Once again, we gathered in the private room of the tea shop. The Lieutenants weren't much more relaxed than last time, no doubt due to the new addition of the room. Ashley Stiltons, now publicly introduced as 'Kali,' has gone out of her way to inspire fear in her troops. Usually this involved screaming expletive-filled threats or the obliteration of nearby objects. We didn't bother stopping her, because that's essentially what I've been doing, with a bit more subtlety. She wasn't obliterating people anymore, so I think that's a net positive for the world.

I even overheard some veteran members comment on how well she's adapted to the gang dynamic. You'd think they'd be worried about her, but it seems a crazy parahuman threatening them was the norm. Nothing new in the world for the old blood.

I kept Lung's chair in the room for posturing purposes, and also because it was pretty comfy. Regent and Hive lounged next to me on a couch I brought in, equal in comfort to my fancy chair. We all idly listened in as Tattletale explained the current situation.

"We're still in the process of solidifying borders, but so far we've been successful. There have been some scuffles, but nothing big. PRT expanded into a few of the residential blocks we intended to subsume, but they've been keeping to themselves as long as we stay out. Best to let sleeping dogs lie for now."

"I agree," I agreed.

"As for the other border, The Empire hasn't made any overt moves. They're cautious. I doubt they'll do anything to kickstart a gang war, but they may see an opportunity and try and take it. Either way, they're not going to charge in and hand themselves over to us like Hookwolf. Either way, they'll be playing it slow."

"We can handle slow." I nodded. "If they aren't going to be giving us an opportunity to take them out, we'll wait till we have a more fortified position. Speaking of, how is the economic side of things?"

"Protections has been costing more than we're getting, especially with the cost of expansion, but it's worth the money sink for appearances. The smuggling has been making up for it: I've been digging my fingers into luxury goods. Got a good air travel arrangement for Cuban cigars, and Toybox seems interested in our seals. Not sure if they're interested in using our shipping services or if their Tinker brains just think it's interesting, but it'll be profit regardless."

"Anything I need to address personally?"

She shook her head. "Nothing serious. I'd appreciate it if you left a clone around, though."

I flashed a hand seal and ejected half of my chakra out of my wrist as a spike of bone. It formed into a full bone shadow clone, with plenty of fuel to do anything it needs to do.

"Thank you," Tattletale nodded. "That should be all for this week's meeting. If I need anything from anyone before the next meeting, I'll contact you."

The meeting concluded with the Lieutenants giving me a bow and exiting. Kali and Tattletale left, presumably to do their jobs, leaving Hive, Regent, and I alone. Regent plucked off his mask.

"Damn. No entertainment for a while, then." Alec commented. "I'm going to be completely honest, I didn't understand half of the shit she just said. All this 'peacetime' stuff is a bore."

"It wasn't that hard to follow," Taylor removed her own mask and rolled her eyes. "Just troop placements and economic centers."

"You don't count, your brain is a GMO," Alec brushed her off. "Anyway, I've been thinking—"

"A nice change of pace," Taylor snorted.

"Ah, shut up," Alec retorted half-heartedly. "I've been thinking: you two both have a resistance to Masters, right?"

"Yeah, we do," I said.

"Then let's make our own entertainment! How'd you like to help me murder my dad?"

Taylor's face paled slightly.

"Heartbreaker?" I considered it. "He's a bastard. Yeah, I'd be down."

"Nice. You interested, Taylor?"

Taylor got over hearing 'dad' with remarkable speed. "Heartbreaker has been a problem for a while now. Should we jump straight to killing, though?"

"Uh, yeah?" Alec raised his eyebrow. "Trust me, I know the guy. Worst kind of person, and when I can hold the moral high ground over someone, you know that they're bad. I ran away for a reason. So did my sister, actually. Mind if she joins us? I don't really like her, but maybe we can bond over some family murder."

"Fine, I'll come along," Taylor sighed. "I'm only working recon, though. I don't want to have to deal with the bloody stuff myself."

"Hell yeah, road trip!"

We hijacked a van and some cash from my gang. Then we swooped by Alec's home, retrieved Cherish from her digitally monitored room, and set out. Which Alec was grabbing his sister, I dropped a seal in their garage.

"Where… where are you taking me?" Cherish fearfully asked.

"Somewhere between Montreal and Ottowa," I checked the map again, sat in the driver's seat. "Surprisingly close. We've got about six hours ahead of us."

"Welcome to the road trip. Do not resist," Alec informed her, riding shotgun. "If you do, Taylor has bugs in her hair. They bite."

Cherish looked at the girl beside her with a sudden paranoia. "Road… trip?"

"Yeah," Taylor nodded. "We're eliminating Heartbreaker."

"You're—really?"

"Yeah. Alec thought he'd invite you along."

"What's your coffee order?" I butted into their conversation. "Gotta start this thing out right."

"I'm hungry…" Alec complained. "Can we stop for food?"

"You ate two hours ago, and that was before you had that massive frappe," I pointed out.

"Yeah, but then we drove past that chicken nuggets advertisement. I think I can fit at least a dozen in me before I feel like dying."

"You always were a glutton," Cherish muttered, "I didn't think you'd get this bad, though."

"My bad, Cherie. Maybe I should have joined a gang of international criminals instead of spending my time enjoying the little, expensive things in life."

"It's not like I wanted to join them! But once things went down, I figured it would be nice to have some family along for the ride, and you did leave me."

"Yeah. To enjoy the little things in life. You should have just ran away to some shithole. You think dad's going anywhere he can't live in luxury? You'd avoid the whole 'Joining the Slaughterhouse Nine' mess entirely if you found some farmer to settle down with."

Cherish flushed. "Shut up."

"Besides, your idea of a good life is taking over a roving band of psychopaths? I can see how that's a much more fulfilling lifestyle," Alec snarked.

"God, you two like to argue," I grumbled. "Alec, we'll get you some chicken nuggets once we cross the border."

"Fine. Canada better have chicken nuggets as good as I remember."

"Border crossing in a mile," Taylor pointed out.

"Yeah, I see it."

"How are we crossing the border, anyway?" Alec asked. "I don't think cash is an acceptable substitute for a passport. Well, probably not. Worth a shot."

"We're not going to bribe our way into Canada," I rolled my eyes. "I've got something for this, won't take any effort on your part."

"That's what I like to hear," Alec smirked, then reclined his chair back onto Cherish.

"Hey! Stop squishing me, you cunt!"

"Alec, stop squishing her," I told him.

"You forgot the 'you cunt,'" Cherish interjected.

"Stop squishing her, you cunt," I corrected with a sigh. "I can't believe there's more of you where we're heading. Just two is hard enough to handle."

"Heh, hard enough." Alec chuckled.

"And we're already at the low-effort dick jokes," Taylor sighed. "Road trips aren't like what I remember."

"Road trips aren't about having fun, they're about being miserable together," Alec cheerfully decreed. "You should be thanking me for adapting so well to my job as the trip sitter."

"A trip sitter is something wildly different," I informed him.

"Maybe with that attitude, it is. Start spraying some of your mist in here and we'll fix that."

I parked the van about half a mile from the border.

"Alright, just stay in the van." I told the group as I got out. "Won't take too long."

I got out of the van and pulled four seal tags from my pocket, smacking them onto each corner of the van. Then I flickered away, heading north. A mile past the border I stopped at an empty road off the highway and focused on the seal on my back.

The van teleported in front of me, bringing the vehicle and all its inhabitants across the border. Cherish, Taylor, and…

I froze while opening the driver's door. "Where's Alec?"

"He got out to take a piss," Cherish immediately tattled.

I sharply inhaled, then calmly exhaled. "I'll be right back."

I flickered back across the border, back to where the van was parked. Alec stepped out from behind a tree after a moment, pausing as he noticed the van missing and me in its place.

"I asked for one thing," I sighed.

"Sometimes you gotta go," Alec shrugged, unrepentant.

I looked at him my eyes twitched, activating my Sharingan.

"Really? Are we already doing—" Alec passed out mid-sentence.

I scooped him up and flickered back across the border.

Alec woke as a bag of food hit him in the face.

"Wake up shithead, food's here," I helpfully informed him.

He flailed for a second before regaining his bearings, immediately popping open his bag and tossing a nugget into his mouth.

"Damn, dude. What is this, a forty piece?"

"Forty-eight, actually."

"That's deluxe. Hell yeah."

"Only the best for you. Also, I'm hoping that you'll be too busy stuffing your face to cause more problems."

"A bribe? Yeah, I'll take a bribe. I'll be tolerable for the next couple hours."

"Finally," both the girls breathed a sigh of relief.

"Speaking of the next couple of hours, how long do we have?"

"About two and a half hours left," I estimated.

"Plenty of time to kill. Anyone want to play strip monopoly?"

"Checkmate," Taylor declared with a hint of pride.

"Bullshit," Cherish sneered. "You cheated!"

"She didn't cheat, she's just better than you," Alec taunted his sister, then paused. "Unless she's got a vibrating butt plug feeding her moves."

"If I wanted to cheat, I'd use my bugs," Taylor rolled her eyes. "How do you consistently jump to the worst conclusion possible at every chance you get?"

"It's a talent, I think," Alec considered it. "Or deep-seated childhood trauma. One of the two."

"You never struck me as the talented type," Cherish sneered.

"All the more reason for the road trip, I suppose," I commented. "Speaking of deep-seated trauma, what's the plan? I've got a pin on Heartbreaker's location, so I was thinking I would sneak in, paralyze everyone, find out where the rest of your family is, and then teleport you in to finish the job."

"I'm sure you can pull it off," Alec learned back, tossing a nugget into his mouth. "I'm more of a support type, you know? You handle the details."

I want to see Heartbreaker's location.

"Alright, we're half a mile away," I informed the van. "It's a big blue mansion to the west."

"I'm looking… Found it."

I turned off onto a side road and parked on the side. I reached into my pockets and retrieved two teleportation tags, handing them to Cherish and Alec.

"Hold on to those, I'll use them to get you into the building. You'll be staying here, Taylor?"

"Yeah, I'll be watching from here. I'll let you know if anything unexpected happens."

"We'll make it quick, then."

As I stepped out of the van, I tossed another seal into the back, closed the door, and flickered away. On the way over to the mansion, I gathered chakra.

I want to see the optimal route of infiltration.

I appeared in an open windowsill and silently slipped into the room. I transformed into a dragonfly and flew through the halls, making my way into a large central room with a pile of mattresses. I got my first look at Heartbreaker himself, laying on the mattresses with eight women feeding, massaging, or otherwise doting over him.

I moved through the room, scouting it out, and then left the room by transforming to squeeze under a door. I popped out into an empty side room. With a bit of effort and more than a bit of chakra, I activated the two teleportation seals. Cherish and Alec appeared next to me. Alec tried to speak, but I immediately covered his mouth and made a silencing gesture.

"Wait for my signal," I whispered.

I once again became a bug and squeezed back into the central room. I took flight and flew to the top of the room, waiting for a good chance to strike. Then the woman massaging his shoulders stopped, moving to his leg, and slowly up his thigh. I felt that was as good of a time as any to start.

I dive bombed down and released the transformation, landing behind Heartbreaker with enough force to crack the floor beneath me. I reached out and grabbed him by the back of the head before he could react, eliciting a cry of pain when he tried to twist his head back to look at me.

The rest of the room reacted in surprise, also whipping their heads to look at me. Those glances were all I needed to paralyze the room. After freezing everyone, I pulled Heartbreaker's hair, forcing his eyes to meet mine.

I felt a brief flash of easily ignored devotion before I started pumping chakra into his skull, crushing his ability to move and forcing him to release his hold on me. I pushed further, ripping into his memories with an unskilled hand. He started involuntarily gurgling between by the time I forced the locations of Alec's siblings out of his mouth, but I retrieved them regardless.

"Come in!" I called.

Heartbreaker's eyes regained a bit of their focus as his children entered the room. He felt a flash of panic as the situation asserted itself, instantly recognizing that seeing his children like this was not the family reunion he'd been hoping for.

"Hey, pops," Alec grinned at his father as he approached. "Long time, no see. Did ya miss me?"

"He's obviously paralyzed, Jean-Paul," Cherish rolled her eyes. "He can't talk."

"Nah, Indra can do selective paralysis. Can you make him talk?"

"I'd prefer to get this over with quickly, actually," I interrupted. "He isn't expecting anyone to come by, but you never know."

"Ugh, fine. Can I at least do the honors?"

"Any particular way you want that?" I asked. "No guns, it's not my style. I'm going to take credit for this, it'll be good publicity."

"Slit his throat, maybe?"

"That works."

I formed a kunai of bone that dropped from my wrist and into my hand. I offered it up to Alec. He grabbed it and placed the blade up against his significantly more panicked father's neck, before winding his arm back in preparation to slice.

"NO!" A woman screamed, suddenly breaking free of her paralysis. She charged at me, winding up a punch aimed at my face.

"The fuck?... Nobody's done that before. How'd you manage that?" I wondered aloud.

Her punch hit my face while I heard the thwack of a blade cutting through flesh, and the gurgle of Heartbreaker's throat filling with blood. My skin slightly deformed from the blow, but my skull did not budge.

CRACK!

I caught her under another paralysis before she could scream, quickly performing a bit of medical ninjutsu to heal her broken wrist. While repairing the self-inflicted injury I dug into her mind, pulling up her memories of the moment she broke free.

"Huh. Did you know the power of love can overcome my illusions? I didn't."

I turned back to Alec, who was looking unusually embarrassed. I glanced down at Heartbreaker. He was crawling on the floor and clutching his bleeding neck, kunai lodged halfway into his esophagus.

"You fucked up the edge allignment," I quickly identified. "How'd you manage to do that?"

"Scream startled me," Alec explained. "I think it'll be enough to kill him, though."

"It'll kill him, but it won't look like my work. I can fix that, though."

I sprouted the handle of a sword from my left arm and grasped it with my right hand. I drew the blade from my arm with a slash, cleaving Heartbreaker's head off below the failed throat wound. Two more women broke free, but I froze them again before they could reach me.

I sealed the head and sword in a storage seal. Main task accomplished, I flashed a half-seal and started to rapid expel more thick mist. I teleported Alec and Cherish back to the tag I left in the van and started to infuse Yin chakra into the mist, targeting the short-term memories of everyone still in the room. Not enough to wipe out their memories, but enough to make them hazy.

Hopefully they'll just remember that Heartbreaker died and I was responsible.

My final act in the room was to form a shadow clone to go and fetch Alec's siblings. I teleported into the back of the van, almost falling on Alec as I reappeared with the squad.

"Hey, watch out!" Alec complained. "Some people are lounging here!"

I flickered up to the driver's seat. "You may want to lounge somewhere else."

"Why would I—ugh—grk—FUCK!"

Children began to pop from the air and fall on Alec, flailing, kicking, and reacting like disoriented children would, unintentionally taking out their confusion on my friend.

"Jean-Paul?" a young girl asked.

"Hello, Florence," Alec wheezed. "Please stop stepping on my kidney."

"Jean-Paul?" asked the pile of children in sync, very confused.

"Hey, kids," Alec spoke as he crawled to safety. "We're kidnapping you for your own good. Cherie's here too, she's in that seat there."

The thirteen kids turned their heads to the front of the van, then back to Alec.

Another girl spoke without a hint of emotion in her voice. "What about father?"

"Well, Juliet, I'd like to take this time to introduce you to the backer of this little endeavor," Alec climbed from the back of the van and into the back seats, nearly falling on Cherie in the process, and then up to the passenger seat. "This here is Indra, he's already killed daddy. Say thank you, kids."

"Thank you," chorused about half of the van, confused.

"Anyway, I've got a nice spot down in Brockton. We've got room enough for you, and since I had the means and resources I figured I should come by and save you from life as vagabonds. Trust me, it's much nicer to always have a couch to come back to."

Alec paused. "I didn't think this part through. Indra, are we going to have to drive the whole way back with such a packed van?"

I rolled my eyes, placed my palms together, and channeled chakra into my back. With a grunt from the exertion, a glow erupted from my back, then around the van, and in a flash of light we teleported back to Alec's garage.

"We're here, kids!" Alec announced, cracking his door open and stepping out. "Come along, we'll find you rooms. Gotta put Cherish back in her timeout room first. Speaking of, how did you enjoy getting out the house, sis?"

"My opinion of everyone in this car has hit rock bottom," Cherish scowled.

"Great to have you too! Heh, can't wait until Lisa sees this."

"Hey, Indra?" Taylor pulled me aside once we got home. "I wanted to ask you something."

"Yeah?"

"Well… I want to know more about you. I don't think you're a bad person, but you're very casual about killing. Coil I understood, and you've been avoiding killing since then, up until now. I want to know why."

"It's a little complex," I took a moment to gather my thoughts. "I'll give you the best answer I can, though. To put it plainly: I've been forced to recognize just how fragile life is, and that's really put my life into perspective. I don't want to get into the specifics, but it started around the time I got powers."

She didn't respond, so I continued.

"Killing Coil, killing Heartbreaker? Easiest thing in the world. I didn't feel a thing. All I had to do was swing."

We sat in silence for a moment.

"Why don't you do it more, then?" Taylor asked, then flushed. "That's a weird question. Sorry. I'm just… trying to figure all this out. I killed Shatterbird. It was the right thing to do. That didn't make doing it feel much less uncomfortable. I want it to… be that easy, I guess."

"No, it's alright. I don't kill more because I don't want to. Killing is easy, but it's not something I enjoy doing. In the end, I'm pretty simple. I want to live and I want to live in a world I enjoy no matter who I have to go through to achieve it, and in that way I'm the same as Heartbreaker and Coil.

"All that makes me different is my ideal world. I think that an important part of living well is having a good environment, and I really fucking hate the environment of this world. So, when I see a toxic plant in my garden, I cut it. Killing is more of an annoying task, and when not killing means you open more opportunities to die at any moment…."

"Die at any moment?" Taylor questioned. "That's a bit of a stretch, at least at this point. Who could kill you?"

I shrugged. "It's much harder now, but definitely not impossible. Suppose someone with enough power gets sick of me, gets a precog blindspot and a nuke, and sends them to this base? Or maybe a lucky shot with a wide annihilator effect? There are literally hundreds of ways. I've seen most of them, and I've got counters to a lot, but all it takes is one slip-up and I'm the branch being pruned."

"I guess that makes sense…"

"Yeah. I'm sorry that you've been having trouble. I'm willing to talk about it if you want, but I don't really have that aversion anymore. For what it's worth, I think it's good you still feel that way. Probably less chance of a slippery slope situation."

"Yeah, maybe," Taylor muttered. "Thanks for talking with me. It's nice to know what you're thinking, sometimes. I just wanted to ask you keep the death toll down a little more. Like you said, slippery slope situation."

"Alright. I will." I promised. "Also, just throwing it out there, but maybe the reason you had a hard time with Shatterbird is because you ate her. That sounds like a pretty traumatic event."

"It was the only way to make sure!"

"Sure…"

My phone rang, Alec's number calling.

"Yeah?" I answered. "It's only been a couple of hours. Don't tell me Lisa kicked you out?"

"Uh, not exactly," Alec responded, sounding a little dazed. "She didn't kick me out, she just told me that the kids were my problem. Small problem: how the fuck do you take care of kids?"

I chuckled.

"Don't laugh at me! Hey, you've been taking care of the one Slaughterhouse girl, right? How do you do it?"

I paused. "Actually, I just realized that I'm probably a pretty terrible surrogate sibling. I just keep a clone on standby to talk or get her anything she wants. We also do biological experimentation, I guess. We've gone out for takeout a few times?"

"How do you deal with the arguments? I can't get these kids to shut up! Lost a ranked game earlier because I couldn't hear this guy's footsteps over them from two rooms down!"

"Never had many arguments, actually. Maybe they're a bit more jumpy because their dad died a few hours ago?"

Alec processed that for a moment. "Never considered it, actually. Think you could come over here and like, de-traumatize them with your eyes? Maybe tone down that aggressive behavior, too?"

"I'm not brainwashing your family."

"But they're so annoying!"

I groaned. "I'm pretty sure it's good behavior to organize playtime between kids, so how about I bring Bonesaw over? My clone will install some soundproofing paper tags, and hopefully the kids will have fun with each other… or something. I'm going out on a limb here."

"No! I don't want to be a parent!" Alec cried.

A/N: Still love reviews 3