Greed God chapter 163

April 3rd 2016 Brightedge City 6:00 PM EDT

Of  course, once they figured out poor Leslie was a kidnapping victim I'd  rescued and that her nudity was because of the terrible fairies I'd  saved her from, all the looks became sympathetic. My girls were mostly  big softies, and they were immediately won over by the blue girl's  bravery. Leslie, for her part, seemed to be trying to stick close to me  without actually acknowledging she wanted to do so, and the other girls  were down to let her. Though more than one of them seemed surprised I  wasn't using the opportunity to paw some fat blue ass.

I  just ignored her aside from the occasional encouraging smile and  slightly patronizing supportive comment. It was an active effort not to  get stiff at the feeling of her slowly simmering rage that I wasn't  taking her seriously, and ignoring her increasingly obvious ploys for  attention only made it worse. She was like a fucking cat, bumping into  me while looking away so I'd know she didn't care but had no choice but  to pet her.

Sadly she was now clothed, Cherry had snagged  her some clothes, and the tight molded on shorts were practically  painted on her ass, while the midriff baring halter outlined her cute  little tits perfectly. None of this was super relevant right now though,  because we had business to take care of. I looked at Barbie, who was  sitting across from me at the kitchen table, poring over a local map.

For  the moment we were nominally aimed in the same direction, even if I was  only paying lip service. Expansion. She wanted to save people and I  wanted to dig in a bit. To do either though, we needed info, and with  the massive changes we couldn't predict that meant one thing. We needed  forces. I pointed to a spot where I was still pretty sure we could find  the Iceberg Lounge. "My first move is obvious." I said solemnly. "I need  to get in touch with Penguin. He knows me well enough to be willing to  work with us, and we could use his goon squad to track down people in  trouble."

Also to start taking and holding territory, but  that was an argument for another time. Barbie looked furious. "Penguin?  Cobblepot is NOT someone you can trust, Nicky. I know he seems like he's  reasonable most of the time, but he's DEEPLY unbalanced. Any perceived  slight will be paid back ten times over, and I do mean perceived. He's  killed people for offenses they didn't even know they had committed."  Her voice was almost pleading as she laid out the danger she felt I was  putting myself in. It was actually kind of cute.

I held up  both hands placatingly. "I'm not saying we trust him. I'm saying we  need him. Once the emergency is over we can sever ties. As long as I  treat him respectfully and deal with him fairly a short term alliance  won't be a problem right? Hell, of any of the current power players in  Brightedge I'd say he's the one most likely to honor a deal. We aren't  exactly spoiled for choice here, love." I added that last bit as a sop  to her ego, softening my voice so it seemed like I was the one pleading  now. I wasn't but she'd get all swoony and fold if she thought I was  being affectionate.

To my shock, Amy nodded. "He's right,  Barbara. I don't know much about the political situation in the area,  but this city is too large for us to attempt to manage this crisis  alone, even with the power gathered here." She gestured to Gordon. "Your  father has been attempting to reach out to his police compatriots, by  months in a city ruled by monsters seems to have destroyed any cohesion  they might have. If this Cobblepot is the least of our bad options, I  don't think we have another choice."

We all just blinked  at her. It was easy to forget she was a princess sometimes when she was  playing the giddy new bride. Hearing my sweet submissive little Amy  speaking so forcefully was kind of a mind fuck, and I had to admit it  was a bit hot. Barbie sighed, but to my surprise she didn't refute the  point, only nodding. I slipped out the lightning phone, giving it a  quick charge (much less than I'd needed in gemworld thankfully) and  placed a call to Penguin, waiting for his image to appear in front of  me.

When it did, his eyes widened as he jerked back in  surprise, staring at me cautiously.  I was wearing my mask, because he  knew me by that face. "Well." Penguin said, his beady eyes fixed on me.  "If it isn't my old friend Mammon. Haven't seen you in a while kid. We  all thought you had kicked it. You're awfully late on your last several  shipments. I trust you have a good reason for that?" His voice was  casual, but there was a core of steel to the question, letting me know  that he wouldn't accept anything but a good answer.

Penguin  looked like shit. His normally pale flesh was waxy and sallow, his eyes  were sunken and ringed with dark circles, and his normally immaculate  clothes were wrinkled and worn, though still perfectly clean. He looked  like someone had run him through a meat grinder and stuck him back  together again after. I chuckled lightly. "Well I haven't really been  around. I was at that damn party same as you. My escape protocols were a  bit...too effective. Glad to see you made it out alive though. Be a  shame to lose my only real business partner."

He narrowed  his eyes at me for a moment, but then just sighed. "I'm too tired for  this shit, kid. Tell me what you want. But be aware my patience is  limited these days. If you have gear to sell I might be interested in  buying. If you're calling for a favor I would suggest hanging  up...whatever this is. It'll only piss me off."

"I'm  calling for business." I assured him seriously. "I'm sure you've seen  the changes? Hell, everyone has. We just got back to town, and dragging  our asses through the mess was harder than expected. Still, risk comes  with reward. Everyone is off balance here. We want to use the  opportunity to establish some territory, but my crew is about eight very  strong members. Good for holding what we find, but not great for  covering a large amount of ground. I'm proposing you send some of your  henchmen along to support, and we can all split up."

Barbie  looked unhappy, but she knew that I had to approach Penguin with an  offer he would actually care about. Cobblepot wasn't a philanthropist,  if we'd asked him to help save the city he'd have laughed us out of the  call at best, tried to have us all murdered for wasting his time at  worst. Since my people were almost all E-rankers now, I wasn't worried  his goons might turn on them. Hell, I didn't think they would be capable  of killing most of my people if they laid down in front of them and  took a nap.

It was a testament to how stretched thing  Penguin was that he seemed to be considering the course of action.  Finally he sighed. "That's too vague, and not nearly a good enough deal  for me, but I'm not UNinterested. Make it to the lounge with your crew,  prove they're strong enough to matter, and I'm not opposed to discussing  terms. If we do this we're sharing the territory, mind you. I'm not  helping you dig in just to toss it all away, but I'll at least discuss  it with you."

I wasn't going to quibble. Given how chaotic  this city was going to be, I didn't particularly want full territorial  control. Micromanaging all this would be a pain in the ass. Supplying  raw muscle with Cobblepot played boss was a win win. I got control and  he got to flex on everyone else. Barbie wasn't wrong about his nature,  but she'd neglected the most important part of it. While Oswald  Cobblepot had a hair trigger about his pride, he was also pragmatic as  hell. He would do whatever was needed to benefit himself, even if he had  to swallow some anger. Penguin's most useful trait was survival.

Disconnecting  the call, I had to give the man credit. He hadn't seemed more than  passingly freaked by the method of communication. I was sure he had been  of course, but he had a hell of a poker face. I turned to Barbie.  "Alright, I'm pretty sure I can get us each a posse of Penguin goons,  with the extra manpower we can prioritize saving civilians. Just have  anyone you come across brought here. This place is huge and we have the  room. Once we have some territory cleaned out and held we can start  moving people to where they'll live. That work for you?"

After  a short discussion, we all headed out to the garage attached to this  place. There were several dozen cars out there, most of which were H or  even G rank depending on how powerful or high end they were. I  considered upgrading one, but honestly we didn't need some kind of over  the top super car right now. That seemed like more of a project for when  I had some downtime to really experiment, so we just snagged the Hummer  in the back corner and peeled out, heading for the iceberg lounge.

The  trip there was...odd. I'd expected to see more of the same, congested  streets and worried people, but it seemed like everyone was retreating  back into their homes or businesses to try to get their bearings. The  buildings had all either merged or been sort of superimposed on each  other, some condensing space so they took up less room than they should.  Merged buildings seemed to have spaces for both sets of inhabitants,  but it was tough to see any reasoning behind what got put where and why.

Some  of them made sense of course. The Daily Planet seemed to have merged  with GNN building into a massive towering edifice called the Brightedge  Daily News. Wayne Enterprises had combined with LuthorCorp in an  absolutely massive chrome and glass monstrosity labeled WayneCorp,  though it was just the building that had been combined. I was pretty  sure merging the actual companies would require WAY more points, if I  could even DO that.

For  all that though, the drive was mostly uneventful, no one was sure what  was happening and as such no one wanted to start some shit when it could  go so wrong for them. I could feel the eyes on us as we traveled  though. People might not be making moves but they were all  watching...waiting. This was the calm before the storm without a doubt,  and I completely understood.

I  knew before the day was over some of the power players would be dead,  killed by necessity by competing factions that had been lumped together  close to them. Some new alliances would be formed too. Luckily, while  things had changed, it wasn't too crazy. Gotham had been the base I used  in the merge, so the street layouts were similar. It didn't take more  than a half hour for us to reach the Iceberg Lounge.

The  place was surrounded by weapon emplacements, which I didn't remember  being there before, but it had been a few months in a magic city  invasion so it wasn't that strange to see some firepower. We pulled up  outside and climbed from the car, heading up to the doors to knock as  the guns tracked our movements. They wouldn't hurt me anyway, not at E  rank, so I wasn't worried. We'd only brought E-rankers or higher with us  for this trip, so all of my people were covered. As I knocked on the  door, I settled in to wait. I was curious what kind of madness tonight  would bring.