The Good Life: Law of the Jungle (ch. 114) (Patreon)

I had underestimated Taylor. Almost dangerously so, I thought as I checked out the sights around Nuka-World and beyond while she scrounged up the various leaders of Fallout that now fell under my domain. Bug control at her level wasn't anything to sneeze at, but it wouldn't crack the top ten when it came to what anyone would choose if they could get superpowers. In a more mundane world her power would still be strong, especially with her level of control, but the power had a hell of a lot more leverage in a world like Fallout. 

Giant ants. Blood worms. Bloatflies. Radscorpions. All large and very dangerous creatures, and they all fell under her absolute control. With them alone, she was powerful. Then she selectively bred them to be bigger, faster, and stronger. Increased their numbers rapidly by controlling their mating habits. Even without the other goodies that she found across the Wasteland, like the Cazadors, which were basically giant hyper murder hornets with rage issues, with enough time, Taylor would have conquered the Wasteland eventually. 

But that wasn't how I underestimated her. Or why she impressed me as I looked out at what she had built in my time away. 

Taylor was far more like Sukuna and me than I had given her credit for, at least in how she approached her power. My power had constantly evolved as I pushed what I was capable of, either with training, with mid-fight inspiration, or by cheating with the serum. Sukuna, once he learned that he wasn’t the strongest, started experimenting. It wasn’t just that he started collecting cursed energy; he adapted how he used his techniques and started adding new ones like Ten Shadows. And Taylor was cut from the same cloth.

Her issue had been that she lacked a natural way to push the boundaries of her power. What she did have though, was a Nuka-Gen replicator and a team of eggheads who didn’t have a single ethical bone to share between them. With them, she revealed what she could truly accomplish, and it was quite a sight. 

Her range was too small? Create synths of herself that she could control with her power as easily as she could her insects to artificially extend her range across a continent. Radiation was a problem? Create insects that could eat it, process it, and turn it into fertile soil. Enemies with power armor? Create insects that can peel them open like tin cans. Need a way to observe your territories and enemies? 

The list went on and on. 

It would be a disservice to credit none of it to the team of geneticists in her corner, but it was Taylor who was the driving force behind the creations. And I was looking at the results. 

The world of Fallout just didn’t have a single hope in hell of reaching its pre-war levels of population or production within the century. Honestly, they wouldn’t get there for another three or four hundred years, if ever. The ruined world's population was sparse and scattered, with apparently fewer than twenty million people left in all of America, and more importantly, they had lost the knowledge and skills to restore all their industrial bases. 

So what does Taylor do? She side steps that shit like she was in the NFL, and creates a bug that directly addresses the issue. 

I sat on the edge of a freshly constructed building's roof, watching as her construction insects worked their magic. What was left of Boston was being broken down and consumed by tick-like spider ants, only instead of blood they ate concrete. They were joined by smaller insects that looked like centipedes with wings that did the same for any metal in the deconstruction. There were tens of thousands of them that swarmed over the building I was looking at, rapidly deconstructing it in a show that I’m pretty sure Taylor was putting on for me. 

The raw materials were then taken to a processing plant just outside of the city, and it was a place of fascination. There were millions of insects there that operated like a well-oiled machine. The insects carrying the concrete or metal were fed to insects that could process the materials inside their bodies, as their stomachs were the biological equivalent to furnaces. Those materials were then effectively shat out in bars or a slurry of concrete, metal, glass, plastics, and everything in between. 

It was then that the refined materials were broken down once more into whatever was needed. Copper wire? Teams of spiders ate the bars of copper and began spinning copper wire threads. Girder beams? Metals were fed to larger insects that then shat them out. Everything that a society needed to rebuild, Taylor had either created an insect for the job or she was in the process of doing so. Or, she would have her insects build factories that would then churn out whatever was needed that couldn't be made out of bug shit. 

She didn’t have an insect that could create computer chips for instance, and more complex assembly would need to be done by humans for now, but… over the course of a few years, Taylor had created a strong industrial base in a world that I had effectively written off. A world that I had honestly figured we'd abandon once we had claimed everything of value and moved it all to El Dorado. 

Now? Now there wasn’t a need. More than that, with some minimal adjustments, what Taylor had created could be applied to El Dorado and other underdeveloped worlds. Insects to find resources and dig them up, then process the materials to create industrial manufactories. It radically adjusted my timeline, because now it was entirely possible for Fallout and El Dorado to match the production of worlds like Runeterra or Final Fantasy in just a few short years. 

The only limit seemed to be Taylor herself and what the geneticists could cook up, and so far, neither of them seemed even close to their limit. 

What else could she do? Could we give her synths the abilities of people like the Deep, letting her control aquatic creatures? What about monsters from Final Fantasy? Now that the Dias were always active, could Taylor’s range extend enough to envelop worlds? Not to mention the fact that despite her powers Taylor was still just a baseline human. Unenhanced by FEV, Shimmer, or Compound V. What could she accomplish with the serum that flowed through my veins? With a magic crest of her own?

One thing was very clear to me -- I had vastly underestimated Taylor’s value, and that was a mistake that I intended to correct. 

I vanished with a crack of lightning, whisked off with the expanded teleportation network Taylor had built. She hadn’t been able to make the most of it, given that the Dias had been a real power hog, but with Jenova that issue was taken care of, leaving all that juice for other projects. Now, large-scale teleportation was possible from the West Coast to the East. Mix in a little hextech from Runeterra, and it would be easy to transport mass amounts of goods across the country. Across the world. 

Appearing at Nuka-World, I took a moment to drink the sight in. It really was entirely unrecognizable and not just because of all the slavery. The recycled materials had been put to use creating tall buildings and fortifications. Nuka-World had a population of roughly two hundred thousand now, a good chunk of which came from my old world. The number would have been bigger, but Taylor had spread people around the Commonwealth in towns that were being rebuilt by her insects. 

The theme park looked like an actual city now, but parts of what it was lingered. The rollercoaster was repurposed into a metro, and districts that still carried their park theme, with people hurriedly walking from one task or another. 

“Is everything up to your standards?” Taylor asked as I stood on a railing, overlooking the city. 

“Not even close,” I admitted, and for a split second, her guard rose all the way up as she started bracing herself for condemnation. “You blew my expectations out of the water,” I assured her, and the tension instantly bled out of her. Her shoulders drooped ever so slightly, relieved that she wasn’t in for a scolding. Meanwhile, Jinx, who was in the conference room with her feet kicked up, mirrored the action because she wouldn't get to see Taylor get a chewing out like she thought. 

Turning on my heel, I dropped on the balcony to see that the room was filled with quite a few familiar faces. They stood, lined up along the wall, all wearing similar uniforms marking them as part of Taylor’s little kingdom. Most of them were also wearing masks, but I still recognized them easily enough.

“Heartless,” Marie Moreau half spat at me, her voice cold with a barely restrained coil of anger. 

“Bloodletter,” Taylor rebuked sharply. 

My smile grew, “Bloodletter, eh?” From what I knew of her powers, it was a solid moniker with just the right amount of edge. “Did you all get names?” I asked the line up, most of whom I hadn’t seen since I kicked their ass upon returning to Fallout after Asami missed her shot at me. They had been part of the secondary attack, intent on destroying my fledgling empire, but that had counted on Asami managing to kill me. 

The result was what stood before me. Kimiko, Marie, Luke and Sam Riordan, Andre Anderson, Emma Meyer, and Jordan Li. At least, that was some of their names according to some notes in Taylor’s office across the castle. 

“People call me Schizoid, but I don’t think that’s like my villain name,” Sam answered. “But, Luke is still called Golden Boy.” Sam was a familiar face. At one point in time, he had been part of my Eight, but in the aftermath of our world’s destruction, his brother Luke had managed to bring him back to the side of good. “Andre is called Polarity, like his dad. Emma is still Little Cricket, and Jordan is Duality. Oh, and Kimiko is called the Terminator. Because she’s like a terminator.”

I patted Sam on the shoulder, my gaze sweeping over the others to see varying amounts of fear and animosity. Marie was glaring at me, Emma found the floor incredibly interesting, Kimiko just stared straight ahead, while Andre just tried to avoid my attention. 

“Cate,” Luke spoke up, wisps of smoke gathering around his hands that curled into fists. “What happened to Cate?”

Who? Oh! Shit, yeah. Cate. Wow, I hadn’t thought about her in years. “She’s just fine. Nothing for you to worry about,” I said, figuring that it was true. Afterall, Cate had vanished with Annie, presumably back to wherever Asami had retreated to since I hadn’t found a trace of them back in Piltover. “And she’ll stay that way, so long as you keep doing a great job,” I continued, patting him on the cheek, even as there was a burst of fire that erupted from him. 

Moving on, I came to a stop before Kimiko. Another one of my Eight before Asami had seduced her to the side of good. She simply stared right ahead, paying me no mind, so I shrugged and circled back. Between them, Taylor, and the supermutants, it was little wonder that Taylor had made such quick work of the world. 

I took a seat at my place at the head of the table, turning my attention to those on the other side of the room. Tifa and Jessie were wearing skimpy maid outfits, suffering the indignity with what was becoming practiced ease. Jenova sat in the corner, munching on a box of ginger snaps, while Yoruichi was in her cat form and wasted no time claiming my lap. My side of things were lacking in discipline, and that’s just how I liked it. 

“Shall I send for them?” Taylor asked, and I gave the nod. While our guests rode the elevator up, I had Tifa pour me a cup of coffee. I took a sip of it before I shambled my mask into my hand and placed it on my face. It fit like a glove. 

The door opened and a real colorful cast of characters entered the conference room. 

The first and honestly the most eyecatching was Lanius, Consul for Life of the Legion. The guy made me doubt my assumption that super mutants couldn’t breed because the guy was about seven and a half feet tall and built like a brick shit house. He wore thick golden armor and a helmet that was shaped like a snarling face with a beard. 

Those that followed were far more mundane, thus less interesting. 

President Kimball looked like a generic guy, complete with a three-piece suit. He was the President of the NCR, a failing state since it lost the battle of Hoover Dam. Largely because of the third person who entered the room. 

A woman. Her expression was one of absolute boredom, a cigarette half dangling from her lips. Like Yoruichi, she had dark purple hair, though her eyes were a dull brown. She wore a mockery of a business suit -- a white button-down and vest, only the dress shirt was tied off to reveal her flat stomach, and a sleeve torn off to reveal a sleeve of tattoos. There were two pale scars on her forehead, which would fit two 9mm bullets. 

Revy. The representative for Robert House. The one who won him the Battle of Hoover Dam, and had been his problem solver ever since. She took a seat in a random chair, and as she did so, the TV on the wall turned itself on, revealing a picture of a familiar face. 

Robert House. 

Then, bringing up the rear was Arthur Maxson, leader of the Capital Wasteland and the Brotherhood of Steel. He was visibly unhappy to be here, but his gaze instantly sharpened the moment that he took notice of me. Or, rather, where Taylor was next to me. I looked right back at him, feeling decidedly amused. 

Arthur Maxson, commander and chief of the technocratic luddites, was a synth. 

“You,” Robert House began, his voice carrying a robotic twinge, “must be Heartless. We've heard a great deal about you.” 

“Most of it not good, I imagine,” I returned, an easy smile on my face that was hidden behind my mask. The downside of wearing one. 

“I would say quite the opposite. I understand you are a man of vision and progress, regardless of the costs,” House immediately started buttering me up. “Those that you have assembled beneath you are a testament to your abilities. Antagonizer, in particular, has been a true pleasure to work with thus far.” 

Oh, damn. She really got stuck with that name, huh? Next to me, Jinx snickered while Taylor's expression was a cool mask, but beneath the surface there was a mixture of pride, shame, and embarrassment. 

“No.” The intersection came in the form of a low growl that promised violence, spilling forth from Lanius. I turned to him, deliberately raising an eyebrow. “Antagonizer is the one who made me submit through her absolute power. I will not bend my knee or bow my head to a lesser, man or not.” 

“That's fair,” I reasoned, “You seem like the kind of guy who appreciates the might makes right philosophy. And, honestly, I don't disagree. So, how about you give it your best shot? Same goes for everyone else in the room.” 

Lanius and Revy barely needed the excuse. Lanius flipped the table, charging forward at me like a pissed off bull while Revy raised a gun that she smuggled in and shot me three times center mass and twice in the forehead. The bullets bounced off harmlessly, yet Lanius still lashed out, throwing a punch that probably would have shattered my skull pre-serum. And did break his hand from the force of his own punch, yet he followed it up with another, and then an elbow. And then another. 

Guy broke both of his arms on my face before he stepped back. “You will not attack?” 

“Eh? Hm, sure, I guess,” I returned, raising my hand up and making a finger gun. “Bang.” 

There was a flash of heat in my Crest through the circuit containing the spell Aero, and wind compressed at the tip of my finger. With the words ‘bang’ I shot the wind bullet and it tore through Lanius’ chest, out his back, but the wind dispersed before it could impact the wall. 

Lanius looked down at the gaping hole where his heart used to be before he collapsed to a knee. I had been mildly interested in him before, but now I could sense his emotions and there wasn't a trace of fear to be found in him. What an unexpected treat. So, I snapped my fingers, feeling another flash of heat in my circuits, this one for the spell Curaga. 

And just like that, his heart mended, bones regrew, smooth flesh covered both while blood replenished in the veins. A testament to how much I had learned about biology during my time playing doctor, but also to the raw amount of magic that I commanded. 

“Hm,” Lanius grunted. “I understand now.” And the big guy really did, offering me a bow of his head, before taking his seat like he just hadn't flipped the table and gotten his heart ripped out after breaking his arms on my face. 

What a funny guy. 

“Anyway,” I continued, getting things back on track, sparing a glance at Revy who wore a dangerous smile and a flat look in her eyes, but all the same tucked her courtesy gun into her waistband. “I summoned you all to talk about what comes next. The American Wasteland is secured, and you all managed to crawl your way to the top of the pile to be important enough to be factored into decisions. Good job,” I praised them with a polite golf clap. 

Arthur twitched, annoyed, while Kimball sat with his hands in his lap and a well practiced poker face. The others didn't seem to care about a little teasing. Actually, I'm pretty sure Revy was about to fall asleep. 

“I'm sure you’re all vaguely curious about what that actually means,” I continued. “But that would be easier to show you than explain.” With that, I snapped my fingers against, engaging the teleporter that struck all of us and whisked us away. 

The Institute teleporter was probably one of the more useful technologies that Fallout had. By traveling through radio signals, we could teleport anywhere that the signal reached. A signal that could be boosted with radio towers and even travel between worlds with the Dias. 

Which was how, a second later, we arrived in London, England. In the year 1520, which had been under the rule of King Henry the 8th. Mr. Divorced, Beheaded, Died; Divorced, Beheaded, Survived himself. 

Ye Olde Londontown had been transformed into something else entirely, and I made sure they all got a front row seat to it from the royal palace. The most notable evidence for it was three Prydwen blimps that flew over the city, dropping vertibirds or picking them up as they came and went on patrol. Streets were cordoned off, manned by men in suits of power armor or supermutants in heavy plate armor. All the while, insects crawled and spied on the populace below, undercutting any potential rebellion before it could even think to begin. 

And failing that, those hanging off the crosses were a warning in themselves. 

Lining the streets were the dead and dying, failed rebels and resistance fighters. The medieval peasants kept their heads low as they went about their business. I wasn't the biggest student of history, but I imagine that they were well used to being oppressed by absolute monarchies, but the current boot on their necks was different from all those that came before. The technology, the green-skinned monsters, the insects… but, above all else, this boot was here to stay.  

“Welcome to the year fifteen twenty, roughly seven hundred and sixty-nine years in the past for most of you,” I began, throwing my hands out wide. The eyebot that House now occupied warbled, moving forward to inspect the medieval city of London. The others looked on with various amounts of awe, interest, or guarded suspicion. “It’s a different world, yet it’s on a parallel track for our history. Who knows? Maybe in the year two thousand and seventy-seven, someone would have ended up dropping the bombs that would make it a mirror reflection of your world.”

All of the nascent UK had been claimed by Nora, who used it as a launching off point for incursions into Europe. Additionally, according to her reports, she had seized Spain and was moving into the Holy Roman Empire, France, and the Italian city-states. However, two years was hardly enough time to conquer the world, especially when the first year was spent conquering the Americas. 

“Fascinating,” House observed through his eyebot, and even through his robotic tone, I could tell he instantly understood the potential. 

“Farms are growing your world’s versions of wheat, barley, and what have you. All cultivated to perfection with Taylor’s bugs. Maps of resources that wouldn’t be discovered for another five hundred years are being utilized, in addition to modern infrastructure ranging from trains to teleportation networks.” The books on Fallout’s Resource Wars were very informative in that regard. Before the bombs were dropped, the world had scrambled over strategic resources, with every country digging as deep as they could in their own territories in the hopes of finding gold. 

“It’s early days, but this is the cradle of my empire,” I informed them, cutting right to the heart of the matter. “An unspoiled and untapped world full of possibilities.”

They didn’t need to know about Final Fantasy yet and all of its potential. They didn’t need to know about the comings and goings of Runeterra either. To the smart ones among them, those secrets would act like a blade over their heads -- ‘what is in those worlds? What possibilities do they contain? Do they contain something that could usurp my position?’ 

It would spur them onwards, making them eager to prove themselves and their value. And those that weren’t clever enough to understand, or were too inflexible? Well, it was only natural that they would fall behind, lose their power and influence, and be forgotten. 

Immortality had changed my perspective. Honestly, it really hadn’t settled in that I was immortal until a decade had come and gone, and I stayed exactly the same. That it wouldn’t matter if it had been a century or a thousand years. So long as I didn’t get myself killed, I would live on forever. 

So, what was a decade? What was a century? A world that had little value now could be a cornerstone of my empire a thousand years from now. All that was required was patience and resources. 

“And how,” House began, “would such a world be ruled? Clearly, you trust Antagonizer to shepherd our world, the one you call Fallout. Nora shall control this world, as you have placed her at the head of the army that conquers this world. But what of our place in it?”

There it is. There's the ambition that I wanted to see. 

“And that,” I waved a finger in his direction, “is exactly what I brought you here to discuss.” With that, I snapped my fingers and Shambled them down into the throneroom beneath my feet. Then, a second later, I joined them just outside of a large set of double doors, causing two medieval servant looking guys to just about jump out of their skins, looking at me with wide eyes and pale faces. Seeing as they were mucking up the one job that they had, I strode forward and, with a wave of my hand and a blast of Aero, flung them open. 

Inside the throneroom were about a few hundred people and they really couldn’t be more different from one another. There were the natives that Nora had bound together to conquer the Americas, some of whom I recognized from El Dorado. The rest, however, looked a lot like what I imagined medieval nobles would look like, complete with the silly-looking hats. They were the nobles who wisened up and saw which way the wind was blowing. 

The sudden shock of the other’s arrival was quickly forgotten in favor of my dramatic entrance, and with the doors swinging open, I let a trickle of my Haki slip out. It swept over the throneroom in a wave, and it instantly sorted out the wheat from the chaff. Even with that small trickle, barely more than a drop, some instantly folded on themselves and collapsed to the ground. President Kimball was one of them, though that didn’t surprise me much. 

Others struggled to remain standing, wobbling in place or collapsing to a knee, but they remained conscious. Only a few managed to remain on their feet, their gazes sharp -- Revy and Lanius among them, both of them eyeing me with renewed interest. 

I paid them and the fallen no mind as I strode down the red carpet laid out for me, which cut the room in two and led up to the throne. A throne that was left empty with Nora standing next to it, and next to her… was my son. Alexander. 

Both of them looked to be doing well. Nora maintained the style of dress she picked up in El Dorado, but she also had a tattoo on one arm -- a band around her bicep with symbols I couldn’t make sense of -- connected to one on her shoulder that depicted the sun. Her expression was guarded, but there was relief under the surface. And she wasn’t completely devoid of affection as she watched me stride forward. 

Little Alexander had been spared my Haki, and he seemed more interested in why people were dropping like flies than he did me. Though, he did seem particularly upset when I rubbed his head as I walked by, offering a glare and a swat at my hand. Chuckling, I spun on my heel and planted my ass into the throne, gazing out at the room that was only half filled with conscious people. 

“How does one divide the world?” I asked them, and no one dared breathe as I used my Room to make sure everyone heard me clearly. “Quite easily, it turns out. You already had a rough method of doing so. A division of power and influence through rank and title. Mayors, governors, barons, counts, earls, jarls, marquis, dukes, kings, and at the very top of the pile… me. Emperor. All that changes is the scope, be it landmass or ambition… and we lack neither land nor ambition.”

Barely half of those conscious were able to follow my words, but those that couldn’t wouldn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. It was those who could that would matter, because it was they who would climb to the top of the pile, rising up the ladder of power and influence until they became worthy of my attention. 

We have entered an age of expansion. Without power being a chokehold, we could spread in every direction. Across Clusters, up and down World Lines, until we’d spread across the Multiverse like a plague, leaving no corner untouched. But, to do that, we needed structure. Organization. A means and method to consolidate power and resources to secure control over the worlds that we encountered. 

“To control a city or a town, you shall be a Mayor. A region of territory, and you shall be a Baron. A quaint little kingdom, such as England, Ireland, or Scotland, and you shall be a Count.” For those who were conscious or gathering their wits, I think it was then that they started to realize the scope of what I was talking about. “Should you control an entire continent, such as the Americas, then you will be a Marquis. And, should you control a world… you will become a Duke.” 

It was in the early days now, but there would come a time when Dukes would have multiple worlds in their sphere of influence. At such a point in time, they would become Grand Dukes once they gained at least five. After ten, then they would become Archdukes. And, after a hundred? Then they would become Kings and Queens. 

“To those without lands or armies -- do take heart. Now is a time of upheaval, and there is no ladder greater than chaos. There is an endless sea of possibilities in the great multiverse beyond us, and with them, so are the chances to rise,” I continued, the words largely meant for Robert House. 

He would lack land as the NCR or Legion did, yet that didn’t mean he was hamstrung. His industry and robotics offered him the chance to rise higher. Once the ball started rolling and these Marquis and Dukes started expanding by their own will, they would need armies. They would need industry. They would need support. And people like House would have the means to fill that need. 

“So, let us celebrate this upheaval and change in fortunes!” I commanded, and the people clapped and cheered, hearing exactly what they wanted to hear. All of them thought their rise was certain, even as they cheered with their competitors. Because, in the end, what I wanted was meritocracy in its truest form -- the strongest and the cleverest and the most ruthless would rise to the top, trampling over all those below them in their attempt to rise. 

It was as they cheered that Nora leaned down to me, whispering in my ear, “Our fortunes are already changing. The invasion into Europe has stalled.”

I knew. A downside of a non-Christian religion invading with what were ‘obviously’ evil magics and demons. I never cared all that much about God or the Devil, most didn't in my world, but I knew that wasn’t true at this time. The fact of the matter was, the reason why bodies were displayed on crucifixes along the popular roads was because, no matter how effective Taylor was at outrooting the would-be rebels, there would always be more to take their place. 

Religious fanatics were a real pain in the ass like that. 

“The pope has denounced us, and a Crusade is being called against us while the Caliphates are calling for a Jihad. That matters little, but your son's position would be better secured if there were proof that he is a god.” Nora continued, making my gaze drift to Alexander, who was squinting at me. I doubted that Nora had even told him that I was his dad, or maybe he wasn't old enough to understand what that meant. I didn’t know much about babies, after all. “We need what was promised.”

Compound V. The Threefold Serum that flowed through my veins.

I also imagine that Nora wanted to secure it for her own use. After all, Taylor was going to become a Duchess soon enough, and it wouldn’t do to leave herself completely reliant on her. 

“I have my people working on it,” I told her, but Nora ran a hand along my arm. A calculated action of seduction. 

“There is another possibility. A faster possibility,” she whispered lowly. “One that doesn’t rely on the time wasted on recreation… not when you can go to the source of where Compound V came from.” I knew she was going to say those words even before she started, and I considered them for the briefest of moments. Memories flashing in my mind of a world that I had lost all interest in once it lacked the one person who mattered in it. 

“... I suppose it’s high time that I visited home.”