fics I read

January 12th 2016 Lord Mansion 8:00 PM EDT

Fafnir and Bonebreaker didn't stop fucking after twelve hours. Apparently she had enough fun to keep going when the thing wore off, and then they fell asleep. I got the notification for her points after about eight hours, which was pretty impressive, and I was back at a hundred and one thousand. Pretty much all my minions were now G rank, which was nice, but I was still kicking around somewhere in H I was pretty sure.

I could have theoretically merged myself with some stuff like I'd done to Whisper, but it seemed like such a big risk. With her I could reverse it with another merge, but with me I might accidentally fuck myself up and get stuck as a rock or something. I sent for the two bruisers when they woke up, and waited for them to come up for dinner. I'd ordered pizza, specifically twenty of them, which I'd merged into ten I rank pizzas because I liked the taste of I ranked food.

When they finally arrived Waylon was in human form and Bonebreaker was limping but satisfied. I'd sent orders through the mark after it formed not to attempt to escape or harm anyone here which i was betting she'd noticed since I hadn't been subtle. I gestured for them to sit down and they both did. "Good evening, have some pizza. There's plenty for everyone. I trust you both had a nice day?" I gave them a teasing smirk, visible since I didn't have my mask on.

Bonebreaker smirked back. "Sure did. Big daddy over there broke my ass in half. I've never taken lizard dick before but I don't think I can switch back to the regular flavor. Gator sausage stretches a pussy but good." I think she was expecting her crudeness to throw me off balance, but if so, she picked the wrong fucking guy, I just took a bite of pizza, which was delicious and stuffed crust, and swallowed happily.

I smiled casually. So you may be wondering why you haven't left or attacked me." The compulsion made her do things, not think things. Dopamine reinforcement like the whole "agree with this" thing I did to Barbie was on the line of what was possible and took a long ass time to work if it even did. Direct orders just made people do what I said, regardless of what they wanted or thought.

Her smile dropped. "Yeah. What the fuck did you do to me. I got up after that dicking and tried to walk out, but I physically couldn't leave. My legs wouldn't work, and not in the fun way. You slip me some mind control drugs or something with that horny pill?" I could tell from her posture that she desperately wanted to lunge over the table at me, but she wasn't able to attack because of her orders.

I shook my head. "Take your top off." She did, though oddly the idea of baring her tits in a room full of strangers was apparently less upsetting than not being allowed leave, because she gave zero fucks about letting her admittedly large tits bounce free. Waylon looked interested but not particularly excited by them, probably from copious exposure. "Look at the bottom of your left breast." She did, shifting slightly and pushing it in a bit to get a good view.

She frowned at me. "I have a tattoo now? I'll be honest, I didn't even think I could get those. Plus, an orange snake wouldn't be my first pick. But so what? You inject some kind of mind control ink into me or something?" I could see her trying to figure out how to get the thing off her, but I just shook my head with a chuckle. The brand was applied to the soul, it just showed up on the body as a consequence. You couldn't remove it.

I respected her urge to be free, but it would never be fulfilled. "No. It's not a tattoo. It's a brand. It basically means I own your soul. Any order I give, you will obey, instantly and without question. If I ordered you to die, you would, instantly. Your heart would stop and you would cease to live." I was in my more formal Mammon speech pattern because this felt villain adjacent, but I tried to turn that off since she would be here long term. "In other words, your ass is mine."

I turned to Waylon. "Sorry man, hope that's not stepping on your toes. I got her mostly to be your playmate and backup anyway. But I won't touch the goods if it bugs you." I didn't cuck bros, though if he didn't mind me taking a shot I'd try that ass out. I usually didn't dig muscle girls, but Sally was pretty sexy. Regardless, I turned back to her. "That was the stick. The fact that you don't have a choice. Now comes the carrot. Whisper, show our guest a little light show."

Whisper leaned her head back and breathed out an orb of prismatic fire forming a perfect sphere before inhaling it again. I gestured to her. "I was able to give Whisper powers by merging her with a unique animal. I gave Waylon more control and made him stronger with a mutagen serum I made. I can improve your powers and abilities too. I can do lots of things, including, I believe eventually heal injuries, or even raise the dead. Wouldn't it be nice to see your daughters again. Sally?"

She froze. I'd been thinking long and hard on this one, and I knew there were items in the world that could raise the dead. Dad had done research on them for several of his schemes, and I'd seen it. If there was an item that could raise the dead, there was a RANK of item that could raise the dead, which meant I could eventually make resurrection items. I'd check with Crassus on that and he'd done it personally so I knew it was legit.

Exposing that fact to the people in this room was barely a risk. I owned their asses one and all. Granted I could just force her to obey, but as I'd noted with Barbie she could work her ass off to make sure I regretted it. There were always loopholes to be found. But if she WANTED to serve me, she would exploit her efforts to make sure she accomplished my goals instead of trying to fuck them up at every turn.

She glared at me. "You expect me to believe you can raise the fucking dead? Because I ain't buying. Making some monster people and forcing me to take my top of doesn't mean you can do anything. Why the fuck should I believe you have that kind of power? Can you prove it?" That was a fair question, luckily while I couldn't prove it, I did have a pretty decent idea of how to do it.

I pulled out a folder I'd grabbed from the old man's office, passing it to her. "My ability, as it were, is to merge things. Mutagens, people, items, chemicals, doesn't matter. I can mix things together and make them better. There are for instance, already things that can raise the dead. If I can't make something from scratch I can make a variant of that stuff that's safe to use." I pointed to the folder dad had on something called the Lazarus Pit.

The details were scarce, mostly just stories and secondhand accounts. He didn't know where to find one or how they worked, but they did exist, and he'd found evidence of that. Which meant they could be tracked down. She read through the folder. "I...I can't decide if I believe this. I want to, gods do I want to, but I also feel like I can't afford to, but if it's possible I also can't afford not to." She dropped the folder. "Fine. You can make me do anything you want anyway, so you don't gain much from bullshitting me. Say I believe this. Why offer it at all? Why not just make me your bitch?"

I shrugged. "I could do that. I could do anything I want to you. But I couldn't make you WANT me to do that. You would resent it, struggle, fight back every step. I'd have to spend all my time coming up with annoying contingency orders to make sure you didn't find any loopholes, or micromanaging you like a fucking zombie to make sure you didn't have the free will to try to fuck me over, and both of those sound exhausting as hell."

I spread my arms. "I'm a greedy guy, but once you're mine, you're mine. I don't mind the allocation of my treasure as long as it belongs to me, and what's yours is always going to be mine. If paying you a bonus or bringing back your kids makes you fall in line and I can do it why the fuck not? Like I said, I believe I can eventually do it, but I don't know for sure, but hell you don't lose anything taking the gamble. So what do you say? You willing to come onboard for real?"

I felt that fetish for submission twinging a bit, pushing her in the right direction, and I was glad I added it. But I knew I had her anyway. There was no downside here. I'd keep an eye on her, but I knew when someone was going to cave. I smiled triumphantly. "Now. I'm going to make you prove yourself before I boost your ability, but I have some fun ideas for that." I was planning to make her the golem girl I'd considered making Whisper. It fight well with her power set.

She rolled her eyes. "And I assume the first way I can do that is to give you all the info I have on Knightfall and co. Honestly I should probably feel bad about it, but with my kids on the line I can't bring myself to care about some crazies. Like I said, aside from the boss there's three including me. Katharsis is a big ass Laotian chick with purple hair. Used to be a cop. No powers, but she has artificial wings and carries a weird looking sword. She's dangerous and can kick ass with or without the weapon."

I nodded, filing away all the info. Sounded like she wouldn't be a big threat though, not even to me. I gestured for her to go on. She nodded. "The other one is Bleak Michael. Black guy with white hair and blue eyes. Works with poisons and chemicals and shit. Don't know much about him, he's quiet. The loner thing is probably partly about the poison stuff, but who knows. I sure as hell didn't try to make friends."

She shrugged. "That's all I know. Knightfall didn't share much. I did catch her slipping a time or two when she talked though. She's young. Like your age I think. She referenced some things from her childhood that had happened recently. Just in passing but it stood out to me because she had the aura of someone older than I knew she was. That's all I've got. Really."

I nodded to her. "I believe you. Just eat some pizza, you're on the team, and even though you still need to prove yourself I'm not going to lock you up or anything." My phone chimed as I said that and waved her off as I checked it, expecting it to be Dinah or Barbie. It wasn't. It was the Calculator. He'd found the location of Roy Harper. He sent me the documents regarding the kid and I scrolled through them.

Interesting. Trained sidekick, missing an arm, held in cryogenic stasis. I could tell Jade about him now, but I had a better idea. My team didn't have anyone long range yet. I was going to steal an archer. Once I had him branded I'd give him to Jade and use handing him over as leverage to get her too. One could never have too many nice things. I grinned up at my people. Time for a field test. "Alright boys and girls, finish your pizza, we're going on a field trip."

January 13th 2016 Tibet 10:00 PM EDT

The Calculator was REALLY fucking good at his job. Like seriously, Tibet? I never would have fucking found this kid. I was kind of curious why Cheshire hadn't hired the hacker, but then I remembered how much I fucking paid him. Luckily I had a private jet, so making the preparations to come here was pretty simple, if relatively annoying. Still even with perfect body control and a whole team of metas the trip to this secret base was fucking annoying. Luckily whoever the hell stored Roy here was thorough enough to keep documentation of this secret base in their records. Or they weren't and Calculator sifted it out of their metadata or some shit.

So here we were, under a cliff overhang looking down at what looked like an actual Tibetan monastery. "Huh. I think this place is staffed with legit monks." I turned to my team. Fafnir was transformed and Bonebreaker was in costume, while Whisper had a domino mask on that she'd gotten from...somewhere. With her ridonculous booty and literal wings I didn't see her keeping her secret identity secret, but hey, it was her call, maybe I'd make her a mask like mine later. " Any of you guys mind beating up a bunch of monks?"

A series of head shakes was enough answer for me. "Glad to hear it. So we take the two pronged approach here. Whisper, you fly me up to that bell tower and we come in from up top, Fafnir and Bonebreaker you go in from the ground floor through the wall. Make some noise and draw them off." They nodded to me and headed out into the snow. Whisper wrapped her arms around me and zipped us over onto the bell tower. There was a monk over there on guard, but we were on the opposite side from the entrance, and they apparently didn't think to account for flight.

I crossed the distance to the monk in seconds, wrapping him up in a choke hold until I felt his muscles relax and he dropped his...spear, then setting him down. Whisper and I slipped through a trap door and down into the temple. More spear wielding guys with face coverings walked past. I wasn't a monk but I was pretty sure they didn't usually pack spears. We crept down a ladder and into a ridiculously bright red hallway, seeing a few patrolling spearmen coming around the corner. Luckily that didn't really matter because there was a loud crash and the spear wielders took off at top speed in that direction.

I grinned behind my mask. Fafnir sure knew how to make an entrance. I followed the hallway down to a large red door that glowed in my masks treasure sight. Only red, but still, it was clearly slightly valuable. Seemed as good a lead as any. I turned to Whisper. "Burn it." She smirked and then inhaled puffing out a rolling wave of crystalline prismatic fire. The door was completely consumed within seconds, and I raised and eyebrow at her, smirking. "Impressive." She blew me a kiss, walking into the room and I gave that big fat ass a swat for luck as she passed, drawing an adorable squeak from mt viper.

We made it into the room and I looked around with interest. Blue generators coated the whole place in ice, and in the center was a big ass pod with what looked like a human shape in it. I muttered beneath my mask to Crassus. "So I need to convince this traumatized kid to swear loyalty to me if I want him on my crew?" Because I had no idea how the hell I was supposed to manage that shit.

[What? No. Just steal him. He's a statue. He's been a statue for years. No brain activity, no choices or ability to make decisions. Take the pod and the statue is yours, the Brand will remain once he thaws.]

I blinked. "Wait...what? Then can I just immobilize anyone and steal them?" Because if so I'd been doing this shit wrong. I would have come up with some kind of paralytic ages ago if I'd known that. If I'd gone through all this effort converting people for no fucking reason I was going to be seriously pissed.

[Nah, the kid hasn't moved in years. He's been in that frozen state long enough to develop an identity as a tradeable resource...it's complicated. Suffice to say if you find any other people in hibernation or some shit, it's possible you might be able to grab them, but otherwise just consider it a no go.]

I blew out a breath. That was a relief. It would have been convenient, but I was pretty sure I'd have gone ballistic over the wasted time. I stepped forward and reached out to touch the pod, mentally deciding it was mine. I felt the Brand form basically instantly. Which was just...neat. I nodded to Whisper who stepped up and tapped a button on the side panel. The door opened in a whoosh of steam as the kid went from popsicle to almost awake in literally seconds. I stepped forward past him to study the cryogenic freezing unit. I used appraise.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Cryo-pod-G rank. A cutting edge cryogenic stasis pod that can be used to place a patient into an easily reversible stasis. Created by the genius Professor Anthony Ivo using designs stole from Victor Fries, this pod represents the apex of human cryogenic technology.]

I debated having Fafnir take it. He could carry it easily, and it was G rank. I decided to have him bring it with us. Speak of the devil, I heard lumbering footsteps behind us and turned to greet my henchman, before freezing. The very large very ugly man standing at the door was NOT Fafnir. In fact, he was nobody I knew, but I was pretty sure I recognized his appearance based on descriptions from my Kobra Venom research. "Huh. Mammoth."

Mammoth was, as mentioned. An ugly motherfucker. His skill was like discolored leathery green and had split at the seams in multiple spots from his body expanding. His stringy red hair barely looked like it fit on his head, looking like a mop of straw clinging to his misshapen skull. He bared his yellowed crooked teeth at me. "Looks like they weren't being paranoid after all. Number Man noticed some weird stuff going on in the files for this place, but the others thought it was nothing."

I sighed, well, that made sense. It would figure someone with enough pull to set this place up had a hacker on staff. I sighed. "See. You shouldn't have told me that. Because it means that now I have to kill you to make sure you can't report back to your bosses about any of this." I dove forward into a picture perfect roll and popped up into a blow to Mammoths jaw. He stepped back with a grunt and rocked a bit but otherwise showed no real sign of the impact.

Annoying. The ugly bastard had taken the OTHER Kobra Venom, the stupid kind that boiled your brain in hormone soup and was pure force with no mental enhancement. Which of course meant he was completely inferior to me. Except in the case of raw physical output, in which he had a distinct edge. He sneered and aimed a backhand at me that I easily avoided. Force equals mass times acceleration, bigger things hit harder as long as you move them at the same speed. However, smaller things move EASIER. He was slightly stronger, but only slightly, and I was faster, which I could work with.

He growled with frustration throwing out a storm of punches, trying to crush me, but I slipped aside at every hit. Aside from being big and slow, he was also a fucking idiot. I wasn't a master combatant yet, but I WAS a master of body language, and this ugly fuck would have been telegraphing up a storm to me even if half his muscles weren't literally fully exposed for me to watch. The more he missed the angrier he got, and I just slipped in where I could and hammered in punches.

Not randomly either. I hit the same fucking spot every time, a small point on his ribs that his body seemed to subconsciously favor. Nothing current, more like an old injury that had healed already. But if it broke once it could break again, and I kept smashing my force fielded fist into his side in a perfect body turning martial arts punch courtesy of Barbie's katas. He tried to defend, but he was so livid at being led around by the nose he couldn't stop swinging, and he left me an opening every time.

One, two, three blows right to the short ribs, and the more I hurt him the angrier he got. I knew Whisper probably wanted in on this fight, and as I beat him to a fucking pulp I had an idea. "Whisper, you get that mental burn down?" We'd never used it, but it was possible that destroying Mammoths mind would throw them off the scent. Maybe they would assume his shitty brain finally gave out, at the very least it would send them after telepaths because no one knew Whisper had that ability.

She responded immediately. "Of course my lord." I grinned beneath my mask, that was perfect. I backed off, gesturing for her to go ahead. She stepped forward, passing me the kid, who had the orange serpent on the bicep of his missing arm. With some focus I moved it, shifting it up into his hair, once the glow faded it would be completely impossible to notice unless they shaved him. She stepped up gracefully, putting a nice wiggle on her hips to show off her booty for me, and then exhaled another gout of flame.

This time the flames hit Mammoth and consumed nothing. He caught fire, but none of him burned. Whisper's prismatic glassflame could burn the physical or the mental, and I hadn't ever seen the mental before. Despite the lack of serious damage there was obviously tons of pain involved, because Mammoth dropped like a rock and started to scream. Not like 'oh shit my hand is burned' screaming either. Fire wouldn't cause this. This wasn't a scream of pain, but of torment. He wasn't just hurting. He was scared, angry, depressed, and a dozen other things.

I have to be honest, I got a little sick watching his fucking mind burn away. He just lay there, twitching on the ground until he stopped making any noise at all, at which point his eyes lolled back to stare blankly at the ceiling, no one home inside his head. I turned to Whisper who was looking a little green around the gills herself. "Ok, that? You don't do that to anyone else unless I say so. That was fucked up." She nodded, looking disturbed, and I handed her back the awake but still very dazed Roy.

A loud ruble sounded down the hallway as a pair of forms approached. I waved cheerfully. "Nice job on the distraction guys. Ignore the living corpse on the floor. One of you take the kid from Whisper, we gotta bounce." Bonebreaker took the kid, because lizard spikes, and we made our way out. It occurred to me that they could question the monks, but they'd only seen Bonebreaker and Fafnir, the latter of whom looked MUCH different and the former technically worked for Knightfall.

I turned to Bonebreaker. "We're going to need to get you a new costume. Fafnir has another form to hide out in so whoever owns this place won't be able to find him. I'll have him lay low for a while, but your costume is noticeable. Best to replace it and let them focus on Knightfall for a while." The idea of whatever secret cabal this was trying to track down Knightfall made me smile, so I decided that was the plan we would go with. Meanwhile no one would ever know I was here. "Alright folks, back to the plane. We need to get the kid home and bring him into the crew before I hand him over to the milf I found him for."

January 14th 2016 Pacific Ocean Airspace 3:00 AM EDT

Roy woke up on fully on the plane. Which I really should have expected. He'd started to come to back at the temple, but he hadn't had the energy, so he'd passed back out and sort of been in and out of consciousness since. When he finally came to, he was...belligerent. Which caused me to get annoyed and just order him to shut up. Which he did. Which made him MORE belligerent. Luckily Waylon was there to loom over him menacingly and make him sit the fuck down and listen to what I had to say.

I glared at him. "Stay sitting, I'm not letting you talk until I say my piece. Now, today is January thirteenth two thousand and sixteen. I don't know how long you were on ice, but I know I was a while. I just rescued you from a fate worse than death, so before you talk shit, ponder exactly where you would be without me. Now, you can talk." I wanted to see what he would say after realizing I could order him around. He just glared at me, little shit had a serious attitude problem, but I could work with that.

He stared at me for a minute before he spoke, finally using his damn brain. "So what, you save my life and now I work for you out of gratitude. You obviously implanted some kind of mind control. I'm supposed to fall all over myself with gratitude because you wanted a puppet?" His sneer was still belligerent, but also a bit nervous, he was very obviously out of his depth here.

I chuckled at the tough guy act. I liked the kid. "No. I didn't implant mind control, it's deeper than that. I own your soul now." I nodded to my minions. "Just like I own theirs. But there are...benefits to that. You've been stuck in a tank for gods know how many years. They took your arm, took your life, took everything from you. I can't undo that seal, but I don't have to use it, I can let you go, let you run back to your old life and your old friend, but the question becomes...do you want me to?"

I gestured for Whisper to step forward. "This is Whisper. She used to be a small time criminal preacher for the Religion of Crime." I looked at my viper. "Show him your wings, lovely." She did, unfurling the tattooed feathered wings that shone with many colors. "Whisper was a normal person Roy. Just like you. Now she's strong enough to take on mid tier metas and getting stronger. She can fly fast enough to cross a large room in an eye blink, and is strong enough to throw a...well not a car. A refrigerator maybe."

His jaw tightened. "And this costs me what? My free will? I do what you say and you'll make me stronger. I've heard that pitch before. It never ends well." Despite saying that I could see his eyes flicked to Whisper's wings. The kid wanted power, and he wasn't picky about how he got it. I knew who he was. Speedy. Green Arrow's former bonus for stealing him had told me he was part of the League and an appraisal hold told me the rest. I didn't know what they did with his arm, but they thought he was useful enough to keep for all this time so aside from getting me into some assassin pussy he had to be good for something.

I sighed. "Roy, stand up and hop on one foot." He did. He was not amused, but I just let him keep hopping. "See, I don't need to brainwash you. I don't need to trick you. I own you, kid. That's not a euphemism, I could literally tell you to jump out of this fucking plane and you would do it. So this isn't me trying to turn you into a perfect killing machine. I could make you that easily. Strip away your free will with complicated orders so you would basically be a meat robot operating on my every whim."

I sent a silent command telling him to stop and sit down. "But I don't want that. Frankly being your shadowy puppet master sounds fucking annoying. It's time consuming and requires planning and foresight. I don't want that hassle. It's so much easier for me if you WANT to work for me. The thing about the stick is you have to keep whacking the person with it, but the carrot just dangles there, and then they do all the work."

I steepled my fingers, enjoying the imagery of the composed villain as I gave him my pitch. "So this is the offer Roy. You

want your arm back? You want to be strong? Fast? You want money? Cars? Women? I can get you those. And more importantly I can give you the chance to take revenge. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, because I still have no fucking clue who owns that tricked out monastery. But by the time I'm done with you whoever it is will be very sorry that they ever fucked with you."

I found myself hoping he took me up on it. I wasn't lying. I didn't want to deal with any of the hassle of training him to be a lapdog. I'd just compel him to keep his mouth shut and hand him over to Jade. I'd get my milf fuck eventually and he'd never even seen my face so even if a telepath got at him it's not like this shit would lead back to me anytime soon. But I liked his spunk. He reminded me of me, albeit much more pissed off and with a party sized bag of chips on his shoulder. He was morally grey rather than the black and white the League like their people to be.

He bit his lip. "You...you could regrow my arm? And make me strong?" His voice sounded vulnerable, and I felt for the kid. I nodded to Whisper, nonverbally commanding her to help me reel him in. Damaged teens were her bread and butter, and Roy was going to need a minder. He was young and impulsive, Whisper would be able to channel that best. She could be the kids new mommy and keep him on a leash.

I grinned behind my mask. "Of course I can." I gestured to my bodyguard. "You ever heard of Killer Croc? Waylon used to be Killer Croc. He was stuck with a problem he wanted gone, and once he started working for me I not only gave him the ability to transform to a normal human form, I gave his other form an upgrade. Show him." Waylon knelt down, because ten foot spiky lizard men don't fit well in private jets, and shifted into his serpentine form and then back. Roy was gaping at him. "Now, if I can do that, don't you think regrowing an arm will be a snap."

Whisper stepped up next to him, resting a soft hand on his arm. Her soothing, vaguely Irish lilt was comforting and kind as she spoke. "We know what you've been through Roy. We've all been hurt before. Mammon wants to help you. Sure, he might get something out of it, but is that so bad? Isn't it only fair that your rescuer gets a reward? Does it really matter to you if he benefits when you get all the things you want? We're all you have Roy. Everyone else has left you behind, it's been years, do you think they all just stopped and waited?"

I stood up, walking over to the private fridge and taking out a pair of black cherry sodas. Then I thought about it and took out two more, merging them into a pair of I rank drinks. The ten points to upgrade food was literally a drop in the bucket to me, so I did it pretty often now. I was at a hundred and two thousand. Since Speedy was only I rank and a non powered sidekick I only got a thousand for him, I was pretty sure the system rounded down for the arm. I walked over, popping the top and handing it to him.

He took it numbly, taking a sip with one shaking hand. I sat down and, deciding I almost had him, took my mask off. Showing him some trust would speed up the process, and I wanted to get him fully on my side in a few days so I could give him to Jade already mentally protected and back in fighting shape. I wasn't sure what I was going to merge him with, but I'd throw a mind defense pill into the mix when I made it to keep them out of his head and then order him to keep quit as a safety precaution.

He seemed surprised by how young I was, but he didn't know me, obviously. I smiled. "I'm Nicholas Lord. Everyone calls me Nicky. If we're going to be working together I figured it would only be fair for you to know my name like I know yours. Drink up, the soda is excellent." I took a sip of my own, savoring the taste. I loved black cherry soda. It was one my fathers few indulgences. He said drinking alcohol dulled the senses, and the sweet drink was one of the rewards he allowed himself.

The kid sipped the soda and his eyebrows rose in surprise as he stared at the bottle. Which was fair. It was peak I rank soda. Real gourmet shit. Now I just had to get the kid squared away and I'd be one step closed to getting my hands on Jade's tight little ass. I needed a spy in my crew. Barbie was useful enough but she was League, so I had to handle the whole thing with her carefully. My personal team was much more...outside the lines, and it was coming along well.

I'd decided against adding Mal in the end, at least anytime soon. He owed me and he would be a good source of intel and support within the League, but it wasn't worth the risks to bring him in fully. Besides he would be subpar as a bruiser compared to Bonebreaker and Waylon. I'd put Roy on range, Whisper would handle our PR and mental shit, and Jade could be my spy and assassin. With them and the information on the kidnappers I could start taking my potshots at the big fish while I tracked down and ousted Knightfall.

I felt a buzz from my pocket and pulled out my phone. I was on a sat plan so I got service pretty much anywhere. It was from Dinah. She didn't know she was pregnant yet. I'd looked it up and the egg didn't attach to the wall of the uterus for about ten days. It had been five so I had at least that long. I didn't think even Superman could tell this early, though for all I knew he could smell the hormones or some shit. She was asking to come over, but I told her I was out of town on a trip with some friends and I'd see her when I got back.

I put my phone away and looked at the newest member of my team. Roy wasn't big, five ten tops, and he wasn't intimidating. He was however, in shape and based on body language pretty damn well trained. Not Barbie levels, but GA had clearly put some time into him before letting him out on the streets. I made a mental note to thank the emerald archer, though I would probably need to do it before he found out I'd knocked up his long term girlfriend. The question remained though, what exactly should I merge Roy with for the best effect. Animal? Mineral? So many possibilities. This was definitely my favorite part of recruiting.

January 14th 2016 Lord Mansion 11:00 AM EDT

It was time to make some magic. I had to admit, I was excited. Roy was joining up, as expected, and it was time for me to create his new self. I palmed an Elixir of Mental Aegis and considered my options. After looking over everything though I turned to Roy and decided to just ask. "So...what do you want to be?" My personal preference was animal, it had gone over well so far, but mineral or hell, even vegetable might work. Though I kind of wanted to save plant merging for a hot girl, I'd love to own a Dryad.

We were in the room I set aside for all the stuff Whisper brought me last time. I'd sent her out for more when we got back a few hours ago, and her flight speed made picking up supplies much easier. Now I had a whole shit load of random stuff laid out here for potential merges and I was ready to work. Honestly though I was fine letting Roy pick his own changes, the kid would probably fall in line better if he could, and I wasn't into dudes so I didn't care overly much how he ended up after he finished his transformation.

I was going to merge him with an F rank object or being to get him up to G where my other minions were, but exactly what kind of F rank artifact or being was still up in the air. He seemed to be really into guns, but I felt like making him a human gun would probably turn out weird. I wasn't nixing the idea, but I really hoped he picked something else, hell even a sword would be better.

I expected him to go for the weapons, or maybe even the animals, but he gravitated further down, coming up to a bar of steel. He picked the thing up, weighing it in his hand. "So how does this work exactly? You combine me with this and I'm what? A robot? How is this going to regrow my arm exactly?" He had a point actually, if he decided to go with a more unusual transformation. I decided to get the arm out of the way early.

I grabbed a couple things from the pile. A bit of scar remover for the body aspect, and a worm for limb regeneration, along with a battery for speed and power. I through in some antibiotics just for a general pick me up, and merged the J ranked items together into a pair of I ranked items, and the I's together into an H. Once the tube of ointment was done combined it with an H rank healing pill I had from the drug store just to make sure it would be up to the task and appraised it.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Regeneration tonic- G rank. Supercharge the body of the user to instantly heal any and all wounds. Scars will be erased and lost or missing extremities will be regrown.]

I tossed it to him. "You have a point, so we do the arm first. A proof of concept if you will." He stared in shock at the brown spherical pill in his hand, something I'd cobbled together from a few random odds and ends and swirled together in a flash of light like magic. Which...it probably was, not that I'd bothered to wonder about mechanics. But still, a G rank item cost me a grand which brought down to one hundred and five thousand after the supplies Whisper brought on this most recent run.

He stared up at me searchingly, then swallowed hard and, face firming in determination, tossed the pill back while he had the nerve. His body, upon being exposed, locked up, and he fell over, stiff as a board and twitching stiffly on the ground. The marble in my bedroom wasn't exactly comfy, but then, I didn't really care. I waited for five minutes as his skin all fell off and some dead hair fell away to be regrown. The limb was last, and it was pretty disturbing. A skeletal arm tore it's way out of his stump and then the torn flesh grew down over the bones.

Still, unpleasant or not, it did work, and once he finished screaming he looked...well more wary than grateful, but I saw at least a bit of gratitude in there. He stood up out of a mess of dead skin and hair, which Whisper swept forward to...well, sweep. I stared at the kid, bored. "Now, I believe we were designing your future self. You might be stuck with whatever we pick for life so I'd put some real thought into this" He stared at me, part awe and part fear, before nodding and turning back to the table.

Instead of picking one thing to focus on he picked out things that spoke to him. I figure he expected I'd merge them all together and make something new for him, which to be fair was completely accurate. He looked at Whisper, who smiled encouragingly, and I smirked internally, poor kid was desperate for a mommy, and Whisper knew all the buttons to press. That would make things easier.

To my surprise, he picked out a snake as his base, a spitting cobra to be exact. He also grabbed a large sniper rifle. Both were I rank already. He looked around for a bit and finally grabbed an H rank vial of poison. I stopped him once he got there. That was all I needed. I combined the gun and the snake, then the result with the venom, and then merged that with the G ranked elixir to create my final F ranked product, bringing me down to ninety four thousand points. I appraised the result with relish.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Deathtongue Cobra- F rank. A deadly creature of steel and poison. The Deathtongue cobra is scaled body and mind in hardened steel and moves with the speed of a bullet to attack it's target, immune to mental interference and resistant to all but the strongest physical blows. Upon excreting it's venomous spit, the substance hardens into a metallic projectile capable of traveling great distances. Following penetration of it's victims flesh the metal is absorbed into the bloodstream as fast acting poison.]

I blinked...it was a metal snake that could spit poison rifle shots? That was fucking awesome. I looked at Roy with new respect. "Holy shit, kid. You have good taste. This thing is metal, both literally and figuratively." I paused. "Wait, you were kidnapped in like two thousand two or something right? Was that term in common use back then?" I shrugged. "Fuck it, who cares, point is this is a top class F ranked beastie. You ready to become one with the snake?" I was curious to see what he would keep from the combination. Some of all of it for sure, but I didn't know how much.

He swallowed hard before nodding. "Yeah. Yeah I am. This is going to give me the power I need right?" I nodded seriously and he took a deep breath. "Alright, then I'm ready. Where are we doing this? Right here?" I obviously didn't want the kid turning into a twitching mess of mutating flesh on my marble floors...again. So I sent him to the bathroom. Once he left I picked up the Cobra, completely docile before it's owner, and carried it inside after him.

I was actually curious how merging him like this would affect his interactions with me. I knew that humans weren't mentally effected by the brand so much as physically. They did as told because they had to, but it didn't change how they thought, but he was going to be merging with this snake, and it obeyed me without question and seemed to genuinely adore me, just like the other serpent. I had noticed Whisper being more devoted post merge, so it made me curious if she was getting something from her animal side that made her more docile.

If that was the case Roy was likely to become much more manageable after I finished up his transformation. I told him to kneel down on the tile and draped the cobra around his neck, where it waited patiently, and then I triggered another merge. I went down to ninety three thousand this time, spending a grand on making a G ranked minion from the F ranked serpent. Despite the downgrade I considered it a net positive for me. Humans were smarter than animals and just as easy to control.

[Appraisal function activated. Treasure detected. Roy Harper- G rank Deathtongue Cobra-kin. A powerful long ranged attacker in the service of Nicholas Lord. Roy feels both fear and gratitude towards his new employer. Inheriting the Deathtongue cobras mental immunity, physical durability, and venomous metal projectile spit, Roy is a walking weapon with a grudge to settle against the people who kidnapped him and stole his arm to create a sleeper agent clone.]

I blinked. That last part was...weird. I hadn't been aware of that bit of info. I filed it away for future use. Roy was...fine. I remembered belatedly that Whisper's merge hadn't been much trouble either. The difference between taking mutagens and being directly combined I supposed. I helped him to his feet. "So? How do you feel kid?" I gave him a quick run down on his abilities in case he wasn't just naturally predisposed to them, and I saw his face light up with excitement.

His eyes, still blue but now with a slit pupil, were wide with eagerness, and his skin took on a darker greyer tone at vulnerable points as it was dusted with metallic scales. "I feel...amazing. Like I could do anything." He bounced on his toes and threw a few punches, fast ones. Faster than I could manage. My mutagen had been peak G rank, but it had been used on a mostly normal person, not to mention it was kind of a jack of all trades upgrade. I personally was only about H rank in terms of physical power.

I still had ninety three thousand GP, once I got to a hundred thousand again, I could afford an E rank upgrade. I was still on the fence about what the hell to do though. Should I merge with an animal? Make another mutagen with the Kobra Venom stock I still had? I was just so damn torn. I could lean more into the serpent thing, or I could try to do something totally new. I shook that off. That was a hypothetical for later, for now I had something more important to do.

I turned to the kid. "So...want to go to the window and see how far that poison bullet spit can go?" He grinned and we bolted out of the bathroom to the balcony outside my room. Once we got there we both scanned the sky for something that would work as a target, and when we found something he focus and turned to get a running start. I grabbed him. "You missed a bunch of stuff, but spoiler, running starts trying to spit off a balcony never end well. Someone learned that the hard way."

He flushed slightly but nodded. Narrowing his eyes, he focused into the distance then reared back and spat. There was a loud crack, and my eyes widened as Roy's throat bulged slightly and a shot rang out from between his lips. The bird nearly three hundred yards away that he'd been eyeing literally exploded in a burst of feathers and I blinked. Holy shit. When the system said long distance it wasn't kidding. I turned to Roy, who was grinning like a look. "Ok. I admit it. This is awesome." I clapped the kid on the shoulder. It really was.

January 14th 2016 Gotham City 6:00 PM EDT

Once we had Roy all fixed up and closed his brain off I gave Jade a call to arrange a meeting. The phone only rang twice before she answered. "What do you want? I'm in the middle of something." Probably trying to put her kid to sleep, judging by the crying in the background, but I didn't much care. She'd need to find a sitter. I assumed that getting someone to watch your kid when you were an assassin required another level of trust entirely.

I chuckled. "It's Mammon. I found and retrieved Roy Harper." There was a stunned silence on the other side of the line, so I kept talking. "He was in a temple in Tibet, now he's here. Same deal we agreed on? I hand him to you, you tell me who's taking kids and why?" I was honestly mostly just curious at this point, though I intended to interfere anyway. They were taking the teens for something, and if I got them instead I'd get some nice points and fuck over some competition.

She gave a long, sultry laugh. "You know, I honestly didn't expect you to manage it. I figured it was just an excuse to get my number so you could try to fuck me." She sat in silence for a minute before sighing. "Alright. Fine. You give me the kid I give you the info. But I don't want to wait on this. I want him in my hands as soon as possible. Let's get this done." She sounded almost annoyed at the prospect of having to follow through.

I chuckled. "Fair enough. Meet me at Gotham Park, near the towers. I'll have him with me." I didn't bother telling her to come alone. If I did she would just bring someone who could snipe me, and I'd rather deal with whoever showed up head to head. once I hung up I turned to Roy, who was sitting in the passenger seat of the car. "You're not worried about this? Cheshire is League of Shadows, whoever they are, not the Justice League. She could want you for a not so nice reason. We could drag this out to figure out what they want.

He shrugged. "I doubt they went through the trouble to kill me, and if they kidnap me they'll find me much harder to hold than the last group that tried it." Which I believed. most people don't expect a kid to spit poison bullets at legit sniper speeds. Hell, without my mask and regalia Roy would scare me shitless if I didn't have absolute control over him. We had already been heading to the park before the call, since I assumed anyone as agitated as Jade would want to make the exchange immediately.

It took us about fifteen minutes to make it there, I had Waylon transform and he, Whisper and Bonebreaker spread out to hide nearby. I doubted Jade would fail to notice, but she didn't seem like the shy type. I was fully expecting to get paid tonight. This was the kind of agreement that was easily gone back on so I didn't plan to hand Roy over until I got my compensation.

Roy and I, after everyone was hidden, waited at a statue in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by enough trees to be out of sight. We waited there for about ten minutes before a pair of people slipped from the shadows. The first was Jade. Dressed in a pair of jeans and a jacket, she had that same baseball cap on as last time and her hair in that same wild ponytail. The girl next to her was sexy too, blonde, asian, and with a tight little body and nice perky tits. She also carried herself like someone who could fight.

Blondie looked at me suspiciously, glancing around to check for an ambush. She seemed to spot my people, but when they didn't move she dismissed them and followed Jade forward. I smirked behind my mask. "Jade, and who is your lovely companion? I admit, if I'd known I was going to be entertaining such breathtaking ladies I would have worn something a bit nicer." That was a lie, my regalia was pure swank but it sounded good.

The blonde rolled her eyes. "You have no shot with me. My sister has horrible taste so you could probably manage something there, but I'd appreciate if you waited until I wasn't around to try to get in her pants." She turned to Roy, her face softening into a smile. "Hi...you don't know me, but I kind of know you. I'm Artemis, it's really nice to meet you again for the first time."

Roy, being fifteen and being talked to by a sexy girl, flushed slightly, and being Roy, clicked his tongue dismissively and looked away, trying to hide his embarrassment. Far from being offended the girl smiled. I turned to Jade. "Alright, well, you got your payment, now I want mine. Who is taking the teens off the streets, and why? They've been poaching in my city, and I've let their insolence go on for far too long."

She looked at Artemis, who shook her head. "Don't look at me. I agreed to play backup in exchange for the same info you're giving him. It was the only reason I convinced Wally to watch Lian. At least you know my info will go to the League, and not to some random thug who will probably use it to steal a bunch of money from whoever it is." I raised an eyebrow at that. So Artemis was a Leaguer. I hadn't heard of her from Bar- wait. Yes I had, and the other name she mentioned, Wally, I'd heard too. Back at the Ace of Clubs.

Jade groaned. "Fine. But once I give up this info I'm getting out of dodge, and I'm taking my daughter with me. This town is probably going to get very hot very soon." She looked around furtively, clearly worried about being overheard, and hesitated. "she glanced from me to Artemis before swallowing. "It's the Reach. They're running experiments on metahumans, or rather, kids who are going to BECOME metahumans. Don't ask me anymore. It's all I know." She looked around in fear before turning to leave, only to be cut off by a gunshot.

The shot didn't hit her, just intercepted her path, forcing her to stop, but she looked up and around in fear and anger. I heard a slight rustle, and about a dozen people melted from the shadows. A man in a hockey mask, a woman with short cropped black hair in tight red clothes, a huge woman with a spiraling thorn tattoo down one arm, and ten or so faceless men and women in ninja clothes.

The man in the mask clicked his tongue in a chiding manner. "I'm so disappointed baby girl. I thought you were smarter than that. I convinced them to leave you alone because I thought you knew to keep your mouth shut, but you just run off and blab to the first rent a thug in a mask who offers you a price. What a waste. Don't worry though, I won't let them kill you. We're going to take you back to the Shadows and get your head straight. Psimon can get that nasty stubborn streak ironed out."

I...did not like this person. He seemed like a dick, and he called me a rent-a-thug. I glanced lazily at Roy. "Shoot him." He grinned and then spat. There was a loud crack, but despite the speed and ferocity of the expectoration, the woman in red saw it coming. In one smooth motion she drew her sword and intercepted the shot. It was fast, but there was plenty of wind up, and whoever this woman was, she was very good. Also kind of milfy. I frowned behind my mask. "Now now, no need for things to escalate."

I sent a command to my backup, and all of them stepped out of the trees. Fafnir looked particularly imposing at ten feet tall, with Bonebreaker on one side and Whisper claiming air superiority on her hummingbird wings as she hovered above us. The woman frowned. They'd known someone was around, but not who, and certainly hadn't expected Waylon. She stared me down. "The girl is of no concern to you. You have your information. Leave her to us, and be grateful we decide to allow you to leave with the knowledge you possess."

That was...tempting. Mostly because I'd just used appraisal on them. The woman Lady Shiva, was the first vanilla human being I'd ever met in H rank. I was under the impression that wasn't even possible, but apparently she was literally peak human, and VERY dangerous. A master martial artist for the Shadows. "I'm afraid, Miss. Wu-San, that I cannot allow that. If it gets out that I allow people to suffer for sharing information with me, how will I convince anyone else to do so."

Her eyes narrowed at the use of her name. Which was good, because the fucking F rank walking tank next to her was not someone I wanted to go up against, team or not. Devastation was apparently some kind of metahuman bruiser of Amazon origin, a subordinate of someone name Queen Bee. I wasn't sure who that was, but any F ranked being would be a fucking nightmare to fight, and I wanted no part of it.

She stared coldly at me. "You will surrender her to us, or you will die, as will your associates. I assure you, we are not people to be crossed lightly. Stand in our way at your own peril." Which was fair. If I had an F rank bruiser with me I'd be pretty confident too. I didn't, but I did have something that would take care of her. Devastation was, as far as I could see, completely leaned toward physical combat, which was a problem, if we wanted to fight her head on.

I sent a mental command to Whisper, who was floating above the clearing, and had her hurl a massive spherical blast of prismatic glassflame at the large tattooed woman. She saw the flames coming, frowned slightly at the odd look, and braced herself for impact at the last moment. She didn't have the time to dodge the burst at all, but she clearly expected to be able to tank it.

She was...incorrect. She took the blast head on, arms crossed in an X to disperse the flames, but it just hit her and melted right through her flesh. The woman had been expecting physical fire, not mental incineration, and her body did nothing to stop the prismatic flame from crawling inside her head and burning her psyche away like and oil soaked rag. She looked almost stunned at the impact for a moment, before she registered the pain and her brain started to slowly melt away.

The flames danced and flickered around her, consuming her form but not actually burning her flesh. She lasted much longer than Mammoth, much longer. Something about being F ranked may have given her some resistance or she may have just been tougher than he was, but she lay there rolling around on the ground, desperately trying to extinguish flame that no earthly force would quench.

As the bruised screamed agonizingly on the ground I focused on Lady Shiva, whose face looked...perturbed, in the flickering light of her companions burning mind. I spoke up, loud enough to be heard over the screams. "As I said, Miss. Nguyen is coming with us. Should you take issue with that, feel free to attempt to prevent it. I have to warn you however, without your bruiser over there getting past my associates is unlikely at best, and fatal at worst." I spread my arms in an invitation to decide. "So, what'll it be then?"