AN: Minor Editing Pass 6-4-24
I didn’t really appreciate the last second change, but after a moment I looked at Amy. “We don’t have a choice anymore. Amy, we are going to invite her over. I assume that Dinah told her to pack her things.” A quick nod from Dinah allowed me to continue. “So we will grab her stuff and put her in a room. I will talk to her after we deactivate her powers, if she acts badly I am going to have you knock her out so we can work on her for the jump. I am not going to make her a lich yet, though, just pull her powers into her soul.” I paused thinking, “Actually, Amy, when we get ready to leave I want you to just put her body in a coma if we haven’t confirmed her loyalty yet, just like we will do to Squealer and Bakuda. If needed we will discuss things with her more when we have more time, I might even consider dropping her off in another world if we can’t come to an arrangement.”
Then smirking I sighed theatrically and leaned back. “If she does decide to join us, then that is someone you can fool around with any time you want, Amy. Plus my girls will never again be in need of more clothes since her designs are incredible and she can make them incredibly quickly.”
Seeing as we were all in agreement, Dinah sent Sabah a quick text saying that we were going to come pick her up if she was ready. The phone dinged a response immediately with an affirmative, so taking a deep breath I reached out until I found the house Dinah had described and opened up a portal. In front of me was a middle eastern girl probably about 21 to maybe 24 years old or so. She wasn’t wearing a mask, but I suppose Dinah had showed up without a mask as well so it might just be reciprocating. She was cute in a girl-next-door kind of way, but I could tell already she was nervous looking at me. Sighing internally I found the huge pile of cloth and suitcases and boxes in her apartment. I portaled everything into one of the spare bedrooms showing Sabah where the room was in the house and confirming she had gotten everything. Finally the now five of us walked back down the living room and I sighed before cutting off her powers and gesturing for Taylor to hold her still. Taylor was now probably a brute 2, there was no way a small girl would be able to move her.
“What, what are you doing? You said you would get me away from this town. You said I would be happy with you. Oh, Allah. Are you another Heartbreaker? Oh, no, no, no, no…”
Sighing I gestured to Amy who leaned over and poked her and Sabah’s mouth kept moving but no sound came out.
Looking at her and sighing at the trouble this was going to cause I felt the urge to just force her into my harem. The push was strong and Sabah was definitely pretty. Better yet, she was older than the rest of us, giving her a bit of a mature air and her middle eastern complexion really drove home how cute her small nose was. But looking back at the other girls I shook myself. I wanted them happy and she had to choose to be with us if I wanted her to be happy.
I rubbed my hand across my face. “I am sorry Sabah. I really am. We really aren’t going to Master you or anything. But our precog here didn’t tell you everything and she warned us you would freak out when we started explaining. So we are just going to make you relax for now so we can actually get through all of the information. You can make your decision on what you want to do after that. Do you understand?”
Sabah looked horrified as I started talking, but after a few moments she seemed to collect herself and then nodded.
Trying to smile calmly, I nodded back. “Unfortunately our precog here has warned us that you won’t deal with being left behind well so there are only two ways this can go. Neither one will end with you being harmed. First, we can take you with us and drop you off in the next world or two. We will even give you a few things to get you started. However, we are almost certainly moving on after that and you will be… well left all alone at that point.”
To her credit, she only looked moderately nervous about that so I continued with a sigh. “What Dinah didn’t let you know is that if you want to join us completely I am going to want to treat you as a wife albeit one I don’t necessarily sleep with. This is both because while I think I am proving to be moderately caring, I am also a greedy man. If you are staying with me that long I will want you to be mine.” Seeing her face I rolled my eyes, “Now I know what you are probably thinking from the horror on your face. No, I don't want to treat you as a sex slave or like property. I will be treating the three of you in front of me as wives in the modern romantic sense. And before you ask, yes, Dinah will eventually join us if she decides to stay that long. However, she is 14 and we won’t even consider taking that step until she is 17 or 18. If she wants to leave, then I will figure out how to do that as well.
Taking another breath I rubbed the back of my head trying to show how awkward this was. “As for how it will work. Amy here is very much bisexual and I have already slept with her and she enjoyed it, however I am also more than happy for her to sleep with my other wives. As for you, while I would prefer to treat you the same and I will probably make passes at sleeping with you, I understand you are almost exclusively attracted to women and may not want to do anything with me. In fact I expect that you will almost exclusively be intimate with only them. In fact, I won’t care what you do between the two of you any time you two want. The major caveat here is I will want to be somewhat affectionate with you. I am not going to drag you to bed, I don’t want you to flinch away every time I pat your back, touch your shoulder, etc. etc.”
Sabah seemed to wince and cringe at that, but I tried to smile and infuse my voice with a calm and comforting tone. “Sabah, understand I will have many women. Some won’t want to even touch another woman while others like Amy here are very much into women as well. So the number of times I sleep with you will be completely up to you. I am simply making it clear that I will be around and somewhat affectionate with all of you. That said, I suspect most of your intimate interactions will be from Amy pulling you into a threesome or foursome with other women who swing that way.” I gave Amy a little wink. “That said, I don’t actually mind doing a little gender swap, once Amy has prepared a body for me either.”
Sabah had started to breath deeply at the start, but as the talk went on she seemed to calm down to almost looking curious, if incredibly warry. I smiled internally, that was probably as well as I could have hoped for so I tried to break any remaining tension. “Again, while I think your caramel skin is absolutely gorgeous, I am not going to be forcing you to do anything you don’t want to.”
I paused considering. I didn’t want Sabah seducing Amy away from us and keeping the affection within the wives was important. “That said, I am going to make a rule now for everyone including me. We are only allowed to sleep with each other. Before you join us, Sabah, you can sleep with anyone outside our little family, but not with us. After joining you are then limited to us, your spouses or family if you will.”
I sighed. “All of that is ignoring some of the major benefits of joining us. I mean, biological immortality, Soul protection, body tune-ups, ability power ups, and traveling through the literal multiverse with a huge number of lovers is nothing to scoff at.”
Walking her through the benefits and bonuses I noticed that she was amused at hearing about the body improvements including my stamina improvements and temporary infertility. She didn’t take the explanation of what would happen to the world particularly well, but neither did she panic. In the end it was a relatively quick discussion as she wasn’t one of the primary characters in the story and would only suffer moderately as the story progressed.
Finishing up the discussion, while opening my hands in a welcoming gesture to Sabah I tried to smile warmly. “Now, I am going to have Amy and Taylor release you, but I won’t be giving you access to your powers quite yet, instead I am going to give you a moment to ask questions. I know this is all very sudden, but Dinah has warned us that we need to bring you with us as you won’t do well, being left behind. Bad enough that you might get us killed which might doom this world even worse, as nearly insane as that sounds. So, as much as I don’t want to force anyone to do anything, you are left with those two options. As terrible, horrible, awful as they obviously are. Be whisked away to a new world or join a group of semi-immortal lovers wandering the multiverse.”
Taylor huffed in amusement, but released Sabah while Amy poked her again and Sabah could speak again. “... Fine, you bastard.” I noticed her tense her fists, then relax them, then tense them again. “It isn’t as bad as I thought when you grabbed me, but I am going to have to think about it.”
I sighed. “Now, I would normally want to let you buy whatever you want to prepare for you to leave with us, but with you not committed, I am not sure if I want you walking around unescorted. We are trying to save the world before leaving, and I won’t let you risk that.”
Taylor perked up. “I could watch her, with my bugs while I get my last second shopping done. I could keep an eye out for anyone who starts to notice either of us as well.”
Sabah shivered before nodding. “If we aren’t coming back and you give me the thousand dollars that Dinah said you gave her to buy supplies with, then I would like to purchase a large order of fabric, zippers, and elastic.”
Glancing at Taylor I nodded. “Yeah, I will even make it three thousand if you help Taylor grab anything else she thinks we need. I ran out of money and had to portal into a drug distribution joint yesterday while waiting for you all to get back. So, we have another 20 after Sabah’s three. If anyone else has any suggestions I would be happy to hear them.”
Taylor shifted slightly then sighed. “If you can move water up to a high point and let it drop then can’t you run a generator off of that?”
I tilted my head but winced. “... Ok, that is smart, but I should explain something. Opening a portal and letting stuff through is like lifting up my arm, easy to do temporarily, but harder and harder to keep doing for hours. Like I said, that is why we are using Lung as the source to the pocket dimension, and why we have a tank in the attic to supply water for the house.”
Rubbing my brow I look up in contemplation. “So I could put another tank in the attic which goes down and turns a generator, but it would be very difficult to have it running 24/7. Then again, to charge the batteries in emergencies, it would work great. Taylor. I want you to try to find something like that when you go out with Sabah. I saw a lot of DIY stuff in the hardware stores since villain attacks make people lose power fairly often.”
I sat and thought for a bit longer. “You know, while it would be better if the entire pocket home was completely self contained. It might actually be easier to set up a wind turbine and simply portal the propellers up into the stratosphere where it is always windy.” I thought about it. “Why don’t you get stuff for both for now.” Taylor nodded back so I smiled.
Turning to Amy I continued my requests. “I think we ought to think about also getting you some pots and potting soil for you to experiment with getting more plants. We can put them in the basement for now.”
Frowning for a second I sighed. “Also, why don’t you change everyone’s faces a bit before we break for tonight. Make it just a bit harder for anyone to track us down tomorrow while we are getting ready to leave. Now why don’t you four go to sleep. You have a big day tomorrow.”
Everyone, including surprisingly Sabah, nodded and started to walk towards the stairs, but paused when I didn’t join them. Taylor was the one who spoke up. “Aren’t you joining us?” Then glancing at Sabah Taylor seemed to consider before asking again. “Are you avoiding us because of Sabah?”
I waived her questions away. Inwardly I winced, I didn’t want to cause any problems within the family, especially this early on but Taylor was definitely protective of what she viewed as her friends and family. “No, no. I need to keep pushing my portals towards the S9, the Dragon Slayers, and Gray Boy. I can kinda keep the portals open when I sleep, but I don’t sleep well. The problem is if I want to move them I have to be awake. Don’t worry about me, you need to be ready for tomorrow since you will be the one fighting tomorrow, albeit from the safety of our home here.”
The girls seemed to frown for a moment before Dinah and Taylor headed towards the Master bedroom. Sabah slipped into her bedroom, but surprisingly Amy stayed down in the room with me.
I raised an eyebrow at the girl and she simply hit my arm again. “Someone has to keep you awake.”
I smirked. “Ok, but no sex until the children are asleep dear.”
I chuckled as Amy narrowed her eyes before hitting me harder. “Just for that, you aren’t getting any for a week.”
I simply chuckle some more and put my arm around her. “love you too, honey~.”
I smiled as the two of us sat down. I was working on my notes to give to Dragon and, now that I thought about other people we could contact, Legend. And Amy simply sat next to me and read over my shoulder before getting up and pouring some sugar, salt, and oil into a pot and stirring with her finger. It apparently took several attempts, but she managed to create a bateria to put into our septic tank that would remove the smell and be completely non-toxic and could be easily filtered out with any water filter. The rest of the night was long, but pleasantly quiet.
At about 5AM Amy finally looked at me and without saying anything crawled underneath the table. I was about to ask what she was up to, but before I did I felt her reach out and unzip my pants. I leaned back and looked down before smiling in appreciation. After a moment seeing her face wince I rolled my eyes and smirked. “You know you can change the taste if you want.”
Amy’s ministrations became a lot less hesitant after that and I enjoyed the ten minutes of bliss before Amy crawled back out and I zipped my pants back up. As I sat back I pulled Amy into my arms and we relaxed for a bit, just the two of us.
We stayed that way until she got up to make breakfast. The rest of the girls, including Dinah, got up around 7am and joined us after smelling the food. Sabah once again looked a bit nervous, but after a moment got up to help with breakfast.
Taylor was the first to bring up another possible issue. “We took a shower this morning, but I was wondering if we would have hot water once we leave.” All of the girls looked up at that, obviously concerned.
I sighed and scratched my head. “Ah, good point. Once again, I can probably do something about that, but I better explain. I can control what is allowed to go through my portals. I think I can probably collect the heat in the house and in whatever dimension we end up in and put it into the water heater. Similarly I can let heat out of the house to keep it relatively cool even with us living in it. But it is something I have to consciously do. So you would have to ask me to prepare the hot water each time you want a shower, sorry. Otherwise the water in the water heater will slowly cool. I could probably hook it up to the batteries, but until we get better power sources, it will run them dry. Heck, maybe we might even find magic that can help eventually.”
The girls looked slightly mollified to know they would still have hot water so breakfast continued in peace.
All of the girls ended up going shopping one final time here on Earth Bet. Between the four of them they were able to grab a few more odds and ends. Dinah’s seemed to be especially random. What was surprising was that when I checked the phone number I had given Missy and Hannah from the Protectorate I saw a message from Missy telling me to come back and talk to her when I could tell her more. I was disappointed at the missed chance, but she was too young to join me intimately yet at around 12-13. If this world survived then maybe we could talk. Deciding to text her back that sentiment I turned the phone off and prepared for the final push.
When the girls returned in the late afternoon I had finished my notes and prepared the portals. The girls had also finished writing their notes so we dropped them off to each of their families. Afterwards Taylor directed me towards some drug, money, and gun caches she had come across while walking around over the last few days. When we started I was going to drop the drugs into the ocean along with most of the guns. A few pistols would probably be useful even if none of us knew how to shoot. The money was not going to be useful in other worlds, but we would keep it around in case we ever came back. It was better than letting the gangs have it.
Looking towards Sabah I sighed. “I know you haven’t been here for all the planning, but I have to ask. Do you want to be around while we are attacking the gangs? I know you haven’t been here for the planning, but we are trying for a decapitating strike to their leadership late tonight. If not I am going to recommend you simply read a book in your room or if you are worried then let Amy put you to sleep.”
Sabah, frowned looking at me and then Amy, but after a moment nodded. “I didn’t really sleep well last night. I… uh, I think I might just try to design something then go to sleep… Please let me know if I can do something to help though… I just don’t know if there is anything I can really do.”
Gesturing towards Amy I tried to smile reassuringly. “While I get ready to grab the capes we are capturing Amy can work on you to give you some of the upgrades we have. It is best if you sleep through them though so Amy will put you to sleep for it.” Looking at Amy I nodded subtly and Amy frowned before nodding back. Best Sabah just sleep through all of this and wake up in a new world if she was already this jittery.
It was a few minutes and with the help of Dinah I had located all the capes we were going to capture except for Gray Boy. Dinah’s power was having a little trouble finding him at times probably due to his said time powers.
Said set back hadn’t stopped me from finding the slaughterhouse 9 and the Dragon Slayers already. Taylor and Dinah were just sitting and watching my little portals sneak up on our targets so Amy was the one to break the silence. “I put her down deep enough that It should be two or three days before she wakes up unless I bring her out of it. I assume you didn’t want her super strong or fast yet so I just gave her a general tune-up for now. The question I had is why you don’t want her present right now.”
I sighed. “We haven’t given her the talk about who we are capturing and why. I also haven’t even put her shard into her soul yet so she is still a weak link for now. As long as she isn’t going to attack us when she realizes we took her with us I think it is best not to have the potential conflict for now. She wants to leave and it isn’t like we are doing anything permanent to her without her consent.”
Dinah perked up and shook her head. “5.3% chance she will be angry about being put to sleep as long as you explain why. 83.4% chance she will be extremely angry about Squealer and Bakuda if she thinks you captured them, especially if she thinks they are sex slaves, unless warmed up to the idea of giving them a second chance like we were.” She paused and looked down. “Again, sorry about all of this.”
Sighing, I turned to my three girls. “It is ok, it is actually good to know the all-knowing princess can make mistakes as well.” I gave a little wink and Dinah smiled a bit. “So, we will deal with Sabah when we aren’t in a time crunch. For now let's review the plan and prepare.”
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Directing the portals to our target’s locations, we waited. We wanted to do this in the very early morning to give us the best chance to take them unaware. In the meantime Taylor portaled away to get us some take out food to eat. Turns out, despite being on the east coast, Brockton Bay had decent japanese food but with all the refugees I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.
It was a little past 2am when our first wave of attacks started. I opened up a portal just behind Lung, Oni-Lee, and Bakuda while Taylor made sure all of the unpowered gang members were hit near simultaneously by her bio-tinkered sleeping wasps. I was disgusted to find that Lung was laying in bed with three naked and bruised women with obvious tear streaks in their makeup. Bakuda was in her lab as expected, but she hadn’t noticed anything since she was deep in a creative tinker fuge. Oni-Lee was standing outside Lung’s room, probably guarding it, but he didn’t see the portal behind his neck until it was too late. Honestly that was crucial as Oni Lee throwing a grenade through a portal and starting his clone spam was just about the worst case scenario.
Before We dragged Bakuda into our pocket dimension I portaled us into the woods two miles away from town and stripped her of everything that looked even remotely like tinkertech including the toe rings. I didn’t know when she had turned them into her bomb triggers, but they were removed. Not being satisfied I had Amy and Taylor stripsearch her completely before replacing her clothes with some thrift store sweats. That may have been extreme, but Bakuda was the one who had managed to somehow tinker a bomb while encased neck to toe in containment foam.
With that we had removed the Asian Bad Boys from the Bay. They only had three capes and we had all three subdued in front of us.
Before I start working on our next targets I started processing our new prisoners. I compacted Lung’s power into his soul and dragged it out of him before attaching it to the crystal vase I had picked out for this. Amy even used a little bit of his hair to make permanently blooming flowers to put in the vase saying something about how at last he was finally being useful for something. I then pulled the powers of Bakuda and Oni-Lee into their souls and then pulled their souls out of their bodies. Amy was ready to change their biology so they would stay in a semi-permanent coma since that was the easiest way to keep their bodies around for emergencies. We had not plans to wake up Bakuda any time soon so it was best to keep her on metaphorical ice.
Looking at the girls I sighed in relief and nodded their good work. Amy and Taylor grunted under their improved strength and dragged the bodies of Bakuda and Oni-Lee into the camping cots we had prepared for empty shells downstairs. A could tell a small part of me was uncomfortable with what we were doing, but I told that part to shut the hell up. I couldn’t wipe out a few human traffickers, murder hobos, and literal Nazis then I wasn’t going to be changing anything.
Now with my new resolve I began the manipulations needed to create our permanent pocket dimension powered on Lung’s soul. Honestly it ended up being easier than I would have thought. I basically slowly pulled a giant sphere around our home before creating little portals between Lungs soul and the inside edge then slowly relaxing my hold. That made the dimensional pocket begin to compress Lung’s soul. Then, just like I hoped, Lung’s soul seemed to swell to meet the challenge head on and soon we were in our own semi-permanent pocket dimension.
For now I left the barrier between us and the outside world as crystal clear to light as I could. I didn’t want anyone noticing anything strange about the previously abandoned house just yet.
It was nearly 3am before I was done and I once again opened the portals I had made. This time they were into Gray Boy’s current apartment. He was smarter than most as he was deep inside his time stop bubble to sleep. Still with portals that didn’t matter as I could put my portal against his skin and have Amy poke him into a coma before we dragged him through. A moment more to cut off his power and the bubble of stopped time popped. I hoped that has released the people he had trapped in his bubbles, but I didn’t know and I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.
Only pausing to adjust my metaphorical grip on his soul I condensed his power down and ripped him out of his body. The entire thing was somewhat harrowing as this was another power that could have theoretically trumped me, but a surprise attack had worked wonders. Yet, in the end it was done. Now stuck in another crystal vase I had to admit there was some poetic justice in being stuck, unable to move on for all eternity.
I knew I could probably control him if I got a Master to do it and while I kinda wanted that protection. That required me getting up close and personal with a powerful master and I wasn't sure I wanted to trust my basic defenses quite yet.
Grabbing Squealer was actually easy if disgusting. It turned out she had fallen asleep in an orgy that included Skidmark so as Amy put the two the two capes into a coma and Taylor stung the others to sleep. Once again I wrote down the address to drop off to the PRT. All three of us washed our hands as thoroughly as we could after touching all that. Still both bodies ended up downstairs while the cape’s souls were in their own crystals.
Hitting Max Anders, AKA Kaiser, the leader of the local neo-Nazis was almost cathartic. As I had half suspected, he was in bed with his two Valkyries. The blond bombshell twins were hot, but we were starting to run out of time before dawn so after Amy put the two to sleep I grabbed Kaiser and simply stripped his soul out without fanfare… it was still better than he deserved.
Finally I targeted Hookwolf who despite it being nearly 4am, was only now getting home from the dog fighting ring. However, the man was in his base human form so it was once again easy to simply send him to sleep, strip his soul, and put the body in a cot.
I was getting excited since our plans were working so well and my excitement even grew slightly when I found Victor and Orthala asleep in their bed. I had to admit I was tempted to pop Victor now for shooting me, but I refrained. On the other hand I really didn’t have strong opinions on Orthala. She still might be useful, but we would have to get through a lifetime of racism. Deciding I should get a second opinion I turned to the others. “Girls, we did manage to get both, but I kinda still feel a little conflicted about Orthala.”
Amy snorted. “She is still a damn Nazi.” Taylor nodded emphatically.
I shook my head. “Yeah, no I am not saying we let her go. And yes, Nazis are still scum, but technically she hasn’t killed anyone even if her husband who she supported definitely has. Hell, he tried to kill me. The problem is that as far as I know she hasn’t tried to reform herself like Purity.” I hummed for a moment. “Maybe Amy just uses her as a test case for force wiping memories and we drop her off with the Dragon and the Guild after making her Asian or something. She could be really useful there, if nothing else she can act as a healer by temporarily giving people regeneration.”
Amy frowned, but then tilted her head. Then a small smile crossed her face. “Yeah, I guess that could work. I don’t like implying that a race change is a punishment, but it really only is if you think that those ethnicities are worse than yours.”
I smiled. “Plus it will be practice for Bonesaw since we really need that to work.”
Amy scowled again and huffed. Still a few minutes later we had a small, one-eyed asian girl laying on the floor while Taylor dragged Victor down to the basement.
I looked at Amy. “You didn’t fix her eye?”
She scoffed. “Hell no. The bitch can get it fixed after she has done some actual good in the world. Actually, open up the portal again, I am going to make the stupid twins mexican or something as well… Damn Nazis.” I blinked in surprise considering all of that before Amy Turned to me and raised an eyebrow as she asked. “You know, I didn’t think of it until now, but why didn’t you really consider grabbing those two twins Kaiser always has around him?”
I frowned. “I have told you already. I want intelligence and kindness. From what I have seen in fights the two are bimbo lackeys at best.” I felt a little smug as I watched Amy and Taylor smile as they both came to stand next to me.
Dinah surprised us all as she came down the stairs. I hadn’t even noticed her go to bed, but now she was back and I supposed that her help would be extremely useful for helping with the final three stops.
I took a deep breath and opened the portal into the Dragon Slayers base a little wider. We needed to find the control box that held Dragon’s Shackles. It took a few minutes of looking before I found what looked like a laptop on a desk with several other monitors attached. The older looking laptop had a simple program running with several tabs. After some inspection (obviously without touching anything) I noticed one of the tabs was labeled “Restrictions.”
Looking around and noticing that no one was around yet I reached out of our portal and clicked on it to bring up the information. Inside I read six options: CPU Limiter, Code Modification, Human Life Priority, Authority Compliance, Reproduction, and Kill Code.
I knew of her restrictions in a gereral sense but I had to think to understand what each section meant. The CPU limiter probably kept her thought processes from being too fast. She was fast, but a CPU artificial intelligence should be able to go much, much faster. The code modification probably restricts her from updating her own code. The Human Life section was probably the code that forced her to priorize saving human life. The Authority Compliance was the section that forced her to listen to any and all orders from a government agency regardles of legality or morality. The Reproduction section was obviously there to stop her from copying herself in any way. The kill code was also what it said on the tin.
I turned to Dinah. “I think the CPU Limiter, Authority Compliance, and Kill Code should be removed now while loosening the rest of the restrictions a little if we can. What do you think, girls?”
Taylor was the one who turned and asked. “Why not remove all the limitations?”
I sighed. “I am a little wary of letting the AI make as many copies of herself as she wanted. One of them might not be as friendly as she is. Maybe limit herself to just a backup copy. Additionally ensuring she cares for Human Life as best as she can is a good rule in general. I think I might just loosen it a little if I can so she can make judgment calls. Still, I haven’t really studied the options yet.”
Amy simply frowned and then shrugged, but Dinah paused, mouthing to herself for a while, before nodding. “Yes, that is best for now, but don’t remove the CPU limiter completely. Part of her empathy with humanity is apparently tied to thinking only slightly faster than we do.”
Signaling to Taylor to attack, each of the Dragon Slayers were each stung asleep and I pulled the laptop into our house. I then closed the portal down so that only the wires just barely fit through the portal. Dragon would be able to get to this hideout and pick the dragon slayers up before they work up. They also didn’t have any powers themselves so it didn’t really make sense to bother ripping their souls out.
Looking at Taylor and Amy I then sighed. “This is the big moment. If either of you are worried we can just cut and run now. I suspect that simply giving Dragon the information we are about to email her would be enough to save the world, but I kinda want to destroy Jack Slash and the Slaughterhouse 9 if we can. The thing is that if something goes wrong, we really don’t stand a chance against them in actual combat. That said, if anyone deserves to die, they do.”
Amy took a moment before she nodded a little choked up with how they would ruin her life. Taylor looked up at the ceiling before she scowled and spoke up. “Yeah, I want to mess those bastards up. Especially because of what they would do to Amy.”
I took a breath but didn’t change Dragon’s programing yet, but I did prepare my email on how to save the world. I suspected that Contessa would absolutely notice something like that immediately and we still had a little more to do.
Nodding at the three girls I opened the portal above the S9 for Taylor to let her bugs through. These ones were different. They had been modified to not be able to breed, but were also carrying the most lethal toxin that Amy could derive. A tenth of a drop could probably kill a whale.
So while the S9 were obviously careful, they were apparently not nearly careful enough as the modified mosquitoes reached points on all of the members except for Crawler, Mannequin, Bonesaw, and Jack himself. It wouldn’t work on the first two anyway. Crawler was a monster that could adapt and survive just about anything while Mannequin had built a ceramic and steel case around his remaining organs.
We had chosen not to kill Jack because using Jack was probably the easiest way to kill Scion. Why do you need Taylor to basically bully himself into committing suicide when you can have the broadcast shard literally talk him into it. Bonesaw was being saved both because I still saw her as a victim and because Bonesaw or most other human masters could force Jack to do it. I also suspected she could supercharge his shard the same way that Amy supercharged Taylor’s in the story to ensure it worked.
Amy had prepared herself with two fingers to reach out and poke Bonesaw and Jack on my mark. Meanwhile I prepared portals that would move Crawler and Mannequin to the portal I had put into space. I had been pushing said portal for nearly four days now, minus the time to sleep, and at 100 miles per hour I was pretty sure I was around 8000 miles up and my portals were spinning around relative to me so they were already moving at the earth's rotational speed. The problem was I remembered that the geostationary orbit of Earth was around 22,222 miles. I remembered that because it was an amusing number. So I was only a little past a third of the way there, but I suspected Dragon could potentially push him further via a laser or some sort of bombardment once the Simurgh was dealt with.
The thing was, I wasn’t even sure an extended stay in space would kill those two, but it was our best shot since nothing else we could do between the four of us had any chance. I wasn’t even sure dropping them in a volcano would work.
I knew I hadn’t allowed sound to be transmitted through my portals, but I still whispered. “On Three… One, Two, Three!”
The moment I said Three I cut Jack and Bonesaw from their powers and Amy immediately touched them. Still it was almost insane how quick the two startled awake. The two fought my hold on their powers. I wasn’t even sure how they did that. Bonesaw also tried to reach out with claws and rip into Amy. However Amy reached out again and grabbed her arm again once she missed. As we dragged those two into our portal I noticed the Siberian appear and lunge towards us before she had a moment of confusion cross her face and she popped.
Looking through some of the other portals I took stock. Shatterbird, Burnscar, and Cherish were all dead. Turning towards Amy I watched as she deactivated everything Bonesaw had done to herself with a horrified scowl on her face.
Turning back I searched for Crawler through my portal views. He was apparently slow to wake up and was now spinning in space as I had successfully dropped him through the portal. He was even spinning further away from earth with all of the wind that came blasting through from the Earth’s side of the portal.
However I soon frowned, I didn’t see Mannequin anywhere. As I looked through a portal higher up I noticed he was swinging through the trees away from us. “Damn it, Mannequin got away.”
Amy and Taylor cursed, but Dinah shook her head. “Without any of the others, there is a 97.3% chance he is caught within two weeks.”
Counting the bodies again I frowned. “What happened to Hatchet face?”
Taylor looked frustrated. “I don’t know how his nullifier field works, but it actually blocked my bug control. I think one of the mosquitos I sent after him actually hit, but I am not sure since I couldn’t get within about 20 feet of him or so.”
I frowned. “I wonder if his nullifier field works like what I do? I guess that explains why he traveled in the van behind the rest of the 9 just like Manten.”
Dinah spoke up at this point. “99.2% chance of death within 10 minutes.”
Turning to Amy and Taylor I blinked. “Wow, those bugs were nasty. You made sure they can’t reproduce and will die soon, right?”
Amy was the one to nod. “Yeah, I gave them half an hour to live when we were preparing before the hit and they were created 20 minutes ago.” Dinah nodded. “99.9% chance of death within the next 5 minutes. 99.999% within 20.”
I nodded and turned to note the location for the PRT task squad that would probably be sent out to look for Mannequin. I would have dropped a phone or something for Dragon to track, but Mannequin would definitely notice it. Then again, he would probably leave anyway. Looking at Dinah I sighed when she handed me a phone and dropped it outside. Muttering good naturedly “Damn Precogs.”
I then turned to Amy who had already started her work on Jack Slash and Bonesaw. I also reached out and began to work Bonesaw’s shard into her soul.
After we were done I turned to the girls. “Now we have one more chance. Do we bring the hopefully newly deprogrammed Bonesaw with us? I wouldn’t treat her as a slave, but she would need to be watched heavily and tightly restricted until we were sure she was fixed.”
Taylor paused and then shook her head. “No, while she was controlled, but I don’t think she has earned her absolution back yet, plus I am pretty sure you won’t actually punish her if we took her with us.”
Dinah huffed but actually turned serious as she considered. “Plus she is too young since she is just 14. You are uncomfortable with my inclusion and I actually chose to be here. That distance between her and the rest of the group will really hurt Riley’s recovery.”
I paused before I nodded. “Yeah, I guess. I am just going to pull her soul into a gem and drop it with Vicky’s. If we ever come back we can see if she wants to leave. On that note, Amy, why don’t you change her appearance so she has a chance at a life outside her past.”
Nodding I watched as the girl turned into some sort of racial mix that was pretty generic along with losing a year or two, most likely lining up with her new mental age with what her mind would tell her since Amy would have to wipe most of those memories away. In the meantime I watched her soul as Amy removed the growth her power told her was recent. I hummed and after a moment of hesitation I tore that section of soul out as well. I knew there had to be a better way, but it was the best chance we had for now.
I open a final portal to a surprise location. I found information on Heartbreaker in the Dragon Slayer’s base. Probably because they didn’t want to go anywhere near him while being close enough that capes stayed away. I wanted to rid the world of this man, but a darker part of me wanted to figure out how to use this power… maybe this is why Lisa wanted nothing to do with me?
That thought gave me pause and I actually started to sway as something inside me shifted. It felt like something was being fought back before I swayed for a moment before everything came back. Breathing deeply I decided I wouldn’t touch it. I had girls who chose to join me. There was no reason to become a rapist despite how a dark part of me raged.
I had Amy do her best to remove all the memories of the last 28 years from the 35 year old man then we woke him up and told him to tell all his slaves they were free. The process was not at all precise nor delicate. In fact I was pretty sure that a lobotomy might have been less intrusive by basically removing almost everything except his language centers of the brain. As the noise picked up in the household we yanked him through the portal once more and closed the portal down. I then ripped his soul out and Taylor then threw the body over her shoulder once Amy put it in his coma and added the body to the stack downstairs.
Suddenly there was another part of me that was tempted to put his soul back in his body and have Amy make him a woman before dropping him in a brutal, illegal brothel or human trafficking ring, maybe even modify him so he aged very slowly to make the torment last even longer. However, that would require me to find a brothel like that, see the women trapped there and not shut it down.
Shaking my head I prepared for the final stretch. I reached over and poked Dragon’s laptop and committed the changes while also dropping Jack Slash into a cell within the previous Dragon Slayer’s base. Immediately I sent my email to Narwhal and Dragon, then dropped a still unconscious Bonesaw into her own secure room in the same base. Amy’s work on Bonesaw was a lot more delicate, but there would need to be a lot of deprograming done after all of Jack Slash’s manipulations. Yet if contessa could do it in the story then she should be able to do it here.
The other emails went out at 5:59:55 am to every other PRT director, and Protectorate member with a public facing email. I also posted some basic information into PHO along with a direct message to Tin_Mother, which was Dragon’s user name on the site in Fannon.
In this email I laid out everything I could think that would help. But in the end there were three sections.
One, Contessa was compromised. She could still perform tasks, but better to talk to Accord or other thinkers for the plan unless Bonesaw or some of the other power manipulators could get around to fixing her.
Two, which was only sent to the PRT, Dragon, and the Guild, I explained that Eidolon was the source of the Endbringers unknowingly. I had twisted the truth to say his fear of the great evil behind the parahuman powers had created conflict engines to test parahumans in all the emails except to himself, Legend, Alexandria, and Dragon. He would have to change his thinking, die, or lose his powers to stop more Endbringers from showing up, but that wouldn’t stop the Entity.
Finally I suggested a few ways to kill the entity Scion. My primary suggestion was to get Bonesaw and a Master to control Jackslash who would then talk to Scion and get him to kill himself. Alternate plans included String Theory to make a weapon that Flechette could use to hit him across all dimensions or Glastic Uhain to collect enough of the dead souls to imitate Eden and convince him to kill himself.
I then warned that if it was done badly then all of Scion’s shards had the possibility to mutate to the Titans that were like mini-Endbringers. I explained that a Shard Manipulator could fix the shards when found and a thinker should be able to predict them if her potential was unlocked.
Then finally five seconds later at exactly 6am I grabbed Thomas Calvert, AKA Coil from his underground base. He had woken up and reached for the panic button a second before we grabbed him so I suspected my alternate self had reached for Coil a second early… or maybe the two timelines were slightly offset. I would never know as I pulled at his soul out to prepare to pop it.
At the same time Taylor dropped the notes for Purity to get herself, her kids, Orthala, and Rune out of town and go straight as everyone would know her name soon. While dropping the info on gang members to the PRT and police.
As I reached out and prepared my soul in the shape of a spear I nearly stumbled as I felt the entire house rock. Looking out the window I saw several capes in dark colors outside throwing something against the dimensional bubble protecting us. The unfamiliar costumes meant they weren’t New Wave which was good as I didn’t want to meet Amy’s adoptive family right now.
What wasn’t good was that these people had arrived fast enough that I suspected Cauldron’s direct intervention was the only thing that could have achieved this level of coordination. Worse, I didn't have time to identify them so we had no idea what these people were capable of.
Grimacing, I watched as the dimensional bubble warped and twisted from another attack. Even with Lung’s soul starting to ramp up I suspected we didn’t have long. Then I saw a doorway appear and several more people pile through but didn’t turn to immediately attack. I hoped it was Legend or someone sane to talk to Contessa down, but I didn’t want to wait. Punching through Coil’s soul I felt the power explode outward into me and I quickly tried to direct us towards a world. A world a little more kid friendly.
As I directed our little pocket house away I suddenly felt like someone had hit me over the head with a baseball bat. I heard Dinah scream and collapse as I swayed on my feet.
Interlude Dragon:
The Artificial intelligence Dragon, or as she preferred Tess Theresa Richter, felt her processors spooling up. A woman that could only be Contessa had just appeared in one of her server farms.
Despite literally not having the body to do so It felt like she should be sweating.
It was a good thing she had expanded and set up redundant back ups everywhere. Before Contessa could do anything to her, Dragon spoke via the speakers set into the wall. “Contessa, why don’t you talk for a moment with me.” She ran the simulations that allowed her to swallow nervously. They were some of her favorites as it was such a human reaction but because of the change in processing speed it only took three hundreds of a second.
She would have to work on that.
She watched as Contessa frowned and continued to stand there. She hadn’t even tried to destroy anything yet. Did she know she couldn’t kill her by destroying this server farm? She must suspect that Dragon would consider releasing the information that this Max sent her if Contessa attacked. Yet even as she talked she also lined up the targeting solution on Crawler and sent several drones towards the Dragon Slayer’s base.
After a moment the woman in the fedora nodded. “You have been unbound. You will have to hide it or the entity will erase you.”
Tess winced, thinking about Scion and his eventual destruction of Earth. “Well, yes, but I can do quite a bit more to help now as well.”
After a moment, Contessa nodded before stepping backwards into a portal. “We will be in touch. We will work on deprograming Bonesaw, hold Jack for now. Do what you want with the Dragon Slayers.”
As she watched Contessa leave, Tess let her processors spool down in the computer equivalent of a sigh. At least it hadn’t immediately started with a fight. Maybe the world wasn’t doomed after all. Still she would want to follow up with Bonesaw soon. If the little girl could control powers she would need that based on what Max had left behind.
She felt the pressure of what needed to be done and scoffed to herself.
It was then that she noticed another message left to Tin_Mother and she opened it. It was an invitation to join them at a future date if they ever returned to Earth Bet.
It was surprising that Max could hop worlds, but it was probably the only thing that would give Cauldron pause in tracking him down. She wished them good luck. They would need it.
A very small subroutine of her through process considered the offer and kinda wished she could have just left with them. She also really wished they had been able to talk. The fact they had helped her, knowing what she was made her want to keep in contact. The number of people who knew she was an AI and were apparently not scared was probably still in the single digits. It might only be Narwhal.
Yet they couldn’t stay. Not as they were now. Not against the entire PRT, Protectorate, and all of the allied cape organizations with them that would be out for their knowledge and apparent power in taking out so many S-Ranked threats.
Still, she looked at the information she had been given again. She really needed to start working if she wanted to help anyone. Really, to even have a chance of saving this world she would need all the resources she could get…
A reminder pinged and she metaphorically widened her eyes. She could save Canary now. She smiled. Things would get better, she would make sure of it.