but surely pressing your rod against her ass.
"And here I thought you actually wanted to watch that movie," you remark with a smile. You're also just letting her do this on her own, merely sitting there as Aisha does her best to relax enough to get you inside of her.
"Duh, it's part... Of the... Accommodations." She groans a little at her own success, your cock disappearing between her soft butt cheeks and entering the tight hot entrance of her behind.
"You're not wrong, I do always provide," you muse aloud, now playing with her body a little- her breasts are still beginning to grow, but still pretty big already, the dark nipples topping them sensitive to your touch... Not as much as her poor little clit, though, pinched between your fingers and lightly rolled between them.
Now openly moaning, Aisha persists in getting you inside of her, her asshole perversely swallowing your length. By the time she's reached your base, you can see a noticeable bulge on her stomach where your cock protrudes a little too far, though as always she's just giving off a breathy moan when she feels along it, poking you through her own body.
"Guess what, we haven't even started the movie and you're like this already," you whisper into her ear, raising two fingers to rub some clear fluid you wiped from her lower lips. "Just imagine how you'll look by the time we're done."
"Less talking more fucking my ass," Aisha growls, lidded eyes looking over her shoulder. "I want to lose all feeling in my legs already."
"As the lady commands." Quickly starting the move, you grab Aisha by the waist, pulling her up your cock and feeling every inch her ass moves along it... Then you push her down again, back to being balls deep inside the girl. "No mercy shall be given."
And hey, you're nothing if not a man of your word.
The movie is... honestly making you question what people always have about movies, but at least you have something good to occupy yourself with while you let it pass on the screen- Aisha's butt is a complete mess by the end just as she requested, slowly leaking your cum and held in the air by the poor sleeping posture she took after you pulled her off and dumped her onto your bed.
She's also smiling happily even while zoned out and unconscious, which you take as a sign of satisfaction at the treatment she got.
Anyways, it's almost time for your next appointment, so you'll just let her sleep it off for a bit. With a note to have your pet lick up anything Aisha spills once she wakes up, of course- she isn't properly trained yet, but that's still literally what she's for. In the meantime, you'll go get something to wear, of course.
Time, place and occasion. You aren't really a businessman, but dressing for TPO is generally important in life, if you do say so yourself, being dead and all. Time to meet up with Kayden after that unfortunate time you kind of had to clamjam her out of a night with you.
It'll be fine. Probably.
You adjust your simple, but well-fitting suit a little before you go in, making sure everything is as it should be. Technically, this is a consultation of sorts, but although you're acting as Kayden's client at the moment, you have to be ready to react to things as they happen.
That is to say, you have to be able to take the suit off at a moment's notice just in case. Making sure your clothes are easy to remove or else expendable has been a part of your life for so long you can't even remember a time you didn't.
Anyway, things are in order, so you ring the bell and wait. And wait. And wait a little more.
Mhm, could it be Kayden isn't there? Though you did make sure she knows you'd be coming. Maybe she's just deliberately making you wait?
It takes about a minute or two before the door chimes to let you know it's open, a mild amount of patience once again serving you well. You didn't even need to ring again, which would've been your next step, either.
Having already been here before, you know exactly where to go, ascending a few stairs (call you weird, but you don't like elevators, they remind you of riding a car and Sarah isn't wrong when she calls you on having... 'issues' about that) before you politely knock on Kayden's door.
Just ringing the bell again here would be kind of rude, you think. You can do it of course, but you'll wait a little bit for her to open it herself first. She's right on the other side, after all.
Theo watched Kayden, his stepmother wearing her business attire and crouching in front of the door.
She was behaving pretty strangely. First she'd run to the door when the bell had rung, but then she'd waited a few minutes before actually pressing the button that would allow someone inside, now she was peering through the spyhole even after someone had knocked.
"Theo, be a dear and look after Aster for me, would you? A big client is coming today, so it's best if you don't get underfoot too much."
"... Okay." He would just do as she'd asked, he supposed. Theo could probably guess who Kayden would be seeing, given what he knew of her connection to the Crypts, but...
Nothing would actually change even if he knew, so for now he'd just look after his half-sister. He thought of her as a sister full-stop, but that didn't really matter, either; she'd still need to be fed in a bit anyway.
That was something he could actually make a positive difference in.
Watching with no small bemusement as you listen in on and watch what's going on inside, Kayden sending Theo off to look after her baby, you continue to patiently wait for her to open the door. You consider posing a little to see if she reacts, but it turns out Kaiser's ex just needs a moment to check herself over in a little hand mirror (you think) before she lets you inside.
"Mister Wilbourne, pleasure to see you again," she says in that characteristic tone women have when they're mad about something but also totally aren't. "Please come right inside, you mentioned you wanted to ask about business?"
Well then, time to do this, you suppose. She must still be upset about when you made her drink your blood instead of inviting her to an in-depth investigation of the toilets in that one restaurant involving a lot of sex.
"Please, feel free to call me Gabriel Miss Anders, no need to insist on courtesy like that," you say with a winning smile, stretching out a hand. "Also, it's 'Livsey', actually, if you'd like, I feel like it should be fine to forego the pseudonym between us."
Several complicated emotions flash by Kayden's face, but in the end she just sighs and shakes your hand after all. "Alright, alright, Gabriel, you can just call me Kayden."
You shall count this as a success. "Are you still upset about how I had to end our last proper meeting?"
"I'm still quite upset with you, yes." A partial success, then.
"Alright, to put this out there first, I am sorry about the night went," you tell Kayden. "But I'm sure you can see how and why I needed to hurry things along, right?"
"I do, that just doesn't stop me from being upset." With that, she turns around to march straight towards her little office. Seeing where this is going, you just follow her.
The room Kayden pretty much transplanted from the agency she had to leave with only some minor changes is still pretty much the same as last time you visited her here, down to the habitual way she takes a seat and invites you to sit. Doing just that, you give her a smile. "Now then, should we start right away?"
Kayden clears her throat, nodding. "Yes, that's probably for the best. So, about the project you mentioned the last time..."
"Right, the brothel." From the looks of it, she immediately wants to slam her face against the desk, but just barely holds on. "What of it?"
"... I have several designs outlined so far, though I thought it prudent to seek out your opinion as the client." Reaching under the desk, she hands you a small stack of papers, with several sketches and indeed notation on how she could imagine a brothel looking, including rough price estimates and the thought processes behind them.
This is honestly not bad. You can definitely see why people actually paid Kayden for her work, after all. "Most of this looks pretty good, but as I'm planning to have the BBHU manage the place, would you mind if I gave them these designs and had them choose?"
"... The BBHU?"
"The Brockton Bay Hookers' Union, or at least that's the name floating around last I talked to any of them."
Kayden nearly falls off her chair.
"No, look, I get the idea, but did they call themselves... that?"
"Hookers?" You clarify, not really seeing the issue here. "It describes what they're doing well enough and isn't too much of a swear word, why wouldn't they use it?"
"Haah..."
"Anyway, I'll just take these and get back to you on what we'll go with for the brothel. In the meantime, would you mind looking a few more places over that are planned to be renovated and turned into public spaces soon? Things like restaurants and cafes, to be precise."
"At the rates I'm being paid, I wouldn't mind doing night clubs and brothels for months, but sure, that's what I'm there for." Drawing a hand through her hair, Kayden shakes her head. "Just have someone tell me what places to cover and I'll make sure to take care of the rest."
"Good. Truth be told, I could've just used telepathy to tell you about this, but I feel that things like work relationships should be taken care of in person, after all." Or at least some of them. Well, Kayden counts, at any rate. "More importantly and with that out of the way, have you and your kids been doing alright? How'd things go after things went down?"
"I'll assume you meant when the Empire was... removed," Kayden says, obviously still stuck on using euphemisms. "Aster has been doing just fine, babies are just like that as long as they're taken care of. Theo, on the other hand... He's better off now, for sure, but he still did lose his father. Along with the undue expectations put on him."
"You've always gotten along with him, haven't you?" This does bear being mentioned. "Not all stepchildren have a decent relationship with new parents suddenly showing up at all, not to mention siding with them over the ones they're used to."
Yes, you actually did put some thought into common familial relationships on account of becoming a dad, shut up.
"Yes, exactly! I can't help but feel like he still feels alienated at times, not that I blame him, but with how things are, it can't be helped things are just a little difficult," the interior architect lays out with a sad smile.
"I wouldn't worry about it, honestly, he'll get used to you soon enough." Which is pretty much just generalized advice, but it's not like you actually know the boy in any capacity to be able to tell more. "Patience is your best bet, though I'm sure you knew that already. So there's nothing your little family needs? I assume you aren't looking into moving underground for the time being, but if you'd like we could look into moving you into a house of your own or just supplying you with more money, now that you're technically one of our capes."
"Really, that's not necessary," Kayden insists, though you're pretty sure she's just a little too overwhelmed with things right now. "This place is already more than spacious enough and the building's security is up to code, so there's no need to worry."
... Should you praise her for being accepting or should you subtract points for her not building a small fortress to keep her kid safe? Two kids if you count Theo. Eh, you'll just leave it as it is for the moment, it's her decision.
"That said, if it's something I might say..." Now you're back to paying full attention to Kayden. "It really was quite rude how you handled things on that last date. So, I mean, it has... If you're a real man, you have to make up for it!"
Aah, she's flustered. Pretty flustered, even. "Take a deep breath and tell me exactly what I should do to make up for it, then," you tell her with a sly smile.
You kind of expected this from the start, to be honest. It's how things usually go.
Kayden follows your advice and, taking a moment to calm down, begins unbuttoning her top. "What I mean to say is, I believe I am owed a certain something and I want to collect," she says, stripping down and revealing exactly what kind of underwear she's been wearing. "We have to be quiet though, Theo is taking care of Aster just on the other side of the living room."
"Well I'd certainly hate to disappoint," you quickly agree, fiddling with your pants' zipper. "Don't tell me you were like that earlier because you were mad you didn't get any that time?"
"Don't tease an old woman like that, or at least not a middle-aged one," Kayden pouts. "So what if I had expectations?"
"Nothing, nothing," you soothe her in return, stepped around her desk to help her remove the lingerie she's wearing. It's like unwrapping a present every time. "If anything, I'm glad you'd like to get closer to me this way."
She begins saying something, likely in protest and playing coy, but at this point you simply seal her lips with a kiss, tilting her head back so you can let your tongue explore her mouth a little. Meanwhile, you're letting your hands roam her body, kneading her breasts and gliding along her waist to take hold of her hips.
"You certainly don't look a day older than twenty. Anyone should count themselves lucky to be with you." And the fact you've thralled her and she seems to be taking to the effects a lot faster than most doesn't hurt either, but that's not necessary to mention now, is it?
Kayden returns the gesture by taking your cock out of your pants herself, looking down with a momentary blank look. "That's really huge."
"I like to think I'm a little above average, actually." Because nothing is cringier than a dude going on about how large his cock is. Like, seriously.
"No, this is way larger. Or maybe my ex was just really small," Kayden snorts in derision. Somewhere inside your inner world, you can feel a new source of hatre-filled screaming bloom, by the way, but you just kind of ignore the souls inside there most of the time anyway. "This is... a very fine cock."
Now working you over with both hands, Kayden looks up at you with something shining inside her eyes.
"Huh, wouldn't have thought you'd be a size queen," you note, fondly remembering that one girl in high school that couldn't get off with anything smaller than you. You wonder what became of her after you left.
"I'm not into anything weird like that!" Kayden protests. "... I just... appreciate a proper man. And manhood."
"I see." You can't say you do, but hey, you do admire the female form quite a bit yourself, so maybe it's just that in reverse. If she's enjoying herself, well, you won't mind her staring at your cock so intently.
"Right, this is no way to make this good... Sorry about that, it's just been a long while since I've done anything like this."
"Having sex, you mean?" Abashed, Kayden nods. "Don't worry about it, I don't mind. How do you want to do this?"
"..." Kayden hops onto her desk, legs spread a little to let you come closer. "Why don't you come over here and take me just like this?"
"With pleasure." And so you do, your hard cock brushing against her soft folds as you get the angle right. Then you push in, the velvety tightness greeting you as pleasant as it is hot.
"Ah...!" Kayden is already trembling, but you just let your hands roam her body, stroking and teasing her all over. Her breasts, you find, are pretty sensitive, though you really like messing up her hair, too.
It's a cute look on her.
"Sorry that I'm... such an old woman...!"
"Seriously, don't worry about that at all." She's obviously way overthinking this. "You're beautiful, cute and very, very sexy."
"Do you really mean that?" She asks with teary eyes.
Your response is to push her onto her back properly, taking hold of her thighs. "If i didn't think so, I wouldn't be doing this."
And there goes your next kiss, keeping her quiet and content as you push deeper inside. Before long you're balls deep, your cock straining against the limits of what Kayden can take.
"Aaah... It's so big... Nothing's ever been this deep inside meaaah!" And just like that, you start to properly fuck her, using your entire length to give her the Gabriel Treatment Royale.
Yes, you just like making up random names in the back of your head sometimes, shut up.
Kayden is just lying there eager to take it, so you give it to her as hard as she can; every thrust moves the desk just a little and makes her moans and screams a little louder. Before long you're speeding up, steadily jackhammering the divorced widow whose ex-husband you murdered and making her scream your name. "Gabriel! Gabrieeel! Harder! Break me!"
You do.
You could keep going forever, but common courtesy demands you paint her womb white at some point after her fifth orgasm at the latest, each of which have her shudder and reach for your arms; eventually, you just take to intertwining your fingers with hers as you hold both of her hands, gazing into her eyes deeply when you finally release your load inside of her.
"So... Good..." Kayden pants, blinking when she realizes she's wrapped her legs around you midway through. "Oh, sorry, I-"
"Don't mind that," you interrupt her, wiping an errant strand of brown hair out of her face. She's covered in sweat, her whole body glistening with a thin layer of it. "Time for another round."
"OH GOD GABRIEL-!"
You pull her up by her hands, letting you kiss Kayden and simultaneously drive your cock inside her cunt hard and repeatedly. You aren't done with this woman yet, not by a long shot.
On and on you go, nailing Kayden in one position after the other. At some point, she completely gives up being an active participant in what you're doing, just letting you bend her over her own desk and raising her hips for you.
"YES! FUCK ME LIKE MY HUSBAND NEVER COULD WITH YOUR BIG FAT BITCHBREAKER! TREAT ME LIKE YOUR NASTY LITTLE SLUT!"
Elsewhere inside the apartment, Theo was gently and playfully holding one finger each over Aster's ears, keeping her from hearing anything and letting her play with his hands. He himself was congratulating himself on having prepared earplugs just in case he would need them at some point.
When you're done, you're done properly, having turned Kayden into a complete mess; she's lying over her desk belly down, oozing an obscene amount of your sperm and breathing heavily even in her current unconsciousness.
It's been, what, an hour or two? You didn't really keep track and honestly had more important things to pay attention to at the time, such as Kayden's soft butt turning a little more red with each and every one of your forceful thrusts. When the time came for her eyes to turn up and her mind to fly out her ears, you honestly didn't notice at first and kept going a round or two, still milked by her eager pussy, but in the end you realized the sounds she was making weren't turning into lusty screams for your 'manly meat pole' or something.
Slowly pulling out, you give said butt one last grope, then you take a moment to adjust your appearance and make sure you're properly dressed to leave. All in all, a gainful business discussion, you'd say.
"Oh hey, Theo, right?" You ask as you leave, spying the mildly chubby boy (teenager, really) near the living room. "I was just leaving, I'd recommend not going to the office for a few hours. Will you be alright in the meantime?"
"Yes, sir," he says neutrally, hiding behind the door frame you saw him in just a little.
"No need to be so formal, feel free to call me Gabriel or Mister Livsey, whichever you prefer," you wave him off. "Wouldn't want to keep you for too long, though, so good work on taking care of your sister and goodbye."
With everything you needed here taken care of, you promptly leave, making it a point to leave the building and be seen by the security cameras before seeking out a good place to teleport from outside. Your next couple of tasks are really more of the usual- torture a few more of the blood farm's inmates for soul material and wrangle a certain soul into doing what you want.
Speaking of, quickly moving to the secluded parts of the workshop meant for biological work and research, you quickly summon Nolac, the weird composite soul at attention already for once. Also in their male form right now.
"Nolac, I want you to mess around with spiders and FEV for me," you announce, fixing him with a heavy stare. "Do not turn them into insane monsters, just make them bigger and produce more silk. Can you do that?"
"Sure boss, I'll just concentrate on that," Nolac drawls, switching out to being feminine in appearance. More feminine, anyway. "Any side effects will be purely coincidental, I assure you," she whispers dreamily.
"I'm not Yoshi, that shtick doesn't work on me," you inform the melded minds standing before you. "Just get it done sometime this week, if you would."
And with that, you're off to run errands before your romantic little meeting with Nora, whom you've really been paying criminally little attention to lately. Could just be your distorted perspective of time, though.
Boston is just what you'd think when you consider it, kind of like Brockton Bay except better in every respect. Larger, more prosperous, having kind of absorbed all the shipping your own home base city lost after the docks were blocked off. The ubiquitous misery and caution felt even in the less poverty-stricken areas of Brockton Bay are still there, but confined to only some parts of town in Boston, at least.
Or maybe it's just you conflating the Bay with literal slums. No big difference either way.
Either way here you are, dressed in dark leather, together with Nora who is accompanying you and wearing the same style. Naturally, as telepathy allows you to share things as they happen, that means everyone else is also along for the ride, but that's really what one should expect.
It also means you have a guide for the city, as Alice was born and grew up in Boston herself. Paige knows her way around, too, apparently, but she isn't exactly inundated with happy memories considering Boston is also where she received some good old kangaroo court treatment. She's also not technically one of your thralls and as such not inside the network in the first place.
"Been a while since we went to Boston together, hasn't it?" Nora smiles, holding your hand. "Intact or irradiated ruins."
"A tad bit, yes. All the more important to freshen things up every now and then, though." You give her a kiss on the cheek before continuing, barely restraining yourself from patting her pregnant belly.
Barely.
Vampire pregnancies seem to be going a good bit faster than human ones, though not exceedingly so, to be fair, and so despite being pregnant only a little over three months in her own time, Nora has a very noticeable bump already. Or maybe it's just very noticeable to you, whatever.
Noticing where your eyes are resting, Nora smiles, leaning against your shoulder and smiling at you. "Let's see about making sure the baby girl inside me is getting enough nutrients or whatever it is for vampires. Shall we?"
"We shall, absolutely," you declare, the both of you emerging from the dark alleyway you've been getting ready inside of. It's early in the morning, so early the sun hasn't come up yet, giving you a couple hours to go hunting while the vast majority of people are asleep.
You and Nora embark upon the poorer parts of Boston with a mission, and that mission is to eat your way through any homeless and adjacent people you can find. People disappear all the time after all, so it's not like a couple dozen disappearances among the homeless community will arouse any suspicion.
It's almost sad how easy it is to prey on them, but that's just how society is, you guess. No complains from the thing that literally eats people, of course.
So there you are, yourself and Nora wandering through seedy alleyways and brutally beating down anyone you find sleeping or lingering within them. A lot of the homeless you find are just kind of huddling up in whatever clothes they're wearing, though some are also living inside simple constructions of cardboard and whatever rusty sheet metal they could get to protect themselves from the elements.
No few of them are also high, taking what drugs they can find to escape the misery that is their daily existence. Typical homeless stuff, really.
None of them manage to spontaneously trigger and use some power to hold you and your bride off from eating them, the two of you taking turns and using far superior physical strength to your advantage. Using your senses and the ability to sense blood, which really should be a sense of its own at this point, you easily identify prey and move in on it one by one, letting not a sound escape between the two of you.
That is, until you notice something unusual. "Huh. I think we have a cape here."
"Yeah." Telepathy continues to be immensely useful, letting you and Nora share data on what you're seeing. A person, moving around by teleporting slowly across rooftops. You've been making a point to have all the dead bodies in your wake brought back to your base's meat freezer, but that's no guarantee you haven't been found, depending on whatever their power is exactly. "Run, hide or ignore?"
"I mean, good question." You have only moments before this unknown cape is crossing paths with you.
"You stay here, I'll go look who it is," you decide, opting to put the safety of Nora and her unborn child first. Sure, she's got aura and all, but you aren't risking either of them getting hurt somehow just in case this cape's got some esoteric power bullshit.
She knows this, too, waving you goodbye with a wry smile on her face.
You jump upwards, easily scaling the wall thanks to your levitation and self-oriented telekinesis, making it look effortless for you to suddenly appear right atop it- only inches in front of where your unknown cape is appearing next.
"Hello there, come here often?" You ask, beholding the man with the fancy top hat, Sarah immediately getting back to you with information based on what a certain Coil knew even as the slave-souls you've ordered to do nothing but inform you of what useful information the library may contain pipe up inside of you.
Trickster. Line of sight teleportation, needs to swap two objects of around equal mass, no manton limitation. Leader of the Travelers, a group of parahumans apparently involved with certain 'incidents' that led to a lot of people being disappeared.
From Coil you also know the cause to be one of their members, a monstrous cape that seems seriously fucked up leading to them searching for a way to cure her somehow. Not many details are known, just that Accord decided they were too much of a pain and was going to send them off to Coil who wanted to use them, only for the man to die to you before they could come and being cats off into the wind.
Why the hell would they be in Boston again?
"Oh, uh, hello there. You're Cain, I take it?" Well you certainly weren't going to show up with your face on open display or anything silly like that. The whole shadowed face trick seems to be doing the trick of making people remember who you are independently of your outfit at this point.
"That I am. You see, I was taking a little stroll through Boston and I couldn't help but notice that one guy teleporting around. I was also under the impression Accord had some issues with the Travelers being here, so I thought I'd come and ask." You lean in just an imperceptible bit. "What might you be doing here?"
"Haha, yes, about that," Trickster laughs awkwardly, "the Travelers are just doing as their name implies, we're moving through on the way somewhere else. Would you mind not mentioning to Accord that we're here? It's just a day or two before we're off again, that's all."
"Oh, and where might you be going then?" It stands to reason they'd have little reason to return to Boston if they had any way to avoid the city, given the bad impression they've apparently made on a prominent villain here.
"This way and that, wherever the wind takes us," Trickster gestures impatiently. "We really don't want any trouble, you see."
... You feel like something is wrong, here, but you can't quite put your finger on it. In the meantime, you'll just let him go- none of the Travelers are a real danger to you in a serious fight, that being you murdering everything in sight before it can react, so you feel confident it won't be too big an issue.
"Alright, go ahead then," you say, gesturing for the rest of the city with a step to the side. "Don't let me keep you, just try to keep a low profile and all that."
"Much obliged." And with that, as well as just a few moments you can actually observe him concentrating, Trickster disappears, popping up elsewhere inside of your detection range.
You quickly rejoin Nora, your companion having gotten first row seats to everything that just happened even while keeping out of sight. "One moment, I'm not done quite yet," you ask of her before she can speak up. "Reveal your thoughts, your memories, your mind!"
Your range is anywhere you can see, including your blood-sense, so you can pretty easily catch a glimpse of the man you know to be hiding something. Diving into his mind, you have only a few moments to search out information before you lose focus as he keeps teleporting.
The mind of this guy is a little weird, which could just be related to some mental disorder. More importantly, as you delve into the mind of the man that knows himself as Francis Krouse, you soon discover that most of it is dwelling on his plans for the near future.
For one, he was lying to you about only passing through- the Travelers are in Boston to stock up on raw meat, a quick glance at the threads connecting his thoughts letting you know it's for one of their members, Noelle, who kind of mutated horribly and needs to eat a crapton of it. Furthermore, after they're done here in Boston, they're actually moving on to Brockton Bay, specifically seeking you out over help for this Noelle.
Which does make it strange that Trickster just recognized you and couldn't wait to fuck right off again as soon as he could, so with the last few moments before your connection is disrupted you figure out the why using the fact the encounter weighs heavily on his mind to find out easily. Conclusion?
Francis Krouse is kind of an annoying fucker. Simply put, he feels entitled to help from you but, knowing you'd tell him to go fuck off in the best case if he'd just ask, is planning on finding some leverage over you first before actually approaching.
How entirely dishonest and scummy of him. Why, you oughta give him a piece of your mind- if he weren't already off and out of your range.
So then, it seems you'll have to go ahead and watch out for the one teleporting guy being a problem, along with his merry band of misfits he's dragging along. Might become an actual problem, truth be told, but now that you're forewarned, you'll have an easier time reacting, at least.
Also, this Noelle seems to be a thing even in the story that one reincarnated soul read once upon a time. Some kind of monster with regeneration and cloning powers on touch, if you're understanding this correctly. Well, chances are your state between alive and dead might just trump her in general, but just in case you'd better keep Last Embrace and the disintegrating ion matter dispensation mode you gave it on hand.
It's just really useful in general, but especially when fighting regenerators you can't just put in some corner for a few decades until they die of old age.
"See, that's interesting and all, but shouldn't we get back to our date?" Nora asks, having followed your thought process in real time. "Whatever the Travelers are, they won't be a problem for a few days at least, so we'll have more than enough time to decide how to kick their collective shit in."
"Well, not wrong," you shrug, abandoning all thoughts of this for the moment. "I'd just really prefer not being blindsided somehow. But you're right, let's go binge eat a little more. The mood was just getting nice and romantic, too."
"What, you mean biting smelly hobos is setting things up?" Nora asks with a coquettish smile on her face, a hand reaching out for yours.
You take it, of course. "Don't pretend it isn't. Worst case we can just have some shower sex later."
"Oh, you old romanticist, you."
"Okay, sitrep: There's a potential enemy group camping out in Boston, we know they're there, they know we know they're there but they don't know we know they're potential enemies. Meaning surprise is potentially on our side and we should probably figure out what to do in the next few days at the latest."
Kate raises her hand in response to your summary of events. "Can't we just find them and shoot up whatever place they're in until there's nothing left? We have the technology."
"Or we could just set Accord to it, I'm sure he'd be happy to make their lives hell and it's less effort for us," Sarah suggests.
"Well, either way, I'm sure we can deal with things. The issue is the timing, given we're trying to stay ready for the next Endbringer attack- even if the prediction of Brockton Bay being attacked is wrong, it's about time for the next one to happen sometime soon."
And you very much are planning to see how you'll fare against one of the things. Call it arrogance, but you feel you're powerful enough for that to be worthwhile, and even in the worst case scenario- you trust in your ability to survive most things.
As long as the continent you're on is still standing, so will you be at the end of the battle in question.
Well, traveling Travelers touting trouble or not, you still have a bit of a certain regime to finish before you're done with it, and you absolutely refuse to have to go through this whole song and dance again, this new minor crisis aside.
Seriously, staying in this stupid pod for hours on end and being inundated with a bunch of sensations is one of your least favorite things right now. It may just be the kid in you speaking, but you hate just lying there doing nothing but concentrating on these annoyances.
When you're actively training, you're at least feeling progress or else getting through a checklist of sorts as you work your way through what you're planning on doing. As opposed to being continuously mildly annoyed at everything around you but needing to concentrate on it anyway.
Normally you'd just kind of ignore things that piss you off mildly, but you actually have to actively pay attention to this crap instead. It's really going on your nerves.
Still, finally, after a few more hours of this crap, the pod begins to open, letting you in your miniature form climb out of it. "Finally! I thought I was going to go mad in here. A little more, I mean."
You look around, not finding Yoshi anywhere. You kind of ordered him to be on standby and do his thing all throughout the process' duration, so he couldn't have gone anywhere else.
"That's good," you hear from somewhere low to the ground, causing you to peer over the edge of the pod. "Looks like you have a power, too."
Yoshi is speaking, down on all fours and slowly pushing himself up. His voice sounds pretty... pressed, as though he had some difficulty breathing.
"Huh, I do? It doesn't feel any different," you remark. "... No, wait, I think I got it."
It's faint, but you can make out a new sense telling you there's... something. It's far from the first new sense you've gained since becoming a vampire, but even so it's actually pretty hard to make out what exactly it does.
You're about to engage in the process of elimination when Yoshi speaks up again. "Could you... turn it off?" Twitching and struggling, he slowly climbs to his feet, holding onto the nearest wall for support.
"... No." Experimentally, you take a few steps, feeling as your perception of things shifts and distorts. "Actually, I think I'm getting an idea... It's not exactly space, but rather... I think I'm sensing the spatial distribution of gravity. Gravitons, perhaps?"
"... That's such... Bullshit..."
You quietly will Yoshi to be pushed down harder. It may just be your wishful thinking, but he may just buckle in place a little more.
Once you're done poking a mildly squashed Yoshi with an outstretched claw (he eventually manages to force himself up and you decided against sitting on him to torture the guy even more), you move on- you kind of delegated getting in touch with Accord's people, specifically Citrine, who is serving as kind of a contact for the Crypts, to Sarah and Kate, so since you haven't heard anything from them yet you'll just consider them to still be at it for some reason.
Meanwhile, you have a brand new toy to play around with, so obviously that's exactly what you proceed to do. And since there's only one notable group among the Crypts that's also already undergone the process to become espers themselves, the Cluster Six are exactly who you need to talk to!
... Though the reception does make you rethink your approach.
"So cuuute! How can this be allowed, this can't be allowed, child Gabriel is just way too cute!" Phoebe, seeing you and immediately squeeing, picks you up to look at you as you hang in her hands, held under your arms as you are.
Jackie and Ayane react by crowding you and poking your cheeks from both sides, though Jackie has to get on her toes to reach that high up, whereas Catrin stays a respectful step behind. "Um, mm, maybe give him a little space?"
Beverly quietly looks at you even as her hands continue knitting a pair of socks at great speed. Looking around overtly, you notice that that isn't the first pair the emotionless, doll-like girl has worked on- everyone is wearing some thick, woolly socks whose colors match their hair.
The one to finally 'save' you is Kumi, the busty girl plucking you out of Phoebe's grip when her ashen-skinned cluster mate starts to hop in place and shaking you for fun due to your apparent cuteness. "Please don't overwhelm him. Let's all sit down first."
"Ooh, should we have a tea party?"
"You really have a thing about those," Ayane notes quietly.
"I waff acdually here about something," you finally get a word in edgewise- muffled by Kumi's breasts, but nonetheless audible. "I actually finished getting my own esper power and wanted to compare notes, mess around with it a bit."
Beverly approaches, carrying a tray with a teapot, several cups and some cookies on it. "Elaborate."
Looks like you have someone's attention, at least. Now if only you weren't being dragged to sit on Kumi's lap... Ah well, you'll get to it in a bit, as soon as the girls are satisfied.
In the end, you finally get to hear everyone's account of how they experienced gaining and working with their esper powers, letting you get a grasp on the differences and similarities between developing their various powers in particular.
The way they work and the base principle behind them seems to be completely divergent, but you've already heard about that from Yoshi, the same idea being confirmed by the added Academy City researchers you've managed to pick up. Espers really come in all sorts of variations- it's not exactly like no two are the same, similar and even pretty much identical powers are completely possible, but they can work in a myriad of ways and do a lot of weird stuff.
From manipulating light to making it impossible for people to perceive an esper, it's all possible.
Back on topic, turns out what really helps in a practical sense, much more than just mindlessly using a power over and over again (though that also can be good in some cases) is actually understanding what one's power does and how it could be applied. The whole thing kind of reminds you of someone taking some obscure tidbit about theoretical physics and spinning as much technobabble out of it as possible in order to get the most out of a given power.
Naturally, you do the same, incidentally bringing the Cluster Six to one of the spare conference rooms your robots set up inside the base at some point to just take turns looking up MeTube videos relevant to whatever fields of physics are relevant for everyone's powers.
All the while everyone is undergoing some mild physical conditioning while under the influence of your power, yourself primarily trying to dial it up and down as you go through everything you know about how gravity works in your head.
It's surprisingly entertaining. the internet has a lot of really well-made videos on pretty much any subject you could want to look into. Sure, there's not exactly any in-depth explanation of advanced physic thesis, but in terms of breaking concepts down enough for laypeople to easily understand them, this shit is pretty much top-notch.
Note to self you'll definitely get your kids to watch a few of these when they begin their education in natural sciences. Because of course you'll be making sure your kids have a comprehensive understanding of how the world works and why, that much is a given!
You nod to yourself even while Beverly is using your shrunk-down form as a weight to lift with both arms. The tonics and thralling and everything really do help with physical activity like this, even though she has barely any visible muscle on her.
"Wait a second, you've been done all day and just didn't tell me?" You complain with upturned eyes. "Come on, we can literally communicate at any distance with nothing but a thought!"
"And you didn't tell us you're spending the day as a kid again, that's way, way worse," Sarah admonishes you in return. She is also picking you up, as is apparently customary for people to do when you're in this form. "Seriously, you're just way too cute like this."
"I know, right? He's, like, the cutest kid I've ever seen," Kate agrees with a cocked grin.
"Just you wait until our kids are born, they'll be way cuter," you declare with absolute conviction despite being handled like an object again. "They'll be able to reach entirely new realms of cuteness the likes of which the world has never seen, each of them adorable in a different yet intensely cute way that-"
"Okay, anyway, let's get back on topic before this turns into another tirade," your sister interrupts rudely. You don't tirade about anything, okay, you only talked about the topic of your future children for half an hour before being stopped once. That hardly counts. "Accord's people are quick and thorough, they sent us full profiles on every member of the Travelers and found out where they're hiding after we let Citrine know they're back in Boston. Despite being told to stay gone by Accord, who is pretty pissed about it."
"Which means we have an opportunity here," Kate helpfully adds. "Simply put, Accord's putting the moves on them and making sure they get the hell out of Boston, but since he knows they're looking to get to Brockton Bay, he's being polite enough to offer us a chance to cooperate or deal with them ourselves."
"On the other hand, we could just let him chase them into our direction and set up a trap." Sarah is in full scheming mode again, you see. "Either way he'll be taking action tomorrow, so we'd best prepare a reaction by then."
"I see," you nod. "Also, can you let me down already?"
"... No."
What is it with people and manhandling you whenever you're small enough to be carried around?
Alright, it's nighttime and you have a bit of organizational maintenance to perform- much like every day, really. Tonight's first subject, then, shall be none other than the boy calling himself Alec, along with Cherie, his sister who is making it a point to annoy him at every opportunity.
Or half-sister, whatever. Point is, they're both Heartbreaker's kids and currently in your employ, though it has to be said that only Cherie ever actually comes out of the bunker you're based out of. Turns out Alec really is content to just sit in his room and play video games all day, as Sarah once told you when you when you created your list of people to keep an eye on regularly.
You haven't really been paying attention to what's going on with him consequentially, but now with Cherie in the picture it's probably about time you actually went and had a talk, just to make sure you don't have another ticking time bomb on your hands.
Which is how and why you spontaneously come by Alec's place, knowing Cherie is inside at the moment and bearing a big bucket of popcorn just in case. "Hey kids, wanna see a dead body?"
"I see a hot one," Cherie immediately responds, playing with her one red strand of hair. And licking her lips. "What do you think, Jean-Paul?"
"Dunno, it's probably unprofessional to flirt with the boss," the boy snarks mildly, barely glancing up from his game. Looks like some ego shooter or something.
"Alright, now that I'm here already, I'm playing too. Scoot over a little." Not seeing any reason not to, you make Alec move a little so you can join the game he's play, quickly grabbing a controller for yourself and... figuring out the controls.
You do this by watching his hand movements for a moment, of course.
"I remember last time, we're doing co-op now," Alec quickly says, leaning back and eyeing the screen.
"Oh, did poor widdle Jean-Paul lose last time?" Cherie catches on quickly, launching into baby talk as she stands behind the couch, leaning onto it to watch. "Then again, you've always been a poor loser."
"We both know it's the other way around. Also, you haven't seen the boss in action yet."
"Oh, I have, that's why I'm sticking around and waiting until dad figures out whether to come here and commit suicide or not."
Meanwhile, you're getting a bead on how this game works. You're controlling a character and trying to shoot down the other team as often as possible, with different weapons and stuff. Pretty simple and straightforward, honestly.
So you go in and, sighting an enemy, open fire right at the head, subtly adjusting your aim with one of the control sticks to make sure every one lands by counteracting the gun's recoil with every shot.
"See what I mean?" Alex says as the enemy player goes down within moments and you proceed to shoot up everything in sight, only stopping to reload occasionally. "No point in fighting this. Actually, we're gonna skyrocket in the rankings this way."
"Yes, yes, I am very impressed," Cherie rolls her eyes between the two of you.
"Hey, I am literally supernaturally fast and precise with everything I do, of course I'm going to dominate something like this," you shrug with a sense of idle superiority.
"I could think of something better for you to dominate." Cherie really isn't being subtle about what she wants here, a fact certainly not beyond Alec.
"Ugh, and here I thought slutting it up in some club would get it out of your system, sis."
"Not my fault certain people refuse to provide."
You look at the controller for a moment, considering your options. Then, deciding you can multitask, you quickly slit open one of your palms for a moment, letting enough blood escape to take over the function of that hand through your hemokinesis.
All so that your now free hand can now be slung behind the backrest of the couch you're sitting on and molest Cherie's ass. "You were saying?"
"Huh, that's a neat trick," Alec comments, ignoring what else you're doing.
"Pretty hard to control just right, but the practice paid off," you agree.
"And all of a sudden, I don't mind boring video games anymore," Cherie adds.
"Just saying but if you decide to fuck I'm not cleaning up afterwards," her brother cautions you.
Which, hey, is fair.
"That's alright, we can use the bathroom," Cherie beams at you. It's a little weird, honestly- normally it takes a little longer for chicks to jump your pants while ignoring their family knows about it- but maybe that's just how she is.
Or rather, they are, given Alec doesn't seem to find it weird. Well, as they say, when in Rome...
"Okay, how about this, we'll finish this match, then I'll look into scratching whatever itches you have for a while," you suggest while landing another half a dozen headshots.
"Oh yes, please!"
Ten minutes later, Alec was increasing the volume of the game he was playing, annoyed at the sounds coming from the bathroom. "You're fucking loud in there."
"OH YES; FUCK ME WITH YOUR BIG BAD COCK, DADDY!"
He sighed. She just had to do it this way, didn't she?
Once you're done thoroughly messing up Alec's bathroom and get back to finding some measure of relaxation in making pixels shoot other pixels (you went easy on Cherie, so she eventually manages to crawl back out again before you go, her only comment being a raised thumb and quiet 'worth it' before collapsing), you get right on with things, what with this night being pretty busy in hindsight.
You don't know yet whether it is a 'good' busy or a 'bad' busy, but you'll find out soon, hopefully. Speaking of, you're making sure your pet is staying quiet while readying the 'living room' of the quarters you inherited from Coil, as you're about to have a guest. Dinah has been somewhat distressed lately, it seems, due to her parents' continued inability to understand she is actually a parahuman now and can't stand too many questions of a certain kind being asked at once and, more importantly, their vigilance against her disappearing for a few hours every now and then.
To be fair, considering what she ends up doing when disappearing from their supervision, they're probably right to be carefully paranoid about Dinah's whereabouts, but it's not like they actually know about that.
At any rate, there you are, just you, Sarah and a quickly teleported Dinah pouting and peeling off her pyjamas. "And they don't even let me stay up when I tell them I don't need to sleep every night! It's boring just lying around and asking a question every half an hour."
"That sucks, really," you agree to her little tantrum about her 'stupid' parents, helping her take off her clothing as is customary in this place. "How about we do a few quick questions and then see about letting you have some fun, hm?"
"Yes, please," Dinah groans, stretching her arms now that she's only wearing her panties- which she also quickly pushes down.
"Okay then, first question," you begin, holding Dinah's hand for balance as she steps out of her panties. "How likely is it there will be widespread flooding in Brockton Bay sometime within the next seven days?"
"Mmm... 87.48 percent, I think," the girl says, one thumb held to the side of her lips. "It feels a little wonky, but it's very likely."
"Huh. Guess that one guy was right, after all." Would've been nice if that was just 'fanon', but the soul you ate did read up to the part where Leviathan attacks Brockton Bay of all places; you were kind of hoping that would have changed, given the real world is nothing like what the story described at this point, but it seems you shall have to forcefully teleport everyone to Boston, after all.
Sarah steps on your foot. You give her a guileless, happy smile.
Incidentally, it seems Dinah is actually capable of predicting Endbringer attacks, after all, if in a somewhat roundabout manner, making her one of the top one percent Thinkers on Earth Bet. As you understand it, bona fide precognition is usually far less reliable or direct than how her power seems to work.
"Thanks, that helps a lot," you smile at the girl, taking a seat on the nearby table and patting your lap. She eagerly comes to climb aboard, Sarah following and sitting down next to you. "Now for the next one, how likely is it the Travelers will attack a member of the Crypts within the next 24 hours?"
"26.93 percent, but with rising likelihood," Dinah says, getting comfortable on your lap. "I think they might be doing something weird or maybe stuff happens that makes it more likely over time?"
That does make sense, you suppose.
"Hmm, just one more question from me," you tell Dinah, one finger circling one of her nipples- her chest may be fairly small, but that doesn't mean it isn't sensitive. "Will the Travelers be in Brockton Bay within the next eight hours?"
"6.28 percent," Dinah says, nose scrunching up a little. "Who are the Travelers, though?"
"Just a group of people, nobody you have to worry about," you assure her while petting her head. "That's all the questions I have for the moment, unless Sarah here has a few more?"
"I do, there's something I want to find out," your sister confirms. "How many more questions can you handle before you get a headache?"
"... Two more," the girl on your lap says after a moment, holding up two fingers in the shape of a victory sign. "Then I'll start feeling bad."
"That's okay," Sarah says, scooting a little closer to join you in patting Dinah's head. Knowing her, she's probably using her power a lot right now. "Just make sure you tell nobody about the things we're asking or doing, okay?"
"Duh, it's our secret," the girl pouts. "If my parents don't want to understand I see the numbers, they don't get to know what I do with them."
... You just pinch her nipples to distract her a little, Dinah gasping and wiggling on your lap in response. You can feel just a little wetness on your lap.
Sarah's face is carefully kept neutral when she enunciates her next words. "What are the chances Brockton Bay gets flooded as soon as the Travelers get into a fight?"
"89.69 percent," Dinah says without batting an eye. "... I think my power is trying to tell me something again, but I don't know what."
Well shit. That kind of puts a damper on your expectations for a quick cleanup, assuming causation rather than correlation.
"So the Bay will be attacked when the Travelers are fighting, most likely because something happens during the fight," Sarah concludes. "We can assume that there's some target here, or maybe just a signal of some sort."
"We also have only one more question before Dinah is out for tonight, so if we come up with something, it better be worth it," you note.
The girl in question, however, stirs. "I can-"
"No, no overusing your power," you immediately stop her. One hand darts between her legs, gently stroking the slim petals of her flower to distract her a little. "I can always use my own magic for answering one additional question."
Dinah gasps almost soundlessly, more an exhaling of air than anything else, but nods, convinced you don't need her to overdo it.
"But for now," you tell Dinah, giving her a hug with one arm while your other one is occupied, "how about we make sure you're happy and satisfied before you have to go back home?"
"Mmm..." The girl is certainly not opposed, happily rubbing her butt against your crotch as she enjoys your mild ministrations. You've been keeping your pretty much permanent erection in check so far while you were talking business, but now that that's done, you don't see any reason not to indulge a little.
With your rapidly hardening cock pressing against her from below, Dinah is also confronted with Sarah getting up and around, facing the two of you as you continue to sit. "Someone's very horny, huh? Wouldn't surprise me at all if you've been hoping for this for a while, Dinah."
"Uh-huh..." She's distracted, trying to feel your shape with her bottom. That is, until she looks down and sees the dick she's feeling, wrapping both hands around it. "It feels good."
With your cock poking up, all it takes is a little adjustment to let you rub against Dinah's pussy, a small amount of moisture gathering in no time and smeared along parts of it. She's really looking forward to this already.
"I can see that," Sarah smirks, getting down on her knees to watch what's happening a little better. "Bet you've been playing with yourself whenever nobody's looking, too."
"I do it every night until I can sleep," Dinah nods. Considering the vastly reduced sleep requirements of your thralls, that's, uh, a lot of masturbation? "It's not as good as when I play with Gabriel, though. Is that bad?"
"Not at all," you soothe her, giving her belly a few rubs now to calm her down preemptively. "You can play with yourself as much as you want, it's just that real sex usually feels a lot better."
Here you are, the responsible adult never missing a chance for some casual sex ed. How incredibly noble of you.
"Is that what you want? Do you want to have sex with Gabriel again?" Sarah seems to be getting into this, too. Come to think of it, she did also help Dinah bounce on your lap the last time she was here; could it be she kind of likes her?
"Yes, please," is all the brunette girl in question has to moan. Shivering in anticipation, she's already starting to pant just a little, her legs spread to give everyone access to herself.
"Such a dirty little girl..." Sarah also seems to be having fun even as she leans in to give your underside a good, long lick, culminating with a sloppy kiss on your tip spreading saliva everywhere. The feeling of her soft lips is exquisite in itself, though it would seem neither of you have the time to enjoy the moment at length.
Instead, Sarah finishes off with a last peck and shares her thoughts with you deeply, letting both of you act almost as one. As such, you lift Dinah up by her thighs, making her let out an adorable 'eep'ing sound and letting your sister stroke your cock as she points it upwards.
"Now just relax and take it," you whisper as you lower her again, spreading her delicate lower lips wide open and once again deforming her hot and tight canal with your pulsing rod. "That's a good girl."
"It's so big," Dinah whines as horny as can be, "it's so big so how does it fit? And why's it feel so good?"
You merely chuckle, feeding another few inches of your length into her overstuffed little pussy. Meanwhile, Sarah has begun teasing and squeezing her body all over, kissing and suckling on Dinah's small breasts.
It's amazing to see just how much a small body like hers can take, but before long you feel yourself poking against something just slightly more rigid than the wet folds you're spreading open; Dinah's womb is right there and with it the limit of what you can stuff inside of the girl.
Not like getting everything in was in the cards, or even the point. So instead, you're just holding Dinah up like this, speared onto your cock with her tongue having difficulty with remaining inside her mouth.
It's weirdly adorable, really.
"You just love this, don't you?" Sarah asks up, her hands now on Dinah's thighs. "Just being used and held right there on the best cock in the world. And you'd love nothing more than to stay there forever, just be a cock-ornament for my brother, keeping him warm and ready all day."
"Yeth..." Mhm, the idea of Dinah as a cockwarmer is kind of appealing, in a general sense if nothing else. "Love thith..."
"Hardly even full to the brim and you're already losing control of yourself," Sarah 'chides'. "You have to first make him come, you know? That's when you're allowed to be an incoherent mess."
Dinah shudders, whether because of Sarah's words or just because she's getting close you don't know, but either way she wastes no time reaching her peak, giving off hard breaths and sweet sounds while her upper body curls forward.
You aren't exactly known for your mercy in the bedroom or, indeed, most rooms in which you are naked, and so simply swiftly begin holding Dinah in place as you thrust from below, first slowly and almost languidly but quickly accelerating, hammering into her tight little pussy and whispering to her what a good girl she is.
Then Sarah grins, waiting for her to look down and find her eyes before reaching around to carefully poke Dinah's back entrance with a well-manicured finger. The younger girl gasps, legs kicking out spastically, but she isn't loud enough to drown out the words.
"You can also be fucked back here, you know? I'm sure you'd just love that."
Your sister doesn't go any further, just prodding and rubbing, while up front she leans in again to lick and play with Dinah's clit, gently pinching the little bean as she wrings repeated orgasms out of the girl, the mayor's niece reduced to buckling and twitching under the barrage of sensations both of you are inflicting.
It doesn't take long for the pleasure to get to you, either, once again ramming yourself as deep as possible and pistoning into an unresisting Dinah until you're almost there, your balls pumping and churning only to be pushed over the edge when Sarah starts massaging them, too.
Rope after heavy rope of your seed you shoot point blank at Dinah's womb, your heavy load pushing against the premature organ as though to demand entry. In the last moment, prompted by Sarah, you pull out, the girl on your lap mewling in confusion at the sudden sense of emptiness she experiences.
Your sweet little Sarah, on the other hand, quickly takes your cock into her mouth, coaxing as much of your semen from it as she can pumping away at your manhood and licking it clean. Finally, with both your and Dinah's fluids on her lips, she pushes herself up just enough to snowball your sperm into Dinah's open mouth in turn.
She's sealing the girl's lips with her own to make sure Dinah swallows it all, her tongue darting in to play with the younger girl's even as she keeps on rubbing a single finger against her asshole in rhythmic, circular motion. With said girl sagging in your arms after all this, unable to produce any tension in her body whatsoever, she finally pushes in just an inch or two.
Dinah twitches again, head lolling around, but as Sarah doesn't move aside from pulling away from the kiss, she stays in place otherwise. "How'd you like the milk? A growing girl needs to drink lots of it to become big and sexy."
"Drink...?" It seems her brain has been mildly fried for a bit. "I'll drink lots."
"Good thing I have as much as I need, then," you chuckle behind her, your manhood still as rigid as ever. "I'll give you lots of it."
"Yay..."
And so it goes, you and Sarah conspiring to get as much of your seed into Dinah as possible just to last her until the next time you can smuggle her out. Perhaps it's a genetic thing, being born to an upper class family, but she's still a natural at sucking cock, and although you and Sarah agree she'll need some work before you can fuck her butt, your sister doesn't waste any time getting her as ready as the two of you can on such short notice, repeatedly fingering and stretching the tight orifice for later.
While you continue to fuck Dinah from the front, of course.
"Be honest with me, you kind of like Dinah, don't you?"
"Maybe."
"Maybe yes or maybe no?"
"Okay, I 'kind of like' her."
"Aww, wouldn't have expected that. You know, with her being able to know things you don't..."
"Look, she's small, cute and a Thinker. I figure that's how our kids will turn out to be, so I decided I might as well practice how to teach them about sex with her."
"Still adorable of you."
"... Okay, and they might as well have a big sister figure to look up to when they're born, whatever."
Sarah just keeps on becoming cuter by the day, doesn't she?
Okay, things are kind of in a rush right now, for all that you're reasonably sure whatever it is that's going to happen won't happen until you make it. Idly, you wonder if it was a good idea to text Vicky and Amy about meeting up tomorrow night, but... Eh, what happens, happens.
Worst case you can just call that date off if the circumstances line up to prevent it.
For now you're making a quick circuit of the farm, having a quick chat with Riley who is up to her elbows in some unlucky guy's spine and extracting more soul bits.
You don't even bother covering everyone tonight, it's probably better for them to recover a bit before you tear out bits of the metaphysical bodies that make up themselves again. Well, only one way to find out and as you already mentioned, you're in kind of a rush so you just go snip snap, combine the fragments you receive and rinse and repeat really quickly until you have something that works as good enough for the moment.
Gained Shard of the Despairing x1
Next off, the whole... situation. Brockton Bay, it seems, will be under attack soon, but this attack can be triggered through a specific action, that being... Something that happens when the Travelers are fighting all-out, apparently, or at least that's the impression Sarah's rapidly fired thoughts and churning power use are giving you.
Meaning you have an unprecedented advantage in terms of Endbringer attacks insofar as you can know and prepare ahead of time. This is huge, and yet it doesn't solve the issue of an Endbringer attack incoming in itself.
There's, uh, a reason they're called Endbringers.
Nevertheless, time keeps on moving forwards and so should you. Naturally, you've come up with a plan for how to do this, improvised and barebones as it might be.
Okay, so the plan as such is simple, yet effective in its simplicity. First, you will prepare everything to deal with Leviathan as best you can, which means setting up a proper secondary base in Boston you can just teleport your entire gang to if need be. That way, you can secure yourself just in case things do go tits up, getting everyone relatively squishy out of the way.
On the other hand, you're also sending two of your spirits made specifically for this out to keep an eye on the Travelers. Accord knows where they are, something his people were kind enough to let you know, so you can expect them to find and (literally) shadow their targets with relative ease.
Next off, the meat of the plan. You will need to set a trap of some sort to take care of the Travelers and their pet monster, preferably in a way that leaves your forces ready and fresh for the presumably following battle. In this regard, you do have that magical ritual you had your pet priestess prepare a good while ago, though you kind of hope to use it on Leviathan himself instead.
Then again, that fight will be a bitch with or without that little ace up your sleeve. It's just, well, one of the many aces you've got prepared, hopefully.
On a related note, however, Accord is planning to go after the Travelers himself, tomorrow at the latest. Unless you go and ask him not to, in addition to giving a convincing reason as to why, he is going to send his people to fuck them up and most likely cause the Travelers to flee Boston in the first place, setting the chain of events you're roughly aware of thanks to Dinah in motion.
Although they aren't exactly planning on staying for a long time, so maybe the difference would be minimal at best in the end. Decisions, decisions...
Yeah, in the end, it's probably for the best if you just... wait, really. Accord will be doing his thing all on his own, no interference on your side needed, then according to Dinah's power they'll head to Brockton Bay regardless.
All you need to do, then, is to be ready to greet them with the Crypts' special welcome, the one involving copious amounts of tinkertech explosives awaiting their arrival. You'll be tracking them, after all, so... should be quite doable to just teleport a bunch of bombs into wherever they are at the time.
Depending on how exactly things shake out, the situation in Boston may or may not turn out exceedingly and hilariously dangerous, but that'll be there. In Boston. Before you teleport pretty much the entire core of your gang over there to avoid it being Endbringer'd. Therefore that just isn't relevant to your plans.
Okay, all of this relies on you having enough of a boom to actually take out Noelle and whatever bullshit power thing she has going on quickly enough you don't have to worry about that part of things, of course, so your next step is to go pay Alice a visit in her own tinker workshop space adjacent to the main shop and make sure you're ready in that regard.
"Hey Alice, you got anything that can fuck up high-tier regenerators?"
The half-Japanese points at a rack lined with round casings, some of which you can faintly hear movement within. "Second through fifth row from the top's got flesh melters, miniature black holes, infectious crystals and the good old matter glassifiers. Worked against Crawler."
You eye the several dozens of uneven tinkertech devices, vaguely tempted to try estimating the kind of destruction they could cause before giving that up as a bad job. "Good. What's the top row, though?"
"The ones meant to fuck everything up and the test cases for Endbringer usage," your bomb tinker impatiently replies, as though it was obvious. "No idea what of that stuff is gonna work, but I've been putting together anything I could think of for them ever since you gave out the warning. Don't use them without a link to me so I can tell you how stupid it'd be to stand within the range you are."
"Noted," you shrug casually. Honestly, you don't like being that guy, but hey, you're confident in surviving most things even tinker bombs can throw at you- and even if not, you can just revive yourself. "Mind if I take a few of the ones against regenerators for now?"
"Make sure to catalog how they work and give me some feedback on how satisfying they are to use on a scale of one to ten."
And that is that, you suppose.
Undergoing physical conditioning doesn't actually help you in any way, what with your physique being technically only kept moving by your nature as a vampire, up to and including the force at which you can move yourself- sure, you've since managed to add a few bits and bobs to enhance that further, aura being no small part of it for instance, but exercising doesn't actually let you get stronger.
Not to mention mere days before a serious fight would be far too late to start trying.
That doesn't stop you from using it as a pretense while working on something else instead- and getting some practice in on acting and moving even under the influence increased gravity is certainly not a bad idea, given your power. Though perhaps you'll eventually just get to exclude yourself from its effect... Either way, it's good to have options and getting knocked down by your own abilities would be beyond embarrassing at this point.
So you go ahead and practice, practice, practice, increasing gravity's effects on the whole room as you do some pushups, crunches, squats and so on. At some point you think to pause and actually measure how much progress you're making, incidentally getting up to doubling the effective weight of everything around you including yourself.
... It honestly feels a bit like back when you were in Rapture, or rather the brief stints you pulled outside of it on the bottom of the ocean. Everything is just a little slower, takes just a bit more effort. And by 'a bit' you mean to say 'quite a lot'.
As a quick reference, the average American adult human male weighs around 197.9 pounds, or in a more global comparison somewhere between 60 to 80 kilogram (Yoshi refused to translate that one for you). If you were to exert your full power over gravity and affected a person with it, that weight doubles all of a sudden.
Human bodies are built to carry themselves. They are structured for this purpose and can do so fairly reliably in most cases, with human legs containing a whole load of muscle just to make this possible. They can also carry additional weights, of course, and indeed do so quite often- but how many people can actually lift their own body in weight if they were to put all their power into it?
Simply put, most people in the vicinity of wherever you use your power without some superhuman strength of some sort are going to be unable to move much. Heck, even trained professional fighters are going to have trouble, all the more as they usually carry a lot of heavy equipment with them which also suddenly weighs double.
Hard to aim when you can't even lift your gun, suffice it to say.
All this brings you back around to one simple fact; your power is bullshit. And this time around you aren't even indolently congratulating yourself for being so much better than anyone else by nature.
On a side note, you weren't really expecting your exercise to draw a crowd gawking at you as you work out half-naked, but hey, if they want to, you aren't stopping them.
New Wave was a team of heroes ranging back into the past, long before it was known under its current name and operating as the Brockton Bay brigade, making it one of the oldest groups in the city at the current time after the Empire's effective destruction.
Mostly at its own hands, but the thought was what counts.
That did not change the current state of affairs, however. They were a team of heroes. As such, they were supposed to be stopping or preventing crime, as well as fight villains when possible- except the current climate of Brockton Bay made this quite untenable.
"You've heard me. There is no point to moving against the Crypts, so we may as well focus on the areas that were hit the hardest by the fighting and uphold public order where it is needed most."
Lady Photon beheld Brandish, her sister that was effectively in control of half of New Wave due to her husband's mental condition, mildly disbelieving what she was hearing. "This is really unlike you, Carol."
"I'm just being realistic," the usually much more actively antagonistic (towards villains) woman said. "The Crypts outnumber the heroes by themselves even after taking out all the other villains in the Bay by themselves. Unless and until the Protectorate receives substantial reinforcements or other heroes move in, starting a fight is doing nothing but hurting ourselves."
Manpower sighed, Lady Photon's husband giving an exaggerated shrug with his broad frame. "It can't really be helped. It's just how it is, so we may as well put in a few volunteer hours where it counts."
Flashbang, Carol's husband and the last member of New Wave's older generation, nodded quietly. He often had trouble getting himself to speak when he wasn't doing well, but the active participation in the discussion, mild as it may have been, was probably a good sign.
"Okay then, let's talk about where we can actually help. The former ABB territory is still quite torn up from the fighting before the Empire went down and downtown could likely use more hero presence on general principle. I'll look into coordinating with the Protectorate and Wards as per usual, unless anyone has anything to add?"
In the next room over, New Wave's younger generation was having its own 'meeting', though perhaps that wasn't the right word. "I'm just saying, we make up fifty percent of the team, so why wouldn't we be part of the strategic planning?" Shielder finished asking.
"Because we fought long and hard to get out of it," his sister cuffed him. "It's just a lot of our parents talking back and forth to make themselves feel more important, you know how it is."
Vicky hummed in agreement, still remembering the Accelerated Muffin Incident that'd finalized the current arrangement. Nobody wanted to repeat that. Amy, on the other hand, was just sitting around, thinking deeply about what she could do to make this spot of boredom go by quicker. Sure, she could figure out a distraction, but...
Come to think of it, she could probably just convert a bit of fat in people's bodies into drugs if she really wanted to keep them from being an issue. She'd never do it, of course, but... If she would, what kind of chemicals would she make a human body produce to keep it knocked out or incapable of acting without endangering the person in question?
She'd put it on the list of things to look up for later.
You clear your throat, signaling the beginning of your little speech. "Everyone, thank you for joining us today. As you might have noticed from the regular messages through the network, we are expecting a lot of wide-spread flooding, which is why this seminar on flooding prevention and countermeasures has been called for."
You earn a few chuckles and a little laughter from your audience, despite not actually trying to put on a comedy act. Huh.
The people you're talking to, of course, are the people you usually have around inside the bunker, the core members of the Crypts and all the capes you could get on short notice. Which is pretty much all of them thanks to the teleporters making commuting much faster and easier.
"To this end, I would like to lead into things with the convenient building over in Boston we have just purchased, which will be our temporary headquarters until the situation has passed," you lead right into things, making sure that much is clear from the beginning. "Anyone that doesn't want to or can't participate in the fight will be teleported there until the fight is over, so if you've got cold feet just notify anyone in charge."
This time there's murmuring and hushed conversations, but you hold up a hand, quickly quelling them. You aren't done yet and you'd prefer to get this done with without too many interruptions.
"With this in mind, I'd like to caution everyone that this may be the last opportunity to get as many plasmids and tonics as you want, as things are bound to be chaotic in the aftermath even in the best of cases. Seriously, if you've just been putting it off, get to it soon-ish, okay?"
You're skipping over a lot of things happening of course, just because your people don't need to know or else don't need to be told explicitly. For one, you've been working on the weather inside Brockton Bay and beyond a good bit, removing clouds and humidity to create warm, dry air. It's normally a good bit colder than this in this season, of course, but it could be explained as just an unusually warm spring or a few very early days of summer.
And yes, you are particularly removing the air's humidity just to make a point, even knowing Leviathan doesn't usually make any use of it. If the thing comes in and tries to fuck with your airspace, it'll have to do a lot of very obvious hydrokinesis all over the atmosphere.
Other 'minor' preparations like that include, but are not limited to, making sure you have some DNA of everyone you actually want to keep alive to feed into your vita pod (you did that a while ago already, but you're making it a point to update the resurrection list regularly anyways) and spreading a few of your ion matter turrets throughout the city to try and prepare the battlefield to the point even a fast-moving opponent is getting fucked from all directions at all times.
"Most of you will receive individual tasks during the actual fight, of course, but let me be clear: Those of you that have powers only through the generally available enhancements won't be directly fighting the big issue; instead, if you do participate, you will be expected to run search and rescue of any wounded and ensure quick and efficient treatment. Endbringer fights are chaotic and messy at the best of times so we need someone to keep things in order."
This time you receive a mixture of emotions in reaction to your announcement; many of the girls feel that they should go out and fight just like in case of any other enemy, while others agree that it makes more sense to limit the people that actually fight to those that have more considerable powers just because there's only so much of any given Endbringer to go around.
Something about volume of body compared to capes out to destroy that same body. You, uh, don't really bother following along.
"That means you'll be provided with and responsible for a couple thousand stimpacks made specifically for this," you finish up, figuring you may as well get the general assembly over with already, "as well as a pair of the mobile autodocs for the worse cases. That means you'll be stabbing them into wounded and throwing anyone that needs it inside one of the latter, but they're technically entirely replicable despite looking like tinkertech, so your job involves making absolutely sure nobody outside of the Crypts gets a hand on them. You may also use healing magic through the souls I got you and pretend it's a parahuman power. Any questions?"
Looks are exchanged and murmuring grows louder. Looks you may need to take a bit here.
Twenty minutes later, you have everyone out of the room except the Crypts' capes, having asked them to remain behind to discuss strategy. By which you mean you've determined several things that should be done and are handing out tasks, essentially.
"Sherrel, I want you to to prep the Doomtruck, do any last-minute adjustments before we use it to tear down half the city, probably. Also stock it up with a bunch of robots just in case we need them."
"Gotcha, boss."
"Alice, you got the artillery platform we designed? I want that one ready to rain anything you think might work onto Leviathan."
"Leagues ahead of you."
"Lea," you continue, turning towards the third major 'tinker' of the Crypts, "I want you to organize the turrets and figure out the best distribution of them throughout the city, as well as to figure out where I should order the Mr. X guys I've got in stock for best effect."
"Alright, I guess. Not sure how much I can help with the fight itself, though."
"Then just don't come. Cupcake, you'll be with me, we need to make a bunch of potions before we teleport you out."
"Hey, I was gonna murderpunch that big wet meanie in the dick!"
"Tough luck, because you won't. Face it, you're a squishie. Next, Taylor!"
"Yes." You can see how the girl is holding entirely too still, doing that weird body language suppression thing again. You don't let it bother you, though, striding up to her and swiftly kissing her lips, both sending your tongue into her mouth and breathing a certain soul right through.
Sure, she doesn't have a soul palace to put it into and you're kind of just binding it to her normally, but that doesn't stop you from using the intimate method anyway. Taking a step back again, you behold the cute blush Taylor is sporting now despite everything.
"I just bound the soul of the Siberian's controller to you. Which means you can use it now."
Next to you, a naked, zebra-striped woman appears, the girl not wasting any time in overlaying her new toy. The Siberian looks at its hands, evidently taking things in- or rather, Taylor is getting used to controlling two bodies at once.
"You and Kate will be responsible of organizing the other fighters and stuff like that."
"I..." She obviously wants to get out of that duty, but you just lay a hand across the side of her face.
"I have faith you can do it, or at least you've got what it takes," you tell her, exchanging a glance with Kate, who nods.
It also means you can just direct everyone else at these two. Because as it turns out, you've got, uh, quite a lot of capes.
"Next off, let's get to evacuating everyone who won't be fighting. Riley, Mimi, that means both of you," you point out. "Also, anyone pregnant won't be getting near the actual fight. The Doomtruck can be driven by someone else."
Sarah, Sherrel and Nora look at each other. Then Nora shrugs, taking a step back, while Sarah and Sherrel immediately launch into protestations.
This might be the hardest part here...
"Nobody knows the damn truck better than I do," Sherrel says, one hand balled into a fist. "If you put anyone else inside it, they'll just fuck it up and waste it."
"Really? So it can't even work with a lesser driver?"
"It can't work unless I drive it! Give it up already! Also, it's literally got more shields in it than anything could ever need, I'll be the safest inside." She puts a hand over her belly. "Or are ya saying a mother's instinct can't be trusted?!"
"Haah..." So she's going to go this far, huh? "How about you then, Sarah?"
"I'll be using my big transformation to stay safe and well away from the fight, maybe try to counter anything coming in from the sea while I run Thinker support," your sister proclaims, fixing you with a hard stare. "And if you seriously believe I'd ever let you do this on your own, you have another thing coming, mister."
"... You do know I'll have all the others there to help me, right?"
"I'M THE ONLY ONE THAT COUNTS AND THAT'S FINAL!"
"Alright, fine, you know what, you want to stay, you stay," you say, having already given up the moment Sarah brought up she doesn't want to leave you alone. "But if you so much as get a scratch on yourselves, either of you, I'm confining you to my bedroom for a week straight."
Jeremy, the former homeless turned cape, politely coughs into his hand where he is standing nearby. "A week's not really all that long, boss."
"It's the most I could ever get either of them to stay still for," you grumble to yourself. "I'm serious. I will not have either of you take any risk whatsoever, okay? I'll personally teleport you to Boston if it looks like you are."
It is time for you to play the role of the grumpy husband. And you shall do so with all your might.
The rest of your Friday you spend getting more things ready; as you told Cupcake, you need to get a lot of potions made outside of the specific ones she's been brewing by herself, Alice only being excused because she's busy feverishly working on a few last tinker devices to strap onto her flying artillery piece.
That isn't quite all you do, of course; for one, you have a few people to talk to and things to do. Kayden, Purity, was around earlier, actually, though she came a little later than most on account of finishing something up- having a baby to take care of just kind of causes that, really, and as a modern employer you naturally understand that a certain amount of flexibility needs to be a given under these conditions.
That's also why you make sure she knows participation in the battle is on strictly voluntary basis, even more so for her as a mother.
"No, it's... Brockton Bay is my home and where I want to raise my kid... Kids, honestly. It just started getting better, too, and I will fight to keep it safe."
Which clears that up, at least. You do make sure to point her towards the list of plasmids and tonics available to all gang members, of course, just as soon as she's taken a quick trip to Boston to ascertain that the place set aside for any kids teleported out is up to standard.
Well, it isn't up to your standards, but it'll do seeing how your kids won't be spending any time there. As they aren't yet born and all.
And your pregnant wives insist on throwing themselves into mortal danger, despite you going and making sure they'd be as immortal as you could beforehand. Ahh, the cruel vagaries of fate and your various beloved.
Still, that leaves one more set of people for you to talk to on short notice- two people, that is, Amy and Victoria Dallon. Naturally, they don't necessarily take things all that well...
"What are you talking about? Nobody can predict the Endbringers. It's impossible."
You eye Vicky with mild exasperation. "Powers do the impossible every day all over the place. Heck, you're floating right now despite there being no force propelling you through a forcefield that just... exists. Is it really so weird I would be able to find a parahuman that is able to predict around the Endbringers to an extent?"
"Even then, why would you be telling us?" Amy chimes in suspiciously. "You should be telling the PRT so they can prepare."
"And get exactly nothing done while the situation just gets worse," you nod along. "Listen, I don't want to make you do anything or pressure you somehow, I just want you to know what's going on so you can prepare and offer help if you want to actually participate. If you don't, that's fine with me, too, I can even help you get out of the city, but that's all I wanted to let you know before I go back to get everything ready."
"And that offer wouldn't extend to our family, of course." Well, Vicky has the right idea, at least. "Okay, so what exactly do you mean by 'help'?"
"I can say some mystical mumbo-jumbo to give you extra superpowers and let you choose from a wide selection of semi-biological enhancements you can juice up with if you want, they're free of charge to anyone higher up in the Crypts."
"... We aren't joining, okay?"
"Or at least not officially," Amy adds. Much to Vicky's displeasure.
But regardless, before everything else, you are brewing up potions. As many as you can in the time you have. Incidentally, you're using Cupcake as a gofer while doing so to increase productivity, a surprisingly efficient use of your resources. You even get one of the more trustworthy minders she has to help, too, the former drug mixer named Nell.
She's... probably trustworthy enough to be given the power of alchemy, you suppose.
Aisha couldn't believe this shit, that's how dumb it was. Seriously, it was just completely stupid. "Look bro, you really don't need to do this."
"I do," her dumb brother said. "We... The Undersiders aren't really a thing anymore, but back then we talked it out and we decided that if an Endbringer attacks Brockton Bay, we join the defense. I'm not just going to turn my back on that."
"Bro, your power isn't gonna cut it against Leviathan." He was being stupidly prideful and trying to prove something nobody gave a fuck about in the first place.
"I know, okay?! My power has always been better for hiding and running way. That was great back when we were thieves but now I'm a liability, is that what you want me to say?"
Jeez, now he was getting all melon dramatic on her. "Okay, if you really have to to do this, fine! But you're getting extra powers and shit first, you know where to get them, and no stupid macho bullshit about actually fighting! I won't let you go off and get yourself killed like a moron over this, Brian."
"... Fine." And finally, finally her stupid brother was going to get juiced up. It turned out all it took to let him get over his stupid pride was a fuh-reaking kaiju that was going to kill him if she didn't watch out for him. "Also, we should really talk about what you're wearing, Aisha."
"Count yourself lucky I bothered putting this crap on at all."
Amy poked at Vicky, her sister floating in the air like she did sometimes and also floating a bottle in front of her with an outstretched hand. "This is freaking amazing. I've got, like, all the powers now."
"You have a bunch of them and they're made through some kind of... super-cancer inside your body," Amy concluded, still not finding this weird stuff her sister had just injected into herself koscher yet. "Mom would kill you if she ever found out you took power drugs."
"Please, all the popular girls do it. You should take some, too," Vicky insisted, teleporting behind Amy and making the brunette blink. "This stuff is awesome, even if I need to refuel already with more power drugs."
"... Vicky, you just moved by disassembling yourself down to individual molecules and moving them through space."
"I know, right? This stuff has some actual physics behind it for a change!"
Amy needed a smoke. Except, according to the information made available through the telepathic network, even smoking was supposed to refuel the biological processes necessary for these powers to work.
She laid a hand on Vicky again. She was mildly lacking some minerals, Amy supposed, but nothing too bad- she could have mistaken it for someone just not eating regularly enough if she wasn't comparing things directly. Setting the dubious nature of power drugs that gave superpower cancer aside for a moment, she considered the ads also uploaded onto this weird telepathic pseudo-internet with less anime and hentai and more real porn instead.
https//watch?v=uQcMIQFX2Dk
... Maybe she'd try this stuff out. "If anyone asks," she told her sister, "I'm telling them you peer pressured me into doing these."
"It's alright, I can tell them you just progressed from smoking into plasmids," Vicky replied, playing with the small tongues of fire licking along her fingers now. "You have black aura, which automatically means you're the one that took drugs first."
"That is such bullshit I don't even know where to start, Whitie."