The Good Life: Consequences (ch. 88)

Pain. It drew Cinder out of her slumber slowly -- a dull, radiating ache that seemed to cover the entirety of her body and grew stronger and harder to ignore as she became aware of it. Time was a haze that had no meaning, and even as she awoke Cinder could feel sleep trying to reclaim her. It wasn't until an eye butterflied open that the spell was broken and she found herself awake looking up at an unfamiliar ceiling. Dull gray and tiled, while the air carried the scent of cleaning chemicals. 

Her eye felt dry, like it was covered in sand, and she closed it reflexively. She nearly went back to sleep at that moment, only for her last memories before losing consciousness to return and make her jolt up. A hiss of pain escaped her clenched jaw as every muscle felt strained. No, not all. Her arm. Her leg. They felt… 

“You're finally awake,” Cinder heard Law's voice remark and she had to tilt her head to look over at him. Something was blocking her vision on one half of her face. He looked a bit different than normal -- like someone had smoothed away the imperfections. He had already been a handsome man, but now he looked like the idealized version of himself. “You were out for a couple of weeks. Two, to be exact.” 

Her mouth felt dry as she licked her lips. There were too many things she wanted to ask -- what happened? Where was Annie? But, what left her lips was, “What… happened to my arm and leg? I can't feel them.” 

Law looked down at her with a vaguely pitying expression before a small sigh escaped him. “You can't feel them because they aren't there. Whatever Starlight hit you with… it took off your left arm, leg, and eye.” Her breath was caught in her lungs by the lump that formed in her throat. “Beyond that, that side of your body has some heavy scarring. You also had six broken ribs, a cracked spine, and enough internal bleeding to fill a bucket.” 

She had nearly died. Annie, her toy, had nearly killed her. She’d managed to cripple her. 

So great was her exhaustion that Cinder didn't even have it in her to feel hate. She just felt tired. Utterly spent. That, and afraid. She was under no delusion as to what kind of man Law was. Her value to him had always been one part her beauty, one part ability. Now she laid in a hospital bed, disfigured and crippled at the hands of a toy that Cinder had misjudged terribly. She thought Annie had been broken. Broken in a way that Cinder was intimately familiar with, where she couldn't even think of striking back at her abusers. 

Just as she couldn't even dream of repaying her sisters and stepmother for their abuse until she met Rhodes, the Huntsman who trained her in secret. A man she killed with her own hands because she used that training to strike back at her so-called family that treated her worse than a slave. 

“The situation isn't great. Asami hit our storage of Compound V, so creating more of the serum that I took to patch you up is out of the question,” Law continued, and her heart stilled. He wasn't going to throw her away? “Another option is a Personality Surgery. I still have the Synth machine, so we print off a Synth body and I swap your soul into the new one. There shouldn't be any complications there, but I don't really understand Aura that well, so I figured it'd be best to hold off on that until you woke up.” 

That option scared her. She had seen how easily Law manipulated the soul and emotions. While the idea of escaping this prison of a body had no small amount of appeal, she didn't trust Law enough to not… prime the Synth body she would inhabit. So much of a person was simple brain chemistry, and that was something Law could manipulate with a slider on a screen. He could make her utterly loyal to him just as easily as he could turn her into a brainless cocksleeve that only cared about sexual gratification. 

Law having that much control over her scared Cinder far more than she was willing to admit. 

“Or,” Law continued, “we can wait until our Compound V production is back online to produce more of the serum. We're already making some headway, so I'd call it six months to a year before everything is back to pre-Asami levels of production.” It was as if he could sense her fear. And perhaps he could. His power had always been something of a mystery to her, as were his limits. Something that had been ill defined before he took a serum that was designed to boost his power to new heights. 

That option appealed more, even if the idea of being crippled made her guts churn and twist into knots. It made her feel… weak. Vulnerable. Something she swore she'd never be again. Not trusting her voice, Cinder offered a small nod to show that she preferred the latter option.

“Hm,” Law hummed, and she didn't know what to make of the sound. “I'll get Jinx to design you some prosthetics, in that case.” Jinx? The girl that Law was working over to recruit? Had he… 

“Are you…” Cinder didn't even finish the question, uncertain if she wanted an answer. 

Law knew exactly what she meant, however. “Mad?” He finished for her, tilting his head as his gaze flattened. “I wouldn't say that. I thought you broke Starlight down too, so I can't get mad at you for something I also missed. I really didn't think she had it in her. And, I can't deny that a large part of our current situation is because I was fucking around. Asami nearly killed me. Wrecked our Dias. Nearly took out Fallout from our network. Sent Yoriuchi to another world. So… it seems a little petty to get mad at you.” 

That sounded like Law was taking responsibility, and, somehow, that was more alarming than anger. His anger, she would know how to handle. It would be galling, especially after she had already mismanaged the situation back in Law's original universe that led to her capture. She could grit her teeth, accept whatever punishment Law felt she was due, and use that rage as motivation to reclaim his favor and her position within the empire he was building. This… felt like uncharted territory, and it made her uneasy. 

“Plus, I'm sure the next couple of months are going to be punishment enough for you,” he added, and there was something about how he said the words that made the blood freeze in her veins. That sounded like a promise. But, before she could reply, Law stood up. “Well, I better head out before anyone realizes I was here. You’re more popular than you realize,” he added, giving her a cheeky smile before he simply vanished from sight. Cinder didn't dare relax, however. She knew all too well that just because she couldn't see Law didn't mean he couldn't see her. 

What he meant by that was cleared up only a second later when Cinder heard a door opening. Her lone eye went to it, and she was surprised to see Caitlyn entering her hospital room. There was a small brown bag in her hands that promptly slipped out of her grip the moment that Caitlyn saw her. She looked like someone had just punched her in the stomach, “Y-You're awake. Of course you'd wake up just when I stepped outside,” Caitlyn breathed, walking over to Cinder’s bedside. 

Her eyes shone with unshed tears, her hands hovering for a moment before she grasped Cinder's only hand. “I thought… I thought I lost you, Cinder,” Caitlyn heaved with emotion, clasping down on her hand hard enough to hurt. “You were so hurt- you nearly died, and I…” Caitlyn didn't even seem to know what she was trying to say, her head falling and her dark blue hair framing her face like a curtain. 

Cinder didn't know what she felt looking down at the distraught woman who thought that they were lovers. Who thought that they were in love. When Cinder imagined a moment like this -- an emotional outpour of some kind, though she never would have guessed the circumstances, she assumed that she would feel a sense of pride. Pride that she’d duped an empty headed rich girl so thoroughly that she was this wrapped around her finger. 

Instead there was just a dull ache in her chest. As if something had grabbed her heart and squeezed. “Why are you…” Cinder started, not even sure what she wanted to say. “I'm…” 

Why was she here? Love was the biggest con there was, and half of it was based on beauty. Cinder knew that she would be restored one day, and soon. Today, if she was willing to risk it. Her… crippling was a temporary setback, and one she could endure for a brief period of time. So long as it meant that she could one day get her hands on Annie once more and… 

But Caitlyn had no reason to stay. No reason to stay by her bedside and wait around uselessly for her to wake up. But she was. And Law made it sound like she had been here for… weeks. And, frankly, from the looks of her -- she had. Grease built up in her hair, dark bags under her eyes, and her already pale skin was practically translucent. 

“I don’t care,” Caitlyn declared, knowing exactly what Cinder was trying to say. She squeezed her hand, looking up to gaze fiercely into her eyes. “You're my partner. You saved my life. I… I love you, Cinder.” She blurted, her cheeks warming as she made the confession. 

Cinder knew that the words should have felt like a victory. They had all the times before when some halfwit declared his undying love for her because she gave him a wink, a smile, and showed a bit of cleavage. This time, the words felt like a punch to the stomach. 

This was different. She wasn’t sure how it was different, only that it was. A lump formed in her throat, and her vision blurred. She started to pull her hand away from Caitlyn, only for her to stand up and pull Cinder into a hug. A crack in the dam formed…

And for the first time since she was a little girl, Cinder cried. 

…

Busy. Things were moving along at a surprisingly quick pace in the aftermath of Asami taking her shot at me. I had a number of irons in the fire, but a couple of them were dependent on other factors. Like Silco and the Council. 

A council that I was stacking in my favor. Hoskel had been swiftly replaced with a Synth since I had no reason to pull any punches now. I was still a bit leery that Asami might have planted a hidden bomb of some kind with a way to detect Synths, but if the gentle approach failed I could always take the city over by force. Additionally, Councilor Salo had also been replaced with a Synth when the original ended up dying of his wounds. 

With Silco now appointed to the council, that was essentially a voting block of three. For now, at least. 

It was a shame, but Silco had to go. I liked the guy, but Jinx's heart only had so much room in it and if I wanted to enter then I needed to make room. In the weeks since Progress Day Jinx had started to open up, little by little. Mentioning a name here or a name there -- and she’d name dropped the perfect tool to remove Silco from the big picture. 

Vi. Her big sister. 

She had been hidden pretty well in Stillwater, but when I started shifting around the prison in search of some talent and recruits, I was shocked to find gold. I was eighty percent sure that the Vi running a cell block was the same one that Jinx had mentioned a few times, with a quick DNA test confirming it. Making sure her name was on the list of convicts to be converted into penal workers had been easy enough. I had planned to arrange her escape to put her in my debt, but she ended up kidnapping me. Less than ideal, but the important part of the plan was in motion. 

Vi would kill Silco. With him out of the picture, and with Jinx’s big sister the one to do the deed… I imagine that would deliver the final crack I needed to bring her over to my side. Possibly along with her sister. A little bit of memory editing with my power would be necessary to make sure that Vi didn't let anything slip on who set Silco’s murder in motion, but that was no problem. 

That being said, I was hardly the only one making moves. 

“It's a power grab, plain as day!” Cassandra Kiramman stated, her tone sharp as we sat across from one another. She pinched a dainty tea cup in one hand and rested it on the saucer in the other, the very picture of poise. “She's using the empty seats on the Council to deliver herself more power and influence, while fighting to keep those same seats empty!” The elder Kiramman snapped, taking a quick sip of her tea. 

Mel Medarda wasn't the type to let an opportunity slip by her. 

“The timing is a little suspicious,” I agreed, seated across from the Councilor in a parlor of her family manor. I knew Mel's game quite well because I let it happen behind the scenes. Mel approached both Hoskel and Salo about ‘narrowing the vision of the Council during a time of crisis,’ which I had them both agree to. And, together, they outvoted Heimerdinger and Cassandra about filling in the empty seats. Silco, of course, voted with Mel on account that it was in his own interest to not dilute his voting power. “With her mother coming and all.” 

“Precisely,” Cassandra agreed, setting down her cup of tea. “There is little doubt what Ambessa Medarda intends to do when she arrives. Councilor Heimerdinger is beside himself, assuming the best of her and I've had no luck convincing him the truth -- Mel is putting herself in position to usurp control of Piltover from the Council.” There was a tightly woven chord of anger in her voice. 

I had studied up on Ambessa Medarda when I heard that she was coming from Mel, and she was certainly a character. Noxus seemed to be comprised of hundreds of petty warlords with one warlord standing at the top of the pile, and while not the top dog Ambessa was a particularly successful one by all accounts. She had led the Merdarda family for the past fifteen years fairly well, with the family lands had grown, rivals had fallen one after another, and they were richer than ever. Plus she had the favor of Grand General Emperor Chief Governor Bossman Boram Darkwill, the ruler of Noxus as a whole.

So, when Mel informed the Council that her mother was coming to town with her personal army of five hundred veteran warriors… The word panic was a bit of an understatement. And, despite being the one who revealed the information, suspicion quickly fell upon Mel. The excuse Ambessa gave for her visit, to ‘protect her daughter’, was paper thin and it mixed badly with Mel’s already established actions of cementing her power and influence over Piltover as the city rebuilt itself. 

“It's a problem,” I agreed. I couldn't say I cared for another player throwing their hat in the ring to take over the city, but I was rather curious about Noxus itself. Largely because Ambessa would just be the prelude. Noxus was Piltover's northern neighbor, and it was a war hungry state that was expanding in every direction it could. The Hexgate made Piltover the most important city in the world, and because of the destruction dealt to the city it was vastly weakened. Ambessa would just be the first Noxian Warlord to try and claim it, not the last, and I think that was something that I could use. 

After all, I was able to use her impending arrival to get a personal invitation with one of the Councilors. 

“But it's a question of what I can actually do about it,” I noted, offering Cassandra a sharp smile. “After all, a certain someone has been stalling my reconstruction efforts.” 

Cassandra didn't so much as blink, “I prefer the term ‘curtail’, as that's what I was doing. The scope of your ambition was stretching beyond your purview.” 

Meaning that she was creating a problem for me so she could sell me the solution. Politics 101. The delay in progress was a little irritating, but I was more than mollified because I knew what the ploy was setting up. 

“Then, may I ask why you ‘curtailed’ my reconstruction efforts? Especially when so many of them pertain to the defense and safety of Piltover?” I rephrased, setting my own cup of tea down on the table. It wasn’t to my taste, but it’d be rude to refuse. “Both Jayce and Viktor refused to turn Hextech into weapons. Leaving me as your only source of the kind of state-of-the-art arms that could give Piltover a chance of fending off these new threats from outside and within.”

Viktor managed to pull through his surgery, but only because of my stimpacks. Even still, he was in a bad way and he wouldn’t be on his feet any time soon. That was something that I was going to have to fix because Viktor was on my very short list of people that I wanted to recruit, and I think he would be open to the idea if I approached him at the right time with the right offer. Jayce, on the other hand, outright refused the idea of turning his creation into weapons. 

I’m sure he could be convinced, but not soon enough. Which suited me just fine as I already had all the tech that I needed to produce laser and plasma-based weapons sourced from Fallout. I was quite curious how they would stack up against Noxus’ legions. It seemed like a golden opportunity, considering that their A-Team was in Ionia, and from the sounds of it, they were getting absolutely mauled.

“Partly to show you that you are part of a whole rather than the lone pillar that Piltover leans on,” Cassandra admitted openly. She got points for that, at least. “And to show you what my influence can accomplish wielded against you, so you might understand what it can accomplish for you.” She said, her hands clasped in her lap while she leveled a heavy stare in my direction. 

By all accounts, Cassandra Kiramman was a sharp-witted, level-headed, yet kind-hearted woman. Soft where she could be, hard when and where she had to be. There was a reason why her influence was only matched by Mel and Heimerdinger. In a city like this, you didn’t rise to the top without at least that much. She was someone I had been keeping an eye on, and frankly, she was on the short list to get Synth’d to secure my grip over the council until I was ready to step out from behind the curtain and rule the city openly. 

She had unknowingly saved herself from that fate with the offer she was about to bring to the table. 

“I can’t deny that it would be nice not to have to fight you for every inch of progress,” I admitted. Cassandra knew exactly where to hurt me in an official capacity. Bureaucracy. Little things like delaying the rezoning efforts for my factories, pieces of important paperwork being delayed, or materials being ‘misplaced.’ A bunch of small things that turned what should be fast and easy projects into a quagmire of sunken time and effort. “But I can’t help but imagine what such support would cost me.”

Cassandra held my gaze for a moment too long, and I could tell that she was getting cold feet. But she didn’t rise to the position she had and kept her seat for decades by flinching so easily. “Commitment,” Cassandra answered shortly, a cutting edge in her tone. “You are a rising star in this city, and that will only solidify in the coming weeks and years. Your weapons and technology could very well be the things that pull Piltover from the brink of a disaster that it cannot otherwise recover from.”

“I get the feeling that you aren’t talking about a commitment to Piltover,” I remarked lightly, making her eyes narrow ever so slightly before she inclined her head to me. 

She paused for another brief second before continuing, “I am not. I am talking about commitment to House Kiramman.”

And there it was. The offer that I had been expecting. The reason why I put up with her efforts gumming up the paperwork and burying me in red tape instead of just replacing her with a Synth so everything could go smoothly. 

“Jayce was a beneficiary of my family for many years,” Cassandra began, and her tone took a frosty edge. The history between them and Jayce was known to me, largely due to Jayce occasionally griping about it. “With his success, Jayce has largely ignored the expense of the patronage that he received for more than a decade before the unveiling of the Hexgate, and that is a mistake I will not allow to happen again.”

Completely going to brush aside how she’d dumped Jayce like a hot potato when he got expelled from the university and was only saved by his proving Hextech was more than a theory at the very last minute, huh?

I said nothing as Cassandra stared a hole into me, looking for a reaction that she wasn’t going to get. Then, slowly, I spoke, “You’re talking about a marriage,” I said, pretending that I was surprised. 

“... Yes,” Cassandra admitted. “A marriage with my daughter, Caitlyn. You will take on the name Kiramman, of course, and with it you will gain access to my family's considerable influence and resources.” 

Honestly, I wasn’t much of a fan of Caitlyn. She was just so… vanilla. A generic good girl that wanted to do good. And while that did have an appeal of its own, the effort that I would spend on corrupting her wasn’t worth the return that I’d get. It’d be fun, sure, and under different circumstances I’d be all aboard, but I’d had a lot on my plate so never bothered. 

I had been content to leave Caitlyn to Cinder. If Cassandra needed to be removed or strung along in a certain direction, having Caitlyn in my back pocket seemed useful. I didn’t really care how Cinder did it either, so long as the job got done. But, the situation had changed.

Cinder… honestly, I had always had some mixed feelings about Cinder. I liked her well enough, and her attempts at subterfuge were amusing. I didn’t dislike her or anything, but I couldn’t deny there was a gulf between her and the others, like Robin and Yoruichi. I had mostly been honest with her when she woke up -- I wasn’t mad at her or anything like that. In the end, she got caught in the crossfire of a mess I had allowed to fester. 

But Cinder was partly responsible for that mess. Dropping the ball with Starlight was one thing, but losing the Dias was another. It only got more complicated from there. 

Cinder had the blueprints for the Dias on her when she nearly got killed by Starlight. No doubt planning to jump ship if things looked like they were blowing the wrong way. I didn’t blame her for that. It was perfectly respectable. 

What I did take issue with was that those blueprints had been damaged when she nearly got herself killed.

And that was something that deserved… punishment. Pain didn’t scare Cinder. Humiliation didn’t either. I’m not entirely sure what she went through prior to finding herself in my world, but she had a pretty thick skin regarding those. She could tough them both out, grit her teeth, and add them to the book of grudges that she kept close to her chest and avenge them whenever she got the chance. 

This was something different. 

“I was under the impression that Caitlyn was in a relationship with a Cinder Fall, her Enforcer partner,” I noted and Cassandra closed her eyes ever so briefly. A flinch in the negotiations. 

“My daughter understands her duty to the family,” Cassandra replied curtly. Not so much curt with me, but more because she knew that argument was going to be a hard-fought one with her rather headstrong daughter. 

I had no plans on getting married. Felt pretty pointless, frankly, especially as I had no intentions of changing my ways. But, I couldn’t deny that having the right last name opened some doors, and it would make taking over the city peacefully a lot easier. Controlling the movers and shakers was a start, but there was still a general population that might resist me. Something that I could always deal with using a heavy hand, but I had a good thing going here and I didn’t want to mess it up if I didn’t have to. 

“I’m not opposed to the idea of getting married, so long as Caitlyn is on board,” I replied, and Cassandra breathed a bit easier. I understood where she was coming from. With Jayce, she had cut her losses too early, and because of it she’d missed a trip to the moon. In her place, Mel had benefited at the very last second as she attached herself to a rising star. She wanted to do the same to me, only this time, there was no bailing out. 

That gave me leverage. Both on her, Caitlyn, and on Cinder. 

It wouldn’t hit Cinder for a bit, I don’t think. She was in a uniquely vulnerable position, weak and injured, and Caitlyn was fully in her corner. She didn’t understand the emotional whiplash that she was going to get when she realized that Caitlyn was there to stay through thick and thin. I’m not sure if Cinder was going to be falling in love or anything like that, but at the very least, I expected for Caitlyn to worm herself into Cinder’s cold dead heart and make herself at home. 

The punishment I had in mind for Cinder wouldn’t be something grand or performative. Just that little by little, Caitlyn would be pulled into my orbit for good or ill. Sex, debauchery, corruption -- the whole nine yards. How Cinder reacted to it was entirely up to her -- she could be all for it or completely against it, or simply decide that she didn’t care anymore. 

But, no matter what, it would bother her. It would bother her in a way that she genuinely had no idea how to handle because she wouldn’t have ever felt this way before. All the more so when she inevitably figured out that Caitlyn had only entered my crosshairs because Cinder put her there. 

Cassandra offered a small smile, “Then, allow me to welcome you to the family, Law.”

I returned the smile with one of my own, neither of our smiles reaching our eyes. 

“Thanks for having me.”