System Supervillain, Chapter 101

Chapter 101 – Adjudication

Lady Abstract’s induction to the fold was rather simple. I didn’t want her return to the world to be known for a while, but I certainly enjoyed ravishing her, along with Huinnalge and Bulkkoch. The fact that we were doing it on what was her bed, before she was quarantined, and now belonged to my other pets, only made it better. Of course, once I had my fun, I had to decide what to do with her, in the long term. While she was still in this slightly rebellious stage, I had to be careful to ensure she didn’t try and get others to stage a mutiny against me.

Oh, any actual attempt at rebellion would fail horribly. Obedience was literally written into their Status with the System, along with the fact that they couldn’t harm me. However, if the slaves started getting rebellious, they might start pushing for the malicious compliance angle, following the exact letter of my commands, rather than their intent. That kind of thing was annoying enough in person, but it could get dangerous if I wasn’t there to immediately countermand any foolishness.

Obviously, this meant that she couldn’t stay here with Huinnalge and the kids. I knew that winged woman still resented her enslavement, and everything I had done to her. It was only the fact that she got to be with her lover that kept her from rebelling, at least until the kids were born. Both women were natural mothers, and my providing for them and their children went a long way to securing their loyalty. But an irate Lady Abstract whispering in her ear, or trying to turn the kids against me, would potentially ruin that.

No, I’d have to bring her back to New York with me, where I could keep an eye on her, at least until she stopped being a problem. But my lair in New York was not infinite in size. With myself, the rest of Devastation, and my maid, Tiffany, the place was already starting to feel cramped. I could accommodate Lady Abstract well enough, but after that, I was going to have to make some tough choices. There was no way I could add the other sixteen people in quarantine to my live-in harem.

Which brought up the next point to consider. Not all the people in quarantine were women. Of the sixteen supers still in ‘time out’, only five (Fabricator, Lucy Morningstar, Animator, LifeHack, and Rejector) were female. Two more (Eldritch and Redactor) were ‘other’, and the rest were male. I could just change them all to women, like Web Mistress had done to Titania, but that seemed like a foolish, and short-sighted act. Especially since I was quickly approaching the limit of how many girls I could easily keep track of.

There was more to my role as Master than just having fun, after all. Keeping the harem happy and fucked on the regular helped keep anyone from getting dissatisfied and rebellious. They needed food, shelter, and clothing, both for themselves, and for the kids. And they needed to feel as though they were valued, even if they initially hated being in the harem. It was work, but it was worth it, in the long run, since it not only made everything more pleasant at home, but it also nipped potential problems in the bud. However, there was a limit to how much time I had in a day, and with a harem that literally spanned the globe at this point, I was pushing the limits of what I could do, from a logistical standpoint. From here on in, I should only grab girls that added something to my team.

So, what to do with all these reality warpers and time travelers? The easiest thing would be to just delete them, and be done with it. That would cause me the least problems, after all. But the easiest solution wasn’t always the best solution. I didn’t get to where I was by looking for the easy solutions, after all. Which meant I needed to look deeper. Be smarter.

First, I ought to deal with the two time travelers that started this whole mess. Looking at their Status sheets, the Doctor of Time and Master of Paradoxes were both aliens, apparently. Their time machines were also spaceships? No, the ships were able to move through time and space at will. Very useful. But the reason they were on Earth appeared to be that their ships malfunctioned when they came to the Sol system.

I looked into that in more detail. Once outside the System, the machines were unable to go back to areas where the System was active under their own power. Or, more likely, the System rejected them? Considering what happened when they unleashed their full power against each other, outside of the System’s control, it could very well have been a safety measure put in place by the System to prevent rogue elements from destabilizing things on a galactic scale.

Fine, I could deal with that. Especially since their fuckup was unintentional, rather than the reality warpers deliberately trying to throw the System off balance. Changing a couple of their Disadvantages to prevent them from doing anything to destabilize the System, and keep them from attacking anyone with System Administrator rights, and putting a hard stop in their powers to keep them from traveling outside of the System’s influence, and that was all. Didn’t need to do too much with them. I sent them back to Istanbul, with an official message from the System Administrator telling them that if they screwed up like this again, they wouldn’t be getting a third chance.

Three down, fourteen to go. I needed to be a lot firmer with all the reality warpers. But, did I need to reveal myself to them? I’d been testing things with Lady Abstract, since I wasn’t sure how removing someone from Quarantine would work. Now that I knew how the System dealt with things, did I need to interview them? Or could I just remain the faceless Administrator?

The ‘secret’ of my being the System Administrator likely wouldn’t be a secret much longer, honestly. The Guild knew I was the Admin. The mind controllers who were at Stepford’s party knew. And I’d basically hinted as much to Mechana and the New York Knights. They’d probably told others by now. Which meant that the ‘secret’ was only secret in name only.

No, there wasn’t really any point in hiding. Anyone in the super-community, whether heroes or villains, was familiar with the idea of separating the mask from the person. So, System Administrator was just another mask I would wear. Especially since I wasn’t using my administrator abilities while doing my normal criminal acts. Yes, I’d used my access to alter my own abilities, but I’d never added points to myself, or anyone else, and, once the setup was complete, the changes Web Mistress or I made to people were all made inside the rules, rather than through our Admin access.

If that was the case, then I could just look in on each of the remaining quarantined supers, make my adjustments, and give them a bit of a warning before sending them back to reality. I could do that. But I wasn’t going to. I had negotiated a substantial fee from the Guild for this job, so I was going to do my work properly. That was the kind of professionalism that caused people to keep coming back to me for work.

So, how was I going to work through the rest of the list? I didn’t want to make them all my devoted sex slaves, like I did with Lady Abstract. I’d proven that I didn’t need to go that far to ensure they didn’t cause trouble, and the more people I ‘collared’ like that, the more chance someone would cry foul, and it might get the attention of some higher power within the System Administration.

No, I would have to deal with each one, individually. One-size-fits-all wouldn’t cut it, here. I was a professional, so I might as well act like it.

First up was Reality Slash. Also known as Taylor George, from Oklahoma. Not really all that impressive, now that I looked at him. The System had put Lady Abstract at the ‘Very High-Powered Super’ level, with 400 points and another 200 points from Disadvantages, like I had been, back when it turned on. Reality Slash, on the other hand, was just ‘High-Powered Super’, with 300/150.

At that level, he didn’t really have the points for a full Variable Power Pool, like I did with Lady Abstract, unless I either made him incredibly weak, or robbed him of all his skills and abilities to power the thing. I looked over his bio section a bit more, and saw that he mainly used his powers to ‘slash’ at reality, and cause things to change according to his will. So, I decided to go with a Multipower setup, instead. He could still slash things, but he was limited to a few attack types, though he could change the damage types, making them be fire, or acid, or stuff like that. Also gave him an ability to slash at space and teleport, since that was a trick he liked to use. The rest of his abilities? Obliterated. He didn’t deserve the adaptability he once had, since he never used it for anything except slashing.

Looking at his disadvantages, I decided that a bit of humility would do him good. With his powers neutered, I didn’t have to worry about him destabilizing the System again, but I did make it so that he could not attack anyone with System Administrator access, making it a Physical Limitation that was Fully Impairing. His body literally wouldn’t let him harm me. Interestingly enough, his bio said that he swung both ways, but preferred being in control. I switched that up with Psychological Limitation, making him submissive to men, and gave him a few interesting fetishes. Then, after releasing him into the wild, I sent a message to Stepford, informing my fellow villain that, since I was unable to give him his present during the party, I had arranged a substitute, before giving him Reality Slash’s location and details. Let no one say I didn’t give back to the community.

Warpsmith was next on the list, if I was just going from top to bottom. Unlike Reality Slash, he was an experienced reality manipulator, and used his powers to good effect, usually to help him create technology that was half-magical in its effects, including everything from power armor and weaponry to actual war machines powered by demons trapped inside their chassis. There was a reason why the Squadron Supreme put even more focus on taking him down than they did me. I was just a thief and assassin who had humiliated them. Warpsmith could lay waste to countries, possibly even the entire world, if he wasn’t stopped. There was also the fact that killing him just banished him to the hell-dimension he got his powers from, meaning he always came back, eventually.

What made things worse was that the man was crazy. Something about whatever hell-dimension he drew his powers from made people go nuts just being around it. Which had caused him to go on bloody rampages at times, for no apparent reason but to just stack up bodies and spill as much blood as possible. No, there was no way I could let him out of the box without doing serious edits to his entire… well, everything. It would be quicker to reset him to zero, and just move on, honestly. Even enslaving him wouldn’t solve the problems, since his brand of crazy would always be fighting it. Nope, this one was getting purged.

Deletion selected.

Purge quarantine subject (Warpsmith) from existence?

Yes / No

WARNING!

This action cannot be reversed once taken. Continue with purge of quarantine subject (Warpsmith)?

Yes / No

Subject (Warpsmith) has been purged. Subject unrecoverable.

Well, it was nice that the System gave me a chance to reconsider before consigning someone to oblivion with my admin powers. Fortunately, I was not going to be losing sleep over getting rid of Warpsmith. Especially since I got paid either way. Just twelve more entries to sort through.