Greed God chapter 19

January 7th 2016 Lord Mansion 2:00 AM EDT

Despite  the fact that I could implant direct changes to emotions and thought  processes, I didn't immediately rewire Barbie to be my loyal little fuck  toy. The reasons for that were varied and many, but they boiled down to  two things. Firstly, she spent her time around fucking superheroes, if  she suddenly became a brain dead bimbo, SOMEONE was going to notice, and  then probably hunt me down and kill me. Secondly, I actually kind of  liked how bitchy she was, it made the sex way better.

So,  with no real options but to figure out some way to buy time I put that  good old Lord genius to work, and buckled down to come up with a  solution. Now, I'd already implanted a few commands, but one of those  was pretty mild (not to talk about or draw attention to this specific  night) and the other one was basically just telling her to agree with me  about something, so it shouldn't be crazy noticeable. That said, she  was going to be acting strange, so I needed some reason for her to  become more erratic. I needed an enemy to point her at that she could  mention to the League to draw their focus.

That  list was long and incredibly varied, but there were other boxes to  check. They needed to be big, scary, and incredibly insidious. They  needed to be doing something terrible that she would feel personally  connected to. And most importantly they needed to absolve me of  responsibility for this mess in some way that would make THEM the focus  of her anger over this, and make me an ally in the fight against them.

The  first was easy enough, the second would be tough, and the third was  complicated, but I was pretty sure I had a way to check boxes two and  three at the same time. I had a plan, and I needed to be as sympathetic  as possible for it to work. I took a deep breath, getting my acting  pants on, and then leaned against the wall and began to silently weep.  I'd learned to cry on command as a child, my father insisted  manipulating strangers was a necessary life skill, so making the tears  come was easy enough. I choked out through my sniffles. "You can get up.  Oh gods, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

This  part was tricky. I couldn't overplay this or it would look stupid, but  she needed to believe that her enslavement hurt me as much as it hurt  her. It would reinforce the idea that we were in this together. I could  see her out of the corner of my eye and she just froze. I tried in vain  to mop up the tears. "I'm sorry. Fuck, that's embarrassing. I can't  believe I'm crying like a little girl. Shit. I just...this is bullshit.  My life was fine. Great even. Until THEY got ahold of me. They gave me  these fucking powers and everything has been shit since."

Step  one of the plan. Make my powers not my fault. Simple, but effective. If  I'm as much of a victim as she is then she'll be more willing to  'protect' me from the League and from my fictional captors by staying  quiet. It also creates a reason for me to be terrified of authority  figures, and combined with who my dad is being scared of the League  would make perfect sense. As expected, she's still angry over what was  done to her and all that anger is now directed at these fictional not me  bad guys. "Someone kidnapped you? They gave you powers?"

Her  tense and urgent voice, makes me smile internally. Nice. Looks like I  tripped into an already unfolding situation. That was less unlikely than  it seemed, the League had like fifty plots against them unfolding at  any given time, I'd had decent odds of my fictional antagonists matching  at least one of them. I laughed bitterly. "Gave. Like they were a  fucking present. Like I asked for this. Ever since I got away I've been  terrified of them catching me again. I barely leave the fucking house. I  still don't know what they did to me."

Step  two of the plan. Lie my ass off. I had a ready made excuse for what had  happened to her, and it wasn't the Greed System she didn't know  existed. I gestured down at my body. "Whatever they did to me, it  changed me. I'm...different. Not human anymore." I filled my voice with  disgust and self loathing. "You don't have to pretend. I'm sure you  noticed what a fucking freak I am now." I was honestly lucky I'd used  the blood after I'd met her. It gave me something to point to as my  "powers" this way even if I ended up getting exposed to the League I  would have some level of plausibility.

Of  course, I needed to make something that would prevent fucking mental  intrusions and I needed to make it as soon as she left. i knew the  League had telepaths, and I needed to be prepared for that, luckily I  had like forty thousand points to play with so I was positive I could  swing something. Barbie got up and tentatively walked over to me. "I...I  thought you seemed different but it was dark in the woods and then the  club...I see what you mean now though. Nicky you don't...you're not a  freak just because you have powers."

She  reached for me and I flinched away. I put a little shudder in my body.  Gods it was exhausting pretending to be a whiny little bitch. This was  why I didn't bother with manipulating people as much anymore. I looked  up, my red rimmed eyes meeting hers, and swallowed. "Please don't tell  anyone. Please? I don't want them to know what I am now? That I'm  some...thing. At least until we figure out who did this. WHAT they did."  I took her hands, staring into her eyes pleadingly. You're Batgirl. You  can help me find out who did this! Then we can figure it out from  there. Please?"

Step  three. Put a bow on that shit. My sob story was now hitting all three  of my requirements for an enemy AND tying back into the preexisting  instructions I gave her. If it was just one or the other I wouldn't be  sure it was enough. But I'd straight up ordered her to be convinced  before, and with my logic looping back around she would be unnaturally  swayed by my persuasion. Combined with the heroic desire to protect the  innocent, she would feel obligated to keep my 'secret'.

Of  course, it helped that making this an issue of me being experimented on  against my will made her a victim by transference, which gave her a  personal stake in my pain. But this was incredibly important. If I  hadn't met Mal or had him under control already I could actually go to  the League. I could give them my song and dance about being an  experiment and pretend none of this was my fault. Unfortunately at the  moment I had one giant fucking loose end in that plan.

My  identity as Nick had straight up TOLD Mal I purposefully enhanced  myself, and my Mammon identity was a dead ringer for the fake mastermind  I'd made up. I needed to get Mal under control and arrange mental  protection for him before the League found out I existed. By touching  the area of my mind with the Greed System in it I knew Barbie would be  immune to mental manipulation now, well, any mental manipulation that  wasn't from me. Which was...problematic but one thing at a time.

What  I needed most right now was time. If I could get Barbie to agree to  keep the League out of this of her own will, she could work around them  in a manner that wouldn't be suspicious to the people who knew her. That  would buy me time to shore up the few loose ends I had and then I could  just pretend I had no leads about the people who 'kidnapped' me. The  League would chase their own tails for a while until something shiny  distracted them and I could just lay low and ride out the storm as a  victim, assuming they even found out I was involved with anything to  begin with.

Barbie's  eyes were conflicted. She didn't want to keep this to herself. I could  see it on her face. But I also saw something else. Aside from ordering  her to be convinced earlier and playing the pity card, I'd also played  on her vanity. She was a sidekick, and I was handing her a massive  League level problem and telling her she could handle it herself. With  my previous order making her more certain that she could actually do  that, I imagine it was tempting as hell to try to fly solo on this.

She  walked back over and flopped down on the bed, wincing slightly as she  landed on her incredibly well used ass. It didn't jar her from her  thoughts though as she went quiet, her face scrunched in concentration  as she went over every angle of what had happened. I was doubly glad I'd  ordered her to see that it was a better idea to handle this without the  League, because from her expression she was fucking dissecting every  angle of this. My heart was thundering in my chest.

I  hated improv. A good lie should be carefully thought out and well  crafter. For small stuff like trying to fuck a girl off the cuff was  fine, but trying to freestyle a fucking escape from possibly enraging  the Justice League was mentally exhausting. She bit her lip. "Ok." My  eyes snapped open wide and I stared at her in disbelief. She looked at  me sternly. "But there are going to be a couple of rules."

I  held my breath, curious what she would say, and nodded at her to go  ahead. "Whether this is your fault or not, the fact is  I'm...compromised. I'm going to arrange a series of conditional tests  for myself daily. If you give me any orders or try to control me it'll  trigger a series of information packets to be sent to every hero I know,  telling them exactly what has happened." I nodded, a bit relieved. I  was past the point where ordering her to do anything would help, I  needed her own normal unaltered brain to get out of this, so her tests  were fine. Hell if the League became aware of me later they might help.

She  swallowed hard and continued. "Secondly experiment or not you're a  civilian. If we're going to look into this, we're doing it together. You  do what I say, no matter what kind of compulsion you have available. I  know how to do this safely and I don't want you getting killed trying to  go rogue and find whoever hurt you. There have been teenagers  disappearing all over the world. These people are organized and  dangerous and we don't know what they want. The fact that they're trying  to give people powers is a game changer and a huge break in the case,  and it's one of the main reasons I'm agreeing to this. Is all of that  clear."

I  nodded in relief. That was all perfectly fine. I didn't want to be  dragged all over town looking for someone who didn't exist anyway. Best case for me was that I got Mal under control, arranged for telepath protection, and then had him claim the same thing I had. We could go to the League and let them study us, and once they saw we'd been chemically altered in a way beyond what anyone on Earth could manage now, our  stories would be rock solid. Until then I could just let Barbie do her  detective thing and I wouldn't need to get involved in anything  dangerous. After all the power thing was a false lead. What were the  chances someone was actually experimenting on all those missing kids and giving them superpowers?