See No Evil: The Message (ch. 60) (Patreon)

Despite popular belief, it was actually pretty easy to not think about purple elephants. Even when you had someone actively trying to trick you into doing it, it wasn't even particularly hard. It was a simple trick -- when someone mentioned purple elephants, you thought about blue elephants instead. Or green tigers. Or gray monkeys. A topic that is tangibility related, but not the topic itself. The further from purple elephants the better.

So, when you were told not to think incriminating thoughts, you didn't. Or you thought of thoughts that were incriminating but not as much as they otherwise might be. An example being when someone mentioned murder, you thought of a murder that you had seen -- Like Mr. Cobblepot murdering his top lieutenants. Or when talking about a criminal secret organization, you thought of things you knew about them, rather than how you were the one who created it.

You thought of the assassination attempts and how you didn't know who was ordering them. But, at the same time, you planted a small little lie among the truth to, take root and transform it. I had no clue who was hiring so many assassins to kill me. I'm pretty sure it was Cobblepot, but I didn't know for sure. Because I didn't know for sure, I could plant a lie that Checkmate was the one responsible because, technically speaking, they were responsible for at least one assassination attempt.

The bomb planted on the fuel line to my car during my interview with Godfrey. It was an attack that had been done on Checkmate's orders through the Holdover Mob. So, that lie wasn't even really a lie. I just omitted the part where I had ordered the hit on myself to look good for the camera.

I had no idea how well the trick would work on a mind reader as talented as Miss Martian. If she did a deep dive on my mind, the jig would be up. But given that I wasn't currently in a coma, I'm guessing she didn't go deeper than surface level.

And when I saw that my micro cameras had tagged Dick Grayson as he shadowed Tifa, I was certain that my version of the story had taken hold.

It was a gamble. A big one, but also a necessary one. I saw the investigation coming at me a mile away. As soon as I had mouthed off to Nabu, I knew that there would be consequences. Even without that incident to shine a spotlight on me, I knew it was coming because of the golden rule 'no trust without verification'. The only real questions there were was who would be doing the investigating, and what and how.

Safety measures were takenaa. Those that I was more concerned about were isolated from those being investigated -- Me, Tifa, and Revy.

Revy was the main problem, but I was thankful that the heroes were looking at me and Tifa first and foremost. Tifa was in the clear. She was ignorant of my dealings with 'Checkmate' and she spent most of her time taking care of Lowtown. It gave me an opening to throw out a red herring and hook the heroes on something else other than Revy. Which had been Checkmate, the secret organization I created.

It was the perfect cover. To the point of being almost too perfect. Their 'pawns' didn't know that they were pawns, so when their advancements were made, they were none the wiser. The lack of evidence would become the evidence, but then they would only have my word to prove it. So, I had Cassandra plant evidence. I had the Court of Owls make moves -- assassinations, blackmail, extortion -- all to help my enemies gain a foothold while I had Revy assassinate other notable gains to help my allies.

There wouldn't be much. But it would be enough. A breadcrumb of evidence would put the heroes on the trail of Checkmate and that trail would lead nowhere near me. At worst, they would get one of my proxies, but that was a sacrifice I was more than willing to make.

And I would also be kept in the dark while Miranda made moves on my behalf. I was thinking of naming her the Queen of Checkmate, the most powerful piece on the board, but I decided to hold off until I knew for certain that there would be anything left of Checkmate by the time the heroes were done.

But, at the same time, I had Concerned Citizen feeding the heroes information. I had been considering becoming an information broker in Gotham for some time and now seemed to be as good a time as any. Which reminded me. I had lost my window into the Batcomputer, so I needed another one. What better way than to become a trusted source of information? By giving them info to act on, to however much of an extent, I could influence their actions.

No Man's Land would be where Concerned Citizen cut his teeth. Afterward was anyone's guess, but I was aiming to earn the heros' trust. It might be a bit difficult because of early missteps, but I don't think they were anything I couldn't recover from.

Which led me to now. I had a lot of irons in the fire and a lot of plates to juggle. I was still being investigated by the heroes. Megan was my second shadow. Bee had bugged the hell out of my office, computer, servers, and phone. Pod had been prepared for it, so dummy files were already created and in place. I hadn't tried to breach the hero's mainframe yet, but that was only because I didn't know I could get away with it. Pod, or Concerned Citizen, was good, but I wasn't sure if he was that good.

And I was stressed out of my mind. I could admit that. I couldn't even retreat to the safety of my own mind because the heroes were investigating every thought I had. I never thought I'd have trouble with the literal Thought Police. I had dealt with exhaustion before, but after three days of constantly being on my toes, of checking every thought I had before I even thought it… it was exhausting. My brain felt like mush. I was so stressed that I couldn't get comfortable in my own skin. And no matter how much headway I made into the piles of work that were dumped onto my desk, my inbox was always overflowing. For each paper signed, there were ten more to take its place.

I was making progress. I had to keep reminding myself of that. A lot of it. I had gone ahead and bought another five percent of Gotham city, and I was transforming it into something incredible. The buildings were torn all the way down to their foundations. The rubble leftover, I combined to a suitable rank before it was reused in construction on the city blocks I purchased. It took three demolished buildings for every one that I built, but it was a worthy trade-off. The buildings were made exactly how I wanted them to be.

The walls were bulletproof. You could throw a hand grenade in a closet and the adjacent room would be fine. The appliances weren't just modernized, but futuristic, all with Sainthood Enterprises designs. All of it, all the way down to the air conditioning, was completely eco friendly -- solar panels for electricity, and the water was hooked into Lowtown's systems, so it was pure water. None of the additives that caused such a hassle with people like Poison Ivy. Beyond the buildings themselves, even the roads were reconstructed -- with asphalt-like rubber that could easily be replaced when a section got too worn down.

All of which would be bugged to hell and back. With each building I bought, my vision slowly returned to what it was. Then it expanded. By the time I was done, there would be no secrets in Gotham. Not from me.

My vision for the city was taking shape. My plans were progressing, but any pride I felt for the accomplishments was drowned out by the stress each move incurred. I swear, I found a gray hair after my second sleepless night after Gotham had shaken itself apart. I felt tired to the point that no amount of coffee could keep me forging ahead. It felt like I was on a fresh course to crash and burn or have a psychotic episode if I didn't get some level of relief.

And the only reason I was free to think all of this was because I had found it.

"I'm cumming~!" Tifa panted in my ear, her legs locking around my waist as her silken, wet walls clenched down on my shaft. She squeezed me tight, riding out her orgasm while I kissed down her neck. Some of them would leave marks, but Tifa seemed to like it. She never hid them. My hands ghosted over her nude body, feeling her soft skin under my touch, before my hands drifted down to her butt to grope her gloriously firm ass.

Sex was an embarrassing topic for most people. It was a private, intimate moment, and the heroes treated it like one. They were investigating me and Lowtown, but that didn't make them voyeurs.

Tracking an invisible and intangible alien wasn't easy. Actually, it was next to impossible. I had a good dozen safety measures placed in my building specifically for martins, and only one of them actually worked. Miss Martian leveraged her powers well and smoothed over the most glaring weaknesses like motion detectors or infrared light. The one that worked was a magical safety measure I had been playing around with and that I hadn't expected much from. I took inspiration from the Detect Life spell from Skyrim and applied it to my security cameras.

Which is how I knew that whenever I had sex, Miss Martain would leave until I was done.

"Do you really have time for this?" Tifa asked me, not sounding displeased, but knowing exactly how busy I was. Mostly based on the huge stack of papers I shoved off my desk to make room for her.

"I can make time," I told her, pressing my lips against hers. Tifa ran her hands through my hair as she deepened the kiss despite her questions. My cock remained unyielding inside of her -- I will say this, having two sexually active girlfriends did wonders for a man's endurance. We were half an hour in and Tifa was three orgasms to my none.

To prove that, and that I hadn't been slacking off physically, I effortlessly picked Tifa up, holding her by her ass. I felt her clench, enjoying that, and she enjoyed it more when I pressed her against the wall. Slamming my hips against hers, I was rewarded with a moan into my mouth as I found the rhythm that I knew Tifa loved. After so many months, I knew her body like the back of my hand. I knew exactly what drove her wild. The wet sounds her body made told me exactly how much she enjoyed it, arousal dripping from her with every thrust.

Tifa wasn't idle. She began to roll her hips as she clenched down, massaging my length to coax my own orgasm out of me. I held it back, not wanting this to end. Because once it did, then the balancing game resumed once more and I had to check every thought. I couldn't even sleep, both because of the sheer amount of work I had and because I couldn't afford to lower my defenses.

But, despite the spirit wanting this to continue, the flesh was weak. My cock throbbed deep inside of Tifa as my orgasm refused to be staved off indefinitely, and she responded by running her hands down my back, settling on my ass to coax me to keep thrusting into her. She broke the kiss to pant hotly into my ear, something that she knew I was weak to. Because when I heard it, I wanted to speed up. I wanted to turn those pants for breath into gasps of ecstasy.

I slammed my hips forward, rattling one of my bookcases with the force behind them. I fought the orgasm until the very final thrust, but when it became clear the battle was lost, I buried myself as deep as I could into Tifa's body, feeling the warmth radiating from her core. Then I came so hard that I went lightheaded for a moment, forcing me to lean against Tifa as I pinned her against the wall.

Tifa moaned in my ear as I came inside of her, coming undone in her arms. Her breathing hitched with each powerful pulse from my cock as my body seemed to treat this as the last orgasm I would ever have so it made the most of it. I still leaned against her, both of us catching our breath. Tifa recovered first, unhooking her legs so she was once again touching down on the ground. Though a low groan escaped her when I began to pull out. A hand went between her legs to prevent any cum from hitting the floor and she made a noise of disbelief when I found my legs again.

"Vergil, this can't be healthy," Tifa remarked as she caught what spilled out. I wasn't a hentai protagonist that shot out firehouse amounts of cum, but looking at what was in the palm of her hand and knowing that there was more inside her… I knew I came abnormal amounts. What she had in her palm would be what I imagined I would normally produce if I actually ever followed through with no nut November.

But that didn't stop Tifa from bringing her palm to her lips and kicking it clean, all the while she sent me the sultriest look imaginable. My cock hadn't exactly wilted, but it stood at full attention, ready for another round. Tifa smiled lightly, knowing the effect she had on me, "Sorry, but I do need to get back to work," she said, even as she dropped to her knees to clean me off.

A heavy breath heaved out of me as I felt her tongue brush the bottom of my cock. "I'm sure they're fine," I said, and Tifa chuckled as she took my cock fully into her mouth. It wasn't quite a blowjob, but it was a fair bit more enthusiastic than just cleaning me off required.

"You don't believe that. Lowtown is probably on fire without us keeping watch over it," Tifa said, as she finished and stood back up. And I knew she was quoting me. "I'll make it up to you. I owe you three," she said, making my brow furrow.

"I thought it was two?" I questioned, wondering where the third orgasm came from. Tifa smiled as she started getting dressed again and I, with the greatest reluctance, started helping her by handing her the bra she threw across the room when things had started heating up.

"You really are tired," Tifa remarked and I guess I was if I missed her having an orgasm.

I shrugged, waiting for my cock to wilt as I began sorting through the papers to find that I made a bigger mess than I thought I had. "I'll be fine," I said, as I issued out orders with my contacts. "How are you holding up?"

Tifa cast me a look as she fully got dressed, knowing that I was changing the subject, "I have Sammy taking care of things. The community really helps lighten the workload," she remarked lightly, and I knew she wanted me to find ways to lighten the load I was carrying. And I wanted to, but… I didn't trust anyone else to not drop one of the plates, and none of them could afford to be dropped.

"I'll look to get a third secretary," I compromised, earning a thin smile from Tifa as she took the victory where she could. I had no idea who I would decide on, but I could look for someone.

"Good. Cassandra is here, by the way. I'll send her up," Tifa remarked, casting a glance at my cock that still refused to go down. As she walked by to return to the daily grind, she placed a quick kiss on my cheek while I continued to sort through a pile of very important contracts. Some of which I think Tifa ended up coming on.

I gathered up the papers and went ahead and put on some boxers just so I wouldn't be in my office naked and alone. I went through the back channels that I knew Bee hadn't bugged. I had a number of projects that were moving along -- the most pressing of which was a chip to block telepathy. Technically speaking, it was already complete, but completely blocking Miss Martian from reading my mind was a bad look.

The fact that she thought she could read my mind put the heroes at ease. It offered validation to every word I said because the mind reader didn't catch me in a lie. The major downside was that there was a risk that she would catch me in the middle of one of my misdirections. Instead, I was trying to get my cake and eat it too -- I wanted a chip that would disguise my thoughts so perfectly that Miss Martian wouldn't be any the wiser that they weren't my real thoughts. I wanted it to protect me from deep dives into my mind against my will, even if I was asleep.

But that was a tall order, even with my cards. Combining a couple thousand tin foil hats made it easy to get a thought blocker. But what I needed to disguise my thoughts was a bit more complicated. Especially when I wanted to control the fake thoughts that Miss Martian would receive.

Which left me grasping for methods. The qualities I was looking for were to hide, protect, and disguise. I chose locks for protection. Then I saw that we had a surplus of various crossword, sudoku, and maze puzzles since people thought we would need them if we went without electricity to avoid boredom. I combined the lot of them to grind up more elaborate protection. As for hiding and disguising?

I chose makeup kits for disguise. It seemed fitting and I really didn't know what else would fit the bill unless I found actual disguises en masse. For hiding…? Where is Waldo books. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands. Because the idea of those books was that Waldo was hiding in plain sight. On top of that, I included optical illusions. Like that dress that people couldn’t decide was blue and black or white and gold, or something. The idea was to take the aspect of seeing without really seeing, or comprehending what you saw from the books and illusions and apply that to my thoughts.

I had yet to combine the cards, mostly because I couldn't do that under the watchful eye of Miss Martian. But preparations were being made. I only had a few more days of dealing with guarding my thoughts before I was free-

My train of thought was cast away when the door swung open, revealing Cassandra. She wore clothes made for comfort, and as soon as her gaze met mine, she immediately looked concerned. However, what I took more notice of was that 2B was following behind Cassandra. I… should have known that. I just forgot to look.

Shit. I was slipping.

"What are the two of you doing here?" I questioned while I also signed the words, keenly aware that I was just in a pair of boxers. Cassandra responded with actions rather than words, immediately kicking off her pants and flinging her shirt across the room as she marched to me like a woman on a mission. 2B, understandably, was more reserved.

"Revy brought it to our attention that your current levels of stress are dangerously high," 2B stated as she took off her jacket. She also sounded like a woman on a mission. "She offered forth methods of dealing with it. Your caffeine addiction has become unhealthy as well." She noted and I didn't know how I should feel as she grilled me for my unhealthy habits while also getting undressed.

"2B, don't listen to Revy. About anything. You're not stress relief," I said, looking at her even though Cassandra had just tossed her panties to the side, leaving her nude in my office.

Cass leaned forward, 'That's her excuse,' Cass informed me as 2B stood perfectly still, making no further moves to undress. 'It's easier,' she pointed out. I looked at 2B, who seemed unable to meet my eyes.

I looked at Cass, "Does Tifa know?" I questioned, giving her a stern look.

Cass smirked. She didn't often look smug, but I had to say, it suited her. "She knows," she confirmed. I looked back at 2B, and her unease was clear to see. 2B always seemed sure of herself. Or, at the very least, she was confident in her own abilities. When it came to humanity, a more vulnerable side was revealed.

And now, it was clear that she was stepping out of her comfort zone.

Meaning that I was put in a rather precarious position. In terms of having a physical relationship, I don't think 2B was ready for it. Her idea of humanity had been dashed, replaced with disillusionment and regret. But, in regards to me and a few others, she held us in the highest respect. That made me uncomfortable. The power dynamics in the relationship were completely skewed in my favor.

Tifa could argue with me. She could get pissed off and tell me to go to hell. If she wanted to, she could end the relationship any time she wanted over any issue. And I had given her a number of very valid reasons to break up with me. With Cassandra, she could understand my intentions better than I could, and if she disagreed, then there was nothing stopping her from making a stand.

2B didn't have that yet. No matter what I said or did, 2B would be in my corner, regardless of her own personal opinion. And that was dangerous in a relationship. Especially when there were two other girls in the mix. Barbara said it best when she was talking to her father -- I was the kind of person that would take a mile when given an inch. And 2B would give me much more than that to start with.

But, as if sensing my thoughts, Cass tapped me on the shoulder. 'Don't worry. We take care of each other.' Cass signed with complete confidence, and that probably shouldn’t reassure me as much as it did. Cass… I honestly trusted her instincts more than my own. I still had doubts about turning my relationship with Tifa into a three-way thing, and adding a fourth to the mix was asking for trouble.

Yet, I also knew that refusing now would hurt 2B. Badly. I knew that she would take the rejection in the worst possible way. Cassandra telling me it was going to be fine… I shouldn’t take that on blind faith, but I found myself doing so anyway.

Turning my attention to 2B, I saw her muster up the courage to meet my eyes. Her lips parted, but she said nothing for a long moment. It took another for her to force her words past her lips. “I… would like to be with you,” she stated softly, and there was a lot that went unsaid in those few words. She was making in clear that in no uncertain terms, she wanted this.

And there was no way I could say no to that.

“Come here, 2B,” I said, mostly because approaching her in only a pair of boxers with a rather obvious erection would really ruin the mood and I imagine it would be a daunting sight. 2B approached, choosing to walk around my desk. Her gray-blue eyes roamed me, and I think it might be the first time she had ever seen me without some variation of a suit on. When she was close enough to touch, I stood up. Without her high heels, 2B was noticeably shorter by at least three inches.

When I stood up, I ended up towering over her by half a foot. Reaching up with my hand, I lifted her head up with a finger. Without her mask, it was easy to read her expression -- disbelief intertwined with anticipation and uncertainty. To test the waters, I leaned in and pressed my lips against hers -- a gentle and chaste kiss. 2B just received the kiss for the first few moments, stoically not moving, before her lips began to gently move in rhythm with mine. I felt her place her hand on my chest, while the other reached up to gently rest on the nape of my neck.

Taking that as an encouraging sign, I placed my hands on her trim waist. Because of that, I was able to feel it when Cassandra started undoing 2B’s pants. She pulled them down, and I thought that might be moving a little fast, but when I felt 2B’s stiffen against me, only to practically melt into me a moment later, I realized that had just been the first step in a blitz to the finish line. Using my contacts, I checked to see what was going on behind 2B to see that Cassandra had her face buried in between 2B’s legs.

So much for taking it slow and easing her into it, I thought. Maybe I shouldn’t trust Cass’ instincts about these sorts of things. It felt a bit pushy, but 2B voiced no complaint. Rather the opposite really. 2B kissed me hard, her tongue tentatively brushing against my lips, uncertain on how to proceed, but there was an eagerness there that told me that she wanted to.

I deepened the kiss, still taking the gentle approach. My hands teased at the hemline of her shirt, a hand sneaking inside and running over her smooth stomach. It would be a lie to say I hadn't had the occasional daydream about this, and I had wondered what 2B would feel like. At the end of the day, she was an Android -- would her skin feel synthetic? Would she feel iron hard below her skin?

But, to my faint surprise, if I didn't know 2B was an android, then I likely never would have suspected she was. Her skin felt smooth to the touch, and the hardness I felt could easily be mistaken for firm abs. 2B, proving to be surprisingly impatient, reached up to her shirt and quickly took it off, leaving her in only a lacy black bra. With a flick of my wrist, I undid the clasp between her breasts, revealing them to me. Her skin was milky white all the way down her body, making the candy pink nipples that stood at attention stand out.

2B moaned -- it was a quiet and uncertain sound as she reached back to place a hand on Cassandra's head. And now I saw that Cassandra wasn't going down on 2B. Her hands were on her ass, pulling them apart as she went to town on 2B's tight pink pucker. And given that she was an android, the normal issues of surprise rimming weren't there, so fair enough.

Cassandra seemed to catch me looking because she pulled her head back to look up at me, 'She'll feel best here,' she informed me, before deciding that preparations were done. She stood up and took a seat on my desk- I swallowed a noise of protest when she pushed the papers I had just organized back off the desk, returning them to a heap on the floor. She took a one of 2B's hands, getting her attention, before Cassandra placed that hand on her vagina, encouraging her to explore Cass' body.

As 2B did so, Cassandra reached back and grabbed 2B's ass, her fingers sinking into the soft flesh. Her shining asshole was displayed in all of its glory. And I wasn't sure if it wasn't a crime against god to not fuck her ass, but as I fished my cock out of my boxers and started to line it up, I decided that it if it wasn't it should be.

However, god seemed to disagree with my assessment, because the exactly moment I prepared to thrust into 2B, I got a bright red alert on my contacts. An alert that was shared with 2B across the network, because she stiffened, and not because she was about to take a dick in the ass. Immediately, she snapped up, uncaring of her nudity as a white katana appeared in her hand. That, I had learned, was more magic than technology.

But I didn't have time to think about that. My mind raced as I scrambled to grab my pants off the floor, while Cassandra read the room and swept them up so she could hand them to me. There were only a few things that could trigger a red alert now. None of them good.

And a message from the Joker could never be good.