January 30th, 2011 Secret Base, Brockton Bay, New Hampshire 10:00 PM EST- SP:1000

"Alright, you can wake her up," I told Shego. "But stay out of her eyeline. She won't know who I am, but she might know you. If she decides to go batshit and set off Drakken's bomb before we can get her answer we'll have done all this for nothing." She grimaced, but nodded, and I smiled under my mask as she lifted a tube of smelling salts, wafting it under Bakuda's nose from behind.

I wasn't worried about myself, obviously, and Bakuda was strapped to a chair with her head pointed forward, unable to turn her neck. Shego backed up anyway as the arrogant girl awakened slowly, her eyes flickering light a dying lightbulb as she returned to consciousness.

Then she noticed me, and they flew open wide. "What? What's going on? Where am I? Who are you?" Her eyes narrowed menacingly (or that was the intent I think, she mostly just looked like a pouting kitten). "Do you know who I am? I'm BAKUDA! I'm the greatest tinker in the world! I'm Lung's most favored subject. You better let me go, trash, or you're going to be dragon food!"

I flinched exaggeratedly. "Wait, what? Lung? Holy shit, I had no idea. I'd better kill you right away so he can't trace you back to me." I raised my voice, calling over my shoulder. "Hey guys, bring me the hacksaw and some garbage bags, we gotta murder this bitch quick!"

Her eyes widened in terror. "Wait! No, I didn't mean it like that! Don't kill me!"

"But you just said Lung was gonna come after me," I pointed out helpfully. "If I don't get rid of you, how will I know I'm safe?" I put a slight tremor in my voice, like I was terrified, then perked up noticeably. "Oh, hey, wait, I know." I held up the book in my hand. "We can sign a contract! If you sign a contract saying you won't come after me, Lung won't be able to do anything. That's just the law! I can even let you go!"

She froze, and then I saw a devilish look appear in her eyes. "Yeah," she purred. "Yeah, that's a good idea. I'll sign a contract. Then you'll be safe."

This bitch couldn't have been more obviously planning to double cross me if she had "inevitable betrayal" tattooed on her forehead. Bakuda was NOT a subtle person. She was also surprisingly dumb for a tinker, but to be fair, she was operating by rules she didn't have even a slight hope of comprehending. I held out the book to her, withdrawing a pen from my pocket.

With a move too fast for her to see, I casually reached out and slashed her finger, getting a yelp from the trapped girl. "Hey! What the hell?"

I held up the book. "Gotta make sure its binding. Everyone knows you have to sign contracts in blood. That's where the law gets its power from. Did you know that judges have to bathe in virgin blood three times a day? And they call US criminals."

She paused, derailed by my nonsense. I find people rarely make good decisions when confused, and making them think you're an idiot and putting them off balance at the same time is twice the return for half the effort. She was so puzzled she didn't even question why the book I handed her to sign had nothing written in it. She just scribbled her name lazily, then glared up at me. "Alright, fine, I did it! Now let me go like you said. I promise, you'll NEVER see me again."

The words were dripping with venom, and I was pretty sure she was envisioning exactly how she was going to kill me. Smiling, I put the book back into my coat. "Oh sure. Shego, let her go."

Shego looked confused, but shrugged, trusting me to know what I was doing, and unstrapped the tinker. Bakuda shot to her feet triumphantly, her enormous breasts bouncing like balloons on a rollercoaster, and pointed at me in malicious joy. "Just you wait! I'm going to rain hell down on you, I'm going to- AAAARRRGGGH!"

Her hands snapped up to her head, screams tearing from her lips as she collapsed to the ground, curling into a ball in agony.

"Yeah…" I said dryly. "Forgot to mention that was a magic book."

The soul contract booklet was a D-class treasure from a novel called "Fishing the Myriad Heavens". It essentially created a slave contract with anyone who signed the book. I could end Bakuda's life in a blink from anywhere in the world, and if I died, she would also die. It wasn't complicated, and it didn't work on people who were too strong, but Bakuda was a tinker, so she had ZERO resistance.

I stopped the pain, waiting patiently for her to glare up at me tearfully. "What? Magic isn't real! What did you do? What was that?"

"That," I told her cheerfully. "Was a soul contract." I explained the particulars, not bothering to hold anything back. Unlike the world the book came from, there was no way to increase your power measurably in this world. At least not that Bakuda had access to. Even if she second triggered, it would just be more tinker shit, and tinkers were science, not magic.

She stared up at me, her expression hollow. "That's…that's not true. You're lying." But she knew I wasn't. The pain from the contract book wasn't physical, it was spiritual. It didn't feel like anything else the person had ever experienced. It was pure agony. Once she knew what it was, she wouldn't doubt it. She had to know I was telling the truth. She just didn't want to believe it.

"That said," I said gently. "As long as you're good, I don't need to do anything like that again. You'll BE good, won't you?"

I was sure she would. Bakuda was a bully with a chip on her shoulder, not a hardened warrior. And even a hardened warrior would have had trouble resisting that kind of pain. I was glad, honestly, because I didn't actually LIKE torturing her. I knew she was a psycho bomber and probably a sadist based on her behavior at the casino, but right now she just looked like a scared girl.

The soul contract was a great deterrent, but I was planning to release her once she wasn't a threat anymore. If I burned the page after crossing out her name with my own blood it would sever the link.

Eyes still teary, she nodded slowly as I helped her up. "Yeah, I'll be good," she said in a scared voice. "I will. Just don't…don't do it again? It was horrible."

"I promise," I told her, patting her head gently. "If you don't threaten anyone or try to hurt my friends, I won't. Now, like I said, since you signed, I'm willing to let you go, but we need to talk about some things first, ok?"We spent the next hour questioning her, learning how her power worked, how she'd used it so far, and exactly what our options were.

By the time I finished questioning her, I had a rough outline of my next steps, and we were ready to take her to Drakken. "Alright, I'm going to bring you to see my friend. If you kill him, you'll have to suffer that pain again, and this time I won't stop. And if I die, you'll experience that sensation for the rest of your most likely short life. Will you be good?"

She nodded hesitantly and I gestured for her to follow me. Shego let her get ahead then slipped in next to me. "Damn boss man, you're like the crazy bitch whisperer. You just looked at her and she's an obedient little kitten."

"You realize I regularly have sex with YOU," I pointed out wryly. "Also that's not really a skillset I want to be associated with."

"Do you NOT think I'm a crazy bitch?" she snickered.

I rolled my eyes. "I plead the fifth. You don't mind me recruiting her? You know she's going to be key to the plan." My new plan was going to be so much more dramatic than the last one. I was pretty proud of it. It would let us take out Lung, most of his guys, and anyone else we needed all in one fell swoop.

"Nah, she didn't actually kill Dr. D. Plus that poor bitch is basically a pet now. Sexy little thing though. I wouldn't be surprised if she's bouncing those fat tits on your knob by the end of the night." She winked at me suggestively.

I shook my head. "Too rapey. I wouldn't fuck someone I had under a slave contract. Once she's free I'd be down to pound, but a man has to have some standards."

Cheating, stealing, killing, I could excuse a lot, but forcing someone to have sex with me was a line. Even if it had just been blackmail I might not have been so bothered, but the whole soul agony thing just made it gross to me.
She shrugged. "Fair. Different strokes for different folks. Mind if I put that smarmy little mouth to work? Bet she eats pussy like a fucking champ. The bitchy ones can always lick."

"As long as she knows I'm not going to punish her if she says no, go nuts," I shrugged.

She perked up, probably excited at the idea of shoving the face of the woman who had tormented her older brother finger into her cunt and grinding. Shego seemed like the hatefucking type.

We arrived at an operating room we'd cleared out. "Alright, Bakuda, you ready for this? You CAN remove it, right?"

She nodded. "It's Marina. My name is Marina Yoshiko. Since you own my soul, I guess there's no reason to hide it, huh?" Her tone was bitter. She might be scared to suffer, but she was far from subdued. That was fine. I had a plan to sway her to our side. I didn't want to give up a bomb tinker if I could help it. "But yeah, I can get it out. The bomb is a phase grenade. It's in a liminal state. That makes it impossible to remove, but it also means I can just disarm it and it'll shift from between phases to out of phase, dripping right out."

I nodded. She'd mentioned that already. It was a big part of the plan moving forward actually. We entered and found Drakken lying sedated on a table. I approached, then gestured for Bakuda, sorry, Marina, to begin.

She walked around him, studying him intently, then shifted his head at an angle and…did a little dance. Kind of a tap number. I heard a few clicks and then a small silver egg shaped object dropped out of his skull like his head was a hologram. She did another few taps as her hand shot out and it struck her palm with a solid whap.

Handing it over, she watched me carefully. I ignored her. I wasn't worried. If this went off I could tank it before it could hurt Shego or Drakken. It didn't though. She just…left it there. I beamed at her from behind my mask. "Excellent work Marina. Now, how about you come meet the rest of the team. I know Squealer will be excited. She'll love having another tinker around to talk shop with."

I wasn't sure that was true, but the mental image of my two top heavy wrench wenches collaborating was pretty nice. We left the room, and I had some of the minions check on Drakken. Shego stayed behind, but as I left, she shot me a grateful smile, then pumped her hand next to her face in a fist and poked her tongue with her cheek in the universal gesture for blow job. I just laughed, it was nice to do something good for a friend. The dick sucking would just be a nice perk.

January 31st, 2011 The Boatyard, Brockton Bay, New Hampshire 9:00 AM EST- SP:1200

With Drakken safe, and my plans for the conclave in motion, I decided it was finally time to get some training in. I brought Blake and Bonnie with me to avoid boredom and headed for the Boatyard, avoiding any really habitable place and circling around to where it touched the water. I wanted to do some testing with the Sea Stabilizing Pearl.

This was my counter to Leviathan (though I still didn't have the details about his arrival, given Tattletale was dragging her feet and claiming she couldn't get in touch with her Thinker), and I needed to be ready to use it as soon as he arrived.

I touched my book where it sat in my pocket, a few words enough to bring out the pearl, and a weighty piece of dark material dropped into my hand. The Sea Stabilizing Pearl was pretty chonky, easily the size of an apple. The dark, lustrous pearl shimmered with energy, wrapped in a setting made of intricate gold dragons that spiraled and interlocked around it. It hung from a gold chain made of thick, heavy links, and something about it just felt…heavy.

"That thing scares me," Blake said bluntly. "I don't even know why, but looking at it makes me feel like I'm in danger."

"Because you are. The Pearl is an immortal instrument. It's not meant to be held by moral hands." I tosses it up into the air and caught it. "Lifting it requires a small amount of life energy, and by 'small' I mean relative to how much it takes to USE it. Every second I'm holding this would take a hundred years off a normal person's lifespan."

It wasn't exactly a direct drain, it was deeper than that. It wasn't draining years off my life, it was draining POSSIBLE years off my life. If I had been destined to live to a thousand, ten second of holding this would have killed me. Luckily, I was eternal, and no amount of potential lifespan drain was going to mean much. That said, once I started USING this, that drain was going to multiply, and it would start actively eating into my current usable life force. I'd be drained into a mummy FAST.

That was why I was here. I had unlimited life force to work with, but if it drained me completely too fast I would die and come back, which would interrupt the process. I needed to learn to control it, to hold on as long as I could. Otherwise I wouldn't be much help when Leviathan came.

Blake looked unhappy. "Are you sure you should be messing with that? I know you're immortal, but that sounds really risky."

Nearby, sitting on a folding plastic chair in a bikini, Bonnie snorted. "I don't even know why you brought her, daddy. Listen up, cat-bitch. Daddy is invincible. Nothing can kill him, especially not some bullshit hunk of ocean rock. So why don't you park your fat ass on the ground and watch like a good little pet instead of opening your whiny mouth."
Blake glared at the other girl, and Bonnie just ignored her. I rolled my eyes. "Bonnie. Blake is part of the team, don't be a bitch."

She pouted at me. "It's bullshit! I was one of your first girls. Now you're fucking the cat-slut, and Shego, and even Kimmy, and you never have time for me. You even gave Kimmy powers. REAL powers, not a stick that shoots flashbangs. Why did she have to come? Last time you wanted to test your powers it was just the two of us."

I sighed. Bonnie was…insecure. Really insecure. She hid it behind bitchiness and acidic sarcasm, but she was terrified of being abandoned. Blake was gorgeous and thicc and powerful, and after finding out Blake and Shego and I had fucked, Bonnie had become extremely bitter. Shego, I don't think she counted, because Shego and I were more like fuck buddies than anything romantic, but I was obviously fond of Blake and Bonnie hated it.

But I had basically no way to reassure her. I didn't have the points for a D-class item right now, which meant I couldn't give her any permanent powers, and anything I SAID would sound hollow.

I gestured for Blake to go cool off, stashing the Pearl away in my book for a minute. Walking over, I picked Bonnie up, dropping into the chair and then plopping her on my lap. She averted her gaze, not resisting or anything but making it clear she was unhappy. I grabbed her face, turning it forcefully to mine as I took her lips in a rough kiss. After a few seconds, her hands flew up to my face, almost clawing at me as she wriggled in my lap, moaning into my lips.

My hand came up and I pulled her away by a fistful of hair, her eyes fluttering dreamily. "You," I told her bluntly. "Are all mine. That ass, that pussy, that scheming little brain. I don't give up what's mine. You will never belong to anyone else, and I won't abandon you, so calm the fuck down and stop being a little bitch, before I spank you like the brat you're acting like."

Her eyes were hot as she stared down at me. "Oh daddy," she swooned breathily. "You always know just what to say."

I raised a brow at her, waiting. She pouted. "FINE!" she whined. "I'll place nice with that cat-slut. Maybe I'll make her eat my tuna, Shego says she's good at that." She winked at me suggestively. "But I don't want to get passed over again. You gave Kimmy powers. I…I hate it. I knew she would get them eventually, but it feels like you want her more." She ground her hips against me. "No way that little virgin can do better than I can. I'll earn that power with this fucking pussy if I have to, but I want to be NEXT. Will you do me next daddy?"

Laughing, I rolled my eyes. "You're kind of fucked up, you know that? Why are you so focused on being next?"

She grinned wickedly. "Because I know what you obviously haven't figured out yet. Eventually, you're going to tell Kimmy the truth, and there's no way she'll be able to let you go. She'll find out about the rest of us, and about me, and you're going to fuck us both together. And the day that happens, I'm going to show her how your girl takes that fat cock the right way. I'm going to ride you like a fucking bronco, and she's going to watch, and seethe, and I'm going to cum like a fucking fountain while I stare into her holier than thou face and squeal on her precious boyfriend's dick!"

Her tone was almost fanatical, and her hip grinding sped up immensely. I had to admit, the whole thing turned me on. I DID feel a bit bad still about fucking around behind Kim's back, but not bad enough to stop. I took good care of her, and she'd find out about it eventually.

I wasn't so sure that she'd be able to handle it like Bonnie thought, but it made me feel weirdly better that she assumed that. Bonnie KNEW Kim. She was kind of obsessed with her, actually. Kim was a stand in for the sisters Bonnie hated, and she had focused on my girlfriend as a sort of rival. If she thought Kim would stay with me, that went a long way to relieving my worries.

As for the rest of it… I just chuckled. "If the day comes that I have a threesome with you and Kim, I'll make sure you have powers and a chance to throw that ass in front of her. Now will you calm down and be NICE to my kitten?"

"I guess she's not the WORST," Bonnie snorted, laying her head on my chest. "She's quiet I guess. Can I dress her up in slutty outfits and parade her around the base?"

"If she lets you," I told her with a laugh. "But I suspect you'll have to make it up to her for being such a bitch since you found out about our three way. You've been snide all day, and it might take some doing to patch things up."

She snorted. "Please, that subby little bitch was practically squirming for half of it. A quick apology and maybe some time on my knees and she'll get over it."

Standing up, I deposited her on the chair, taking the Pearl back out. "Well then go apologize. I need to focus on this anyway." She smirked, making sure to sway her hips as she walked away, showing off her thick tan ass. She was no Blake, but Bonnie had booty.

With her gone, I resumed my training. I felt better now. Seeing her tear into Blake had been unpleasant. I didn't like it when my girls sniped at each other. I had my flaws, I knew, but I wanted the people I cared about taken care of, even by each other. If I had to get involved to make them play nice I would do that.

Now that I'd gotten that out of the way though, it was time to get down to business. I clenched the Pearl, looking around at the layer of water over the inland area of the Boatyard. This had been part of the Bay once, obviously, but now we were inland enough that there wasn't TOO much water.

I focused, and I felt a PULL from inside me. The water began to shift, rolling and sloshing on the ground. It wasn't fast or smooth at all. I focused, and the drain intensified. I winced a bit but it was manageable, and the water started collecting, all of it rolling inward towards a central point. It gathered into a kind of tower, building on itself as it got higher off the ground.

Focusing on a single point, I continued to collect the water there, eventually lifting it free of the ground and collecting it into a beach ball sized sphere of water floating off the ground. Once it was there, it became much easier to support it. I grinned, focusing on holding the water in place. This was the true purpose of the Sea Stabilizing Pearl. Moving water was possible, but difficult. But the key was in the name. Stabilizing.

It took much less energy to hold water in place, even in a place it shouldn't be or with outside forces acting on it, than it did to move it. Which was perfect. Leviathan's main danger was the absurd amount of water he could move. I didn't know how long I could pin that much water, but I knew I COULD pin it, at least for a bit.

That had been why I picked this object. More than any other reason, that was the biggest ace I could bring to bear against the Endbringer.

If I could neutralize his hydrokinesis we had a shot at beating him. I would be useless for the actual fight, of course, but I didn't mind. I wasn't strong enough to take him in a head to head fight most likely. Endbringer fights brought in capes from all over the globe though. If I could pin him, SOMEONE would be able to finish him off.

I let the water splash to the ground, putting the Pearl away. I wasn't done for the day, but I was going to take a break and have some fun. I stared down at the formerly bare dirt I'd pulled the moisture out of before dropping the water bomb, which had indented and formed a small pit that was now full of mud. I grinned. "Hey girls!" I called over my shoulder as I stripped off my clothes. "Who wants to try mud wrestling?"

February 5th, 2011 Somers Rock, Brockton Bay, New Hampshire 7:00 PM EST- SP:1500

The next several days were surprisingly uneventful. By which I meant NOTHING noteworthy happened. My book remained empty, and I wasn't too upset about that. No story meant nothing was going wrong. Hopefully. But now the day had come, and we were finally ready for the conclave as Somers Rock. Although, that said…

"Where's the rock?" I asked in annoyance, glancing around the small family bar. "Like I didn't think it was going to be a cliff or anything, but I was hoping they'd have at least BOUGHT a rock. Maybe put a sword through it or something as a gimmick."

Blake sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I feel like their choice of decor is the least relevant part of this whole endeavor. There are a LOT of strong people here. Are you sure you shouldn't…you know?" She glanced down at herself, clearly gesturing to her currently active Aura.

"Not necessary," I said with a shake of my head. "I'm safe as houses. That's why we didn't bring the others, remember? Just be ready to bail if needed, Lucky is on standby in case he needs to Ally Swap you out of here."

This place was…crowded. Which was uncomfortable, because almost everyone here was both a cape and someone I probably should be killing. Lung was here, a goliath of a man sitting at a booth in a dragon mask. The ornate steel mask covered everything but his eyes, but beneath it he wore only pants and boots, leaving his chest and back exposed to show off a sprawling canvas of complex tattoos.

Oni Lee, in his demon mask, sat beside him, and Bakuda was on the other side, trying not to look at me. Across the room sat a figure in an ornate plate armor suit with a crown of blades, and beside him was another shirtless man wearing a metal wolf mask, his greasy blonde hair long and matted. Across from them sat another blonde man, his hair close cropped and his clothes an ominous red and black. Victor..

"Man, it's like a bad Abercrombie ad in here. They should be grateful Somers Rock doesn't have one of those no shirt, no shoes, no service signs up." I said with a snort as I sought out Faultline and dropped into her booth. Neuter was with her, and he nodded at me casually.

Faultline snorted. "Oddly, I think they have other concerns besides a few topless guys in their bar."

The door banged open, and I turned and sneered at the form that had entered. Skidmark. "Yeah, I see what you mean," I said acidly. "Who cares about a few shirtless assholes when someone just took a dump all over your floor."

"Classy," she said wryly as she took a sip of her drink.
I shrugged. "Well, if you call yourself Skidmark, you're inviting a shit comparison. Doesn't help that he smells so bad either, no wonder he has to get women high before he can get his dick wet." I made sure my voice carried over the crowd as I spoke, though I didn't actually yell.

Skidmark whirled, glaring at me nastily, and his hand twitched, seemingly aching to go for a knife of something, but Mush pulled him back, muttering to him intently.

Somers Rock was neutral ground. That worked because EVERYONE agreed. No one gang was willing to throw down because they would face group retribution. I'd known that Skidmark wouldn't be the one to take the chance. He was essentially a coward.

"That's Skidmark, huh?" Blake said in distaste. "Sherrel was right. He's disgusting."

"Don't let his outward appearance fool you," I warned. "He's even more of a disgusting waste of space on the inside. He's sadly not stupid, as much as he acts it most of the time. He's here for the same reason plenty of the others are. He's looking for The Butcher, hoping to become the next big thing. I'm surprised, honestly, I'd have pegged him for being too big a bitch to let himself get possessed."

Faultline grimaced. "He's backed into a corner. The Merchants aren't really a gang, they're more of a pyramid scheme. But it only works as long as he keeps things running. He still has his drug Tinker, but without Squealer, his delivery and distribution channels are severely limited. With his operation hamstrung, his people lose interest, they go elsewhere for drugs, some die from inferior product. The Merchants have started to dissolve."

"Just from Squealer leaving?" I asked in surprise. "I mean, I knew they were useless but…"

She shook her head. "The issue is that Skidmark is, at his core, an addict. He indulges in his own supply far too much. He likes to get high, to fuck pretty girls, and to party. In moderation that would be fine, but the percentage of his product dedicated to getting him laid and keeping him satiated is higher than it should be. Squealer was the one who reined him in. Now she's gone and every spare bit of powder he gets goes to doping up some bleary high school girl so she'll drop her pants."

I got what she meant. It was less what he did and more how much. There had been these same cracks in The Merchants from the beginning, but there was enough outward pressure to keep them mostly together. With a big piece missing and the captain leaving the ship to drift off course, the cracks were widening.

Glancing at Blake, I chewed my lip. "Have Squealer write up a profile when we get back. See if there are any Merchants she thinks we could use if they sober up." I might be willing to burn some points on a purification pill or something if I could get a few useful subordinates. Of course, that was assuming I COULD. Skidmark was desperate enough to be willing to basically kill himself and let his body get taken over by a murder ghost, so I somehow doubted the Merchants were going to go quietly.

The rest of the local (or recently local) forces appeared at a trickle. Saltykovkoya Bratva, the Undersiders, Uber and Leet, Circus, Parian, a few smaller time gangs that didn't even have any capes, and finally, a single dark figure with wings and dark scales. The Dark Dragon had arrived.

I saw several figures among the small time gangs that I recognized as being ABB plants, but that wasn't a surprise. I'd expected it, and it fit perfectly with my plans.

As soon as the Dark Dragon entered, everyone went silent. That was understandable, even in Brockton, big fuck off humanoid dragons weren't common. We only had like…four, and one of them was in the room in human form. Not to mention, the Dark Dragon was unusually menacing because of his glossy dark scales and sleek lines. He looked like a predator.

Despite that, these people were all hardened criminals, and upon processing, they all resumed expressions of casual disinterest, despite almost definitely being neither of those things.

The Dark Dragon stalked across the room, crouching across the table from Lung. Kaiser cleared his throat. "Lung, what is this about? The conclave is hardly the place for introductions. We are here to discuss business."

I hated to agree with Kaiser on anything, but he had a point. In fact, it was a point that I'd long since considered, and it gave lie to a lot of my interactions with the Dark Dragon. The insistence that he just wanted to find the Butcher and use the power to become unstoppable was mostly Lao Shi's, and personally, I didn't think it was necessarily accurate. If he just wanted to find the Butcher, all this rigamarole was unnecessary.

He had some kind of designs on Brockton. I wasn't sure how or why, but he wanted something here, and had been waiting for Coil to be out of the way to show up. Or had he? He might've been here all along, we didn't know what he looked like outside his Changer form, so who knew who he was.

"Do I need to apprise you of my actions beforehand?" Lung boomed. "I am not one of your whimpering dogs, Kaiser. You are not my superior, nor even my equal. Watch your tone when addressing me."

Hookwolf shot to his feet. "You slant-eyed fuck! You think you can talk to Kaiser lik-"

"Enough," said Kaiser sharply, gesturing to Hookwolf to sit. The greasy man tensed, but eventually lowered himself back to his seat. "You want to prove your mettle? Fine. State your purpose for bringing this animal to the conclave so we might move on."

The Dark Dragon's lips peeled back from his snout. "I can speak for myself. I am here for two purposes. One is to join your little community. The other is to request and offer aid. You see, I possess a singular ability, a unique power of the mind that makes me all but immune to external mental influence. Due to this quirk of mental fortitude, I am perhaps the best possible host for the entity know as 'The Butcher'."

I saw most of the people in the room tense. Skidmark, for one, who had been looking for The Butcher, but also Tattletale, who was staring at the Dark Dragon like she would have clawed her way out of her own skin to get an inch further away. I wondered what she was seeing that horrified her quite that much.

"You want us to HELP you track down The Butcher?" Kaiser sneered. "Why would we give you such power?"

"Because it's the safe choice," said the Dark Dragon solemnly. "Despite my temporary alliance with Lung, I am NOT ABB. I belong to no faction. Having a neutral party absorb The Butcher, and one not affected by powers of the mind, gets a threat off your streets. Even if one of your own people were to accidentally end The Butcher, it would be a grave threat, nevermind an enemy."

This was why he needed to be in the conclave. The conclave wasn't just a meeting, it was an agreement. Coming here signified a willingness to abide by the decisions of the group. No reason to meet if no decisions could get made. By stacking the deck here and forcing a vote, the Dark Dragon could essentially press gang the entire Brockton cape scene into helping him.

My vote was supposed to be assured, and based on what Bakuda had told me, I was far from the only victim of that particular tactic. Most of the minor gangs had been either infiltrated or seeded with bombs for control, and with me added in, the votes needed to pass almost anything were within the Dark Dragon's purview.

Why he chose to do it this way, I still didn't know, but clearly becoming part of Brockton's cape scene was important to his plans, as I'd considered earlier.

Kaiser snorted. "Madness. No one in their right mind would move to grant such power to an outsider. And you aren't even a member of the community, you can't put forward a motion. Lung, are you really willing to feed this delusion? I had assumed my opinion of you had reached its nadir, but it seems you've discovered new depths of pathetic to plumb."

Lung just stared at him. "I put forward the motion."

Snorting derisively, Kaiser turned to the crowd. "Very well. How many of us support this idiocy? Show of hands?"

At his statement, the crowd stirred. A large number of people raised their hands. Everyone who wasn't in the that number frowned, looking around in disbelief. The Dark Dragon, specifically, was looking at me. He flashed his sharp teeth. "Vagabond. Are you sure you won't vote with us? It would mean a lot to have your support."

I shrugged. "Nah, I think that would be crazy. But hey, don't worry. Seems like that's going around. You've sure got a lot of votes. I guess anyone can lose their heads in a tense situation." At the verbal cue, Bakuda twitched imperceptibly, her toes pressing down in her shoes, and a full HALF of the people in the room…died. Heads vanishing in an explosion of gore, the bodies collapsed, and without them, the number of votes diminished to almost nothing. I grinned at the Dark Dragon. "See?" And with a roar, he dove off his table and streaked toward me. Perfect.

February 5th, 2011 Somers Rock, Brockton Bay, New Hampshire 8:00 PM EST- SP:1700

The response to the carnage in Somers Rock was…chaos. No one knew what was happening. Heads were exploding for no reason, no one had moved, and the Dark Dragon had just attacked me directly seemingly out of nowhere.

If anyone had time to think about, they would have undoubtedly figured it out, but since they didn't, and the bombs had been seemingly random (we hadn't been able to sneak one into everyone who needed one because of access issues), a few very insane things happened when everything broke bad.

Kaiser, Hookwolf, and Victor, all seemingly took advantage of the opportunity to "misunderstand" the problem and attack Lung and Oni Lee. I imagined the opportunity to hit the Dragon of Kyushu with no windup at all was a rare one. Lung had been sure the conclave would protect him, and it probably would have…if I hadn't just nuked the whole neutral ground thing out of nowhere.

His secondary line of defense was obviously the Dark Dragon. I wasn't sure what the Dragon had SAID to get Lung to trust him when Lao Shi implied they should be mortal enemies, but clearly he'd had something up his sleeve.

But since I was dealing with that issue, there was nothing for them to worry about. Of course, the same couldn't be said for ME, because the Dark Dragon was STRONG. Luckily, I had my own methods for dealing with that. Even if I'd been hoping not to expose them. Without any further ado, I triggered my Aura, and Lucky dropped Kanshou and Bakuya into my hands.

The Dark Dragon had been lunging across the room at me, and unusually fast, but he still had a lot of space to cross, and I met him halfway, blades flashing.

He tried to change direction midair, and actually mostly managed, but one of my blades flicked across a tendon in his elbow, and his right arm went limp as he spiraled into a table, grabbing it and vaulting over for cover as he snarled at me. "YOU!" He hissed menacingly. "I should have known! You dare to oppose me? To oppose Lung?"

"Lung seems a little busy right now," I pointed out smugly. "In fact, I don't think he's going to be much of a problem even if he gets away. While him and Oni Lee are here, my people are hitting all the ABB stash houses. We're gutting his whole organization, and by the time tonight is over, we'll have effectively neutralized one of Brockton's biggest gangs."

Tattletale was helping us with the cyber side of things, and the Undersiders had officially joined my people on the raids. With the Dust bullets, Squealer's cars, Shego's powers, and support from Bitch's dogs, none of the ABB hideouts stood a chance.

Convincing Tattletale to help us root out all the ABB safe houses hadn't been difficult. We'd just promised her a cut. We didn't have the manpower to occupy all the ABB territory ourselves anyway. I had some ideas on using Bakuda's powers to keep current leadership in place with some changes, but for the initial shakeup, giving the Undersiders some territory and cash was fine.

Sadly, my dreams of empire building were cut short when the Dark Dragon picked up a table and threw it at me like a fucking discus. Cursing, I brought my blades up in a pair of sharp cuts, shearing the thing in half before it made contact and then rushing forward. The Dragon was already ready, opening his mouth to breath out a torrent of dark blue flames.

Rather than deplete my Aura, I let it drop, taking the fire blast head on and gritting my teeth as my body caught fire. As I started to heal though, the Extremis in my system started absorbing the heat, ramping my energy and regeneration. The Dark Dragon continued to breathe fire on me for a minute or two, until he realized I was just taking it and cut off, leaping up to the roof like a cat to cling to an overhanging beam.

I noticed his arm had healed. I'd hoped the "anti-monster" properties of Kanshou and Bakuya would do serious damage to him, but apparently not. He obviously had enhanced regeneration, and the ultra sharp blades might have even been making wounds EASIER to heal.

Snarling, I triggered my semblance, releasing Nightfall (with Lucky's concealment covering us both so no one noticed him appearing), and tossed him a blade. The white steel of Kanshou flashed as my other self snatched it from the air, and I turned to grin up at the Dragon, even if he couldn't see my face. "Two on one now fucker! See how you handle getting double teamed."

Since we had the same small blades skill, our combat style was nearly identical. I blurred forward, my blade sweeping up at the Dragon's throat while Nightfall circled around, trying to hit the tail.

The Dragon snarled, trying to create a breakthrough point by diving straight at me to bull me out of the way. His jaws flashed as he snapped at my throat, and rather than block it, I dropped my Aura and let him bite into my neck. Despite having seen me use the same trick on his fire, he wasn't expecting that, and his teeth sunk deep into my unprotected throat…which was an extremely poor choice on his part.

My Extremis was boosted by dragon fire, and my body was so hot at this point that I felt his teeth start to deform in my flash as he dug in. With a horrifying scream, he ripped his teeth out of my throat, splattering blood like fucking lava across his scales with a burning hiss, and turned to bolt towards the door.

I hadn't expected him to just…run. He was a fucking Dragon. But sadly given the shock and his wings, he managed to cross the room and slip out the door faster than we could reach him. I cursed, and Nightfall looked ready to chase, but then he noticed Lung was still here and his eyes hardened.

The Dragon of Kyushu had shifted, he was about the size of a small car right now, and still growing. He was also bleeding from multiple wounds where Kaiser had been laying into him, but the E88 leader hadn't gotten away scot free. He was leaned against the wall with a serious dent in the side of his armor, being tended to by Victor while Hookwolf held the Dragon at bay.

I nodded to Nightfall, tossing him the other blade as I dropped my Aura. Since both of us were here now, I could use this as an alibi in case the Dark Dragon decided to out us as the same person.

Plus I knew he was super pissed about the whole brothel thing. At the moment I was less bothered. It was still pretty cringey, but I was more grossed out than outraged. While he handled that, I drew my upgraded plasma pistol and turned on Oni Lee, who had been fighting against Faultline and Newter with Tattletale supporting. Turned out she was actually a really good counter for him. He showed his intention to teleport in his body language, so she was just calling his destination to them before he ported.

They were still having trouble keeping up, but luckily I didn't have that issue. Tattletale called his next port and the others turned to attack…and were only able to witness a supercharged plasma bolt smash into Oni Lee and detonate, blowing the bastard apart in a rain of ash. I cursed as I realized he'd ported again, and his power apparently left his body behind rather than creating a new one at the location.

I saw him appear in the doorway and winged off another shot, but again, when the bolt hit he exploded into ash. "Fuck!" I snapped in annoyance. I spun to find Bakuda, who was crouched behind a booth. "Hey sugar tits, you get a chance to plant one on the rabbit?"

She stared at me for a second, not responding, and I realized that she hadn't seen the gun before, having been unconscious last time I used it on him. Finally she shook it off. "I…kind of, boss. Also I didn't know we were admitting I was with you. By the way, my name is Bakuda not…"

"Sugar tits?" I finished. "But you've got those big fat jugs on such a tiny body. I think it works."

Nightfall, who had climbed onto Lung and was carving him open as fast as he was growing, shouted across the room. "That's harassment! She's saying she doesn't like the nickname."

I snorted. "Everyone's a fucking critic. Fine 'BAKUDA' what do you mean "kind of"? You did or you didn't. If you couldn't pin him down we can try to arrange a trap so you can properly dispose of that slippery bastard."

"I did plant a bomb on him," she corrected. "I managed to get one embedded while he was distracted by all the explosions. But when he teleported, he left it behind. His power is kind of a hard counter to mine."

"Damn," I spat. "That's gonna come back to bite us. Oni Lee and the Dark Dragon both got away." Granted, they'd been driven off screaming, so chances were good they would lay low for a while rather than come after us directly, especially the Dragon, but it still wasn't ideal. Frustrated, I decided to at least get one problem out of the way. I waited for Lung to roar in outrage after Nightfall's next stab…and I put a plasma bolt down his fucking throat.

His now gigantic body shuddered, jerking spasmodically as he collapsed, smoke billowing from the mouth and nostrils of his burned out husk of a corpse. I sighed with relief. The inside was apparently much less sturdy.

Walking over to him, I let Nightfall take up position between me and Hookwolf as I smacked my hand down on the body and quickly read it into my book, not bothering to look at the payout in the middle of a warzone. Somers Rock was…fucked up. Dead bodies, destroyed walls, burned out piles of rubble. Some of that was from my plasma splashback, which was unfortunate, though dragon fire and bullets had played a role.

Looking down, I realized I'd actually been shot a few times, the chaos had just been so overwhelming I hadn't noticed. No wonder Bakuda took cover. With Lung dead 'Nightfall' announced his intention to chase Skidmark, who had bailed almost immediately, and bolted out the door, returning to my soul as soon as he was clear of the sight lines of everyone here.

Hookwolf returned to human form, glaring at me. "What did you do with the corpse? That belongs to us! We took down the dragon, and we're gonna mount that monster's head on the wall for everyone to see."

This had been a clusterfuck. I had zero interest in starting a war with the Empire right now, not with the Dark Dragon still on the loose. But I knew if I backed down, they would come at me even harder. So I pointed my plasma pistol at him. "Really? That sounds like a cool thing to try. Maybe I should give it a shot. Do me a favor and shift so I can get the coolest possible head for my wall."

"Enough," said Kaiser as he staggered in between us. "Hookwolf, stand down. Vagabond was simply restoring order after Lung's…insurrection. Keeping the body is his right as the victor." He nodded slowly, backing away without taking his eyes off me, and they all left.

Because of the breakdown in the situation, Kaiser didn't have a lot of options here. If they admitted we'd started this, the Empire would have to go to war against us. Given our demonstrated firepower, he gained nothing from that, and it made more sense to just play along and pretend we'd been upholding the neutrality agreement. Despite that, I saw him glance back at us as he slipped out, and I knew this wasn't over. That worked for me. I wasn't leaving that Nazi fuck alive if I could help it. For now though, I had some gains to process. Time to see what I'd earned for slaying a Dragon.

February 5th, 2011 Secret Lair, Brockton Bay, New Hampshire 8:00 PM EST- SP:11,900

Lung's corpse netted me a cool ten thousand points, which was fantastic. He was apparently B-class, which made sense. It still rankled that I had to pay one rank up for summoning but didn't get it when I read things in. To be fair, both people I'd done that to were dead, so maybe I DID get it back, and it just only worked with living things.

During the commotion at Somers Rock, my people had been sweeping the ABB, but with Oni Lee and the Dark Dragon both escaping, I had to change my strategy a bit. We couldn't hold too much on our own anyway, I hadn't recruited nearly enough to occupy a large amount of territory. I briefly weighed the options, and decided that we would take over Ruby Dreams.

Before that though, I redirected Shego and the goons there, concentrating my firepower in case of an attack, and sent Blake and Bonnie along, passing Blake my plasma pistol, which I suspected would scare Oni Lee off if he attempted to raid the place, then returned to the base.

With everyone out of the base except Drakken, who was still recovering from his torture and imprisonment, I decided to double down and beef up my current powerset. Specifically, I was going to try to attune myself better to my most powerful weapon, the sea stabilizing pearl. To do this, I needed to try to learn some form of water cultivation, and to do THAT I needed some form of energy awakened.

I considered mana, The Land had a mana attunement skill I could learn, but I decided that since the pearl was a cultivation object, cultivating was a better idea.

After flipping back through my old notes, I stumbled on something I thought would be perfect. Sadly, rather than something water related (most of those were weirdly female specific) I decided to install the Madra Engine I had been looking at, then pick up a cultivation technique to make USE of that generated energy.

Theoretically, the Madra Engine could convert life force into Madra, which was BASICALLY qi, meaning I would have infinite power…but in reality, the actual output was throttled, so it was more unlimited than infinite. I would produce a relatively small amount consistently, commensurate with the total power my body could currently hold.

This particular discovery showed me something vital to my future development. Namely that I was SERIOUSLY underutilizing my eternal life power. I could have as much eternal life as I needed, but with my body not making use of it beyond normal human limits, I was essentially keeping this roaring torrent of life force locked up behind a dam with only a bit trickling out.

So, obviously, I read out the Madra Engine, spending another ten thousand, and had it installed in my body. Surgery was much easier when you could heal from anything, at least when the thing you were implanting was too tough to be melted by your recovering body. Oddly, once it was in, it sort of…vanished. I suspected it was grafted on spiritually, but I wasn't too worried about it, I could feel the steady drain of life force as it ramped up, stabilizing at a point where it wouldn't affect my day to day.

Sufficient point total! B-Class power generation artifact. Madra Engine: A spiritual device that siphons blood and life energy to convert it into a mixture of physical and spiritual energy.

Which left me with a sudden influx of qi and nothing to USE it for. Luckily I had enough points left to afford a VERY low level cultivation technique. Which would let me start accumulating that power and converting it into the potential opportunity to raise my life level and put my eternal life to better use. The only issue was finding something weak enough that I could both easily learn and afford it.

That was where I ran into a problem. In order to utilize this power how I wanted, I needed a cultivation technique. But almost all the cultivation techniques I knew of would be at LEAST C or B-class. Breathing techniques that could help you ascend to immortality were obviously powerful and would be expensive. Low level techniques were still enough to turn you superhuman, which was still too powerful.

D-class was just above human, so I needed a breathing technique or something similarly low powered, and one that did damage to me as I used it might help keep the price down. With only a thousand points my options were limited.

After scouring a few stories, I finally stumbled on one that would be useful. Tales of Demons and Gods had an unnamed technique scroll the main character had fixed for his love interest. It had been so terrible he'd considered it legitimately harmful to practice…which was perfect, because it meant it would be cheaper. Any harmful effects would be soaked by my Extremis anyway.

Sufficient point total! D-Class cultivation technique. Xiao family cultivation manual: A low Bronze level fighter cultivation manual full of flaws, obtained from a small clan in a wasteland city of a lower realm.

I read out the manual, which was literally just a piece of paper she'd been carrying with the technique on it. When I retrieved it, I ran into my first problem…it was in chinese. I facepalmed. Of course it was. Because why would it not be? Luckily, I had at least some method of getting around that. I went to find my resident mad scientist.

Drakken was holed up in his room, too traumatized to interact with anyone but Shego. I'd been giving him space, but I needed help with this, otherwise I'd be wasting all this incoming energy. I banged on the door for a minute, waiting for him to get up and come check on it. It opened slowly, revealing the haggard blue face of Dr. Drakken. He blinked at me fuzzily for a second, then shook his head to clear it. "Oh, Vagabond. What can I do for you?"

I held up the scroll. "I need something that can translate what I THINK is ancient chinese. You got anything?"

He frowned, then waved me inside, turning to walk over to the closet, which he threw open to reveal boxes of…stuff. Mechanical devices were stacked to the ceiling, all of them looking strange or unfinished. While he looked, I snagged a piece of paper and a pen and copied everything on the page over to a new page, just in case whatever he found was damaging.

After ten or fifteen minutes of searching, he pulled out a pair of glasses. "This should work," he said dully, handing me the device. "I made these to decipher hieroglyphics in egypt so I could discover the lost location of a pharaoh's tomb. Turns out they already found them all, so I didn't get much use out of them."

Grinning, I thanked him, then looked around the room. "Hey, are you…like, ok? Shego's been worried sick."

Drakken smiled sadly. "I'll be fine. I just…I'm still remembering what happened every night. The things they did…" he shuddered, eyes filling with tears. "I felt so helpless. So much knowledge, so much intellect, and I couldn't even escape a few thugs with abilities. I have to question the point of my research. Why even bother? I'll never do what a tinker does."

I frowned at him. "Hey now, you were enough of a threat that they used you as bait. That wasn't just because of Shego. We went down there because the idea of a genius like you ending up as the Butcher scared us all shitless. You may not make tinkertech, but what you can do is better. You can actually RECREATE your tech. No Tinker can do that. I plan to put your ass to work when you're feeling better."

He smiled wanly. "I appreciate that. I'll take it under advisement."

It was a huge bummer. I'd heard Shego talk about Drakken tons of times. He was a dynamic and dramatic guy, if not a bit of a goofball. Seeing someone like that as this lifeless husk was…rough. I clapped him on the shoulder, regretting it when he flinched at the contact, but he pushed through it and I gave him a reassuring nod as I left with the glasses.

Back in my office, I sat down on my desk, folding my legs in the lotus position. Then I put the glasses on and studied the copied paper. It was…a mess. Confusing and contradictory in places. I frowned, but pushed through, focusing on the words.

In the original story, literal CHILDREN had learned this technique. And not even particularly special children. Like…low level normal kids.

The scroll described a series of steps to take to draw in and cycle power. I knew that spirit stones existed in this universe, so the energy conversion should work. So, following the instructions, I started to adjust my breathing.
It took me a few hours. The breathing patterns I needed were confusing and difficult, even for someone like me who had taken the cheerleader serum and had fantastic body control. Inverted breathing, cyclical breathing, and a few weird shifting techniques that required me to hyperventilate slightly. After an hour though, I finally managed to feel out the energy inside me. I had been stockpiling it since implanting the Madra Engine, so I had a decent amount of it.

As I dragged it from the spiritual space inside me where the engine had taken up residence, I felt a series of tearing sensations. The energy, too strong for my body to handle, was shredding me from the inside. The original girl who practiced this didn't HAVE spirit stones, just a few pills, and she wouldn't have been pulling nearly this much energy through herself.

To my shock though, the more energy I pulled, the more damaged I became, and more I was damaged, the more my Extremis ramped. The energy produced by Extremis was pure life force and blood energy, apparently, because the engine kicked into high gear, putting out even MORE energy creating a vicious cycle of bodily destruction that just so happened to put me in the fast lane.

Finally, after five hours of work, there was a fundamental change in my body. I felt something…shatter. Not physically, but spiritually, and the amount of power pouring into me through the engine EXPLODED upwards. Ten times as much life force capacity, at least. My body remolded itself, adapting easily because of the Extremis.

I was a Bronze One Star Fighter. Excited to experience my power, I slipped out of the base, heading for the Trainyard to test. Between my boots and the new power in my limbs I arrived quickly enough, and once I was there, I started to test my strength.

After some creative juggling and comparison, I was able to roughly estimate. A Bronze One Star fighter in the book was able to lift a hundred pound stone easily. Granted, these were actual kids, the adults probably skewed closer to three hundred or so. I'd been putting up a few TONS before, and after my breakthrough, I estimated my current strength to be about TEN TONS.

Sadly, because of the massive scale of my bodily power, the amount of qi needed to upgraded increased exponentially for each level. Two star would take me days if not weeks. But I wasn't worried. This upgrade put me in a whole other league power wise. Not Endbringer levels, obviously, but strong enough to hold my own with almost anyone else in a contest of raw power.

Not to mention that my unlimited life energy had multiplied by a factor of ten. The amount of raw life force I had to work with moment to moment had surged, which would make it much easier to user the pearl. Not easy enough, not yet, but by the time Leviathan arrived? I grinned as I turned and headed back to the base. I had plans for the Endbringer. I was almost ready. By the time he got here, the trap would be set.

As usual pat-reon has the advance chapters at that site /malcolmtent hope everyone enjoys.