Grim was sitting at his desk, going over several reports, spreadsheets, and after action reports that Stella had provided him on the status of the Syndicate. They had… far more assets than he initial thought. Although the damage from the fight between the combined forces of the Guild and League had wiped many of their outposts off the map, Stella and Tetra had stockpiled goods and resources in a lot of places that weren’t even manned.

Tetra called them caches. Fitting for a cat demon, as they tended to hide things they liked away from others.

One of the big revelations that his crazy scientist demon convert had revealed to him was that she had been working on Plan B. Plan B took the form of six massive, heavily reinforced and armored airships. Although airship was a generous term. They were, in reality, advances of technology that were more in the tech area of spacecraft than atmospheric craft.

Superpowers were fucking scary at times.

warned Bag.

He turned his full attention to the doors to his office. “If it was hostile there would be a lot more explosions. Probably. Lets wait and see, but just in case wake the others up,” Grim responded over their link. Bag acknowledged him even as the door opened inward to his workspace.

Tetra pranced in, practically dancing on her feet. Behind her followed an imp and a… wolf man? The duo was followed quickly by a very tired looking Jim, who took up a spot on the side of the room while tapping away at a tablet.

“Tetra,” Grim said with a frown, “Who is that?”

The scientist practically vibrated with energy but didn’t get a chance to say anything as the wolfman spoke, “I. Am Fenrir,” he said haltingly. “This Tetra. Female thing. Curious. No Custodians?”

Grim was far from unintelligent, and he could rapidly put together the pieces of the most esoteric comments most of the time. But he had no idea what the hell a Custodian was.

“Clarify,” he said simply.

Tetra obliged. “The Council guys that controlled the supers were Custodians on a planetary scale and managed the beasts and apocalypses that kept humanity at a base level of tech and this guy is the leader of one of those groups I woke up him on accident not really it was on purpose and now he wants to check out everything around him and I think he likes me,” she spat out rapid fire in a run on sentence that made Grims head hurt a little bit.

“Less word vomit,” he said, frowning. Then he turned his attention to the so-called Fenrir.

Fenrir, in many of the Earths that he had visited, was often described as the son of a trickster god and a giantess. Legend had it that he was bound in mythical chains created by other gods to restrain his power. The tale further stated that if ever unleashed the beast would herald the end of the world and fall upon the gods.

The only problem was there were no gods here to fall upon.

After examining the wolfman, and being examined in turn, Grim said, “So what do you want? I know a bit about you Fenrir. At least, I know a bit about your counterparts. They are engines of destruction. Beings who obliterate entire worlds and are unleashed to reign in the gods themselves. There are no gods here, not anymore. Just people. And monsters.” He paused, taking stock of the changing emotions in the beast man’s eyes. “So, I repeat myself. What do you want?”

Fenrir was silent for a while, his pure white tale swishing back and forth behind him. “I don’t know,” he said quietly with a halting stutter. “Freedom? To learn? Things. Food. A mate. I want many. Things. Things I don’t know.”

Grim nodded. “Tell you what, how about you hang out with us for a bit. Have Tetra show you around. Explore. Learn. There’s some good food here at HQ as well, I’m sure our folks can get you set up with something decent to eat. Figure out what you want, and I will help you get it. Just do me a favor, and don’t destroy anything. Yet. I need this world.”

Fenrir cocked his head to the side for a long, quiet moment. Then nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes I will. Tetra female thing. Come. Food.”

With that the wolfman turned and left the office. Tetra turned to Grim, “Isn’t he just fucking gorgeous?” she squealed.

“Go with him now!” Grim barked, causing Tetra to jump. “That guy is capable of levelling half the planet and has exactly zero of the inhibitions a normal person does. Follow him. Make him happy. When we get to the moving stage of our ‘tactical retreat’ we can decide what we are going to do about him then.”

Tetra scurried out of the office, rapidly following her new crush. Jim looked like a deer in the headlights once Grim turned to stare at him. The skinny man ran out after the demonic scientist.

Grim shook his head and sat down at the table with a deep sigh. He couldn’t believe, for even a second, that Tetra woke something like that up. Willingly. She just continued to demonstrate that she was bat shit crazy. That was the last time he ever left instructions to her that opened ended. He had asked her to examine the beasts after all. If they were going to retreat, then Grim was going to ensure they left behind a gift for the Heroes and Villains of Elysium.

A nasty gift.

Waking up the entire cavern of beasts once they are away would certainly qualify as such.

Grim was mid thought on how to manage such an event when Rat walked into the office. His tongue was lolling out to one side of his canine mouth. “Hey Boss!” he said cheerfully.

“What took you so long Rat? You are overdue by almost a full day. Stella expected you back yesterday afternoon,” Grim said, annoyed. The converted supers’ powers had grown by leaps and bounds since their fight against Virus Rat had been experimenting and expanding his powers. Initially, it had started with him being able to sense movement and life, control and manipulate rats, and move through tiny holes much like his rodent friends. He could also, temporarily, empower his rats and increase their size immense or combine them into a larger rat form.

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But now… now he was able to almost freely alter his rats. From adding wings to giving them their own, minor, abilities his rats were shaping up to be the core of Grim’s scouting forces. They could get anywhere, were often ignored, and when they were noticed were often ‘scared’ off rather than killed.

Afterall, who wanted to hunt down some mangy rats? This made Rats rats valuable scouts, raiders, and saboteurs.

Rat grinned and rubbed the back of his Anubian head, “It was a lot of square footage to cover Boss. And Tetra wanted any potential sites at least a week’s travel from the city along with a big list of necessary requirements. That only left a couple places we could go, mostly inland and East. But I sent a few fliers over the ocean. It didn’t end well. Shoot, even my rats that went inland took horrendous causalities,” he explained.

“Causalities from what? Tetra swore there weren’t any major flying creatures in the area,” Grim said, getting annoyed.

Rat nodded, “She was right Boss. There weren’t. But rats aren’t big, even my flying rats and they are bigger than most. We haven’t seen any huge flying creatures that could threaten the blimps, but there are plenty of smaller ones that ate my scouts.”

Grim could understand where Rat was coming from. No known large flying threats didn’t preclude smaller ones, and Tetra did warn him that the wilds were not well explored. At all. What they were doing was a first, as expeditions into the wilds were usually done a mile at a time due to the extreme danger to explorers. What they were planning was going to send them hundreds of miles into the unsupported wilderness. It was a literal do or die tactic.

The alternative was to remain here, fight the Guild and League, and hopefully come out on top. Even with the addition of altering powers, imps, and technological advancements Grim was uncertain they would win. He was strong, on par with a Class V now for certain, but numbers almost always won the day. If they could reach him, someone would end up killing him.

“Fair enough,” he said eventually. “Get with Tetra and Stella. See what they have for you. I feel more and more like a figure head with nothing to do,” he finished grumpily.

Rat chuckled, “Don’t say that Boss,” he replied as he turned to leave. “You take care of all the high level stuff. Like when to run away, when to fight, and where the bathrooms should be installed. Now, me? I just send out swarms of dirty little rodents to check on stuff. Its rather boring really, particularly when you are linked to one that’s being eaten.”

Grim grimaced a bit at that. Being telepathically linked to one of your servants as something was ripping it to pieces certainly had to be unpleasant. “Agreed,” he said. Then he paused, “Oh, Rat. We have a guest. He goes by Fenrir. Do not make him angry,” he warned. Rat just nodded in acceptance and was out the door before he could reinforce his warning.

He really hoped that nothing bad happened. On the other hand, if it did, he was sure he would feel it as Fenrir and the Anubis demon tore each other apart. Grim sighed, he really wasn’t cut out for leading such a massive organization. Not that a few thousand people in the Syndicate was massive, but it was far more than he had ever commanded before.

Moving them was going to be equally as vexing.

He stood up and stretched. He may as well head up to the warehouses on the surface that were holding the vessels they would soon be employing. They had worked exceedingly hard to keep their construction a secret. Grim knew, without a doubt, that everyone and their mother would come down on them in a tidal wave of fury and death if thy had been discovered.

As he moved through the labyrinthine base towards his destination, Bag spoke,

“It’s a smart AI, but is it even sentient?” Grim asked through their link. He had his doubts, but he wasn’t going to worry excessively over what amounted to an advanced computer program.

Bag confirmed.

“I figured as much. What happens, happens. If Jeeves becomes inoperable maybe Tetra can put together something better,” Grim responded. Bag’s silence was telling. “She already has, hasn’t she?”

his demonic assistant confirmed.

Grim shrugged. It was neither here nor there. He hated AI with a passion. They were inherently untrustworthy, often looking down on their organic and mortal creators with disdain. IF they didn’t rebel, commit suicide, or turn their introspection inward they would actively attack their creators in an effort to cleanse them from existence.

And then move on to all other organic life.

Grim shoved those burdensome thoughts to the side as he entered the warehouse that was definitely not a hanger in disguise. The two enforcers immediately let him through, not bothering to challenge their Boss. He strode into the not hanger and stopped, staring at the six, massive airships in front of him. The workers swarmed over them, checking bolts and rivets, attaching pieces, installing machinery and weapons, and only Tetra knew what else.

Each vessel was nearly three hundred meters long, twenty meters in heigh, and had nearly a one-hundred-meter berm. They were, to put it frankly, massive. Much larger than any terrestrial aircraft. And Tetra had armed and armored them to the teeth. But it was the lifting system that had impressed him.

Grim had been to worlds and universes where space travel was common. Hell, there were worlds out there where portal travel was common. But in none of the worlds he had been in had he ever seen someone take the intuitive leap from what amounted to a nuclear powered civilization directly to anti-gravity. And that was precisely what Tetra had achieved. Or, at least something very like it.

Each vessel had twelve large pods attached to its sides. Each pod was heavily armored, with gun emplacements on the tops and bottoms. The pods themselves contained a terrestrial engine that Grim… simply didn’t understand. All he knew is that they were, according to Tetra and her tests at least, capable of lifting each vessel. According to the mad scientist only four engines were required, but due to their distance from any resources and help she designed in massive redundancies.

Eight extra engines qualified as such.

Grim grinned, his too wide smile causing the workers, and even the imps, around him to shy away. These vessels would do perfectly. Now they only had to find a place to claim, rebuild the lair, and then re-arm and begin raiding the regions around them for people and resources. By no means a small feat, but certainly one that was achievable once they finalized their destination. He really was hoping for some kind of mountain base of some kind, preferably one near a large freshwater source. Between those two things they would have plenty of raw resources to draw from.

Now the only things holding them back were completing the airships, loading them up, and getting the fuck out of the city alive. He was under absolutely no illusions what-so-ever that they were going to take casualties on the way out. That was why the second phase of Plan B was so important, and one that he was going to see to personally in the next several hours.

During the last major battle, he had upgraded a single super, Shaughn, turning his powers to break down organic matter to outright controlling it. The upgrade also saved the supers life as his power had been slowly killing him. Now Grim had a fanatical follower who treated him more akin to a god, something that made him very uncomfortable.

But his experiment had proven successful, and volunteers were coming out of the woodwork even when they knew the process was painful and possibly fatal. More attempts, however, would only increase Grim’s proficiency in upgrading power sets. He would have to be selective at first as the energy requirements were prohibitive. However, Tetra had a solution for that as well. One he was going to see next.

He had minions to upgrade, and nothing outside of having enough energy was going to stop him from doing so.