Standing rod straight, a flowing robe of dark black scale and luminous gray fur cascading from his shoulders stood a man in a nine spiked crown. He appeared from nowhere, just popping into the center of the sky with a shapeless and immense...something...appearing behind him. Restless in its motions. Seeming to be a branching, non-euclidean mass made of whirring parts, sparking wires, claws, fangs, rippling muscle and the raw power of a near-infinite amount of dying stars.

He appeared silently and wherever, the man went, the thing followed him. Both their eyes glowing eerily. Shining manically. Like someone had captured the all the moons and stars, the entirety of the night sky, and stuck it  inside their heads.

The man raised his arm, pointing to something in the distance, something just out of sight. After drawing a breath the man began to speak for those he’d decided to speak to, it was as if his voice was coming from everywhere. Booming like thunder, like a million mountains shattering into powder.

*****

“Well, ladies and gentlemen...Oh, beloved soldiers of our empire...I shan’t speak to you of why you’re here today. Nor will I speak of what you have to do...And which way you shall do it. That has been left to your instructors, to your commanders, to your parents...your wives, husbands, partners, children, friends...and all the loved ones that you are leaving behind this. No, all this old man..can say is this...go out there….Do your damndest...show that on the other side, hell...Show them what this Our Glorious Gray Empire of Asphodel is made of...then get yourself back here in one piece...After all there ‘are’ people waiting for you...Asphodel is waiting for you.”

Seated in an off angle balcony, Billy craned his neck skyward, watching the costumed copy of himself make the speech. He frowned, thinking it not much of a speech. His wives could do and had done better, but for this particular instance, he was flying solo, because they had all been busy elsewhere in the empire for the past few weeks.

Despite his misgivings the crowd of citizens and soldiers that lay below the Crowned Billy listening, went wild. Turning into a bedlam of roars and stomping feat, the sound of their enthusiasm so loud it was almost enough to shake the entire moon-base apart.

Then the sky lit up, glowing gray as the trans-dimensional transfer magics activated and the army of shades, high realm mortal soldiers and highly trained immortal elites began to move out.

He watched them flow from one world to another through dozens of holes in the sky. Aware that each of those holes lead to a strategic positioning that would give each group the best advantages in the wars that they were fighting on at least a dozen different dimensions.

The man in the balcony sighed, though the “him” that stood in the  sky, in the view of everyone would never ever do such a thing. Never admitting to the growing nation that after a mere few decades their invincible, undefeated, Dread Emperor was growing weary.

The sigh was answered by a light nudge on the side and followed by arm that wrapped around his waist and pulled him close.

“It’ll be fine, Billy.” said Ophelia. Speaking soothingly.

Billy nodded and returned her embrace while still staring up at the sky watching a third of his nation’s military might head out to fight.

Ophelia watched him frown, a slight smile spreading on her own face because there was something oddly endearing about the man’s troubled look. Perhaps it was because that was one of the few looks that stood out from his usually blah expressive repertoire.

The man….as far she knew had had no intention of ever being an emperor...or leading a nation. Yet from what she’d seen, he seemed to be doing a fairly solid job of it.

He’d only began that first initial campaign of conquest because as he’d said, and about two thirds of their little group agreed,...leaving power on the table for just anyone to pick up was dangerous. He’d bought three separate galaxies, that were splintered off from three separate realities, with that small territory of heavenly plane. All those worlds were connected once they fell into his ownership and if he’d let them be it was only a matter of time till something went awry.  

Thus for the sake of his personal peace of mind and ever being able to sleep in again, he’d gone out and conquered all of them. With the girls only ever getting involved near the end bits, where he’d conquered nearly all the worlds and realized that he still wasn’t quite sure what to do with them.

Fortunately they had, or at least they thought they had, and by some miracle it worked out. An intergalactic, multiversal, empire of hundreds of worlds and hundreds of sentient races was born.

Then just when they’d barely finished all of “that’”, their various enemies started to pop up. It probably should have been expected but they weren’t the only vast multiversal empire out there. There were others that were bigger and stronger and much, much, better established, with a better clue of what they were doing.

However true to their family’s style Billy, Ed, Ell, and the rest were still able to handle the hurdle fairly well. Flattening the armies of their foes with the sheer numbers of the shade horde and the overwhelming power of the Imperial Army. An army equipped with the best weapons and the best magics and backed by a mad emperor who was not above reducing an entire galaxy into  cosmic ash, if that’s what it took to win.

Ophelia did her part., they all did. Edna and Isodel governed the homeworlds and the conquered Territories. Tamra helped them, but she also spent a lot of her time working with Secretary Maynard setting up things like educational systems and public health systems. Alessa and Elena, fought on the front lines, working with Jermaine and Matthews as the top tier Generals for the Empire. Then their was Ophelia, who more or less tended to be everywhere, working in tandem with Tamra, who’d taught her who Billy’s trick of body-duplication worked.

Midway through that initial conquest they’d realized what was going on and what Billy had been up to and after the big family scolding where she, Edna, Elena, Tam and all the rest reminded him that it was not a smart thing to hide things from one’s wives. Especially if one wife was always, always watching you and the other was a trained intelligence officer and master spy.

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Once all that was done with, using her new position as an Imperial Councillor and Empress she’d gotten in touch with her contact with the ministry and just like that Ministry was once again a true, proper Imperial Ministry of Public Order. An ever expanding, multi world intelligence agency, just as the founders of old had meant it to be.

Pulled into the fold that was once the Bone Tree Republic and was now the young Asphodel Empire and set to the task helping keep order within the empire and keep tabs on the empire's enemies be it at home or abroad.

Looking at the man as he frowned up at the sky, she couldn’t help chuckling. It was just like Billy to make a plan like this. Spinning a wheel,.. i.e. starting a country... for the sake of keeping it from being a problem. From keeping the wheel from rolling onto their head. Only once you “start” spinning that wheel you can’t really stop. At least not easily, the only way to do it, is to make it so that wheel spun itself. After the wars were over, she looked forward to helping the big lug figure out how to do it. It’d take time for sure, but she had no doubt that she’d enjoy the challenge.

*****

Elsewhere, on another day, at another time, back on Monde, three men met in a hallway, meeting each other’s gaze and then saluting before continuing on their way. They were all Billys, and as, as far as he knew his his doubles all were controlled by a single mind, his mind, he suspected that that salute was a sign that the stress was getting to him.

One Billy picked up his pace a little to trail after Edna, who buzzed about like humming bird. Using a combination of an alarmingly brisk stride and frequent long range teleporting to move herself between her several offices amongst the empire.

Dozens of assistants would come to meet her, and beyond the door of her office dozens of politicians, representatives of the many territories of the Empire, waited to be heard. And it was Edna’s job to hear them all.

In another set of castles and palaces Isodel was doing the same thing, except she was currently pregnant, which lead to the Billy that shadowed her putting his foot down. Or at least trying to. Barely managing to convince his wife to cut back her work to a third of what it had been, while he took care of the rest.

Stonily answering the demands of the people who’d come to his wife’s offices, with their myriad issues and requests and threats and flattery.  Usually answering with his own special of implacability, intimidation, pragmatism, and death rays. All while collaborating with the ministry to make sure the needs of the general populace were being met so that the big and small pictures for the empire stayed both consistent and pleasant to look at.

*****

On another day, about two weeks later, after seven eighths of the Imperial Army came back victorious and the final eighth was safely and cleanly revived, all of the empire’s Billys popped out of existence. Finishing their tasks for the day and then just simply disappearing. In a certain little house that lay off the edge of any map that had drawn of the empire, lay the original Billy.

As women in Billy’s life would lean as they picked up the knack, body duplication made the work go faster, but it didn’t make it any easier.

Thus long ago after noticing that their Dreaded Hubby was starting to go a bit… “off”…Growing slightly cranky and increasingly bloodthirsty in his dealings with their opposition and the more troublesome lords and senators of the empire, they’d forced him to start taking regular breaks.

Mandating a policy, wherein, every eight weeks, the emperor was forced to take at least one day to himself lest their multiverse come to calamity. Which he thought, a gross exaggeration, as his current level of strength was only able to destroy a few universes at a time. And at heavy cost at that...if he wanted to destroy them all at once.

To be fair, he probably should have been taking breaks all along, after all he always tried to trick his wives into taking breaks whenever possible. While he at least believed that he could deal with the near constant work, he didn’t want the girls getting run down. Especially when any of them were pregnant. And with time dilation it was nothing to take an hour and make it into a weekend, or let them sleep in for a few hours, even when they were supposed to have a busy morning.

They argued the same for him but he’d always felt that was time when work could be getting done. He’d figured on taking a nice long break once the war was over and the empire was properly settled down. Elena had just shook her head, while Edna and Ophelia had told him off, saying that he might be powerful but he wasn’t a machine and he needed to set more reasonable goals and take better care of himself.

The only problem with his little vacations was that after nigh onto seventy years of constant activity Billy wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself, when he wasn’t being the emperor. Sometimes, when they could find some time for themselves, his wives would pop in and remind him. Sometimes they’d remind him multiple times. In recent times Edna and Elena and had taken to reminding him with whip cream and feathers.

Most times though, he was just on his own. He’d usually just sleep sit and meditate, quietly gathering more strength, growing stronger than his former strongest self. Sometimes he’d work on his experiments inventing a fifty-fifty mixture of household appliances and world ending, doomsday devices. Other times there’d be a light knock on the door of his little cottage in the literal middle of nowhere and he’d get up and find a small but familiar face looking up at him.

This was one of those times. He got up and opened door and found himself staring down at four children. This time it was, Lilianne, Willa, Clarissa and Georg, four of Billy’s thirty children, with whom he was growing increasingly enamored.

“Hi...Daddy.” said little Lilianne who looked the spitting image of her mother Tamra. WIth the same long black tresses, the same big dark eyes,  though her skin was somewhat less pale.  

“Hiya, kiddo.” said Billy. Looking down at them, with the same slightly puzzled expression he’d worn when he’d first met and held his first children. Who by now were all either in school or were working under their mothers.

“Did you make that cake you promised to make last time?” said Willa. Who took more after Billy’s mother with bright almond eyes. Her grandmother’s cat-kin blood running strong in her, providing a complete set of cat ears and cat tail. With the little girl taking her mother’s bright purple-pink hair coloring.

“Well, I did promise didn’t I?” answered Billy. Bringing a broad smile to the little girl's face.

Clarissa didn’t say anything, she just stood at the door raising her arms till Billy picked her up and carried. Spinning her about before putting her down again. Though he was careful to place her on a couch and keep a close eye on her. For all that she liked being spun like that, the red-headed little girl was the youngest of the eight children he’d had with Alessa and she shared her mother's situational and physical clumsiness.

Finally young Georg walked in, arms behind his head, looking around the cottage as if trying to see if anything had changed.

“Hey..Old Man. So are you gonna finally teach me to teleport now?” said young Georg.

Billy just sighed, shrugging noncommittally.

“We'll see...did you practice those exercises I gave you.” said Billy.

“Yes.” said Georg

“How about the safety seals…” said Bille.

“Yes…”  said George.

“You memorized the one hundred and eight cardinal directions right?.”

“Dad!....Come on. Please? You promised.” said Georg. Voice cracking slightly as he whined.

The boy was the spitting image of his father, looking like one of the younger Billy duplicates except with slightly lighter skin and hair and a wider range of readily discernable expressions. He was thirteen and getting to be that age where he wanted to do more of his own thing though he still came with the younger kids to visit his father when he had time off from school.

The older kids usually visited their father elsewhere, training under the tutorship of the Billy duplicates or just hanging out in the house while the adults teleported in and out of the manor.

“Alright, alright...the instruction manuals on the kitchen counter, go give it a read and we’ll do a few dry runs.” said Billy. His words bringing an excited smile to the boy’s face.