Felicia, Duplicate Deuce, met me literally out in the middle of nowhere in the forest, a rather picturesque clearing in a forest where nobody was going to stumble across us, a quarter-mile from the nearest road through heavy forest. Not even hunters went through the swamp and brush to get back here, so I wondered how she knew about it.

I found out soon enough after she arrived.

I just looked at her as she flew in like a wraith through the trees. Her hair was white and her eyes green, sure enough, but that wasn’t her/my face, and we weren’t over six-foot-six.

She set down in front of me, grinning broadly as she posed with arms akimbo, and I shook my head. “Why exactly are you Possessing Thundra?” I had to ask helplessly.

She shrugged as she sat down in midair opposite me. “I got tired of her temporal raiding, and decided to do something about it.” She flicked her hand, and a chain of heavy metal appeared out of midair. “This isn’t exactly a weapon. It has microgouges in it intended to harvest skin samples from nearly invulnerable beings. It didn’t work on Mr. Hill because he’s immune to metal and earth when he’s Rooted, but she’s harvesting cells to return to her future alternity, and I had enough of her.

“I’m going plane-shifting and time-hopping to her home, and I’m gonna really muck that place up.” Her green eyes glittered dangerously. “Her time ship is about a hundred yards over thataway. I figured I’d take her home, do what I have to do with however long I have to do it, and come back an hour after I leave, whenever.”

I sighed and looked at her, digesting what I knew.

Thundra wasn’t a bad person, but she had a job to do and was going to do it. She came from an alternate Earth where there had been genetic breakthroughs allowing women to get as strong as men. One thing had led to another as men attempted to regain their physical superiority, genetic technology leapt forwards, and suddenly neither sex needed the other to reproduce with the right technology.

The human race had devolved into a battle of the sexes that had wiped out any opposition to the idea, as gene-modded men and women brainwashed into hatred of the opposite sex made war on one another, killing anyone who didn’t agree and dissecting them to gain the secret of more powers for themselves, while their gene-mods rapidly made a lot of random mutation impossible.

There were no Deviants, Inhumans, Atlanteans, mutant societies, or Eternals left on her Earth. They’d either fled or been slaughtered and used as research for different arms of the gender-driven war.

Thundra was a misandrist raised to hate men, and found the very idea of men and women living together unnatural and loathsome. She had been here long enough to realize that there was true nobility among males, to realize that this was indeed the original and natural way of humanity, and that her own society had effectively destroyed their own chance at evolution by doing what they had done.

But she had a job to do, and wasn’t going to accept any interference in it, doing what she had to do to finish her mission and leave this time and dimension to its own devices. Thus, at best a mercenary, and at other times an outright villain-type.

“What are you planning on doing?” I asked her archly. Felicia was the Femme Fatale of my thoughtstreams, and definitely the most independent, doing what she did without coordinating with the rest of us, whimsical and driven at the same time.

“I got the cell samples she wanted the old-fashioned way. I seduced the Hulk.” My eyes popped open. “So, a natural pregnancy.

“What her bosses are gonna do is stick the baby in a tube and force-grow her while programming her to be their perfect little servant. Then I’m gonna break into their own bloody systems and replace all their bloody brainwashing programs with us.

“I’m also gonna take advantage of the new alternity to Dupe out doubles of me in copies of Thundra here, and I’m going to take over their bloody government and get the human race back on the right track with exactly the same kind of ruthlessness they’ve been using.”

I blinked. Well, that could actually work, couldn’t it?

“Well, it probably won’t hurt you to get full Levels and a Nova Core before you go, then?” I said knowingly.

She pursed her borrowed lips for a moment. “Thought you might try to stop me,” she admitted.

“I Assayed Thundra at the Contest. She’s Vat-born, isn’t she?”

============

Thundra, Time-Raider

Gene-Mod Human/1, Titania Template

Melee/6; Expert/6; Scout/6

Strength: 20-> 30/62*

Dexterity: 14->16

Constitution: 18->45*

Intelligence: 13->14

Wisdom: 10->11

Charisma: 16

Notable Talents/Traits: Single-Minded, Tenacious; Misandrist

Titania Template Characteristics: Great Strength; Great Stamina; Great Vitality; Enhanced Invulnerability; Energy Resistance

=============

“Yes,” Felicia confirmed. “The /6’s kind of give it away.”

“And the Human/1.” I shook my head. “When your greatest soldiers are vat-grown gene-modded 6’s, your future as a race is freaking doomed. Put her to sleep, come out and get the Duping done. I’ll give you the Reformatting as you want it.”

She nodded in relief. She descended to the ground, and closed her eyes.

There was a swirl of color pulling off of her, and the now-redheaded amazon slumped further as Felicia, in her black and whites, materialized right next to her in a swirl of shadowy magic.

I held out my hand, and without hesitation she reached out to grab it, with a wicked smile and a gleam in her green eyes.

I soon knew exactly why she was smiling, and my Fatale thoughtstream was totally laughing at me.

Well, she had expanded my sexual experience tremendously, that was certain, and educated a lot of others, as well. The problem was that I was her, and I could not do anything but appreciate her broadening all my horizons.

She’d also been all over the planet, going into all sorts of nasty places, and doing bad things to bad people.

She’d cost Midas at least a billion dollars in investments, and redistributed more billions of money she’d stolen physically, electronically, and legally, playing everyone and everything with absolute enthusiasm and deadly intensity.

The Black Widows and the Shields of like forty countries called her ‘The Night Rose’ for ALL the reasons.

Murim, espionage, criminal cartels, nobles, high finance, petty dictatorships, corporate scum; she had cut a swathe through all of them, and been behind a bunch of the abrupt changes in political and business circumstances in a lot of things I’d heard about, and a bunch that I had not.

I... had been responsible for those things, with the least inhibited of my Duplicates.

And now I was going to go to a future alternate timeline that wasn’t even divergent from our Terra here, and set things right there with the unwitting assistance of this poor Vatted gene-soldier who would simply never have the mental or spiritual ability to do so.

So be it.

I Cast the Duplicate, and Felicia swirled back into existence in the same physical form, but with plenty of new Levels that were not to her approval.

I Cast the Reformatting as she bent down, no Godstone to help with that here, her own Valences to do the same currently empty and needing to be refilled. Given how fast we could think, and I knew exactly what she/I wanted, there were no problems reorganizing the reality of her Karmic accumulation and drawing off the Akasha and rebuilding her as my Femme Fatale.

==============

Felicia Hardy Ouilette Deuce, Femme Fatale, Black Widow, The Night Rose, The Black Cat

Female Augmented Human/5, Base Spider Totem Template*, Black Widow**

Ur-Priest/1, Witch/1, Mystic Theurge/9 (Wit/Ur), Archmage/3 (Wit), Hierophant/2, Warshaper/1; Learned Sorceress/1, Arcane Theurge/10 (Sorc/Wit), Arcane Shadow/8 (Sorc); Arcane Fist/4, Minstrel/1, Melee/6 (IUS), Battlemad/6 (Minstrel)

Strength: (14) 18->26 [30]* Height: 5’9

Dexterity: 18->31 [38]* Weight: 140 lbs.

Constitution: (16) 18-> 25 [30]* Hair: White

Intelligence: 20->48 (52 Cold) Eyes: Green

Wisdom: (12) 18->30 Age: 20

Charisma: (12) 18->32

Health: 84

Soak: 437

Movement: 180’

Ultra Core/Mutant Core: 6 (00%)/214 PP (fixed, integrated)

Ki Pool: 43 (3+ ki (19) + Song (21))

Theurgic Caster Levels: Ur-Priest/10 (48); Sorceress/19 (28); Witch/20 (29); Minstrel/7 (16)

Notable Talents/Traits: Naturally Focused, Dauntless; Born to Shadows, Seductive, Independent, Manhunter; Slayer: Ninja, Tong, Werewolf, Skrull/Dire Wraith, Brood, Fiends, Mutates, Undead, Constructs (robots) (acquired); Ghost-Ridden**, Widow of the Red Room**; Sealed Identity; Master of Three Dragons (Sun, Moon, Shadow); Master of Night Rose

Templated Powers: Enhanced Might; Enhanced Reflexes; Increased Fortitude and Stamina; Poison Resistance and Acquired Immunity; Radiation Immunity; Perfect Balance; Enhanced Speed and Jumping; Impact Resistance

Ultra Core Powers: Non-powered

#Mutant Core Power: Superspeed, Flight, Increased Reaction Time at Speed; Increased Invulnerability at Speed

**Ghost-Widow Training: Enhanced Healing; Enhanced Memory; Combat Instincts; Fast Learner; Steady Mindset; Increased Longevity

Acquired Powers: Immune to Fire and Cold extremes, affinity for Fire and Cold Magic; Spellcaster (Weaver Magic); Pheromonal Control; Sunstone Attunement (Crystal Bones); Rune-Carved Bones (+5 to Physical Stats**(not included), Unbreakable), Attuned to the Godstone, Ultra Nova Core; Beaubier Core (integrated)#;

Spells per day: ...

============

“Locate the Sunstone and Godstone there if at all possible.” She nodded, looking at the unconscious Thundra next to her. The Possession she Cast was modified with Godmerge, and effectively gave them the better of their combined physical abilities.

The red-haired amazon blinked and sat up calmly after Felecia swirled into shadow and flowed into her smoothly. Felicia didn’t bother to change the default uniform and red hair this time.

“The future waits for no woman!” she declared, bouncing to her feet lightly. Anyone in the future who thought they knew how well Thundra could move and fight was going to get a very big surprise. “See you when I get back!” she grinned grimly, and trotted away at an easy speed that would have let an Olympic sprinter gasping.

Thundra’s totally messed-up future world was going to get a big surprise, and all I’d have to do is wait around an hour or two, and I’d found out exactly what.

If she didn’t get herself killed, but I didn’t see that happening. That place didn’t have the slightest idea what was coming for them.

She was a Black Widow. I was a Black Widow.

Sofia Menestru had been involved in a chemical plant infiltration in Argentina that had gone violently sour when the mutate super-soldiers being made there broke out and blew the place to Hell and gone. Felica had gotten to her and cast a Reverse Possession on her just before the fireball consumed the whole area and reduced the mortally wounded Widow to ash.

A little fire and shockwave didn’t bother us at all, of course.

So Felicia had found herself running around with the spirit of a dead Black Widow tied to her. This had disconcerted her not at all, and she had finished up Sofia’s job, brought the information Sofia had retrieved to the Russian Embassy, and earned herself a lot of goodwill from the Great Bear’s intelligence services for doing so.

Earned a lot more than just goodwill, as she had taken care to gain the pheromonal powers of my Pact, powering them with Wind Reserve magic, and making herself basically irresistible if the other party didn’t know what was going on. If any of them had realized it, well, they hadn’t said anything, either.

It meant I had a whole childhood of training in the Red Room in my head now. Briggs and Natasha had designed an exceptional regimen for training young women for Widowhood, and even the ones who failed became exemplary civil servants and government officials, for the most part... and they were some of the highest-Level and most fervent of Briggs’ servants. After all, Natasha Romanova, THE Black Widow, stood right there at Briggs’ left hand, opposite THE Red Star on his right. Born normal people, made into something more, in service to the Great Bear’s Russia.

I also had a very intimate knowledge of Russia now, extending far beyond computer articles and even Felicia zipping through the area and Sunny touring it.

Goddamn right the people of the world should be cautious around Briggs and Russia. They had no goddamn idea what was waiting for them if they tried something.

Briggs had internal problems, but it wasn’t from humans, for the most part. He had the most developed educational system in the world, and unlike the Tribes, had little patience at all for people who wanted to stick to older methods. He was totally happy to completely bust up inter-related areas that resisted modernizing and advancing, and forcing them to get with the picture by deporting them to areas where they shaped up or slowly starved to death.

No, there was a lot of Fey and Slavic Pantheon shit going on in Russia and the Eastern Bloc, old spirits messing with the people and the lands, and they tempted locals and outsiders alike with Pacts and Boons and mutation and whatnot. A lot of Russia Powered spent their time beating up things from folktales, the afterlife, the supernatural, and that was ignoring the occasional bunch of Mythos creatures wandering in, or aliens who thought that Russia wasn’t all that.

Most of the Widows also considered it a right to sleep with the Father of the Country at least once in their lives, which I had to admit didn’t surprise me at all. Supposedly, Briggs only had normal sons by anyone other than Sama Rantha, by whom he had two exceptional sons and two deadly daughters.

The Black Bear was supposedly a chip off the Great Bear’s block, spending all his time making stuff and happily ignoring all the political stuff his father dealt with as he headed up Russia’s space drive efforts in Svartazk.

The White Bear was a true Seven Dragons Master, a Shattered Source who had broken his own Forsaken Aura to fine particles so that he could master all Seven of the Dragons with Chi, something no Powered could attain. He was often called The Godslayer in whispers, as his primary job seemed to be facing off against Old Gods rising up out of the ice of the north, and putting them away forever... meaning his dad didn’t have to waste time doing it instead.

Briggs’ daughters were with Sama somewhere, and not even the Widows knew where they were and what they did most of the time. Supposedly they didn’t look anything like Briggs or Sama, but that was no surprise, Hagchild genetics being what they were...

I sighed and shook my head. Now was only to see Duplicate Quar, Kwannon, and see what could be done. I was pretty sure I couldn’t truly recall her, and also that she was tied to being Kwannon now.

I also had no idea how I could possibly master a True Core with active psionics without another Tranche. Physically I was way beyond what Aelryinth had been capable of, but unlimited ability to take Classes was just too sickly useful in the long run.

Damn, if he came here, just what kind of sick shit could he get? I’d have to make sure he got a set of Ultra Specs, but it took at least a week to make a pair of them, if I had the Isotopes handy to feed Specs here, which was why I hadn’t handed any of them out.

My earrings were still growing, as it were.