A Lewd Cultivator in Brockton Bay 51 (Patreon)

A Lewd Cultivator in Brockton Bay
Chapter 51

-VB-

Our honeymoon came to an end, and we returned to Brockton Bay.

(This was after Amy had her fun with the saltwater crocodiles, tarantulas, gympie gympie, and dingos. I don’t know what she did, but where there was once swimming, I had heard stomping instead and the croc didn’t go back into the water. And the gympie gympie became a vine. And dingos. Goddamn the dingos. Why did Amy make them bigger?)

(AL: “Amy, I’m not going to be happy if I get a call from the Australian government or the rebels. No one wants bigger dingos.”)

(AM: “What? They’re so cute, especially I made them bigger and fluffier! They’re even less aggressive towards people.”)

(V: “Amy, that’s not the problem.”)

(AM: “Exactly, there’s no problem. The walking gympie gympie is just a surprise, not a problem. It helped me learn how to incorporate pain into my spirit animals. Can you imagine the kind of pain a gympie incorporated squirrel can do to someone like Lung?”)

(AL&V: ““AMY!””)

(AM: “Hey, I held back! I could have gone full biotinker and made gympie tarantulas.)

Our return was actually met with cheers from the locals.

Why?

Well, Panacea had been gone for almost a month from the city, and during that time, everyone came to realize just how big of an impact she’s had.

How big of an impact?

“Let’s start off with the gangs,” Vicky cheerfully started as the three of us sat around. “So most of what I am getting is coming from PHO and the PRT, so there might be gaps. Don’t judge me if there’s discrepancies!” she said as she spread some charts in front of us.

“We won’t,” Amy and I responded at the same time.

“Good! Okay, first off, the Merchants. They might have suffered the most in terms of manpower, because a tenth of their members died from overdose over the last month.”

My eyebrows shot up at that and Amy shrugged. “I guess it was expected,” she sighed.

I turned to her. “What do you mean?” I asked her cautiously at her forlorn stare at the data in front of her.

“Well…” she began slowly. “Overdose patients do make up a significant number of patients I healed all of the patients I treated, especially when I volunteered at Brockton General Hospital.”

“...But you don’t do brains?”

“I don’t do brains,” she nodded. “But I can stabilize their body for the most part.”

“But enough for a tenth of their numbers to just go off and die?” I turned back to Vicky. “They must have had some party.”

“They did. They were apparently celebrating our absence.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Celebrating the absence of the only healer who can fix them at their worst… by doing more of their poison. You know what? I don’t know what people think. I’m just lost at this point.”

Vicky giggled. “Well, the next is the ABB and the Teeth,” she said and became somber. “The Butcher is in town.”

I grimaced. “Damn.”

“Yeah, it’s not looking good. They basically took over where E88 used to be.”

“Wait, I thought Coalition remnants were in E88’s old territory.”

The Coalition had been the capes who took up Amy’s cause(?) and tore apart the Empire after the Neo-Nazis hurt the most prolific healer in all of the world. Vacaneer, the cape who led that coalition and had roughed it out with Alexandria in the past, was still in the Bay.

How could they take over E88’s old territory?

“What happened to Vacaneer?” I asked, dreading the answer. Vacaneer was someone on par with the Triumvirate.

“He apparently left when he heard that the Butcher came to the bay. Something about his contract with the Triumvirate stating that he was not to be in the same city as the Butcher if he could help it.”

“And the others who stayed?”

“Nothing much. Our dear friend Hannover and his Elite branch allied with the remaining Coalition remnants, so I guess I was exaggerating by saying that the Teeth took over the former E88 territory? It’s more that they took some of it between the Elite, the coalition, and the ABB, and are getting reamed by all three for daring to show up in the city after their last cell got wrecked by you.”

Right, I did that.

“The Fallen came by, but Vacaneer handled them before he left.”

Vacaneer was a good guy. And absurdly strong. I tried to imagine what his handling would have looked like in comparison to mine, and knew that the comparison was not great; I was strong, yes, but he was a sanctioned warlord. Of course he probably swept the floor with them!

I needed to do more training and soon.

“And the Elite?”

“They are busy. They used our absence to kind of push their influence in and around Downtown, but not enough to get themselves into a tussle with the PRT or New Wave.”

What was Hannover’s game, anyway? I knew that he wanted more power and influence, but he used the time I graciously gave him for … what I would let him do regardless?

“Probably has other things we don’t know happening under the veil,” I hummed.

Vicky nodded in agreement and Amy shrugged as she stood up. “I’m going to go water the trees.”

Vicky stood up as well. “Well, I guess I’ll have to catch up with my friends.”

I waved her goodbye as well and made my way downstairs to train.

Home sweet home.