The Good Life: The Wolf (ch. 90)

“You never struck me as the type to get married,” Robin noted, raising a cynical brow and her gaze became rather pointed. Ah, she was jealous ~! It was actually pretty cute to see. Her arms were crossed, her hips were locked and there was a dangerous tilt of her head that told me I was in trouble. Not capital T Trouble, but certainly in for a finger wagging if I didn't choose my next words carefully. 

“I'm only getting married to cuck Cinder,” I answered swiftly and without hesitation.  That made Robin’s head tilt a fraction further, telling me she was considering the information before she offered a thin smile and I saw a flicker of amusement in her blue eyes. Robin was passive by nature, but she had a cruel streak in her -- and as far as I knew it was reserved for Cinder. She had agreed to bring Cinder along for the ride, but it seemed that Robin hadn't forgiven her for arranging her capture in the slightest. 

“I almost feel bad for her -- falling into a trap that she laid out,” Robin decided, granting me unspoken forgiveness as she accepted an offered arm and leaned into my side. With that, I shambled us into the depths of Zaun and we were immediately covered in the Gray. That vile and downright spiteful gray fog coiled around the barrier of clean air I put between us. It stalked and shifted, like a predator trying to find a way inside. And, honestly, I was entirely sure that it wasn't. 

“Really?” I asked, and I saw Robin’s smile grow a fraction. 

“No, not particularly,” she admitted. “Do you think she'll learn anything from this… lesson?” 

“Nah, not particularly,” I admitted. “But not every punishment comes with a lesson. However she reacts once the deed is done will decide her future with us.” Cinder's ambition had been an amusing C plot, but she's proven on several occasions that her ambition outstripped her ability. 

We walked through the Gray, unseen and unnoticed as the stuff was so thick you could barely see a hand before your face. “Then, I suspect you have another ambitious woman set in your sights.” 

That got a grin from me, “I like her,” I admitted freely. 

I hadn't at all anticipated that Mel would be willing to set everything that she had worked for to the torch for no greater reason than to spite her mother. It was one of the few times I had genuinely been caught off guard, second only to Asami's ruthless plan. When Ambessa presented her offer to take over the city, I had 100% expected Mel to be fully on board with it. Every action she’d taken up until that point had painted a pretty clear picture of her character -- how she was squeezing the Council for every drop of power and influence, and clutching at the foundations of her own foundation with white knuckles.

Mel struck me as the pinnacle of politicians. She put on a show about how she served the ‘Greater Good’, but in the end, what she considered the Greater Good was always what benefited her the most. And given that I had been edging her out of the Council with my power bloc… 

“She's more interesting than I thought she was. She has potential,” I said, my smile growing a fraction. I had Synth'd her assistant, whatever her name was, so I had known the moment that Mel had started making moves. And those moves were surprising. “She's worth recruiting. I just need to lay out a path for her where she thinks she can eat her cake and have it too.” 

Mel was playing Ambessa, feigning obedience and convincing her mother that she was following not out of any familial love but simple self-interest. She had Ambessa convinced, at least. All the while, she learned her plan so she could subvert it from the inside. 

“I thought you would have an eye on her mother. Ambessa seems… impressive,” Robin noted as we made our way through the winding smog covered streets. There was a teasing smirk in her voice and I shrugged unapologetically. 

“Why not both?” I replied with a grin of my own. I liked Ambessa. She was ambitious and unrelenting. She wanted something, so she'd take it. But, at the same time, she was smart about it. Careful, meticulous, and utterly without mercy. She had an entire network of spies already within Piltover, and some of them were in quite high positions. She was determined to take the city, one way or another. “Mel needs to see a way out of her current position. Ambessa… she needs to be forced into a position where it's success or death. The situation just needs to be cultivated a bit.” 

Cassandra would need to up the pressure on Mel, something she was already willing to do -- half because she thought that Mel was willing to sell out Piltover, and half out of spite for her poaching Jayce. I could egg her on by having my puppets on the Council urge her to press the attack. Let the tension rack up for a bit and let Mel really feel her life's work slipping through her fingers. Then, I would be there to offer a way to keep all that she had. There were plenty of levers I could use -- my bride-to-be was one of them, as Caitlyn had a longstanding crush on Mel. 

As for Ambessa…

“You're playing a dangerous game,” Robin warned me and I nodded. “The reinforcing army doesn't worry you?” 

“It does,” I admitted. Partly. Piltover and Zaun simply didn't have the forces to rebuff such an army, even with my weapons. As things were, with the arming of the Enforcers and Silco's gangs, we had a militia of around five thousand that could grow to about fifteen thousand if we started conscripting. My weapons helped level the playing field, but at the same time… this was an army that dealt with funky ass magic and other supernatural shenanigans. Additionally, Noxus had its own mages who would introduce their own funky ass magic into the equation. 

Laser weapons wouldn't be enough to make fifteen thousand a match for their hundred and fifty thousand. 

Which, realistically, left me, Sukuna, and Robin as the real heavy hitters. And, frankly, I felt pretty confident about our odds. With my Room, I could just drop a nuke on the army before they realized it was even there. Robin could snap the necks of their leaders. Sukuna could make mincemeat of their infantry. 

“Asami is going to learn from her mistake -- she tried to match us in quality. Next time, she's going to aim for quality and quantity,” I ventured. By now, she would have gotten the data -- her attack on Fallout made some serious headway before Sukuna and I tipped the scales. That was a lesson that she was going to learn. All the more so when she realized that I was building the thing that she feared the most -- an empire rather than a loose collection of worlds. “We need to be able to match that. Noxus will be a good test.”

Back in Fallout, Taylor and Nora should be making headway into producing a Super Mutant army. That would be a good base to work off of. Fallout also gave us a good tech base  -- medicine, stimulants, weapons, armor, and transportation. Additionally, Taylor herself possessed a unique ability to control an insect army, all of which could be genetically designed to her desires. 

The issue was that Asami knew all those cards that we could play. We needed more. 

“The world that she sent Yoruichi to could have potential,” Robin noted. “If they thought that it had something that could deal with her…” 

Meaning that it had something that I would want. Something or someone worth recruiting, which made it all the more important to reach that world beyond just saving Yoruichi from it. 

I nodded in agreement, “In any case -- the Noxian army will be a nice test. Plus Noxus itself has potential and I'd like to add it to my little empire. Technically speaking, I won the bet with Asami,” I mused. 

Robin hummed, “And we would need someone to govern the territory.” Meaning Ambessa. She had very similar levers to her daughter, in the end. 

I just needed to isolate her. Maybe feed Darkwill bad information, paint her as a traitor or someone that was setting him up for failure. From what I knew of the guy and of Ambessa, I could see him believing it all too easily. That'd cut Ambessa's foundation out from underneath her. From there, I just needed to present an alternative -- join me and get revenge on Darkwill and receive the throne of Noxus to rule in my name. Recruiting her would fill a role that I think I had been missing thus far -- a general. A real one, unlike Nora and her Minuteman title.

“And if that doesn't pan out… well, we have alternatives,” I noted as we arrived at our destination -- the Sump of Zaun. I could hear the sounds of construction going on all around us as massive industrial fans blew away the Gray so people could actually see what they were doing. The entire area was being transformed under the guise of implementing the Hextech air purifier that Viktor and Jayce had been developing. 

And it was actually being implemented -- a device that would suck in toxic air, cycle it, then spit out clean air. I was just using the workforce to expand my operations a bit in the hidden corners of the city as a bonus. 

We walked through a false wall before reaching a bulkhead door. Heading through it brought us into a winding hallway that mirrored the construction of the air purifier before it brought us to a natural cavern that we had repurposed.

There, we saw the lab that had been built for Singed and Curie. Through my Room, I could sense the various projects that were underway. Singed had chosen to be relocated on account that Asami had compromised his previous lab, and as far as Silco was aware, this was a joint venture of sorts. He agreed, largely because he thought it would be an opportunity to steal some of my research. 

“Monsieur Law!” Curie greeted us as the doors parted, blasting us with the strong smell of antiseptics and chemicals. The lab was a definite upgrade from Singed’s previous one -- which had been a cave converted into a lab. This one had sterile white floors, dull gray walls, all lined with state-of-the-art research equipment purchased on Piltover’s dime. 

Curie skipped over, her lab coat fluttering behind her, revealing her sexy nurse outfit before she closed the distance. She greeted me with a kiss, cupping my face with her hands, and I could sense the joy that radiated from her. She pulled away with a great big smile on her face before she greeted Robin in a similar fashion. “Mademoiselle Robin -- oh, I simply must thank you both for the most wonderful opportunity! The lab, the research- Singed has been a terrific research partner!”

She gushed in absolute delight, visibly radiating pure joy that was infectious. Even Singed didn’t seem immune as he spun around in a chair in the main lab. The entire area was divided up into three main labs -- one shared one where they collaborated on recreating Compound V, then they each had a private lab where they could work on their own projects. Additionally, there was a medical area and it was there that the hostages taken were in their medically induced comas. 

I wanted to bring Rumi out of hers, even if I knew it was an objectively terrible decision. All the more so because the serum that she had taken had cranked her aggression to maximumer. And Rumi had been aggressive to begin with. Maki and Nobara were a pair of wild cards -- I had ideas of what I wanted to do with them, but I wanted to get things moving along before I woke them up. 

I really wanted to start corrupting them, but as it was… I was juggling enough projects at the moment, and I couldn’t afford to drop any without consequences. 

“Glad you’ve been enjoying yourself, Curie,” I said, my gaze sliding over to Singed. “How has progress been?”

“We are in the initial phases, but… promising. The surplus of materials has sped things along considerably,” Singed answered, his face still half covered by a mask with one milky white eye looking at me. By that, he was referring to the synth machine I gave them to print off bespoke lab rats as needed for their experiments. “However, our initial estimates remain. We will have a viable compound within a year. Six months, under ideal circumstances.”

I nodded, accepting that. They had samples to work off from, but these things took time. And I understood how motivated Singed was to complete the product. He hadn’t brought his daughter to the lab, but I knew he was working to create a cure for whatever was wrong with her. “I figured,” I admitted. 

“Then may I ask the nature of your visit?” Singed questioned, his gaze lingering on Robin and Curie as they spoke. Or, rather, as Curie rambled exuberantly about her research while Robin nodded at the appropriate times. 

“Sukuna will be coming in a bit for surgery,” I informed as I strode forward, a crafted smile sliding onto my face. “And I wanted to ask you about something,” I started and he narrowed his eyes ever so slightly, sensing that it would be no idle question. And it wasn’t. “After you cure your daughter, what do you want?” 

The question sounded casual for what it was as I slid into the chair across from him, cocking my head and I could see him churning over the information. He hid his reaction well, but it was obvious thanks to my Room that my knowledge of his daughter rattled him. It made his guard climb all the way up, but even as it did, he was mulling over the question itself. Its implications. There was a long moment of silence and that was Singed’s invitation for me to elaborate before he said anything, one way or another. 

“I’m sure you’ve pieced it together that we aren’t exactly from around here,” I prompted, offering an easy smile and Singed inclined his head to me. 

“Curie… is a very honest woman,” he admitted. Meaning that she was pretty free with the details. I fully expected that. Counted on it, even. It would help ease his way into the conversation, rouse that scientific curiosity, and bury a question in the back of his mind: ‘If they can do this, what else can they do?’ “I will admit that I have been… curious about the nature of your presence on Runeterra.”

There we go. That was my in. “Curious about how we got here, or about why we’re here?” I asked, and he considered the question for just a moment. 

“Why,” he decided. ‘How’ would come later, he reasoned. Rightly so. 

“Curiosity and resources, for the most part,” I answered easily enough. Phrasing was important. I needed to ignite that spark of curiosity within him. “This world has resources and abilities that other worlds don’t. Magic, for one. I saw a lot of potential in Hextech and I wanted it. Saw a lot of potential in Shimmer, and I wanted it too.”

“You wish to recruit me,” Singed acknowledged, and I nodded. No point in hiding that. 

“I do. In one of the worlds under my control, I have an organization called the Institute. Asami, who was behind that nasty bit of business that nearly killed me and wrecked the city, took out a significant portion of my research and development team there,” I elaborated. No point in hiding anything. I had a pretty good idea of what Curie had said to him, but if I was bringing him onboard, then he’d need to do so with his eyes wide open. “So, I’m looking to fill the Institute back up with… driven talent.”

The offer didn’t come as a surprise to him. Honestly, he knew it was coming from day one. I’d just never said it out loud. “You offer my daughter’s health in exchange?” There was a certain flatness in his voice that told me he was entirely unsurprised. Which made it a surprise when I waved my hand dismissively. 

“Oh, no -- you have my help and resources there. The first couple of doses of the enhanced serum are spoken for, but one of them has your daughter’s name written on it. Don’t even worry about that,” I said, and that genuinely caught him off guard. I gave him a grin, “I like my people working with me willingly. Which is why I began the conversation by asking what you’ll do once your daughter’s health is restored. Got any big plans? Ambitions?”

Singed visibly hesitated, and that look in his lone eye softened immensely. His posture was strange -- it was like someone had wound him up like a spring toy, but he relaxed in other ways. I could only guess at how long he had been working at a cure, and now it was almost in his grasp. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “In truth… I haven’t given it any thought.”

No surprise there. Singed struck me as the kind of guy that got so consumed by the destination, he never spared a moment of thought of what happened after. I knew because I had been the same way after Homelander. 

“I’d give it some,” I told him. “Things are changing in the city, and they’re going to be changing a lot more soon. I’d be happy to have you on my side of things, but if you’re not interested… shame, but what can you do?” Beyond making a synth of him, of course. Or harvesting his intelligence and knowledge. I had a lot of things that I could do, but I’d much rather work with the genuine article over a synth. 

Singed gave me a lingering nod, and I could tell that he was giving the matter serious thought. Or he was picking apart that remark, wondering what I meant by it. 

The answer to that was transpiring as we spoke. I could feel it happening in my Room, some distance away. A meeting that I had set in motion had occurred, and with it came the next major move. 

Vi was meeting with the Firelights. 

Silco almost unanimously controlled the various gangs in Zaun -- he had a loose federation with the Chembarons, and through them, he controlled something like 90% of crime within the city. There was always going to be some outliers, of course. But, more importantly, there was opposition to his iron grip on the city and that opposition was the Firelights. 

Frankly, I didn’t know much about them - hadn't paid much attention to any of the gangs of Zaun. Yoruichi had name-dropped them on occasion before she was evicted from this reality, but I didn’t have much interest in them or their organization. And, to be completely honest, that hadn’t exactly changed. However, they did have an important use for me -- they gave me plausible deniability in what came next. 

Silco’s assassination. 

It broke my heart to do it, but it needed to be done. I liked the guy. I really did. But, needs must -- I needed to bring Jinx into my orbit without any other influences. Not only that, Silco’s death would create a power vacuum in Zaun that I was poised to fill. In uniting the Undercity underneath me, I’d have a lot more maneuverability within it, and a lot more soft power Uptop, as the locals called Piltover. 

Not only that, it would massively inflame tensions with Piltover and Zaun during a critical juncture. Internal divisions that I could exploit in the face of an external enemy -- it was the perfect recipe for a power grab. Something that would be very easy with the Council stacked in my favor. 

But, it’d be better for Singed to discover that naturally. I wouldn't call him a loyal person, but Silco had been a longstanding patron of him and his research. Didn’t seem wise to bring him in on my broader plans when his willingness to work with me was still uncertain. 

Patting the man on the shoulder, I turned away from him as the main star of the evening revealed himself by striding through the door. Sukuna glanced around the lab with a dull expression before his four blood red eyes landed on me. I gave him a cheeky grin, “Finally ready?”

That got a smirk out of him, “Didn’t want to give you an excuse when you screw up.” Sukuna replied, carrying a familiar-looking canister. 

“It worked, then?” I asked him, genuinely curious. I had given the Soul Threads to Sukuna and Cinder a while ago -- Cinder hadn’t done much with hers, but Sukuna had been experimenting with his. He gave them a dip in an ‘evil bath’ that made them sensitive to cursed energy, which was very interesting to me. I couldn’t produce my own cursed energy in any meaningful capacity, but his Negative Soul Threads opened the door to converting natural mana into it. 

However, that wasn’t what he was working on the past couple of weeks. 

“Who do you think you’re talking to? Of course, it worked,” Sukuna scoffed. “As if I’d let you graft them onto me unless they were anything less than perfect.” A very fair point. And, something he was very proud of as he set the canister on a lab table before cracking it open, revealing the Negative Soul Threads. Unlike their original silverish blue hue, the Soul Threads had been blackened with the only trace of their original hue being the markings that had been etched into their surface. 

“Oh… must have been an impressive technique if you’re willing to add it to your soul,” I noted, walking over and inspecting the canister. Within were twenty Soul Threads, and spread out across them all were the markings that represented a cursed technique. Couldn’t make heads or tails of what they said, but they certainly looked neat. Very foreboding. “Is whatshisface still alive?”

“He’s breathing, but I wouldn’t call him alive. He went catatonic when I tossed him into the bath,” Sukuna shrugged, unbothered by the young man’s fate. “I’m keeping him around in case I need to graft his technique again, but the brat’s done for mentally.” Nice. It opened the door to get my hands on the cursed technique too. I’d have to steal it, though, because Sukuna was absolutely not the sharing type. 

“Hm. Well, in that case, let's get this started, yeah?” I was eager to actually use the Soul Threads for their intended purpose. I was still working on the quality of them for my own set, but if this worked… I could gain access to cursed energy and mana on top of my already enhanced abilities from the serum. And that opened an entirely new realm of possibilities with my power that I was eager to explore. 

Sukuna grunted, and I ushered us into the operating room. Curie insisted on helping, though there was little for her to actually do as the physical surgery was just one aspect of the operation. Unsurprisingly, Sukuna refused any kind of anesthetic before lying face down on a table that had been made with this surgery in mind. Curie prepped the tools while I reached into my pocket. 

I didn’t much care for drugs. They weren’t the kind of escapism I enjoyed, but I couldn’t deny that some were certainly more useful than others -- like Mentats. The pill that I popped tasted like chalk, but I could feel my brain shifting up a gear after swallowing. Blinking a few times as my eyes dilated before narrowing into pinpricks I looked over at the presented tools and with supreme confidence, began the operation. 

A quick cut down the length of the spine revealed it, and within were the anchor points. There was no blood of any kind thanks to the Room, the flesh simply parting with ease, alongside bone. The Soul Threads- hm. 

“These aren’t really threads anymore, are they? We should call them something different,” I noted as I opened the canister and used my power to grab one of them. 

“What are you even thinking about in the middle of surgery?” Sukuna groused without any real heat. I attached one end of the… Hm. The Soul Thread had a cursed technique etched into it, but calling it a Soul Etching felt a bit… eh.. It was more of a… Soul… Circuit? Cursed Circuit? 

“Magic Circuit,” I decided, pleased with the name even as I continued the surgery. The magic circuit was anchored into the bone, but it ran deeper than that. They were anchored into the soul itself. I had plenty of practice grafting magic circuits to a soul by this point -- I had done so precisely for this surgery, and for my own when the time came. The soul wasn’t what I would ever call malleable, but it was adaptable. 

If I wanted to add something to it, it just needed to be made out of the same material. The body and the soul were reflections of one another, which is why the magic circuits needed to be made from synths sharing the same biological markers as the intended recipient. It made the original soul go ‘More soul stuff? Alright.’ and accept the graph. Things got messy when you tried to mix and match. If I had to describe it… 

It was like playdough. Smash together two lumps of blue? You just got a bigger lump of blue playdough. However, smash together blue and red? They would be forever distinct, and you couldn’t separate them. Worse, if you tried, it was impossible to avoid taking out chunks of blue along with the red. 

The magic circuits went down Sukuna’s spine, and I followed the diagram that he had provided, which would allow for the highest efficiency when using the technique. On that, he would know better than I, but I couldn’t deny that the end product looked a fair bit like a tribal tattoo running the length of his back and branching out along his shoulders and ribs. After a quick double check with my Room, I found myself grinning away. “Surgery complete!”

Sukuna grunted as he lifted himself up, healing the incision with RCT. He cracked his neck, his eyes narrowed ever so slightly before he raised his four arms. “Mahoraga,” Sukuna intoned before his shadow expanded. 

And from it was a white bodied, funky-looking creature. It straight up looked like a biblically accurate angle, just with a wheel hovering above its head. It was tall, its head nearly touching the ceiling, and Curie gaped at the sight. 

“Not bad, Law,” Sukuna said, a smile consuming his face. “Not bad at all.”