Chronos - Chapter 14

Chapter 14 – Making Plans

As I pulled Yahlonda back into the stacks where I see just how far ‘anything’ covered, my mind started racing. I could use another pawn, one with almost no connection to magic, but who had connections to the student body at the University. I could definitely use her.

But did I want to go so far as doing the full enslavement ritual? She didn’t have any appreciable skills, yet. Oh, she was pretty enough, but there were a lot of pretty women in the city, that I could take whenever I wanted. No, I wouldn’t enslave her, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t try and bind her to me.

Things were changing. Before, I had been content to simply play my games in the shadows. However, the moment those heroes came to see me, wanting to bring me in as a consultant, I knew that things would have to change. There were too many eyes on me for things to remain how they had been, no matter how comfortable I had been with the arrangement.

Quartermaster had said it himself. I had been so focused on making my public persona boring and uninteresting that the government had spent two whole years investigating me, trying to find out what I was hiding! Now that I was in contact with them, I needed to switch gears, or it would just raise suspicions.

Fortunately, I still had control of the tempo in this dance we were dancing. That was the fundamental truth about heroes and villains. Heroes were, at their core, reactive. They saw crimes, and they tried to stop them. Even joining together like they were to try and hunt me was a reaction to their being unable to stop me in the moment. Everything they did was a reaction.

Villains, on the other hand, were proactive. We made our plans and carried them out, forcing the heroes to react to us. How successful a villain was depended on how they made the heroes react.

A poor villain would push too hard, or too fast. They would launch the biggest scheme that they thought they could pull off, hopped up on their own power or suffering from whatever brand of madness they might have. But, whatever they did, it would be too big, or too public, or too often, or too sloppy, and it would provoke too strong a reaction from the heroes, and they got to spend time admiring the insides of a jail cell.

A villain like me, however? We bided our time, and took the slow and steady approach. Avoid civilian casualties and massive property damage, because those provoke a bigger reaction. Take the time to set things up properly, so you can control how the reaction happens. Appear when you want, and disappear before they can respond. This is how you keep the reaction of the heroes at a manageable level, one where they are not bringing enough force to overwhelm your defenses, while you still accomplish all your objectives.

But now, I was going to need more pawns. Well, more spies than pawns. I was going to need an organization to bring me information. If my public persona was getting dragged out of the shadows, then I would need to have people who gravitated to my public persona. A network of informants who would gladly work with me, and give me news about what was happening in the city.

The question, of course, was how to go about it. Too many people enslaved to my will would get noticed. Especially if I used the same methods as Remington that I did as Chronos. Even with my precautions, if I burned the enslavement ritual’s effects into too many people, someone would notice.

Of course, I didn’t let these thoughts distract me from what I was doing. As I backed Yahlonda up against the bookshelf, my tongue intertwining with hers, our bodies pressing together, I considered letting the idea go, for now. But then, as I slid one hand up, between her thighs, and felt the dampness there, seeping through her panties, I had to grin. The little slut knew what she was saying when she said ‘anything’, after all, and she was enjoying herself.

Perhaps that was the key? As I pulled down her panties, giving myself a lovely view of her neatly shaved slit, I got an idea. There were other ways to rule someone’s mind than simply transforming their minds to suit you better. After all, how many questions had I dealt with about people wanting to make their own love potions?

As I ate the tasty snack in front of me, however, I realized that there was no need to rush this. I could take it slow, do it right. I didn’t know enough about this little slut to know what changes would be missed and which ones would cause concern. Even if no one could detect my changes, and she, herself, did not realize that she had been changed, that did not mean someone who knew her couldn’t figure out that something had changed.

I smiled as I stood up, and turned Yahlonda to face the bookshelf. I really ought to thank the girl. This whole thing reminded me that I risked falling into the trap of overconfidence, and sparking more of a reaction than I could contain. I styled myself the god of time, after all. I could afford to take it slow.

I muffled her voice by shoving her panties in her mouth with one hand, while I unzipped with the other. She moaned in anticipation when she felt my length smack against her round backside, but when I shoved it into her all at once, I was glad that I had done something to quiet her down. The girl was vocal in her enjoyment of what I was doing, that much was obvious.

As I thrust into her, I leaned forward to whisper in her ear. “Now, I’m going to tell you exactly what to do, Yahlonda. There is an alchemist shop on De’trand Street. It is called the Dark Cauldron. You go there, ask to speak to Mabel. Tell her that Remington Livingston sent you. Then, I want you to buy a vial of Silverblood Draught. It is pretty expensive, but it will do what you need it to.”

Yahlonda groaned in a way that was not entirely due to my efforts, so I pulled the makeshift gag from her mouth. She moaned in time with another thrust, and then looked back towards me. “H-how expensive is—Aaah!—this Draught? I d-dooohn’t have a lot of money.”

Well, that just made everything easier, didn’t it? “A Silverblood Draught costs three thousand dollars on the open market. More, if you’re trying to be discrete about it.” She moaned in frustration. “Too rich for your blood, hmm? Then, I guess you’re out of luck. Unless, of course, you got someone to finance the purchase for you. But you would have to do more than just give me this sweet pussy of yours.”

“Wh-aah-at do you want?”

I grabbed her by the hair, forcing her to meet my gaze as I continued thrusting into her from behind. “Ask yourself, Yahlonda. What are you willing to give, to get your revenge? What are you willing to sacrifice, in order to gain power?”

“Ah! Anything! And everything!”

“That’s a good answer, Yahlonda. You shall be the first of my acolytes, to serve as my coven. So, I will do you this favor. I will call ahead to the Dark Cauldron, and settle things with the owner. You will go and pick up the Draught, and drink it when you get home. Understand so far?”

“Y-yes!”

“You will call me Master, when we’re alone. For I will be your guide in learning the arcane. When I am done, you will never need to worry about anyone betraying you again.”

“Yes, Master! Ah! I understand!”

“Good girl. Now, when you drink the potion, the next twenty-four hours are not going to be fun for you. If anyone asks, tell them that you had some food poisoning. It will look the same to the untrained eye. That is the price of taking the first step to power. Nothing under the System comes without sacrifice.”

“Y-yes, Master! I—ah!—I understand! And then?”

“When you have recovered from the potion’s effects, you will return to me, and I will initiate you into the secret paths. You will begin to learn true power, and I will guide you in not only wielding that power, but in wielding it in such a way that your do not need to worry about things being traced back to you.”

“Wh-yyyyY? If we have the power, why worry?”

I smiled to myself. That was a question that all young mages asked, at one point or another. The answer, of course, was simple. “Because there are forces within and without the world that are too large for any mortal mind to comprehend. Eventually, if you piss people off enough, they will call upon a power strong enough to swat you like a fly, and deal with the consequences later.”

She shuddered as I trailed a finger across her folds, playing with her clit while I pounded her from behind. “But if you are smart, if you are clever? Then people will look at your works, and think that it is simply natural chance, or divine luck or anything other than the act of your hand.”

I leaned in, my lips brushing against her ear. “You are a History major, yes? Then you know of the story of Osowiec Fortress in World War I? The Attack of the Dead Men? That was magic, born of desperation by a single mage who survived the bombardment thanks to his magic. The Dead Men looked like zombies, because that is what they were. And, outside of the few people who know of both history and magic, no one knew the truth.”

I grunted in pleasure as I finished inside her. “Because of that, the defenders of the fortress became legends. But if the mage had revealed his hand, and not de-animated the bodies when their work was done, the story would be very different, and it is likely that he would have been killed, and the defenders scorned as puppets.”

The girl slumped to her knees as I pulled out of her, which just put her head at the proper height to clean me off. Once again, Yahlonda showed she knew what she was doing, and I smiled down at her as I stroked her hair. “Now, picture what would happen in your life if things ‘just so happened’ to go your way. Nothing blatant, but the boy you have a crush on decided to notice your charms. And your grades improved, because you ‘had a feeling’ about what you needed to study for the surprise quiz. And you were always just a step ahead of the catty rivals who tried to tear you down. All of that can be yours, Yahlonda, if you follow my lead.”

She looked up at me, with a smile on her face, but I could see the calculations in her eyes. She called me Master because I wanted her to, and she needed things from me, at the moment. She was obviously used to using her charms to get what she wanted from men, and the men probably thought they were in charge, even as she played them. She was a predator, like I was.

I didn’t care about that. She might be a fellow predator, but I knew things she didn’t. I was not going to turn her into a sleeper agent bound to my will like I planned to do to Skytalon and Miss Mysterious. No, she would be the first of my coven, my cultists, and her initiation into magic, which she needed for her revenge, would seal her fate. I would take my time with her, and change her little by little, over time, molding her into the perfect priestess.

I could no longer hide in the shadows, so I would go the other way, and start the new religion. The cult of Chronos, God of Time, would begin. Once I had a couple initiates, they could bring new disciples to me so I could ‘condition’ them. I would play the long game, and build up my power base in a way that seemed natural, and could be divorced from my public persona.

Yes, this girl would be the perfect pawn to start the next game with.