Chapter 18: Back Home
"Is that a fucking fanny pack?" demanded Cassiopeia as I stepped through the portal directly into the Imperial Palace of the Neo Viltrumite Empire in the Flaxan Dimension, bypassing all the security and sending people into an absolute freak out.
"Eh tu, girl?" I gasped as I nodded in respect for her show of control during such an outlandish entrance.
We of the Neo Viltrumite Empire are the ones who portal, in case you forgot.
"Calm." Cassiopeia raised her hand to stall her less mentally adroit relatives who already began to charge in their duty to dogpile any threat to their Empress, "All hail the returning Grand Emperor."
Over a millennia of brutal discipline brought the members of the multi-species court to their knees or knee analogs as they shouted, "All hail the Grand Emperor!"
"My children…" I began my address, "how long have we been apart, a century and a half? A lifetime for many of you. Millenia on my end, enough time for your forebears bones to turn to dust in their tombs. In that time I became the master of another universe, and have gathered all its treasures, brought with me back home to share with all of you, for the continuation of our covenant, and the glory of our Eternal Empire."
I finished my speech with hands upheld, in pristine posture for praising the sun if not for my upturned palms and spread fingers, and the Imperial Court cheered in perfect obedience.
"Such a warm welcome." Hela complained.
"They would have cheered just as loudly had I told them I would spend the next century ravaging their mothers, wives, and daughters." I chuckled, "Hell, some of it would even be genuine."
Cassiopeia declared an early end to the day's assembly, and my party was escorted to her private dining chambers where I played with my Invincible Skulls, maneuvering them though some rather mesmerizing dances as they floated above the banquet table.
"Father." the Empress declared as she came into the room with a few of her go getter relatives.
"Is this some new Step Mother?" she asked icily as she regarded Hela.
"We're still feeling things out." I chuckled as I tapped my fingers on the grand table.
"What is there to 'feel out' you are the Grand Emperor of the Neo Viltrumite Empire. Gods should feel honored for even an evening of your attention." Cassiopeia stated with full conviction.
"That's what I like about you, Cass." I smiled as I reached into my bag and pulled out a nanite colony, "You mean it when you say that. You have the rare ability to see things for what they are clearly and convey them articulately."
I tossed her the colony which she caught and it spread up her arm and over her form, devouring her red and black Viltrumite Empress garb and replacing it with an Uru Vibranium version that matched my own.
Cass stretched her body, luxuriating in the caress of the enchanted super alloy.
"Oh this… this is worth however many thousand years it took you to create it." she released her rare throaty chuckle, "Do I feel… stronger?"
"That's right." I nodded, "And that strength factor increases the more nanites you carry on you. There's obviously a point of diminishing returns, but this perfect mix of technology and magic is going to be the backbone of our enduring supremacy.
I've gone ahead and put together a sanitized introduction to both those topics. And I can't emphasize what I say next enough… If I die and you have access to my Bag of Infinite Capacity… toss a coin before you decide to open it, because not everything I have gathered is good. And I'm not talking about the exabyte of AI edited pornographic films of me ravishing your mothers. That I have put in the data files categorized as educational material."
Cassiopeia looked especially uncomfortable as I slid her the string of Kimoyo Beads with all the preapproved information on it.
"Why did you hand me anal beads?" she questioned and physically swallowed back her vitriol.
"Oh my God," I laughed, "I thought the same thing. These are Kimoyo Beads and they make for a very versatile and user friendly data storage system, each of these beads has a field of research on it whether mystical, technological, or sexual. We will of course need the egg heads to determine what tech we allow to trickle down, and my mystical legacy will largely be unavailable due to the extreme and corrupting nature of its source. My sexual legacy will be made available in theaters as soon as possible, obviously."
I managed to maintain a straight face for just long enough to enjoy the horrified expressions on the cabal of my children and grandchildren that formed Cassiopeia's inner circle of advisors. Once I let them stew in embarrassment and shame long enough I broke down in hysterical laughter.
"I am… I'm… I'm joking." I managed to convey as my chest heaved in spectacular harm-joy at their discomfort, "My God, can if only you could feel what I am feeling right now… You should all go home tonight and figure out a way to terrify your children like I have today."
"But seriously," I changed gears, "You will need to debate the necessity of going through my effects as I have within my possession - and this is just an example, I have more - a book connected to an entire infinite multiverse - just a piece of the greater omniverse mind you - that collects and eagerly conveys all the dark magic of that multiverse from simple curses to dark magictech capable of making reality your bitch. And this book is so corrupting that even by telling you of it's existence the odds of me murdering you all has increased dramatically. And I used an ingot of creation itself to protect me from its influence and spent a millennia creating counter magic to everything I learned from it to the point that I have sealed it within what is likely the greatest sealing magic to ever come from that multiverse. That is how powerful just one of the things I gathered was. Quite the 'But wait, there's more moment'."
"If you ever die, your fanny pack will be locked in the deepest vault we can create and then launched into a mega black hole." Cassiopeia declared.
"I don't like the odds of the contents of my fanny pack corrupting that black hole and turning it into some kind of sentient dark god of hunger and pain and other edgy things. Just lock it all up tight and pray that you're dead long before someone manages to get to it." I counseled.
Cassiopeia rubbed her hands over her eyes and sighed, "Why do you do this to us?"
"This stuff was just running around in the wild." I told her, "Any ass hat with an approximate knowledge of many things could have embarked on a quest to round it all up, and who knows what kind of demented depraved fuckery he could have got up to with it? At least it is all in hands you trust, and barring any major surprises… if I ever run into something that can wipe my immortal ass out of existence, I will have the common decency to be in an different multiverse at the time and it will be those people who suffer the consequences of opening the Pandora's Box I hang over my goodies every day."
Cassiopeia pursed her lips as she contemplated the level of insanity I'd gotten myself wrapped up in during our time apart, and just how quickly I infected her admittedly perfect world with it.
"I find myself incredibly envious of the trusting and empowering relationship you have with your father." Hela announced as she picked at one of the plates of snacks scattered about the conference table, "And that makes me very, very, horny. So unless you are all interested in watching the conception of yet another of your half siblings… or aunt or uncle for some of you… get out. Quickly."
Cassiopeia and her advisors scrambled out when Hela violently cleared a section of the table and proved once and for all why nanotech clothing is so far superior to all others as her suit melted away from her incredible body followed by my own as I stood up to answer the call to adventure. Again and again and again.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
JManM
JManM I went back and forth with this guy who one star reviewed my story trying to find out what the hell he was on about. At first I thought he was just another ass hat who didn't read the tags for the story, as he directly complained about all the things I tagged. But as we peeled the opinion onion I learned that it was an even deeper problem. The guy didn't like stories where the MC's don't spend all their screen time thinking and overthinking their plans and the counterplans that might be in place to their plans, and their situation and how terrible their situation really is, you know... navel gazing stories.
So I went through and checked to see if any of his complaints had merit, and I realized that Mark has never actually stated his direct goal. I thought I'd left enough context - especially in the first chapter - but maybe I haven't.
Mark wants to make a sustainable utopian syestem while hurting as few people as possible doing it. He is very willing to hurt people in the process, which is why the story is tagged Anti-Hero. Unlike Batman, Mark can do math. If you kill a killer the number of killers in the world hasn't changed. But if you kill a dozen killers...
Let me know if you were suprised by Mark's main goal for the setting. Obviously he has more goals than just that, like making him and Kate work out across time, but the sustainable utopian system is the number one.
You can support me and my family at
ko - fi . com / jmanm
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