AN: Minor Editing Pass 6-1-24
The good news was Vicky was apparently willing to let Amy get back home without letting the rest of the family know she had even been gone. The thing was that while that was nice of her, I wasn’t sure it really solved anything long term.
When we went over to her house while Carol and Mark were out Vicky was already sitting there waiting with her arms folded across her chest. That was surprising as I had assumed Mark didn’t patrol much, but maybe Vicky had done something to encourage him. Focusing back on Vicky, I decided to be completely honest with her as her determination was fairly endearing. I had been conflicted, but the more I looked the more I leaned towards trying to get her on board despite not really being huge on the blond high school cheerleader type. Yeah she was hot, but Amy could make any of my three girls hotter.
Taking a deep breath I stared Vicky in the eyes and prepared myself. “Ok, I am going to explain everything to you and then give you the option to ask questions. However, after that I will be leaving and you won’t have more than a few days to decide what you want.”
Vicky just narrowed her eyes. She seemed to glance at Amy who was sitting further away from me and then to Taylor who was sitting between Amy and me, but who was patting Amy’s knee. Then to Dinah who had been sitting on the other side of me. “Start talking, because it looks like you are collecting girls. You some sorta Master?”
I could feel my body shiver under her aura, but the disconnection of my soul meant it washed over me fairly easily. My girls were similarly affected and that seemed to bring Vicky up short. That made me glad she was smart enough to realize her aura could get her in trouble here. Really it was assault with a parahuman power and would end up very bad for her if she started using it on two bystanders, one of them a young kid.
I sighed again and took a breath. “First, I have no Master field of any kind. Second, if you get to call your love-me aura a shaker power then the idea I have for creating a slight attraction should be able to be called the same. Third, you really shouldn’t have risked getting so close if you suspected that I was a human controlling master, that was kinda dumb.”
I took a deep breath and took a metaphorical step back. Her fear aura might have gotten to me after fighting for my life yesterday. Looking up I started again. “Look, I have a lot of information I want to give to you. However I would like to fully explain before you start asking questions. But before I do, you need to know that everything that I am telling you now has been confirmed by both our local precog here, " patting Dinah on her head, “and Amy using her ability to check for lies. Finally, this information can not get out.” I glared. “Not even to your parents, so I am now going to portal us to a place between dimensions so we can talk without the possibility of anyone listening in. This is absolutely necessary as there are people who would kill you for this information.”
Vicky blinked and then sat back as the shift washed over us. She apparently hadn’t realized how serious this was going to be. I snorted internally before continuing. “First, the multiverse theory is right. Namely that there are infinite realities and specifically the one that says every work of fiction is another reality somewhere. Now I don’t know if you want to believe the man who wrote this story was a powerful precog or what, but this world as you know it is going to end.”
The explanation was scoffed over at first then as the explanation got specific Vicky started to pale. When I explained how the world was even more screwed than the story I knew and would end unless we dropped the information she actually got up and started to pace. She actually looked slightly relieved when I said we were leaving soon, but then grimaced hard. Finally, she was nearly green when I explained what would have happened between her sister and her. I had been watching and acting on a hopeful hunch. I commented on her face and her attitude suggesting that she wasn’t disgusted that it was Amy who had tried to sleep with her, but because she considered herself 100% straight. Either Vicky agreed or was smart enough to play along, but either way the tension in Amy’s posture seemed to lesson at that. Good to know she wasn’t going to reject her sister over her orientation. Then again, with the exception of the literal Nazis in town, Earth Bet was quite accepting of that seeing as Legend was openly Gay and leader of the entire nation’s superhero organization.
Meanwhile Taylor seemed to notice Amy was still struggling a bit. After a moment Taylor got up and pushed Amy towards me then sat on her other side. The two of us took a moment and snuggled our little girl between us as she sniffled. The entire time Vicky looked more and more uncomfortable.
After a few more moments I sighed. “Ok Vicky, this is where the decision time comes in. I am going to give you three options.” I watched as she squared her shoulders and nodded. “Ok, the first option is I do nothing, I leave you here and warn you again to never tell anyone this knowledge because sharing it will absolutely get you a bullet in the dark that bypasses your shield.”
Vicky squirmed, looked angry, then slumped and nodded so I continued. “Option two. I make your powers part of you. Your powers might temporarily get weaker, but I am pretty sure they can actually grow once you start using them again. Taylor lost nearly half of her range once I did it to her two days ago, but she has already gained nearly 10% of what she lost back already and she describes it as feeling like a muscle now. That means your shield might eventually be even stronger.”
Vicky started out hesitant, but as I kept talking she eventually nodded.
I sighed again and continued. “The third option is that I make you a lich and bind you to us. You will be with me and your sisters, exploring the multiverse forever.” I noticed the incredulous look so I smirked as I continued. “Yes, your sister is mine forever. I said I would protect her. However I am still a man. If I am going to be wandering the universe forever I want a harem of smart, kind, and powerful women around me for the ride. So yes, Taylor is also mine and while I haven’t touched Dinah yet and won’t for many more years, she will also be mine eventually if she decides to stay for the long term.”
Vicky had once again started turning white and I could feel her building up her aura again as she tried to work herself up into a fit. I was about to speak up when Amy beat me to the punch. “Hey Vee, listen to me! He explained everything to me. I chose this because I am safe here. He will make sure I don’t lose control and I won’t have to feel guilty about not working myself to death at the hospital. Plus his changes let me finally fix the issues I had with myself. He has been nothing but kind and gentle and I am happy here, do not fly off the handle for no reason.”
Vicky seemed to deflate like a balloon. “I know Ames, I know. I just worry, y’know.”
Amy simply nodded and reached forward across the coffee table to put her hand on Vicky’s, tears starting to pool in her eyes. “Come with us V, I will miss you. I want you to be safe and you will be much better off with us.”
Vicky scrunched up her eyes before slowly shaking her head. “I can’t, I am a hero. I need to be out there and protect the city.” I could see the tears really start pooling in both their eyes at this point.
I frowned internally and sighed. “I suppose there is one other option. I could always make you a lich, but try to leave your soul here when we leave. The downsides are that your Phylactery is vulnerable and regardless of what you want, when you eventually die you will be stuck inside it asleep until it is broken. However, if that happens we could come back and give you a new body and wake you up again. Think of it as insurance. Plus you would be mostly immune to master and stranger effects.”
I frowned internally and considered another option. Could I keep her phylactery with me when we left and let her keep puppeting her body around here until she died? I frowned. That was probably too dangerous to try without a lot more testing.
Focusing back on the girls I noticed Amy and Taylor looked surprised. I suppose I hadn’t offered the Lich option by itself. I sighed again. “I didn’t make a big deal of this option to anyone besides Dinah because it really doesn’t fix either of your problems and if I don’t make it back to this world then you would still be essentially dead since no one could revive you. Keep in mind that you are leaving because your stories do not have happy endings. Vicky’s story, on the other hand, was only moderately terrible.” I paused and wiped my hand down my face. “That said, we are throwing a whole dump truck of butterflies into the world so nothing is for certain.”
My three girls looked slightly mollified and I looked back at Vicky who looked contemplative. I decided to make one more push. “I don’t want to force anyone to do anything. In fact, I don’t really think I could force these girls to do anything they were really against. All three could get me killed quite easily. However I really do think you could be quite happy with us and we would do our best to make it happen.”
Dinah piped up. “89.2% chance of happiness with us. 49.3% chance of happiness here.”
Vicky took a deep breath and shook her head. “I am a hero here. I am not going to leave this world, not when it needs me. I also want to eventually make my family here. I might be willing to become a lich for the protections, but I don’t think I would do more.” Amy’s shoulders dropped slightly in disappointment so I squeezed her.
Still, I seemed to surprise her when I smiled. “I was going to tell the rest of you after this, but while I am absolutely not trying to come back to this world for quite some time, especially because if we missed and ended up in another version of Earth Bet during one of their apocalypses I might have an aneurysm from the stress, I might have been working on something that might be able to send messages back albeit infrequently.”
Everyone perked up at that. I sighed again. I really hoped this worked. “If I tie something like a copper pipe with my soul to two locations I think we might be able to send mail while traveling in between realities. My soul can poke through realities after all. I just need something like a brass tube to do the anchoring.” Rubbing my head I leaned back. “And Yeah, I am tying my soul to items basically like Voldemort, except I won’t be able to use it to possess people. I also won’t be leaving enough of it in the tube to resurrect us. Still, I am pretty sure I can push letters back to this world through that connection. My plan is to leave the connection with either Vicky or Dragon… Maybe both.”
The meeting wound down and I agreed to pull her soul out and place it into her first crystal tiara and my message tube which Dinah confirmed should be safe in a bunker the family had out of town. A part of me wondered why no one would find it there. Maybe Contessa wouldn’t realize what it was because she was trying to find a way to kill or capture us and the tube would never be that. Or maybe her power didn’t fully understand what souls were. Amy had confirmed I didn’t have a normal Parahuman power after all.
Before we left we all smiled at the teary reunion and farewell between the two sisters before Amy followed me out so we could do more preparations.
Taylor and Dinah each prepared a message to be found in their rooms about how they were joining a parahuman team to try to save the world and that their parents should watch the news in the coming week to see what would happen. Additionally they explained they were making big enemies and so they weren’t coming back but would try to send letters back when they could.
In the meantime and with the help of Dinah I sent 4 portals away from myself using Dinah’s help to determine the locations. Pushing I was able to achieve speeds of over 100 miles per hour.
Surprisingly enough when I talked about where we could stay it was Amy that brought up a better house to prepare for. After a quick call to Vicky who confirmed that 7 houses down from the Dallon’s house was a newly abandoned 6 bedroom mansion. Ok technically it wasn’t a mansion and two of the rooms were more like small offices maybe 12 feet square including the closets, but it was still very nice even if it didn’t currently have any furniture. Looking at the house my plans changed. I had been thinking about trying to create a pocket apartment, mostly because I didn’t know of a house we could just steal like this, but this house would be perfect. The owners were apparently scumbags that everyone hated so no one would contact them if they noticed what we were doing and it wasn’t like anyone was going to be moving in anytime soon. As long as we weren’t super obvious with what we were doing I could prepare the house to be yanked with us when we left. It would just be a matter of preparing the house to be disconnected from water, electricity, and sewer that we would need to deal with.
Sending the girls off to school again for hopefully the final day of school I started my prep work by writing down everything I could think of to help.
I ended up even missing lunch as I planned out all of the things we would need. In fact I only paused long enough to portal long enough around to get a few pieces of furniture from my first house near Arcadia along with one king sized bed from the storage room of the furniture store down close to the boardwalk.
The girls arrived back together with dinner. Apparently Dinah had realized that it was necessary. Turns out I was going to be able to try Fuggly Bob’s. We ate in what I assumed we all felt was companionable silence. As we wrapped up I gathered us all back up in the living room on the sofa.
“Ok, ladies it is time for another talk. It is late, but I would like to try to leave as soon as we can. Tonight I will work on Vicky briefly once she is back from her patrol, but besides that we need to decide if there is anything else we need to do.”
The three girls all decided to sit down on the couch in front of me and seem to just wait.
I chuckled to myself. “It is absolutely nice to see my own little harem in front of me like this.” The girls blushed and Amy and Taylor gave a little eye roll, but I got serious and the girls noticed and straightened up. “I want you to know that I did not do anything to make any of you join me except try to convince you with words. Everything I said was the truth and I am happy with you three.”
The girls smile briefly with Amy and Taylor starting to blush.
“That said, I didn’t tell you about something else I can do. I have an idea on how to manipulate souls similar to the way that Amy can manipulate brains. I have not tried it even a little with any of you just like Amy has not touched brains. That was why I mentioned I could make some minor Master effects, if I wanted to Vicky.”
The three girls slowly nodded realizing where this was going and I saw a little bit of worry start to cross their features, but I tried to cut off those ideas. “Again, don’t get me wrong. I did not force you to join me and I am being completely honest in that I want all of my wives to be happy. I do not plan on doing anything to any of you at this time. I realized that you would all notice and doing so would pretty much instantly destroy the possibility of trust. The trust I realized I wanted. However, I was looking at the bond and it might induce a little feeling of closeness or connection as well.”
Taylor and Amy blinked before looking at each other and I continued. “Yes, that may make you more inclined to be intimate with each other if you are so inclined, but it is not a direct control. I have done nothing to directly force you to do anything, even if I enjoyed your willingness to get in bed with me together greatly.” Taylor looked confused and Amy simply blushed and looked down so I continued. “I suspect you don’t want to hear this but I believe the two of you were so ready to jump into bed because of what has happened in your lives so far.” The two’s faces frowned slightly and I sighed. “You don’t need to guard yourselves like that. You were both treated terribly by what should have been family. You have been lonely and I think you felt unwanted and ugly. I suspect that you both were quite desperate for both physical affirmation of your worth and yes, I will tell you this often, but you are beautiful plus kind, smart, and powerful. But more than that I think you both wanted a friend to cling to.”
I watched as all three girls visibly drooped at the discussion of their lives and I leaned forward. “I know you two might think it is easy to say that you are attractive now that Amy has done her thing, but you were both smart, kind, and powerful before that. That is why you are wives and I will treat you as such. Also keep in mind, Taylor, that no one is going to force either of you to jump into bed with either me or each other.”
Finally, visibly steeling herself, Taylor looked at Amy before shrugging. “I was pretty sure I was completely straight, but honestly after you helped me with my chest I was so thankful I didn’t really care anymore at the time.” At this point she blushed. “Plus the kiss was kinda nice. I don’t think I am going to be willing to do much more any time soon, but I wouldn’t mind the kiss again.” Amy blushed hard too, but besides taking Taylor’s hand, she didn’t say anything else.
“Now what I wanted to talk about.” The three turned towards me, blushes decreasing. “We have a lot of utility in our family currently, but very little direct firepower. While Vicky would have really helped us there there are other options. I can grab another female villain or two and keep them within their Phylactery while we slowly try to change them. Keep in mind, my theoretical attraction manipulation wouldn’t be fast and would be very hit or miss until I figure out what I am doing. I am not sure I can do anything more than a slight loyalty in the first place.
Seeing Amy’s frown I sighed again. “I know you won’t like it Amy, but I would probably need your help to understand what I am doing.”
Amy looked like she wanted to speak up, but I held up my hand. Feeling the part of me that wanted to stay in control flare up along with a desire to be truthful I decided to be blunt. “Keep in mind one more thing. I said you were wives. I don’t like these women. Heck I might hate these women. So at the moment the worst of these women would be treated like convicts at best, slaves at worst. And unless they dramatically change their attitudes and mentalities that won’t change. We aren’t doing this to heroes, this is for people who need to be forced to change.”
All three girls grimaced and looked at each other. I sighed and spoke up. “I know you are all now thinking about what you signed up for, but think about it this way. You three are kinda like my slaves.” All three flinched and I tried to continue in as soft a tone as I could make. “There really aren’t two ways about it. You literally can not leave and I could slowly affect the way you think. I haven’t explained it, but even without a body I can rip the soul from yours so while you could kill me, I could stop you anytime even without a body as well. It is a sort of mutual assured destruction. Short of breaking our phylactery and dying you can’t do anything permanent to me.”
The girls were now looking at the floor and I sighed. “Look at me. I am saying this because I want you to understand that while I hold a lot of control here, I am not going to suddenly turn into a baby kicking, puppy killing, villain. I truly have come to care about you three. At first you were just stories on a page, but I have come to admire you and all you are trying to do. So, just because you are bonded to me doesn’t change anything. I will be treating you as my beloved wives, not as slaves despite any control over you… well except maybe during some playtime in the bedroom if you want.” That seemed to be the thing that finally snapped the three of them out of their funk. Funny enough while Dinah looked confused, Amy and surprisingly Taylor both looked slightly interested in that option.
Taking a deep breath I shrugged. “Here is where we consider some hard and dark options.” The three seemed surprised at my description and I took a deep breath again. “Here is where we decide if forcing someone to come with us is better than what they might be doing here. Taking them away for their own good even if they end up a slave. Albeit, since they would be ours, a well cared for one.” I could see all three of them starting to grow uncomfortable again and even a little angry so I held up my hands in the universal wait gesture. “I know this is hard to contemplate as part of the reason you are coming with me is because others were going to control your life if you stayed. However you need to consider the specific people we are going to talk about. If we pick someone who has a kill order or will be sent to the bird cage regardless, then isn’t it better to wipe the memories or something a bit and let them live with us even if it is more of a servant role at first.”
I could tell that I had instantly taken the wind out of most of their arguments so I continued. “Now even if we can agree it is theoretically better for it to happen to some villains we know, we should still also consider all aspects of what is going on. Basically even if Squealer isn’t doing any good here and is literally destroying both her life and body with her choices.” There were some reluctant nods at that. “... we should really consider both if she would actually be useful and if we could tolerate her without wiping her mind completely. Yeah we can change her a bit, but if we are wiping her completely then we might as well find someone else with similar skill sets. Especially since it takes more effort to jump away from here the more people we have.”
The girls all seem to lean back and actually consider things for a few minutes before Taylor leaned forward. I knew I shouldn’t have been surprised knowing her since she was one to constantly take charge when things needed doing, but I was. She hadn’t had the big challenges that had forced her to learn how to lead yet, but I guess what she would become was already there underneath. Looking at me she nodded. “Who were you considering?”
Leaning back I sighed. “Primarily I had been considering Squealer and Bakuda. They have destroyed and and will continue to destroy the town but also have incredibly useful talents we can use moving forward. Plus from my vague understanding of their lives, erasing the last couple years would undo most of their more extreme personality traits” Taylor was nodding, now stiff and considering so I continued “Conversely Rune, Orthalla and Purity are useful, but I am not sure we can roll them back enough to undo the racism. That said, they don’t have nearly as high a body count so we might be able to reform them.” I waved my hand to break the tension and smiled. “Yes, Purity is also a hot MILF and despite what my current Harem looks like, I actually prefer mature women.” Amy rolled her eyes, but Dinah looked confused, Probably on what a MILF was and I winced internally. I didn’t want to be so openly sexual with her. Pressuring her to move too quickly was something I really didn’t want to do. Trying to focus the discussion back on the capes I continued. “The thing is that out of the three potential targets from the E88, only Purity is an actual direct fire powerhouse like I mentioned we needed and I don’t want to take her away from her daughter. On the other hand I really don’t want to drag a 1 year old with us.” Rubbing my hand across my face I sighed. “Conversely, if we leave without her then we should really warn her to get out of town since she goes crazy when the PRT tried to take her baby away in the original story.” All three girls nodded slowly and thoughtfully as I waved my hand around.
Taylor seemed to think about this for a few more seconds before twitching and looking at me again. “You have been considering others.” I suspected she was distracted by thinking about how she would have shot said baby to try to give it a quick painless death rather than what the SlaughterHouse 9 would have done to it.
Still, accepting the topic change I tried not to look guilty and I gestured with a so-so motion. “I said I wasn’t normally going to force a hero against their will. That said, your safeties are much more important to me than anything else. So if it helps us survive I am not against grabbing Miss Militia AKA Hannah, Vista AKA Missy, and Vicky who all declined to join us so far. In fact, if we thought it was particularly useful we could also look at some other heroes I am less familiar with or try to get someone else out of the Bird Cage like Bad Canary AKA Paige who really shouldn’t be in there in the first place.” I was glad to see the girls were quietly considering this all rather than getting upset. I really had chosen well. The three were smart and they knew that sometimes you needed to do unpleasant things and while I wouldn’t treat heroes badly, it was still kidnapping.
I took a breath then looked at the three. “The final thing I have to tell you is to get out of here I need to pop a soul. It will probably take maybe 5 minutes to prepare everything, but when I pop it… well it is pretty much instant death. I think the soul might reform eventually, but it won’t be any time soon and I don’t know how much of that person will be left when they do.”
I looked at the three girls who all looked worried about this so I chuckled reassuringly. “Don’t worry about who I will be popping. I am considering popping either Coil or Hookwolf’s souls. Both are sociopaths with hundreds of bodies to their name.”
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Dinah looked pleased at Coil’s potential fate and Taylor frowned but nodded. It was only Amy who seemed to hesitate before sighing. “I swore to do everything I could to protect life, but honestly putting the gang bangers back together just made me frustrated every time innocents got brought in from one of their gang wars. That isn’t even mentioning how the Damn Nazis killed my cousin Fleur.”
I nodded and continued “Besides those two for popping options, I might also grab Victor since he is a sniper with his stolen skills who also has a kill count in the double digits.” I paused and sighed. “Plus he shot my damn hand off even if Amy was able to grow it back.” I grimaced. “That is to say nothing about Oni Lee with his teleporting clones and grenades. He might have the highest body count in the city even if he is basically a braindead minion of Lung now.” I paused. “Really I might just grab all of them as backup souls to pop after Coil. Best to have contingencies in case we end up in a world without someone to sacrifice.”
The three looked suitably horrified at the thought so I continued. “The other big name I plan on getting if I can is Lung. I don’t want to pop him, but I am pretty sure I can rig his body up as protection and a living battery for our pocket dimension. I am still working on the details for that though.”
No one said anything for a few moments before Dinah spoke up hesitantly. “I am not sure…” But once again I was surprised by Amy and Taylor who both muttered something like. “Serves him right.”
I turned to Dinah. “It isn’t widely known, but he is a sex trafficker. A lot of young women near the docks end up going missing only to be sold to his brothels here or abroad.” Dinah’s eyes hardened at that and she nodded sharply.
Sighing, I spoke up. “I don’t want these decisions made at the moment. Especially about our potential companions. Maybe it is best for everyone to sleep on the options tonight and we can discuss it in the morning. Now who wants to just snuggle with me in the master bedroom?”
Nodding all three girls followed me up the stairs. Pointing towards the 5 other bedrooms I point to them. “After this why don’t you pick out bedrooms for each of you just in case. I know Dinah isn’t going to be sleeping with me and so needs a room, but it might be good for you each to have a room even if you want to stay with me most nights. It will be a place you can go to have your own personal time with your own stuff.” Dinah nodded and picked a room two doors down before I put the small twin bed I had found with its own sheets in said room.
Amy and Taylor took a moment longer to pick their rooms before I just put my arms around them and walked into the master bedroom and took off my jeans and hopped into bed. I enjoyed the show as I watched my two girls strip to panties and T-shirts before joining me. Focusing on the fact I didn’t want to pressure the girls after all of the revelations today I laid back and forced my breathing to slow down. I could feel Taylor lightly clinging onto me and I knew Amy was on her other side. Tomorrow will perhaps be the final day on Earth Bet, but I was still happy with my new family.
The next morning we got up and ate breakfast. I grimaced in the light of day as I considered the logistics and realized that our new house wasn't even close to ready to go off grid. Sighing, I sat down with the girls. "Hey girls, I overestimated how ready we are. I am going to give you each a few thousand dollars. At least one thousand of that is to be spent on you. Your own clothes, shoes, hygiene products you like, etc. As for the rest, I have some errands for the group. Amy, I need you to go shopping for any long term food you can get. Also maybe stop by the hospital and grab any lab equipment you might need for your bio tinkering experiments. I then want you to grab all the food seeds you can. Long term I want you to experiment with making something like a super wheat and a meat fruit tree. Something we can take with us and grow food on."
Amy did not look happy about being given what was basically a grocery list until the talk about tinkering, but after a moment she grumbled out a "fine."
Looking over at me, I sighed. "Taylor, I need you to do the same. I want you to go through and buy housing equipment. I want pots, pans, soap, bedsheets, rugs, shovels, and anything else you think we might need if we were going to go live in a cabin for a year or two."
Taylor looked overwhelmed for a moment before she stood up and nodded. "Ok."
Looking at Dinah I sighed. "You are the one being hunted so I want you to be extra careful. Especially since Coil is going to be angry with Lisa escaping like that. But if you can, I want a lifetime supply of pens, pencils, paper, notebooks, and anything else we can use for planning. Modern paper could be incredibly useful if we find ourselves in the middle ages for several jumps. After that I want you to scroll through PHO, and periodically ask if any of the capes you come across would be good to take with us and if we can get to them, convince them, and bring them here in the next day or so."
All three girls swallowed and glanced at each other, but it was Taylor who spoke. "Ok, but where are we putting it all?"
I winced and then smiled. "Sorry, I should have explained that, I want you to purchase it all then just wheel it out to behind a few cars and text me. I will open a portal you can dump it all into before you head somewhere else."
The three looked at each other before nodding. I took a deep breath and nodded back. I would need to work on these girls' attitudes a bit. Yeah they were all teenages, but when I laid out stuff that needed to happen for the family I didn’t want to hear complaints unless they were pointing out a potential issue I had missed. It wasn’t like I was going to do this unless it was really necessary after all.
Looking at the three I gestured to the house. "If we are taking the house then I also need to get the house ready to be ripped away from the utilities. I am going to put a large water tank in the basement and portal it up to a smaller one in the attic. After hooking that up to the water lines and a set of tanks in the basement for the waste, then our house should have running water. It is another long term project but if we can get Amy here to make a bacteria that eats waste and contaminates and then dies in sunlight or something and add a sand filter then we can make it a loop and have infinite clean water. It won’t be our standard setup, but it would work well as an emergency backup. The next thing I am going to get is a large set of solar panels and batteries. I will buy a generator or two, but until Amy figures out how to make gasoline somehow, we won't be able to use them indefinitely. Regardless, I will get a few more microwaves and an inverter and we can heat food like civilized people even if we end up in the stone age."
Amy and Taylor looked relieved that we would have running water and hot food, but Dinah spoke up. "85.4% chance the PRT and gangs decide you are a tinker and attempt to capture you. Especially since they are on the lookout for a tinker. The shops will attempt to hold you on the pretense that the money is stolen."
I winced, "Yeah, that is something they would absolutely do." Leaning back I simply shrugged. "Ultimately we need that stuff, so I guess all I can do is just grab it in small bundles while Amy changes my appearance occasionally and then head back here and start the retrofits to the house. They can't get me if I change appearances constantly and then don’t leave the house."
Dinah pauses for a moment then nods that that will work. Passing out 4 thousand dollars for each of them and encouraging them to break that into smaller bundles of 200 to 400 dollars I wave them all away though each of their own portals.
Getting up I portaled out to the hardware store but before I could enter the store, I noticed a small used bookstore next door going out of business. Blinking, I walked in and looked around. From behind me I heard someone speak up. “Can I help you?”
I spun around slowly to see an older man walking up from behind the register. A slow grin started to cross my face as I realized the possibilities here. If fiction stories were sometimes realities in other universes then these books were potentially guides for new worlds on top of being entertainment in worlds that might not have TV, Movies, or even Books. The technical books might prove useful in some circumstances.
Quickly thinking up a cover story I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I was given some money to prepare a library for my new step-mom. She loves fantasy and sci-fi books and we are moving out to a house in the countryside a few miles north of Captain's Hill. Meanwhile my dad likes mechanics and building catalogs like popular mechanics. How much would it be if I wanted to buy all of the used books in those sections?”
The balding man blinked at me before glancing into the shop. “I don’t know? We usually sell most used books for 1 to 3 dollars and we have about a thousand of them if you want all those sections. The new books generally sell for 7 to 10, but we don’t have as many.” Scratching his head the man sighed. “We wanted to retire since our son died, and between you and me the E88 protection money has made it hard to make a profit here… we just aren’t sure what to do with our stock here and the building itself.”
Trying to look as sympathetic as I could I smiled as I did the math in my head. I had stolen 25 thousand from the gangs and I had given the girls 12 which left me with 13 thousand. “How about I give you 8 thousand now if you close shutters and give me the keys. I will take the books and the shelving this afternoon and you will have an empty shop you can sell or rent out tomorrow. I will leave the keys behind the register here and you can pick them up tonight at 7pm.”
The man blinked, then blinked again. He then obviously put on his business hat and started looking through his stock. “I want 9 thousand if you are taking the shelves as well. There are a lot of them.”
Trying not to get annoyed while remembering that the man probably needed to get this money for his livelihood, I considered. This was a big expense, but it could be crucial if it gave us guides for future worlds we ended up in as well as simple entertainment for my wives. Sighing I leaned forwards and shook the man’s hand before the two of us walked over to the register and the man rang me up for 5 thousand dollars. I blinked before I realized he was asking for me to pay him the rest under the table. That made sense with a gang and semi-corrupt government breathing down his neck.
Paying the man he handed me the keys, closed the front shutters and showed me the side door I could load my books up from. Assuring the man I could grab my truck and take care of it and then that I would leave the keys in the mail slot only took a few more minutes. The man left before I walked back inside and simply started portaling the shelves into the small drawing room of our new home.
It ended up only taking about half an hour, but at the end I locked up, slid the keys inside the mail slot and looked around the home. Yet as proud as I was about getting this deal, I realized I had a lot more purchasing to do as I turned around and realized all there was in the living room was a ratty old sofa and the small amount of kitchen supplies that we had collected so far. That was to say nothing about the fairly old and hard mattress we had found in the master bedroom last night.
Sighing I turned around to head back out. I was going to get a lot more things.
The rest of the morning was spent renting a uhaul truck and picking up a better sofa, several twin mattresses and a brand new california king mattress. I then got Lamps, bookshelves, dressers, chairs, and toilet paper before I could even think about the water renovations. However, those ended up being the most annoying thing to buy as they were difficult to move. I might not have managed at all if the 1000 liter ones hadn’t come with the aluminum cage for support. They also came with their own valves and piping which helped tremendously. Purchasing 4 of them along with a lot of PVC piping and both hand pumps and electric pumps surprised a lot of people, but no one stopped me.
Deciding that I would need technology too I drove around to a alley where I hoped no one could see me before hopping into the back and portalling it all into our home’s basement while no one else could see what I was doing.
That let me hop back into the driver's seat and drive to an electronics store to purchased 3 PCs. Two were simple office desktops, but one of them was much more powerful. I then purchased as many games as I could come across before bringing them up to the counter. I could tell I was being watched already, but the games seem to have bought me at least a little plausibility. Leaving the store I hopped into my truck before once again portaling the stuff away and doing the exact same thing at the store across town, this time purchasing a laptop and several monitors.
Finally I ended the day by grabbing the solar panels, charge controller, generator, batteries, and inverter. I knew I had stayed too long when I noticed a black van parked outside a little behind my uhaul. Sighing, I grabbed my purchases. Hopped into my van while portaling away the equipment and drove out to the boardwalk before dumping the truck and walking into an alley. I was definitely being followed now as I saw several people exit another van headed vaguely towards me. I wasn’t who’s side they were on, but I ducked around a trash bin before portaling home. That wasn’t ideal as they would now realize I was a teleporter, but I wasn’t about to let them catch me just to keep my cover. Not when I wanted to be gone as soon as possible.
I had been interrupted throughout the day by the girls periodically calling me to portal their supplies home. Yet nobody was home when I finally finished for the day, yet I told myself not to be worried, it was still only about 5pm and there was plenty of daylight left.
Moving to my rented apartment I set up my laptop with an external hard drive to torrent every episode of Anime, Manga, Fantasy, and Sci-fi created both here and on Earth Aleph I could find. Setting up the first office machine to do the same but with every cracked version of a downloadable game I could find. My gaming machine on the other hand was set up to download games legally. The final office machine was going to be backup in case something happened to one of these. In the meantime I would let those three machines crunch.
That night I made dinner for the first time with the inverter and microwave setup. The stew was made from canned food which wasn’t terrible, but it could have been a lot better. Amusingly it was Amy who was the most annoyed about the soup. “If we are going to be eating like this often then I am going to be the one making the food. I can at least modify the food so we don’t end up fat and greasy.”
Dinah and Taylor looked thankful, but I had to admit that I was mostly just amused. “Thanks beautiful.”
Amy froze at that and then blushed. “Thanks…” Then quieter, “Asshole.”
As the three of us sat down I sighed. “We are leaving soon. Dinah and I have been working on a plan for my removal of the Slaughterhouse 9. However, we are also going to be sending a decapitating strike against all four gangs. Hopefully not enough that the Butcher comes back, but enough that the PRT has a chance. The question is, Taylor, do you want me to do anything about Emma or Sophia?”
Taylor hummed and looked out the window. “No, I don’t think I want anything done. It was George Herbert that said living well is the best revenge. I think… I think I want to be that kind of Hebert… even if he spelled his name wrong.” Everyone chuckled at that and she continued. “Instead I am going to leave Emma and Sophia a note that said I was part of the team that took down the S9 and saved the world. That they couldn’t break me, that they will never be able to break me and I will forever be more important than them. They will forever be nobodies, losers, quickly forgotten while everyone will remember me. Hell, I might even tell them Panacea is going to make my breasts bigger than theirs.”
I blinked, then whistled. Amy was the one who responded though. “Wow, I see why you picked her. That was really intense… and kinda hot.”
Dinah blinked a few more times then spoke up. “3.1% chance she retaliates against your family if you tell her the PRT knows who you are and that you can move through portals. She will assume you are watching her.”
Taylor looked over and then smiled. I was actually a little surprised she hadn’t been planning on how to protect her Dad, but maybe she was still getting over her abandonment issues. On the other hand I suppose Dinah had been thinking hard on how to protect everyone since she didn’t have many combat options at the moment.
Leaning back I turned back to Dinah. “What about you, Dinah, was there anything that you wanted to do before we left?”
Dinah simply shook her head. “As long as you destroy Coil, I don’t really have anything else.”
Turning towards Amy I sighed. “Besides potentially recruiting Vicky, who we will discuss soon, is there anything else you want to do?”
Amy frowned slightly at the mention of Vicky, but then shook her head. “No, I think I will leave a message with Dragon about being overwhelmed and wanting to deal with the source of my problems. If people can’t accept that then that is their problem. I might also leave a message for New Wave and Carol explaining my decision and my frustration, but I have a family with us now... even if you aren’t even really my type.”
Sighing I shook my head. “Amy, for the love of ever remaining shred of my sanity. Do not become a Tsundere on us.” She got up to obviously punch me and I chuckled before once again cutting her powers off. I was incredibly thankful that I could still do that. Amy did not look happy about that, but the change seemed to calm her down. However I had a feeling that trick wouldn’t work for very much longer. She would probably permanently improve her body going forward so turning her powers off would just stop her from doing something weird to me.
However instead of backing down I stood up and hugged her. “We love you and your prickly personality.” This time she followed through and actually punched me albeit fairly gently.
“Amy, seriously, we care about you. The three of us really do want you to be happy and we will do whatever it takes to make sure that happens.” I then smirked. “Plus, I haven’t given up on finding you a companion. Somewhere there is a woman who will want to spend a lot of time making sure the two of you are very happy. Hell, I am still completely fine with body swapping to a female for some nights just between the two of us.” The last few sentences were quieter and quieter to keep Dinah in the dark, but I am pretty sure Taylor knew what was going on because she was once again going red as she looked away from us. I felt something shift in approval at this, but once again I ignored it.
As we all sat back down I sighed and the girls all seemed to notice my seriousness and straightened on the sofa in front of me. “Ok, it is time. Who are we grabbing for emergency jumps? And who are we grabbing for possible future members of the family?”
No one wanted to speak up first so I breathed in slowly. “Ok, I will start us off. I have been thinking we grab Lung’s soul and use it to power this pocket dimension. Keeping it open myself isn’t too hard, but it is a constant distraction and effort and I could be using elsewhere.”
Taylor was the one who raised her hand and I smirked before nodding. “No reason to raise your hands when you want to talk. I mean, maybe we would need to if our family had another two dozen women, but it is just the four of us for now.” I paused and shook my head. “Regardless, what is your question?”
Taylor seemed once again to squirm at the talk of more women, but then she asked. “How exactly does that work? How are you going to use Lung’s soul to power a pocket dimension.”
I frowned, but before Taylor could get the wrong thought I continued. “I don’t understand everything. Half is experimenting and half is the instincts I was given when the ROB dropped me off. What I am going to do is place small portals that put the tips of his soul on the outside of this house and then surround that by the dimensional shift. It should act like wrapping a pincushion with tin foil… as weird as that sounds. Maybe thinking about it a popup tent is better even if there won’t be strands of soul going lengthwise around the house. As for why I think that will work. Well, souls do not want to be crushed or stretched in any way shape or form. In fact, if the soul is weak enough, stretching it is the easiest way to pop it. Each soul had a different amount of power. I felt a small rush even when just popping a mouse’s soul. More powerful souls require me to actually spear my soul into theirs. However I suspect that Lung’s soul with his shard’s ability to ramp up to meet any challenge should allow it to support our pocket home’s dimension even while traveling through realities. Plus, while I suspect that I could protect us in that in between by myself, but I don’t want to if I don’t have to.”
Taylor looked fascinated and I looked at the other two. “Any other questions? No? Well I also want to grab Oni Lee, Hookwolf, Kaiser, and Victor for backup souls to pop since we are going to be using Coil to leave the dimension. Since the damn illuminati have a vested interest in Coil we will have to pick him up last. Also, we will have to pick a time to grab him and stick to it regardless of what else is going on since if there is a variation, then he can probably use his two different timelines to prepare for us.”
Dinah looked the most firm, but all three girls once again nodded. Amy even gave a sneer and muttered, “Good riddance.” I shouldn’t be surprised since she had spent years cleaning up their gang wars and the first two were all known to have body counts in the triple digits while the second two were reported to have destroyed hundreds more.
I nodded. “Now for the other capes I thought of this morning. I Want to pick up Gray Boy if I can find him. Dinah thinks we can find him in Miami currently so I am working on getting a portal down there to try to catch him. On that note, if possible, I want to do the same thing to Gray Boy and create a bubble of stopped time around the outside of our pocket dimension. Eventually I want to then put another bubble of protection around the time barrier as well so no one runs into it accidentally. That should stop just about every form of attack I can think of. The problem is that I have no idea how to do all of that yet. So we are still vulnerable, especially against capes like Flechette who can hit something in every dimension it exists.”
Once again all three girls winced and then nodded. Flechette was a pretty big danger to us even if she was currently a hero in another state. Said distance and unrelated status didn’t really matter when Cauldron was potentially working behind the scenes.
Then the time had come. “Ok, now for women we might want to grab, forcibly if needed. I want to remind everyone that I am not going to just start raping them. But at the same time, if they are villains then we will be attempting to brainwash them at least a little to stop being such ass-hats and hurting innocents. So, while I want to point out that it isn’t as bad, it is still a bit rapey, just in the mental direction.” I took a deep breath. “That said, it still probably better than just straight-up killing them, especially if they can be happy and healthy after we fix them to stop hurting others.”
Taylor winced and Amy looked away, but Dinah seemed stoic and I noted that before I turned back to the other two. “Ok, so the two I mentioned last time first. What is everyone’s opinion about Bakuda and Squealer?”
Taylor seemed to firm herself before nodding. “They are villains who have been given several chances to change and didn’t. They have both killed dozens of people and we could use their skills in future worlds. If they need brainwashing to no longer be sociopaths, then we will do that.”
Amy winced. She understood that the two of us would be doing most of the actual brainwashing when we eventually got around to it. I had mentioned that she would have to watch the brain as I messed with the soul and I would watch the soul while she messed with the brain. Between the two of us we could probably eventually mold them like clay even if it would be hard to get anything specific. It was probably way too close to what she might have done to her sister. On the other hand she had also been forced to heal the victims of the gang violence and the description of what Bakuda would have done to the city was horrific. So after a moment she nodded as well.
“Ok, that is two women we will be keeping as they could do more good for us than remaining here. Are there any other villains you know of you want to bring with us.”
Taylor frowned. “I don’t want to bring Purity. Yeah, she is a Nazi, but I don’t want to separate a mother from her child and I don’t really want to bring a child with us.”
Amy and Dinah nodded so I simply nodded as well. “I will make sure she gets a note about the possible exposure from Coil’s systems. That should give her enough time to leave the state and hopefully join the Guild or a separate PRT office so she can be an actual hero this time.” tilting my head I gestured a bit. “And Orthala, Cricket, Rune, Fenja, or Menja?”
Amy snorted. “I am sorry, I don’t really want to be surrounded by Nazis if I can help it.” After a moment when I didn’t interrupt she sighed. “Vicky has talked about them and she didn’t have too much to say about them, but I don’t really want to have a bunch of Homophobic Nazis around us with my preferences.” She paused again before sighing. “The only one I could see who might be useful is Orthala for the invulnerability touch she can give us. Rune is just a teenager, but I don’t think she is all that useful when compared to your portals.”
I nodded, “All true enough.”
Turning towards Dinah I simply tilted my head. “As Orthala is now. 36% chance she will be happy eventually without brainwashing. 73% even with brainwashing without completely destroying her personality. 100% if we destroy her personality… Rune is only slightly better. We would have to spend a lot of time trying to get rid of her bigotry and it would probably take a long time.”
I sighed back. “Yeah, that is pretty low even with the potential brainwashing. Lets only grab Orthala if something changes. However I still have every intention of grabbing her husband. If we don’t grab her then we will tip Purity to take Orthala with her when she leaves. We can do the same to Rune. That sounds like we are letting them off, but their identities are going to get out and I don’t want to encourage Purity to go on a rampage again if they try to take her daughter.”
I then folded my hands in front of me and put them on my knee. “Ok, now the hard question, do we grab any heroes and force them to come with us. We haven’t heard back from Vista, Miss Militia, or Vicky. So no one is joining willingly. The question is if we should force any of them.”
Internally I could feel the desire to grab them, no questions asked. We were saving this world, if we wanted to them to come with us in payment who were they to refuse?
Yet even as I thought that another part of me felt horrified at the very idea. The very last thing I wanted to do was enslave people, I felt like I knew what that was like personally. Yet again, I knew I didn’t have time for these feelings so I pushed them aside.
Amy shuttered and visibility hesitated. “No, I wanted Vicky so badly, but now that I am mostly immune to her Aura now that I am bonded to you, but I think it is best to leave her behind, at least for now. However, I still want her soul protected in a gem if that is possible.”
Taylor was actually the one who spoke up. “Could you find a way to check on her Phylactery directly even while we are gone. That way we can at least make sure she is alright? Maybe putting her gem in the message tube?”
Amy simply stared at Taylor for a very long time before turning to Dinah. “My numbers don’t give good numbers for discussion on reality changes, but I think it might work.”
Amy frowned for a long time before slowly nodding and responding in a small voice. “I don’t want to brainwash her into loving me, but having her in our family eventually, even if it is with the same husband, would be nice, eventually.”
I nodded slowly. “Ok, so I will simply put her in a gem in the mail tube. I don’t think she would survive being pulled through realities without me coming here to pick her up, though. We were planning on going back to visit with her tomorrow morning anyway and we can discuss these options with her then.” Taking another deep breath, I look at each of the girls before asking again. “Are there any other heroes you think we should take? Miss Militia, Vista, Battery, or maybe someone else?”
After a moment of hesitation, Amy shook her head, but Taylor was more firm. “I don’t want to kidnap heroes as long as they are trying to do good. Not unless they want to get out like us.”
Smiling, I tried to make it seem like I wasn’t disappointed about not having Vista or Miss Militia on our team since they were incredibly powerful, but the girls were right. I didn’t want to be ruled by my dick. Thinking about it now, if I did, there was a good chance my harem wouldn’t be the family I was aiming for anymore. Not when some of them were resentful of being dragged away. Either that or I would have to figure out how to control literally all of my girls completely and that was horrifying to do to innocent girls. I winced internally since I knew a part of me would do it in a heartbeat if it meant saving my women though.
I heard a clearing throat and looked over in time to see Dinah actually looking a little bashful before sitting up. “I actually already recruited another cape.”
The rest of us turned to look at her confused and Amy asked. “What do you mean?”
I was only slightly slower in my question. “I was about to ask you if you had asked your power my questions about if there was anyone else who would want to come with us, but I didn’t think you had recruited anyone yet.” I tried to make sure she knew I wasn’t really mad, but everyone could tell I wasn’t thrilled by the information.
Dinah squirmed a bit. “Parian, real name Sabah, wants to join us once I told her we were getting out of Brockton Bay and off of Earth Bet. I also looked at the numbers that said 91.3% chance everyone including her will be happy with her inclusion while realizing she lived only a block away from where I was at, at the time, so I just walked over and asked.”
I narrowed my eyes on her. “What aren’t you telling me, Dinah? How is perhaps the biggest Lesbian cape in the Bay going to be happy about joining my harem?”
Dinah winced then sighed. “I was too worried about being overheard and was worried about being late, so I didn’t ask the right questions before I visited her. There is only a 9.6% chance she will be happy when she initially realizes that she will be one of your wives. I told her I wasn’t a wife, and she assumed being a wife was optional.”
I sighed. “When is she going to be arriving here?”
Dinah winced again and then sighed. “She wants you to go pick her up tonight. The problem is that if we don’t pick her up tonight she will panic and contact the PRT with the information I gave her and they will start hunting us even more before we leave.”
Interlude Sabah:
Sabah was pacing around the room. Hookwolf, Rune, and Alabaster had cornered her as she was headed home last night.
Two weeks, two weeks to give them her answer before they would force the issue. She didn’t know why they thought she was white.
Yeah, she dressed up like a porcelain doll which obviously had white skin, but she hadn’t left a single bit of her real skin showing so why would they assume?
Now they would probably kill her if they found she was dressing up as a ‘real person’ as those racist assholes would put it. They would also kill her if she refused to join them.
She kicked a box of supplies before she started to pack her things again. She needed to get out, one way or another and if that girl really was a precog then this might be her best chance.
She hadn’t left her parent’s home and her engineering degree just to be controlled again.
She was 23 now and she wanted to do fashion. She wanted to do it more than anything else.
Screw this damn town. Screw capes. She just wanted to design in peace. Maybe find a good girl to settle down with and start her business.
A part of her knew she shouldn’t be so trusting. This town was filled with literal Nazis and that damn asian gang ready to sell her into sexual slavery. Was she actually sure this wasn’t a plot from one of those groups?
Still, the girl had known more than she should have. She knew her name, situation, and seemingly everything else about her. If they just wanted to capture her, they could have grabbed her already. Plus, she didn’t actually have the money to move. This might be her best chance.
Interlude Contessa:
Something was happening. Several important parahumans had recently gone dark. She couldn’t path them anymore. Was there a gang war going on in the East Northeast area? That was strange since she hadn’t felt any of her paths get altered by new triggers. New triggers always happened when violence started breaking out.
Maybe she needed to go in and figure things out. Not being able to path things there was starting to cause problems and she was there to end problems after all.
Defeating Scion would take nothing less than everything.
Interlude Jack Slash:
His instincts seemed to be telling him something, but he couldn’t seem to figure out what it was.
Best to keep moving. They could stop once they lost their tail. Wherever it was.
Once they did, he would figure out who it was and find them soon enough… and then kill them. No one stopped Jack Slash after all.