System Supervillain, Chapter 123

Chapter 123 – Details

It was well about two in the afternoon, local time, the next day when the call came that the weapon was ready for transport. Green Knight and his team teleported over to the base, so they could escort the convoy. Everyone else at the staging area started getting their preparations in order. Everyone knew that, the longer we delayed, the more likely it was that we’d miss the window, and the Emperor would escape. It was decided that everyone would get a good dinner to prepare, and the full push would happen at 9PM, local time.

As for me and mine? We were not at the staging area, and hadn’t been since just after our talk with the King. We needed to make our own preparations, obviously, and all of the members of Devastation stood out, in one way or another, and would only distract people from their work.

Fortunately, we had been able to find a Guild-sponsored hotel relatively close by. Not that we actually needed to stay local, since teleporting about made it easy to pop back, even if we went and stayed at my lair in New York, or in one of the other properties I owned. However, time differences could be brutal, and I didn’t feel like getting jetlagged going into a fight. More importantly, there was a chance someone would have questions for me, or a last-minute bout of insanity would cause trouble, so being closer to hand was preferred.

“Right, we’ll be over there before the convoy arrives,” I said into the phone. “And we’ll be in place by the time the general push happens.”

As I hung up, I looked to the others. “Convoy is on schedule. Estimated time of arrival is two hours, so we’ll head over to the staging area in an hour. Since we have time, we’ll go over the plan once more.” That wasn’t truly necessary, of course. By now, all my pets knew the plan. And it wasn’t like we could do too much planning ahead of time, since we didn’t know the exact situation on the other side of the portal. Still, repeating the plan again wasn’t useless. The more we had the general game plan down, the better we could adapt when things invariably went wrong.

Web Mistress nodded. “As usual, most of the transport and technical material will be on me, since I’m not the best fighter. However, I’ve managed to dive the Gel-nak systems, and we should be able to do a data transfer from their computers on this side of the portal to the other side easily enough. From there, we’ll have a few hours to find our way to the Emperor, hitting the closest available data source.”

Stolen Victory took up the narrative after that. Being able to ‘fight the good fight’ had done wonders for her spirit. She still hated that she was my obedient slave, but she wasn’t as depressed any more. Probably contenting herself with the idea that, at least, I would allow her to still act like a heroine for world-threatening problems, even if she wasn’t going to be rounding up home-grown supervillains any more.

“Once the distraction starts with the push on the gate, we attack, and take out the Emperor and his guards. Then, you do that thing to send the planet into an ice age, while Web Mistress sets the bomb up on a timer. Then, back into the digital, and across the portal, so we can escape the blast radius, and not get stuck in Gel-nak space.”

FX frowned. “But what about the portal? Do we know how to shut it down?”

“Thankfully, Gel-nak paranoia works in our favor, here,” Web Mistress said, before I cut her off.

“It isn’t paranoia when your actions make people want to kill you, sister. That’s just prudence.”

She chuckled, and waved off my objection. “Fine, fine. This is where the Gel-nak’s well-deserved concern about slave revolts comes into play. The portal works through quantum entanglement. Pump enough power into each side of the doorway, and the ‘event horizon’ of one side of the portal reduces the space between it and the other portal’s event horizon to zero. However, because having a way for people to counter-invade you is a problem, the portals are designed so that cutting power to either side disables the portal. We just need to flip a switch, or cut the cable, or something like that, and the portal goes down, and can’t be brought back up again until and unless power is supplied on both sides.”

Titania frowned at that. “Why do it like that, though? From a security standpoint, it would make more sense to have those kinds of controls only on their side of the portal.”

“Two reasons,” Web Mistress answered. “First, standardization. Making the portal setups the same on both sides makes it cheaper to manufacture them, and the System costs are lower. Second, because they are paranoid assholes who have a history of military coups, having controls on both sides of the portal allows loyalist on an invasion world to shut down the portal if renegades stage a revolution or slaves manage to conduct an uprising on the ‘safe’ side of the portal. It is the same as with the Uprising Controls on their ships. Their caste structure and the way they look to climb the ladder through betrayal means that they cannot trust anyone.”

“At any rate,” I said, “our goal is simple. Decapitate the Gel-nak Empire’s leadership, and cause chaos on our way out. So, first step is to plan on how we take down the Emperor and his guards. Most of the soldier and leader caste I found on the ships were one-or-two shots with my blade to bring them down. Killing them afterwards was simple. However, most of you do not have cold attacks in your arsenal, so we need to gameplan.”

I turned to look at FX, since she was objectively the weakest member of the team. “Your job is twofold. First, your ‘Effects Blast’ power will be very useful in blinding and deafening enemies who don’t have the Flash Defense power for sight and hearing. I know we adjusted your powerset so that you can use a sound-based attack, now, but you’re still too vulnerable for direct action, especially against these types of enemies, so you’re first task is to focus on making life hell for anyone who looks too competent.”

FX nodded. “Sounds good, Master. I already knew I wasn’t much of a fighter. What do you want me to do besides that, though?”

“I want you to use your Special Effects power to conjure an icy mist all around. Not enough to actually block vision, at least in our area, though you can go wild outside of wherever we’re fighting. I want enough to make people skittish, especially as it will ‘feel’ cold. Fill it with the screams of warriors calling out about a Rhuk, or just screams of terror, and the scent of Gel-nak blood. The Warrior and Leader caste have sensors on their armor that will let them see through things, and keep the mental component out, but they will still see, hear, and smell everything.”

“And all those scared people are going to be calling in reports, further confusing things, right?” FX grinned. “Sounds like a plan, but won’t you all get caught up in things, too?”

“Yes, but we aren’t going to be calling anyone for help, and so long as you don’t make the mist too thick near us, we’ll be fine. Knowing an illusion is coming, beforehand, and knowing where and what it will be? Makes a huge difference. Hell, if you really want to get creative, you can conjure shapes in the mist to further fuck with people. Go wild with your art.”

FX looked like I just told her it was Christmas, her birthday, and her anniversary all in one, so I turned to look at Pyra, and said, “I think it is time we changed up and strengthened your powers. There probably isn’t much we can do, in the middle of this, but get with Web Mistress in her digital realm, so she can check you over, and see if there aren’t any points we can squeeze out for better effect.”

Looking at Titania, I said, “Titania, you go with her. Your transport form was a good idea, at the start, but it hasn’t been used so far, and I don’t like your defenses in that form, so we’re going to scrap it, and put the points into something more useful. Web Mistress will help with that.”

Next, I turned my attention to Foxtrot. “Foxtrot, you said that you dumped some of your XP into your Yokai Form power. How much of a boost did that get you?”

The half-demon smiled broadly. “Because of how the power is structured, I was able to boost my Yokai form by ninety points. And I still have points left over to boost my ‘normal’ form, as well. Haven’t decided what I’m going to do with that, yet.”

“Increase your defenses in your human form, and add on any spells or effects that you think would be useful. You know the mystic stuff better than I do. And for your yokai form, make her a beast. With that kind of boost, you’ll be one of our heavy hitters, alongside Stolen Victory.”

“Of course, Master!”

From the demon, I turned to my angel. “Serafina, increase your defenses. Mental defenses, especially, if you can. You are our healer, and the one that absolutely cannot die. I know you have protections that reduce the damage you take from energy and physical attacks, but we know some of the Gel-nak have mental attacks, too. The Emperor making you heal him would make things drag out too long. And if they figure out that they can control you to lay down an area of Holy Ground, weakening more than half of us, that’ll be really bad news. So, your job is to keep yourself as safe as possible, And heal any of us that look like we’re in trouble.”

“I understand, Master. I shall guard my mind against further unclean forces seeking to steal me from my holy task.”

I chuckled at the bit of a jab. “Love you too, sweetie. And it was your own fault for being so predictable as to fly into what was obviously a trap. But at least the kids got to learn a few things, eh?”

“I can’t believe I am enslaved to such a perverted man,” she sighed, but there was no real fire in her voice. She might not like her new station, but she had come to accept it.

I turned to my sister, next. “Web Mistress, you’re going to be in the digital as much as possible. Like Serafina, you are one of the critical pieces of this puzzle. You’re responsible for getting us back through the portal and shutting it from our side, before the nuke goes off. The King has been kind enough to give us a bomb, and I’m sure he’d prefer if downtown London was not irradiated when we were done.”

“Naturally,” she nodded, obviously expecting that. While I’d taken her into the field before, her talents were best used on overwatch, looking at enemy patrols, locking or unlocking doors, disabling vehicles, and so on. I’d be a fool to use her like a hired gun with stakes like these.

Finally, I looked at Bloodmoon and Stolen Victory. “As for you two, if you have any attacks you can boost, then do it. You both have strong primary attacks, but if you have any ideas for new abilities you’ve been considering, load them up. I know both of you have been eager to really show how strong you are.”

The two women nodded, grimly. While only one of them was a villainess at heart, both had a thirst for combat, and took joy in proving themselves, especially to me. Even if Stolen Victory was slightly in denial about it. And since I’d been careful to keep us out of any big problems for a while now, this was probably their first chance to really shine since Devastation was formed.

“And what about you, Master?” Web Mistress asked. “Any last-minute changes for you?”

“No, I’ve already basically decided on the power set I’ll be running while we fight the Emperor, but I don’t have enough points to make a real difference on my power pool. I’ll save things up, especially since I’ve spotted a couple long-term weaknesses in my abilities, but I don’t have the points to really fix them, yet.”

“Ooh, so mysterious,” she joked, before turning to Titania and FX. “Come on, you two. We only have an hour, so we’ll need to do some time compression to really tweak your abilities.”