Chapter 103-105

I woke up after getting a good night's sleep. The changes to Negan’s castle were finally finished, and it was now tremendously more comfortable than it was just weeks earlier to live in. I didn’t plan on living here all the time, but the castle was further toward the middle of the country. So it would make a better hub or capital than the mansions in Pennsylvania, and it would also be a better place to visit during the winter.

I spanked Vicky and Beatrice on their asses to wake them up, drawing a shocked yelp from Beatrice and a lascivious moan from Vicky as I spoke. “Come on, time to get up. We still have too much work today; we can’t sleep through it all again like we did yesterday.” Beatrice stretched naked, and if I hadn’t gone through a week-long fuck session, I’d have been hard at the sight of her intentionally trying to get a rise out of me as Vicky scoffed.

“Just because we spent the entire day in bed didn’t mean we got much sleep. You want me to call Melissa and Clara to have food brought up, or do you want to get right into business?” She was putting her clothes on as she spoke; her tight body meant that she could comfortably wear children's clothes, which would leave her belly exposed, but those types of clothing were easier to find than frilly women's clothing.

Her top was a colorful SpongeBob shirt, and she pulled on loose, baggy sweats while Beatrice put on one of my shirts and a pair of yoga pants. “I can teleport down and grab us something instead, save us some time, and not bother waking anyone.” By now, everyone was used to using their powers instinctively. Most of the time, they’d default to using it rather than think of anything else, which was why it was good to have multiple points of view for making decisions.

She disappeared for a few seconds before coming back up with a plate full of food, telling me now. “Clara was already up and making food. We really should bring Melissa’s mom if we plan on staying here, though.” I sighed. As good as Melissa’s food was, it just didn’t hold up to her mother's. “Can’t, she and Victor are currently enjoying their honeymoon on the coast. It’ll be weeks before they come back.”

She had a big smirk on her face as Vicky asked. “And Victor’s fine with leaving his daughter alone with that ‘sheep in wolf's clothing’?” I couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of how slowly Dominic went with courting Alicia. They both knew something was there, but he wanted to have her father’s permission to date her first, and Alicia practically jumped him before Victor finally relented. Ever since then, he acted like Dominic took his innocent daughter away when she was the more adventurous of the two, pulling him into new situations that he wouldn’t have.

In my past life, he was a very defensive and guarded person, and it was odd seeing how much he changed with a love interest. In the end, that defensive attitude was why he lived as long as he did with an extremely useful water manipulation power. “Speaking of Dominic, did Duke get the southern grid up and running?”

Vicky picked up one of her heavily altered iPad-like gadgets as she flipped through the messages to see if he did. “Doesn’t look like it, at least you don’t have any messages from him or someone else in that region.” He was still an unpowered person, but his skill set made him more useful than most powered people. The main reason most of the people in our territory had power was because of him putting Howard’s plans into play.

With mouthfuls of food, I kept asking questions about what was happening, both answering their parts as they worked as my secretaries for this area, while Sofie and Millie led the main faction with their sisters. In a few days, I’d have to stop back there and fuck their brains out; otherwise, they’d think I forgot about them. The enforcers they had watching them changed out every week or so as my powerful wives rotated in and out to protect them, even though they wanted to stay close to me.

Stirring sugar into my coffee, I asked. “So, how is Ester’s infiltration mission with the northern group?” With Negan dead, there was only the North, the Army, and the Collective left, which was a bunch of smaller factions constantly fighting over land and trying to take over everything. It was the closest to how things were in the first timeline, while every other faction’s territory(even Negan’s) was much better.

At least those were the factions nearby, while everywhere else was too far away to worry about until I conquered everything around me. Slowly taking things over made more sense than taking everything over all at once. It allowed me to integrate the new territory into my own without the risk of uprisings or rebellions, at least the risk was much lower than it would be if I killed all the leaders and took everything over all at once.

Beatrice called someone to ask, and had a brief conversation before answering me. “She’s doing well, purposely downplaying her power while keeping an eye out for the second in command of the territory. When she sees Dale is about to make his move, she’ll spring into action and take over the territory in one clean sweep, but that’s still months if not years away.”

I figured as much before asking offhandedly. “Did you get any news from Darcy? I knew she was looking for her family near the western coast…” “Yes… All but her mother are unfortunately gone… She’s doing her best to find everyone else people are looking for, but the politics of the region is completely different there; she has to make sure not to step on anyone's feet; she is a super attractive woman after all.”

Both Vicky and I answered. “Ain't that the truth.” “I miss her as much as she probably misses me.” That was all the faraway news; now it was back to discussing the territory. “The food problems of the region aren’t as bad as we thought. Thankfully, they had enterprising people taking food from our own land to sell to people, but getting them to switch to the bone coins is harder than we initially thought it would be. We might have to do a trade-in system with the metal chips Negan was using as currency, otherwise people will be mad.”

I looked from Vicky to Beatrice now. “And the rebellious forces, have they decided on a leader I can go put down yet?” “No, there is still infighting on who should be their leader; it’s between someone with an acid spit power and a fat enhancer type. The acid-spitting guy has the stronger power, but the enhancer has more men backing him, so it is still a toss-up between the two. It should take another few weeks before one finally comes out on top.”

“That’s good to hear… That should be everything, right? Besides ordering Zombie Negan to finish up remodelling this steel castle, we got time for a quickie before we get back to work, right?” I looked at the two girls as one scrolled through the messages on her tablet while the other her phone. Our phone coverage was still all over the place since we tapped into what was left of it, but as more time went by, more territory got access to phones and the internet again.

Beatrice answered first as she shed her freshly worn clothes. “Nope, I’m not seeing anything. We got the time.” Vicky was about to stop as well, but I saw her hitch at one of the notes. “Umm… Your brother is in our territory.” I paused with my pants halfway down as I asked. “Is he hurt? Does he need our help?” “No, he’s fine, just a little rough from living outside our territory, why?”

“Well, that means he can wait till we’re done. It’s got to be a real quickie today, though, not a several-hour-long fuck session that we call a quickie.” 

Chapter 104

After making my brother wait while I fucked for an hour(45 minutes of him heading here, 15 minutes of waiting). We got right down to business, which was feeding him. My brother shoveled food into his mouth as I looked him over. He was skinnier, which was something else, because he was always on the skinny side. The few words we spoke before he dug straight into his plate, I could tell he was fundamentally the same person… But there was that apocalypse sadness to him now as well.

He had seen his fair share of trauma, of heartbreak, of people betraying him… He did lose all his friends, only surviving because I sent him away from California. I was well known, but not to the point that someone across the country would hear of me, as much as my own people had power and could tap into the cell phone towers to communicate, the only way to get news on the West Coast from the East was the old-fashioned way, word of mouth from someone who traveled here.

He ate like a fiend until our eyes met, and he gave me a big smile, still bent over his food. “God, this is incredible. A big meal like this reminds me of the Beforetimes. You know what the most common food is in Nevada? Bug burgers.” He spoke with a mouthful of food, still chewing as he spoke, swallowing hard before drinking the mug of beer I got for him. “God damn, I missed this. It’s been years since I had an ice-cold beer like this.”

That was the truth, sure, making beer was as easy as throwing sugar, water, and yeast into a jug and waiting, but the factories we had working to make this as they were before went a long way to people sticking around, our nation was most certainly the richest because of all the advantages I stacked over and over again. Finishing his four plates of food, he looked at me as we finally got down to brass tacks.

“The West Coast… I want you to help me take it over.” I thought about it for a second before giving him an answer immediately. “No. There’s nothing in it for me.” “Dude, don’t be a dick. Wouldn’t it be cool if one brother owned the West Coast, the other controlled the East?” “Not really, first of all, what’s your power, because if you don’t have a good one, my helping you take over will last all the way up until I leave, then someone more powerful than you will fuck you up and take over.” 

“Oh.” He said, smiling at me as a ball of light appeared in his hand, shifting between a bunch of different colors as he did so. “I got a good one.” I squinted as I tried to parse out what it did, before he showed me. In the time it took me to figure it out, the ball turned red before shifting again into a massive fireball. It hovered in his hand for a few seconds, my eyebrows raised as he looked around for something to hit with it, but I didn’t think he thought through his plan as he let it extinguish.

“I got access to a bunch of old school spells like a DnD character.” Leaning forward in curiosity, I asked. “Well, which ones do you have access to?” He raised his hand as he flicked an invisible screen. “We got the first level spells, these are pretty much free to use, but I will get tired if I spam them. Weak versions of all the elements, prestidigitation, a classic in my opinion, weak heal, mage hand, and light.”

He went on to explain some spells very similar to what a normal wizard would get, some healing spells also slapped in, with the end spell he could use being fireball. I thought about it as I couldn’t believe his luck. From what I remembered, he never played DnD before, at least not when he lived around here, but he knew what prestidigitation was. Now, I could assume that he got into DnD after moving, but…

“That’s not your original power, is it?” The jovial look dropped off his face as he interlaced his fingers. “What makes you think that?” “Well, from what I know, there is a randomness to what powers someone gets, but I don’t see you getting a DnD power… I take it, you got one more along the lines of… Power theft?”

It made sense, at least in my mind. My third power was the ability to steal powers. Instead of getting upset or anything, he could only smile back as he fully explained. “It wasn’t the ability to steal any power, but only my loved ones… So, for most of the time after the wave hit, I was powerless; my girlfriend was powerful enough, she was always a nerdy girl after all, you remember? Well, one thing led to another and…”

I could tell it was hard for him to say the next part. “She was killed by her second in command. We didn’t have it as good as you do over here, but it was ours, you know?” Tears were forming in his eyes as he continued. “No one knew about my power, so before they could kill the weak, good-looking boy toy of the leader. I took it and blasted my way out.”

I sighed. Leaving now wouldn’t be that much of a problem, but it was getting into a fight I didn’t need to take on myself. I had already done so much, changed so much compared to how the world would have gone. My brother was only standing here because of me right now. But… His story was remarkably close to mine and Sophie’s.

If he were only after territory because of greed, I’d be much more likely to turn him down… But for revenge. My brother and I weren’t that close anymore, but at one point, I could see myself helping him bury a body if he accidentally killed someone. I had my own territory to worry about, but, at this point, everything pretty much ran smoothly without my input, and I was strong enough that a trip all the way to the opposite coast and back might not even take a day.

And… There was another, more selfish reason to do it. I could feel my own theft power was close to unlocking again and… To be honest, the powers on the East Coast were kind of lame. I didn’t see anything as spectacular as my own here, maybe Melissa once she went crazy again, but I had her power already. Hopefully, someone over there, someone we’d have to kill, would have an incredibly good power I could steal.

I looked at him, the manic look of desperation in his eye, before looking at my wives. “God damnit, I don’t need this shit right now. We still haven’t taken over all this territory, people can totally fuck us over if they figure out I’m not here… So, we’ll just have to make this revenge trip real quick.”

The unsure look dropped off his face again as I remembered how expressive he was, giving a big smile again before wiping his tears. For a brief moment, I think of whether this is a trap. If he could gain the powers of people close to him, he might be able to steal my own powers, but… He was never like that, and since I was helping him, I doubted he’d go around to betray me in such a stupid way… Truth be told, I doubted his power could even steal mine to begin with; if there was a mental battle, unless I was dead, then he’d lose it by a wide margin.

Either way, we had to prepare. I sighed again as I got back to ordering. “Alright, well, we won’t be gone for too long, just try to keep it secret for as long as you can. I’ll take some premade stuff from the kitchen, and once we finish this, maybe look into setting up a trade route to the West. We could cut south and see if the Families want to as well. If you’re wondering why, that’s where our sister is held up with her family right now. Also, do you know which part of the West Coast Darcy is looking for her family at?”

Chapter 105

We were making quick time. I could fly at close to the speed of a plane, so it would only take a few hours to go from one side of the country to the other. I looked at my brother as he was wearing heavy clothes, goggles, and had the rest of his face covered as he was bent down; the wind chill would have been enough to give him frostbite, and the windsheer enough to cut his skin.

That was why we were taking a break every hour or so; otherwise, we’d be damn near there already. Definitely had to change my plans for the future, maybe making a plane out of bones was the smarter option for long-distance travel, and I could include more than two people, hell, it would probably be less draining if I relied on just keeping it in the air while the normal plane propelling system handled the hard work.

I watched as he smoked a cigarette, really thinking out my plane idea while a bunch of thugs managed to sneak up on us. “You got a smoke?” More and more people just kept pouring out, all were armed and pointing them at us. I smirked as I asked. “Friends of yours? Did they really bring guns to a power fight?” The leader pointed at the throne I had lengthened into a couch for us to travel on. “Give us that… And everything you have on you, then we’ll give you both a clean death.”

I looked at my brother. “You want to take care of these guys, or should I?” *Bang* The leader fired at my head. I could see my brother's eyes go wide as I made no movement to dodge or counter with my own perceived power of bone manipulation. I pulled bone saw blades out as all hell broke loose. Forming the couch to make a bone shield around him, he already cast a shielding spell that deflected most of the bullets headed in his direction, while my saws cut through them like… Sawblades would.

In seconds, only a handful of men were left alive. I had spared the leader on purpose, the few women of the group too, but there were two powered in the group who managed to stop themselves from dying. One got a barrier of LEGO blocks up in front of himself while the other took the blade, but it sank into his body like putty before it stalled out.

My brother poked his head out to look at the chaos that was happening. Only seconds had gone by since the fighting started, but everyone on their side was now weaponless. He put two and two together before asking. “Is that LEGO power just LEGO manipulation, or something more useful, like toy manipulation?” The guy looked out from behind the LEGOs and answered. “It’s actually a building power; LEGO blocks are just the easiest item I can get my hands on.”

“And that absorption power, just normal blob power, or is it based around non-Newtonian fluid to stop force?” He looked down at the blade still in his belly as he painfully pulled it out. The leader was unarmed by me, literally; only the shock of having his gun arm chopped off kept him silent as the pain finally kicked in, and he began screaming.

“Non-newwhatnow? I don’t know what that means.” “Never mind, since it wasn’t strong enough to stop yourself from being hurt, it's clearly not strong enough for me to offer you a position.” He pulled a gun out of his winter hoody pocket and blew away the leader. “Shame on you. The world is completely changed, and you pick a fight with two people you don’t know, that’s a good way to get you and all your friends killed, which I’m only explaining for the sake of the survivors.”

His gun was pointed at the LEGO man as he asked. “Hey, does that have any practical applications for building fortifications? Or is it a tiring power, because building fast seems kind of weak?” “No, it’s good. Anything  I build also becomes stronger.” “Great, we’ll be back after I kill all my enemies. I’ll have a place for you on my building team once I do, so don’t go too far, alright?”

My brother was always the more charismatic of the two of us. It was funny that his taste in women rendered it almost a mood point, but I could see his stoic side come out more since the apocalypse. Either way, he could make fast friends, and that mattered now more than ever. We picked back up into the sky as I asked. “Still smoking, even with them becoming much harder to get?”

“Yeah, still can’t break the habit. I figured I’d quit when there are no more cigarettes left, but I don’t have to worry about that now, since your factories are making them; we can just open up a trade route.” I really shouldn’t have let him look at my plans before we left. Bringing humanity back to a similar level, if not past where we were in some areas, was an extremely hard job. I still couldn’t worry about other regions until I got my own under control.

“Where are you going? Nevada is to the west.” “We've got to stop at Salt Lake City first, one of my girlfriends is looking for her family there.” “Alright, but… This couch is already crowded, maybe think of a better way to travel, yeah?” “Yeah, I’m already working on an idea. I’ll see if I can make it happen if I can find her.” I sped up now that we were done talking, because the speed would make it extremely hard to hear each other.

We didn’t know much about the other cities to the west, but Salt Lake City was one of the few cities that went mostly untouched by the weather effects. It was a good place to build up a faction, but it had been turned into a battleground by more powerful factions. Everyone wanted a piece of it, so that’s why Darcy came to see if she could save her family before the entire city burned to the ground.

Of course, she had her own squad, but I wasn’t fully comfortable with her going, even if she had a few hundred troops backing her. Powers were a force multiplier, but the truly powerful powers broke the rules. Who knew if the leaders fighting didn’t have powers that could wipe out entire buildings or control people against their will? She was a target herself because of her versatile power and high level; if the factions fighting found out about her, they could easily target them for recruitment or elimination, so their enemies could get her.

At least, that’s what I’d do if I were a faction fighting them. Still flying, I could barely hear my brother even as he yelled. “WHAT’S IT LIKE!? BEING WITH THAT MANY WOMEN CAN’T BE EASY!” I couldn’t help but smile as I answered. “IT’S EASIER THAN YOU THINK! THEY’VE ALL SEEN WHAT THE WORLD IS NOW! WHY QUIT THE LOSING SIDE, YOU KNOW!?”

I heard him chuckle before I asked a question of my own. “WHAT ABOUT YOU!? I’M SURPRISED YOU DIDN’T MAKE A HAREM OF NERDY FAT GIRLS BY NOW!” “HEY, I LIKE CHUBBY GIRLS, NOT FAT GIRLS AND… UNTIL RECENTLY, THE MOST POWERFUL PERSON AROUND WAS MY GIRLFRIEND! I DIDN’T EVEN WANT TO GET INTO TRYING TO CONVINCE HER, CHANCES ARE, SHE’D HAVE LEFT ME, AND I’D HAVE COME BACK EAST WAY EARLIER!”

“WE’RE GETTING CLOSE! LET’S TALK ONCE WE’RE ON THE GROUND!” I flew in and saw something I didn’t expect. The city was mostly untouched, at least compared to others, but clear territorial lines were drawn separating them. I could see at least three colors, and one of them was filled with working vehicles… Even a helicopter flew by as I wondered, did I find a good power to take for myself?