The Rise of Marquis 9: State of March (Patreon)

The Rise of Marquis
Chapter 9: The State of the March

-VB-

Marquis hummed as he finished the last of the records needed to keep his organization in tip-top shape. It was in times like these that he wondered if staying small had not been the best personal option for him.

The March had grown because it took in more capes but it had taken in more capes because it had grown. It was kind of a self-reinforcing cycle for all cape organizations simply because of how capes worked, especially more so for organizations that took in Tinkers, which he had two of.

Meru was a woman with a simple desire: kill an Endbringer.

Yes, he knew that it wasn’t exactly a plausible one but he considered it a possible one due to what Meru discovered: how Endbringer physiology - or lack there of - operated. Meru’s specialty was in remote control technology, but that was the thing about Tinkers; as long as the tech in question fit into their specialty, they could - if given enough time and resource - build whatever they wanted.

Remote-control drone with deep penetration sensors capable of detecting movement in the neighboring stars and “local” dimensions? Perfectly within her capability, especially after she’s had some of Armsmaster and other Tinkers’ tech to analyze. This was where a fifth of his entire budget went to.

The other Tinker was his own daughter and lover, Amelia. She had a thing for cultivating unique “babies” and got a little bit too into making them. Well, now that they were into making a real baby with none of the downsides of being inbred thanks to her power, she was putting aside her other babies. Though he spent very little in finances for her projects, she needed a lot of land instead, which was why he actually had a huge underground network of chambers and tunnels to keep her projects out of the eyes of the public.

These projects did not include the walking zombie plants she liked to call Larry.

Helping Meru and Amelia by himself was unfeasible, so he had to hire people, which cost money. To hire people and put them to best use not just in internal projects but against his enemies, he’d needed a really good strategist/planner, and Scholar was his woman for that.

Unfortunately, the price for her strategic services required that he donate an absurd amount of money to charitable causes. He was okay with that too, especially since it also improved his public image.

But it still hurt.

To provide and receive the services of these three women alone, he spent ninety percent of his income.

The remaining ten percent? Saved into a rainy day fund.

All of that was the detail.

The foundational force behind the March was still him and no one else. The March existed to feed his desires. Territory, woman, power. Name it, he had it because he had the March, and the March and its dependents existed because of him.

Sure, he protected the shopkeepers and merchants and landowners.

Sure, he kicked out unwanted ruffians and idiots like the Empire and the Teeth from his territory.

Sure, he played nice with the government when the time called for it.

At the end of the day, however, he was a criminal who extracted wealth from the city for his enjoyment.

But he was … old now. By the standards of capes, he was not just a veteran but one of the oldest fighting capes in New England. Only the likes of the Triumvirate and the original Wards had similar career length as he did. Women? He already had two, and he wasn’t the type to switch women like one would switch out socks. Wealth? He was a millionaire with assets in hundreds of millions and liquid cash in a third that value. Power?

He was the Marquis of the March. New villains wished they were him, and the Elite used him as an example of what was a good leadership.

That said, having increased the size of the March to this size did come with consequences. While the PRT ENE always focused on him as the “big bad” within the city, they quietly swept the fact that it was his March that kept the gangs - gangs that no one wanted - out of this city. In that regard, his March was playing the exact role of its name; it stood as bulwark for the city.

Was that perhaps his secret inner desire for what he acted as? A shield for this city?

… Maybe, but his crimes were too numerous and varied to consider such an evidence-less ideal as an upside for him.

He leaned back into his chair and let out a sigh.

‘With Jenkins keeping the ABB and the PRT busy in the east, I need more people for the west.’

The Downtown and the Docks South were the territories of the PRT ENE and the ABB respectively, and he controlled the Docks proper, which he used to ferry in goods and services. This was why he was powerful. He hadn’t given a shit about legalities of sunken ship ownerships; he just removed it all without a care about what the lawyers not working for him were screaming about.

Of course, the renewed Docks had worked out for him for a decade and more. It still continued to provide him with the bulk of his income.

Of course, this also meant that he had rivals who wanted it for themselves.

Chiefly among them was his imitator to the north: the Duke. He was an invulnerable Brute who styled himself as the “lord of Greater Maine,” as if the giant waste of space that was Maine was worth anything. It was unfortunate then that the little boy’s charisma got him ten capes who all named themselves after English peerage and began to carve up Maine for themselves.

The Duke, however, always kept his sight on Brockton Bay, seeing it as the crown jewel of his self-proclaimed “Greater Maine.”

‘And today marks the eighth attack he’s made,’ he thought as he finished reading the battle report.

Duke came down with two of his capes and thirty minions, armed to the teeth, and challenged him by attacking and setting up shop in Trainyard.

Now, Trainyard was not his territory so he didn’t care, but Scholar did insist that the Duke was more likely to ruin the Bay by disturbing the service chain of logistics Trainyard provided. So he’d gone with Countess and her plant minions and waged a brief skirmish.

The end result?

‘Twelve dead, including one of his capes,’ he thought with an appreciative hum. ‘And the other is now in my custody.’

It was such a coincidence that the cape who died was a man and the cape he captured was a woman.

Already, his mind was thinking of ways to neutralize this cape without killing her.

He spent the rest of the day thinking about that.