-Hi, Mom!-

#5, who often helped with Marktell stuff, looked over at the voice as I was carving and shooting my way through a company of Corrupted PG from someplace called Orkrivar, if the defaced colors and insignia were a proper guide. So far, I had seen representatives from at least a hundred different worlds in this Warpzone, definitely widening my horizons. The historians back home were having a tizzy trying to figure where they were all from.

We didn’t stop and ask them, of course.

Blinkblinkblinkblink. Four Mark Nexii winked up in the Marktell. Of course, I recognized the sources: Cecilia, Bruna, Mahsh, and Trista Rantha. The Bad Girls. They had just synched up with one of my Marked who worked Downspire as a Courier.

The four of them were born with Talents that led them unequivocally towards the darker side of human nature. Knowing their Talents, and being quite unafraid of using them, they promptly went off to make Good use of them.

Cecilia was The Godmother, giving her a flat bonus to social interactions of all kinds with people with Evil mindsets. In short, crooks, criminals, and lawbreakers respected her without knowing why.

Bruna was a Thug, which meant a slender high-G nymphal had an imposing and brutal physical presence, which was rather hilarious. Well, it did mean a Hag was about to go off on you, and incipient violence got its own form of respect in the Underspire.

Mahsh was a Viper, which meant she lied with alacrity, was a coldblooded killer, and had a naturally sinister air which fit in well with that crowd.

Trista was a Femme Fatale, the seductive little piece of killer poison you’d die to put your hands on, unable to help yourself.

My Inigo self kept in partial contact with them through mutually rendered services, while most of their communication was through coded stuff on Boole social media, keeping any connections to other Ranthas to a minimum. Nymphals were far from unknown in the line of work they were in, so Ranthas didn’t stand out as long as they chose to develop some cleavage... and they were certainly going to do that.

Their target had been the Themis, the all-female mafia that basically ran most facets of the entertainment industry in Underspire. Festhalls, clubs, prostitution, music, videos, dancing, exercise halls and massage parlors, most of the better eateries, and a good chunk of the recreational drug trade were all run by the Themis, who were Amazonian in attitude and appearance, with a suitably goth punk rocker leather cybertech vibe thrown on top of them. They were also 2-3 grav rated, the 3g’s being noticeably taller and brawnier than the 2g’s.

The Themis defended their markets and territory savagely and unrelentingly against all comers who wanted the easy money and way to wash profits. While basically all the other mafia families wanted to snatch pieces of their pie, they seemed to have an estrogen/testosterone antipathy with the Skraelings and their manly-man physical culture, while possessing a rather terrifying knack to reach right into the heart of all the other mafias and influence key people at just the right times. They deftly exploited the sex trade and systems of favors and grudges-owed existing among the families, and topped it off with unstinting violence whenever their territory was infringed upon. They’d happily execute a whole crew of hot performers, or a brothel of high-end prostitutes, before allowing them to be taken over by another family.

This was mixed with the fact that the Themis entertainers were often the only ones allowed to perform or work in the territories of the other mafias, and those custom crews trained inside the other Houses were rarely allowed into those of their rivals... and if they went public, found themselves fighting head-on with the Themis behemoths. To say the competition was bloody was no misnomer whatsoever. A whole lot of bright young performers backed by the other Houses were unceremoniously fed into the soylent vats all the time, their musical and acting careers quite literally cut short.

There were more than a few Ranthas who’d gone into the entertainment arena, and were enjoying the very cutthroat reality of it, while their opponents found that combat-happy Hags with angelic voices made for nasty up-and-coming stars. Nymphals were all over in that industry, so they blended right in without a problem.

Instead of going in as performers, the Bad Girls went in as gangsters, forming a crew, getting themselves hired, and then making an explosive splash, in terms of blood and fire and scattered body parts. The Themis were about the most open-minded of the mafias about recruiting outsiders, especially if they were attractive women with bloody hands and lethal mindsets, and glommed onto the four sisters quickly.

I was aware that within three months, Cecilia was running a club, and within a year, a territory, all by serendipitous removals of other likely candidates and excessively successful performances against a broad array of those responsible for such actions. She took control of affairs and removed opponents and rivals by means fair and foul, overt and covert, and survived attempted removals by her superiors with aplomb and the sudden absences of those superiors. Her ambition was right out there, her ability was totally up to it, and her willingness to slaughter to achieve it could make even hardened mobsters take pause.

And now, the Bad Girls had connected their Markspaces to mine. That meant they’d done achieved what they meant to, and in doing so had made Ten and were unafraid of our Curse Resonance.

They weren’t the first to achieve Ten, as the Warpzone was highly conductive to dramatically increased Karmic accrual, but seeing as they hadn’t been in the Warpzone and had hit the goal, it was still damn impressive.

I /shook my head. -Do I even want to know, my little darlings?- I /asked them, which earned me some dry /laughter in response from all of them.

-We called up to invite you down to a meeting here with Duresia Miafona,- Cecilia /replied with that cold, smug, aristocratic dagger-in-the-smile manner that just came naturally to her.

I ran that through multiple memories, mostly Inigo’s, who stole from and for a bunch of those people all the time. -She’s one of the Family Matriarchs, right? Why would she want to speak with me?- I /asked curiously.

-Oh, she doesn’t. The rest of the Matriarchs, namely Bruna, Mahsh, Trista, and myself, are inviting you down to meet her and take control of the family.-

I thought about all the implications of that. -Were they as rotten at the top as you expected?-

-One outright Amourean eternally reborn into the body of a new member of her bloodline on death. Two Telepath bodyhoppers who could jump into Themis bodies without side effects. One cyberpath using transfer protocols for the same. And one Possessed Dop who ate and replaced all her successors for the last thousand years. That one is yours, by the way,- Cecilia /answered with icy surety.

Ah ha. -And you’ve got control of their Vats.-

-We do. Would Mother like to come and upgrade the Themis bloodlines?- Trista broke in with a simpering tone.

-I think she would!- I /admitted. -Give me a couple hours. I’m a few thousand miles into the Zone, and have to cross several boundaries as I chain-teleport out.- I’d set concealed Foci at all such steps, vastly extending Chalice’s range as we hopped from one to the next, but some of the boundary zones were several miles across, and even with the Interdicted ‘tunnel’ Briggs and I had established, I wasn’t going to try and Teleport past them.

-She’s waiting for you,- Cecilia’s cold smile /replied, and the active Markdoors went quiet.

I could see beyond them into the Markspaces beyond, and the hundreds of mostly women and some young men who the Bad Girls had recruited, young and ambitious and wanting more out of life than the powers-that-be had been willing to give them. A good chunk were young Themis vatters, completely blown away by the mental presences of the girls, and naturally just as ambitious as the other Themis whose genetics they were derived from.

Probably dominated by the original bloodlines of the four Matriarchs. I smiled coldly as I cut out the cable-tendons of a Walker, and Beat crashed in on the other leg and bent it savagely sideways. All the gyroscopes in the world weren’t going to help it keep its balance, and it crashed to the ground, where Chalice and Beat cut off its weapon-arms, hit opposite sides of its pilot-pod to pop off the bubble, and when the tentacle-sprouting pilot screamed at us with feelers for eyes, three of my Tails put spikes in his skull, throat, and heart to shut that mess up.

“Briggs, the Bad Girls seemed to have succeeded at usurping the Themis, and they want me to head on back to eat the last of them.”

His shoulder-mount las chewed through a dozen attacking support infantry as he glanced at me. “That bad, huh?”

“Possessed Greater Dop, it seems.”

“No shit.” He frowned. “Wonder what the Bad Boys will find at the top of the Skraelings?” Briggs Brothers who had inherited some of the nastier Talents had elected to form the Bad Boys and enrolled into the Skraelings after the Bad Girls set off on their road of total bitchiness. The lads’ combination of smithing knowledge and extraordinary brawn meant they got a much better reception than might have been expected, especially when they could toss most of the steroid-monster anger-management-issues Skraelings around without much trouble.

The Skraelings dominated the ore-processing, smeltery, and foundry complexes of the Underspires, as well as private fight clubs and arenas, and were known for their brutality in defense of their territories, and willingness to challenge any of the other mafias for minor reasons. They were widely thought of as stupid and violent, but they kept their position in the most crucial and lucrative operations of the entire city despite that, regularly tested the other Houses to see if they were getting weak, and really irritated the Themis with their arenas, as the Themis considered that entertainment and intruding on their perogatives. Alas, despite many centuries of bad blood, the Skraelings kept hold of those lucrative ventures, too.

The Brothers coming in were strong, fire resistant, and liked to make things. The average Skraeling was strong, steroid-juiced, and liked to destroy things.

The Bad Boys had Talents for destroying things that messed with them while they were trying to make things, and certainly didn’t mind making things difficult for others in classic ‘I Is Dumb Ancient Brute Argh Smash!’ fashion, which they were hilariously good at.

So, the Bad Boys had also been advancing steadily in the Skraeling holdings, with suspicious looks at the senior members of the organization, who tended to act with surprising cunning and intelligence for men who were all about physical prowess and personal power...

Curiouser and curiouser, mused the mayhem-minded lads with post-genius intellects...

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they are replete with bodyhoppers using their underlings as a body resource. As a matter of fact, they probably sell them as new bodies to others, would be my guess.”

If you were a bodyhopper, bodies were just commodities to you anyways. Why not sell off some vat-grown minions and make a personal profit off them?

“Plant a Focus, take a break, and maybe go help the boys?” he asked thoughtfully.

“Good daddies support their sons,” I agreed.

A groundcrawler of dubious design came trampling around the corner, and we bounced behind the fallen Walker as it opened up on us. As we needed to cripple the Walker anyways, it saved us some work as it jerked under the impacts, and got a wee bit molten.

“Take this thing out, plant the Focus, and we’re out of here,” he agreed, and we were up, over, and moving at the groundcrawler fifty yards away, on top of it in three seconds, and the barrel-crumping, hatch-severing, and tail-shooting was done with inside of ten seconds. A couple Construct-Bane format Spikes blew apart the controls, and it settled and slumped in resignation.

A slab of rock off to the side was suitable material for carving a Focus, and our Star Core Mindclaws were perfect for the work, peeling the stone off like clay as we etched it into place. Vivic-burning corpses were disappearing nicely, but also sealing this area into fixed reality that we would be able to lived-line hop back along rapidly.

Chalice alternated with Beat, both able to grab both of us and send us on the way. That way, we alternated costs and minimized the effect on both of us.

Heading back to Janus Prime Downspire for some Rampaging and Reorganizing, it looked like...

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

Minor Glossary Stat Dump re Space Marines:

A normal human has Stats from 8-12, avg 10 (baseline).

Space Marines are human elites, so their base Stat line is like 16/14/13/12/10/8, concentrating on the physicals, and then Wis/Int/Cha.

They are Advanced Humans from the Emperor's blood, having +4 to all Stats. So, 20/18/17/16/14/12. In other words, in their weakest Stat they are still better than an average human.

They also grow to size Large (7.5 to 8 feet tall avg). That gives them +8 to Strength, +4 to Con, -2 to Dex, and +2 Natural Armor... all this BEFORE things like Wired Reflexes and so on from the Legionnaire Template. Size Large also doubles carrying capacity.

They also train incessantly, and so take all the Stat training bonuses.

So a Legionnaire, before his armor, is going to be a Melee/6, Archer/4, probably Scout/4. He can lift over a ton and a half over his head, with an approximate Stat Line of 30 Str, 26 Con, 26 Dex, Wis 16, Int 16, Cha 15... all of this before any bioengineering bonuses or psionic enhancements or armor buffs.

An officer will be on average +4 higher in all Stats, and with better gear and bonuses.

Stack on the armor, gear, and bioengineering buffs, and Legionnaires are incredibly nasty combatants, as most of the alien races of the galaxy have found out.

Of course, from Sama's perspective, they are just sterile soldier drones there to die to safeguard the rest of humanity, but you can't have everything.