Well, Isabelle didn’t kill innocents, but she had no problem Teleporting the family members of criminals across the world to the Philippines, Polymorphing them into some other appearance (gender changes involved sometimes), and Geasing them to never reveal who they had been to anyone. If they wanted to take revenge on her... she hadn’t forgotten about them, and they got one shot of mercy from her, that was all.
As for the deeply corrupt wealthy families and underworld organizations here, she had killed a whole lot of them to get what she wanted. Being a Builder, she wanted to organize the world, so she was putting up buildings and great big civil projects, and if you got in her way, she removed you. If you messed with her workers or suppliers, she removed you. If you tried to extort or blackmail her, she removed you expensively. If you sent killers after her, she removed you terminally. If you sent the law after her, she removed you, and quite frequently the corrupt authorities, too.
Brasilia’s Icy Bella: smart, wealthy, gorgeous, and unstoppable, growing an Allegiance in the heart of Brazil and having a good time doing it.
She also went from a Fifteen to a Twenty, as I waited until I quickly hooked up with Maria and Tatyana to Dupe them all back out, wanting them all to get the full Karmic Fix.
And so, yes, I made Twenty. 20/19/19, actually, and thus, so did they.
Isabelle was committing herself to making a pure Cold energy Ultra Core, just to see what happened. Given she was a Caster and willing to use those abilities, it wasn’t a vulnerability.
Maria, well, the entertainment industry was much more cutthroat than I thought, but someone with Night Rose/5, the Courtesan Ranks, and 15 (now 20) Ranks in the appropriate Skills, well, it made her rather unstoppable in an industry so dependent on Charisma and connections. If someone was an arsehole, he ate Charms, Suggestions, or even Geases, and she got what she wanted on the way to becoming a superstar.
The sex for favors things? Those people rapidly left the business entirely, most of them absent a sex drive entirely or with an undesired sex change into severely unattractive women to enjoy the life of being one. If rape or killing was on the table, well, they just left the industry permanently.
Also, she was a master of kiai-jitsu, a specialist in sound in all its forms, and probably the best sound engineer in the world. Totally eager to get a pure Thunder Core set up for herself.
Tatyana was the most fun to rejoin with, because she had been to a lot of other worlds and seen a lot of things with the Alternity Watch. The Black Widows and Red Stars adored her magical ability and skill at both Divinatory Magic and all kinds of sensor tech, and the depths of knowledge she carried around for them to make use of while she lifted tech from other worlds and brought it home to analyze and reverse-engineer. The Russians had awesome combat engineers, but yeah, Tatyana’s usefulness to the teams had reached a whole nuther level.
She’d been to over a hundred different alternate worlds, and even done some time-shifting within those worlds. Archeologist, researcher, engineer, supersnoop, troubleshooter, and trouble-finder... Tatyana’s memories were wonderful to live through, an energizing blend of science and exploration, excitement and study.
She was going to see what she could make up with a Dimensional Core, filling it up with time and space magic, dimensional energies, and the like.
-------
They all did their Psychic Reformations to return home, after which I snapped my fingers three times, and used up the last of my Madrox Duplicates.
They naturally all came out looking exactly like my normal self, but absent any magical power as yet. I glanced at them with a cantrip Assay as they looked back at me curiously.
Non, the Leader.
Dec, the Artificer.
Henda, the Detective.
“Leader, Artificer, Detective,” I informed each of them in turn. They thought that over, nodded to one another, and looked at me.
“And you don’t get our Traits until you reabsorb us,” Non said. “I’ll take over in the Baxter Building, start up the Allegiance, and focus on Lightning. Dec, how about you?”
“I got things to build. I think I’m gonna go to Xandar and make a bunch of Skrulls’ life Hell. And maybe Tony, too,” Dec replied calmly, her eyes already spinning with things to do.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
“Henda? Gonna go all Batgirl on us?” Non smiled.
Henda smiled slightly and just shook her head. “You’re forgetting the magic. I’d be a Mystic Detective.”
I couldn’t help it. I flipped my hand and held out a fedora for her. She smiled on seeing it, and promptly took it and fit it on. “I’m gonna be looking for the stuff that thinks it got away. Somebody’s gotta do it, and I’m volunteering.”
My Portal rose out of my pack, assembled, and swirled up with a route to New York. “I think I’ve enough lightning in the Pocket, and general other energies, to get you all to Six easily enough, and I’ll be dumping more as I have time.”
They all nodded as we stepped through onto the balcony at Mr. Hill’s place. Dealer was there waiting.
“Three more of us! Awesome!” she exclaimed happily, extending a hand as we updated with a flicker of light. “Alright, let’s work on your looks before Mr. Hill gets home, and get you set on your Nom de Guerres.”
I silently took off my Masspack, Vest, and Bite Gauntlets, and handed them over to Non. “Hey!” she started to protest.
“You’re going to be a new Dr. Ouilette,” I said calmly. “You’ll have the life, have the friends and family here, right? Accept Karnilla. She’ll give you a Divine and spiritual anchor.”
DD looked at me, and just sighed. “Okay,” she agreed softly, accepting the Gear. She turned around, and I pulled up her shirt to reveal the Binding Pattern there. I put my hand on the central pattern, and wove a simple transition between us. Karnilla basically would feel something shift, and that was about it.
My thoughtstreams had finished going through her memories, but held back from integrating fully as yet. I had one more big thing to do on the mystical side of things, after all.
A large vessel has just materialized in near-Earth orbit, my Cosmic Awareness informed me.
There was a breep in my ear. I closed my eyes, sighed softly, and Specs pulled it up.
It was Comet. “Yes, Carol?” I asked calmly.
“A really big ship just came out of nowhere into Terran orbit. You want to hop in?” she asked cheerfully.
I exhaled carefully. “Sure, Carol. Be right up there.” The trajectory of said ship was displayed on Specs, currently on the other side of the planet, fed from both Carol and more importantly my own Awareness.
“That was quick,” Dec noted ironically. “Take care out there, Dynamo.” She extended her hand, I took it, and I shook hands all around.
They were all watching as I Rode the Light into high orbit, flashing towards the near horizon, and left the life I’d made for myself to them for this new very, very high-end one...
----------
I flashed into place next to the meteor deflection shields of the massive vessel, right next to Primus and Lantern.
“Dynamo,” Primus greeted me, glancing up and down once. “Is that a Xandaran uniform?” he asked, startled.
“The Hag said the Xandarans were thinking of approving me issuing one, so I made a Centurion-class one for myself.” I.e., the equal of Lygaete’s, albeit in red and dark gold instead of blue and gold. Matter-manipulation is so cheaty at times. Who needs tools?
It was only a Class Seven, not a Nine, but that was still good, and I’d had to re-attune it to an Ultra Core, but that’s what a 54 Intellect was for.
“What’s your appraisal?” I asked Zhuli.
“Massive amounts of tachyons and chronatron radiation. It time-shifted into place,” the red-skinned alien stated calmly.
“From another dimension, then.” I tapped my head with a sigh. Our own future could not possibly come back into this Forsaken-enhanced temporal era. “This is Terran-made. It’s from an alternity’s future.”
“So...” Primus glanced in the direction of LaGrange, smirking. “I have read many of the Alternity Watch reports. I would hazard that they are not expecting a fully-developed space station to be sitting here at this point in time?”
“And they likely don’t recognize either of you, or me, so they are wondering exactly what is going on.”
I raised my hand and shot out some force pulses to a certain section of the hull.
Dun dun-da-dundun...dun dun!
“Shave and a haircut?” Primus asked incredulously. “Will they even know what that means?”
I just held up a hand as I keyed up Specs. “Hey there. This is High Guard Dynamo on an open line. You’re an unauthorized starship in high orbit around our world. From a military standpoint, we have a really good justification to wreck the shit out of you for this unannounced surprise visit. You wanna answer hails before we start breaking things and push you out of your world-threatening deployment?”
There were a few seconds of static before a reply came... in Stater English. “Um, hello there. This is Major Vance Astro of the Freedom’s Lady. Our, uh, apologies for surprising you with our arrival. We weren’t expecting anyone to be able to see us up here...”
Primus and Lantern looked at me, impressed. I just shrugged.
“First order of business, Major. Leave orbit and take up proper station, either holding by LaGrange Station, or request permission to dock there. I think we can fit your little vessel there.
“Oh, and set up a proper identifier beacon, like a polite visitor should.”
“Yes, ma’am. Should we drop our cloak?” was the polite reply.
“You can keep it up until you reach LaGrange, or you’re going to panic the terrestrial powers below. LaGrange? Can you take this over?”
Cerise’s voice broke in smoothly, “Freedom’s Lady, here is your vector. Are you going to shuttle or dock?”
“If you’ve room, we will dock, LaGrange,” was the immediate reply, even as the big ship began to move with surprising speed and deftness.
“Future tech, Terran. Vance Astro.” Primus looked at me. “The Guardians of the Galaxy?”
“Probably following Korvac. Can you get the reports on the ones removed by the Widows and what alternities they came from?” I asked as we flew along, easily pacing the ship as it exited orbit and moved out to a proper approach path to LaGrange.
“One moment. Lantern, can you give us a causality reading?”
Zhuli’s Lantern glowed and ran up and down the ship’s hull lightly. “Earth-2790,” he reported calmly.
Carol’s voice chimed in, “Accessing... yeah, alternity-temporal invasion removed sixty-one days after Champion’s tournament, registered as 2790.”
“Well, aren’t they going to be a bit surprised that they crossed time and dimensions for nothing.”