See No Evil: Two Tyrants (ch. 87) (Patreon)

"Happy birthday!" I was greeted by Cass, who unceremoniously shoved a chocolate cake in my face, complete with candles in the shape of a one and a seven. Cass was beaming, looking immensely proud of herself for remembering. So proud that she made me think that I had managed to forget my own birthday. She paused for a moment, withdrawing the cake. "Not your birthday?"

"My birthday is tomorrow," I answered, giving Cass a lopsided smile as I leaned into the luxuriously soft couch. Technically speaking, I did forget my birthday. I only knew that it wasn't today because of Tifa's not so secret preparations for the surprise party she was throwing. Cass looked at her cake disappointedly -- stuff like numbers and reading were things she was having a lot more difficulty than she had with speaking, and that had been a huge challenge in itself. Sign language was helping with her reading, but numbers were more or less a lost cause. "We can celebrate it a little early," I decided, aiming a smirk at Cass. "Just don't tell Tifa."

"I won't," Cass decided, throwing herself into the couch next to me. "Won't tell her you know about the surprise party either."

"That's what I like to hear," I admitted, using my hard-light projector to conjure up a knife to cut the cake with as Cass snuggled into my side and turned her attention to my holographic TV. On it was an address by President Bruce Wayne and UN Secretary-General Donna Troy, both of them smiling as they shook hands as another progressive deal was set to be implemented.

Conjuring a set of plates and forks, I cut Cass off a piece and leaned back into the couch. So far, the UN was making the correct moves. The Justice League might turn its nose up about illegally giving a bunch of roadblock politicians the boot, but they sure were willing to seize the opportunity when it arrived. In America, I had lobbied a number of replacement senators, governors, mayors, and members of the house of representatives. Privately, of course. Across the world, my agents had been slotted into place like I thought they would.

Mind control was a dead end. After such a dramatic case with such public figures, it was becoming the norm to wear bracelets that monitored mental activity and sent a red flag when mental tampering was evident. Though, that red flag went to one of my newer subsidiaries, MindLock, so mental subversion was still open to me, but I didn't see a need. The people that replaced the roadblocks were the people I wanted because I knew they would push my agenda, because they saw it as their own.

"You seem happy," Cass remarked, taking a large bite of chocolate on chocolate cake.

I suppose I was. "The UN is shaping up how I want it to," I admitted. Part of that was my influence and part of that was the heroes. Some nations were digging their heels in, but with a little economic bullying, they were brought in line. The future was now. Without tying themselves to the UN, whose entire economy had been completely overhauled in recent months with the asteroid mining taking off, even the largest nations on Earth couldn't hope to compare.

The UN was leveraging that economic power and influence. Even as they brought global powers to heel, they were implementing staging processes that would limit every nation's autonomy. By the end of the century, nations like America, China, Germany, and so on would only exist on paper.

"They're approving a unified codex of laws. Which the Justice League and Sentinels will uphold as a world wide policing force," I continued. The Justice League had been a little more willing to seize power than I had been anticipating. I wasn't really complaining about them taking the right to enter all countries to stop genocides or break up slave camps. Just noting that I didn't have to push them to step over that line to seize power. "Earth is about to get a single world government."

"Hm," Cass hummed, making it clear that she couldn't care less. It just didn't interest her how Earth had been forced on a completely new trajectory. Nations would dissolve. Earth was looking to the stars. There was a push to make an alliance with Mars. All things that would have been unthinkable a year earlier. My own company was leading the charge wherever possible. "Are they going to put you in jail?"

She was still worried about the retrial that the UN was having. Instead of trying to do a lightning round, open and shut case, they were making it a slog. Mostly to set precedence for future cases regarding mind control. But, all signs pointed to a not guilty verdict. Both from official channels and unofficial.

I threw an arm over her shoulder, "Nah. They couldn't put me in prison even if they wanted to." A bit smug, but it was the truth. It had been a few months since the Reach got the boot on Earth and, despite no one being able to prove it, I was the one credited with giving them the boot on top of destroying the Warworld. As far as I could tell, there wasn't any real reason or evidence to support the belief. It started as a rumor and people just accepted it as true, and they just so happened to be right.

Cass seemed pleased with the news. It had been true when the first case was going on and it was true with the retrial three months later. And, like Cass did, those three months were spent settling in with the new normal. The economic damage done by the destruction of the economy was more or less undone. One quarter saw the largest unemployment rate since the Great Depression, and the next quarter saw the lowest unemployment rates worldwide in history.

The UN was making its own moves -- such as starting a school for meta-humans with the help of my company. So far, hundreds of teens and young adults from across the world were trickling in onto the campus located in Gotham City. That had caused a sharp decline in crime rates, even if they were still high enough that a cop from my world would start crying uncontrollably. I focused my efforts elsewhere, pushing to make Gotham City the standard city across the world and that was something the world eagerly wanted. The ball was still rolling, but in the past three months, even with my retrial, it felt like it was all downhill. The hard part was done and behind us.

I had reached the top of the mountain on Earth.

And, as if to agree with me, I got an alert through my contacts.

A project was done.

The last piece I needed.

Cass looked up at me, sending the sudden tension. "Something wrong?" She questioned and I forced myself to relax.

"Just work," I answered, making Cass scowl.

"You can't work on birthdays," she decided, her tone leaving no room for argument. But, as I always did, I found room anyway.

"You're absolutely right. Which is why I won't work. Tomorrow. On my birthday," I made the point, not that Cass really cared about specifics. She pouted, throwing on the single most pathetic expression I had ever seen in my entire life. Revy was proving to be a corruptive force. Upon seeing that I was more amused than having my willpower and resolve crumble to pieces, Cass dropped the pout.  "I gotta take care of it now or I will have to work on my birthday."

Cass scowled, "Fine. Be back soon?" She pressed, earning a nod as I prepped the teleporter with my contacts.

"Won't be long at all," I told her, leaning over to press my lips to her forehead. She seemed pleased with it and I vanished before I had to see her displeased. The comfortable apartment that I shared with Tifa was gone from view, leaving me standing in one of my production facilities located under Lowtown itself. In the past three months, the other rings were completed thanks to Poison Ivy being exonerated on account of having been mind controlled.

Now, Lowtown had nine total layers that took it deep under Gotham's surface. Three of which were reserved for mass production of merchandise ranging from kitchen appliances to weapons purchased by the UN military. While the world was as peaceful as it ever had been, Donna Troy was an Amazon warrior first and foremost. My factories were operating at peak efficiency -- from my vantage of one of the offices above the production floor, I saw a hologram of a Haro hover in the air before six arms started to work from the inside out. Each one equipped with metals or minerals that were harvested from the asteroid belt and teleported down. In a few seconds, the hologram of the Haro was a tangible thing, it was brought forward and the process began again.

"It's done," Miranda informed, standing behind me as I gazed out the window at thousands upon thousands of those same 3D printers assembling my products. At the moment, there was no other place on Earth like it. "May I ask what it's for?" Miranda continued, bringing my attention to her and, more importantly, the bullets on the table that were lined up between us.

They were completely unassuming things, I noted as I approached them -- gold casing, metallic tip for the bullet. If I didn't know any better, I'd just think that they were normal bullets. Grabbing one, I found that it had surprising weight as I lightly tossed it in the air and let it fall into my palm.

"Can't say," I told her, making Miranda cock an eyebrow. "Who I'm going to use them on, well, they're the type that hears when you say their name."

Miranda narrowed her eyes a fraction when I took out my cards and went to seal the six bullets. Only one bullet could fit in each card, with each one marked Origin Bullet, SS rank. "Are you planning on killing God?" She questioned lightly, half meaning it as a joke and the other half voicing a genuine concern.

"Or something," I allowed myself to say, taking out the other items that I had been gathering over the past three months. While each Origin Bullet had trillions of bullets, nukes, death rays, IBM missiles and more to act as a foundation, they lacked the oomph that I needed. So, I had put my feelers out for things of interest and paid top dollar for them. Pretty sure Batman was aware of my feelers, but Barbara seemed to think I was gathering things up to keep them out of other people's hands.

On the table were a variety of artifacts -- a sharpened piece of antler. The first murder weapon wielded by Cain against his brother. A fossilized snakeskin, the first snake to shed its skin after eating the herb of immortality in the epic of Gilgamesh. A golden sheath called Avalon that belonged to King Arthur. A broken piece of a spearhead, the same one used to kill Jesus. A old katana, one that absorbed so much blood and hate that it became a manifestation of humanities hatred and killed everyone it touched, including the wielder. Prayer beads that once belonged to the Buddha.

There were more. Each followed a principle -- Death, healing, rebirth. The lowest of all the cards was an SS in rank. Apparently, SSS had been my upper limit with everything past that proving to be too much for my cards to handle. Each artifact was priceless and a well known piece of history. And, one by one, they were broken down and fed into my Origin Bullets. Each bullet got three artifacts, one released to death, then rebirth, then healing. I knew each bullet was done when it popped out of my card and landed on the table, proving too 'large' for my cards to handle.

When all six bullets were unable to fit into their respective cards, I took them in my hands and began to press them together. The Origin Bullets fought the fusion for a long moment before they began to meld into each other. Three months of practice helped, but by the time I had fed all six bullets into a single one, I was sweating a bit.

"Is that it?" Miranda questioned as I took out Duality from its holster and popped the cylinder open to feed the bullet into it. It was an unassuming thing, I thought to myself. Especially for how much power it contained. I could feel it sizzling against my skin, almost to the point that it was painful.

"This is it," I confirmed.

"Will we see you again?" Miranda questioned, catching me by surprise. I blinked at her, making her lips thin. "You look like a man going on a journey he might not come back from," she admitted and I guess I did look rather serious.

"I'm coming back, Miranda," I told her, squaring my shoulders. "This is just so I never have to leave again," I admitted. There were risks. Big ones, if I was being honest. It might just be arrogance, but I was feeling confident. I put my chances at something like ninety percent that things were going to work out how I wanted them to. Considering who I would be going up against, those odds were pretty great. "Worried?"

"That I might be out of a job, perhaps," Miranda returned with a scoff but her tone wasn't unkind. She had bought in. Her father? He was one of those pieces I had swept up along with all the others that tried to bring me down. He was rotting in a prison cell. Miranda had her sister and… as far as I could tell, Miranda was happy. "I highly doubt Tifa would leave the company to me for good. So, it's in my best interest that you come back. Alive. And whole," she added, as if she needed to make that clear.

"Then, for your sake, I'll come back just fine. Who knows," I started, aiming a cocky smirk at her, "I just might return better than ever."

"I would hope so," Miranda admitted to me, not quite able to hide the concern in her eyes before I teleported out of the factory with a now loaded gun. When I rematerialized, I found myself standing in front of a handcrafted hut made out of palm trees -- the trunks for the walls and the leaves for a thatched roof. Behind me, I heard the gentle crash of the ocean as it reached a white sandy beach before receding. The sky was a brilliant shade of blue while the air was pleasantly warm.

I scratched at my cheek as I inspected the hut, "Not a bad place to retire, Savage," I spoke up, announcing myself. "Looks like you returned to your roots."

There was a long pause from within the shack. However, I heard footsteps coming from within. "I expected you to find this place sooner, Vergil St. Jude," I heard Vandal Savage remark as he opened the door. He looked pretty unlike himself, I had to admit. His hair was getting longer, he wore a pair of cut off blue jean shorts and a loose fitted white long sleeve. He looked like someone on vacation, complete with a set of flip flops.

I offered a small shrug, "I did. I just didn't have a reason to show up," I told him. My satellite system was complete. The only place I couldn't see or teleport to on Earth was Themyscira on account of its literal divine protection. That being said, I had only known about this island for about a month. It was located at the dead center of the Bermuda Triangle, and in DC Earth, it wasn't methane that caused the disappearance of the ships that sailed through it.

The island had been very difficult to find, and even harder to lock down. It was only my unwillingness to let Vandal Savage remain out in the wind that led to me dumping enough resources at the issue until I managed to get a breakthrough. The island acted on Schrodinger's Cat logic -- only when you knew it was there could you see it. And knowing that it was there was rather difficult when there was absolutely zero evidence of it existing.

"And now you do," Vandal observed, stepping out of his shack. He seemed unafraid.

"Now I do," I agreed. "It's a nice place you found. Private. I'm guessing this is where you went after one of your empires fell apart?" I remarked lightly, making Vandal come to a stop at the bottom of the steps.

"Indeed," he admitted. "The modern era is  worse than it's ever been, but having a famous face was just as troublesome throughout the ages. Spending a few generations here allowed the memory of my face to fade. To a degree." He tilted his head at me, "For what reason are you here? If it was merely to tie off a loose end then you would have arrived as soon as you found me."

I didn't answer that question. Not yet. "Is that the plan? To lay low for a few centuries then step back out to start the song and dance all over again?" I questioned him, and based on his expression, he wasn't happy about getting ignored.

"Your grip on Earth is secure," Vandal acknowledged, "But you are a fool if you believe that your grip will never weaken. It's the nature of power and immortality, Vergil. People's memories are short. Subjective. In a hundred years? You will be remembered fondly, but the children's children of those you helped today will not worship you as those today do. They won't have experienced the same hardships to understand how good they have it."

He offered a confident smirk, "Human entitlement is the downfall of every empire and nation. Every parent desires for their children to have better lives than they did, and when they give it to them, those thoughtless children expect more. Easier lives. Until the lowest peasant stands equal to a king. When those desires aren't met, they become discontent. They complain about everything and everything until a true disaster strikes," he shook his head with disgust. "There is a good reason why I desired the power of Starro the Conqueror -- that entitlement brought ruin to every kingdom and empire I ever forged."

I think he was ranting a bit to get some stuff off of his chest, but I don't think he was exactly wrong.

"I think you're tossing a lot of blame onto the people for your failures," I returned, wiping that smirk off of his face. "Don't get me wrong, I get it. In fifty thousand years from now, I expect I'll be pretty fed up with how tedious rulership can be. Anyone would be after listening to the same problems for thousands of years," I continued. I had to imagine that got old. The only thing I could think to compare it to was playing a management game -- at the start, it's nothing but micro management, but as the hours stack high, that micro management became tedious and boring. "But, at the end of the day, you're the one that let the empires and kingdoms fall apart."

Vandal narrowed his eyes a fraction, "You still intend to be here in fifty thousand years? How unfortunate." He said, ignoring my remarks and digging into my statements. "You're here for my immortality?"

"Nope," I dismissed. I didn't need it. Not when I was about to get my hands on something way better. "Not here for that."

He pursed his lips in thought, "I understand that you view me as an enemy to be eliminated, but if you are also pursuing immortality then I suggest that we work together." That actually surprised me a little, and I cocked an eyebrow to show it. "You got the better of me. It's hardly the first time I've lost, so I have no trouble acknowledging that fact. I do believe you to be misguided and arrogant, but you are a child. I was worse at your age, believing myself to be a god made flesh."

I tilted my head, "You expect me to see things from your point of view in… what, a hundred years or so?" I ventured, seeing where this thread of logic was coming from.

"No, but I would expect that you will understand my meaning and your own arrogance by the time you reach your first millennia. Your perspective will change in a matter of time. You can only watch those that you love or respect or admire wither away and die so many times. You can only stomach so much short sighted entitlement from the short lived humans. Eventually, one day, you will understand in truth what I speak of. So, I ask of you, leave me be on this island until that day comes. Then, I suspect that we can work side by side." He sounded certain of it. Like it was inevitable.

And, I did see where he was coming from. For fifty thousand years, he watched humanity repeat its history like a broken record without learning a thing. He endured the same loops, just with different faces and cultures. Honestly, humanity only made some headway into really changing in the past couple of centuries. For Vandal Savage, I had to imagine that was like blinking.

But, he was also wrong. He was speaking from his experiences as humanity was trapped on Earth, short lived, and stuck with metal and stone for technology.

With me? Humanity would dominate the stars. Immortality would be universal. Our technology would only stop advancing when we ran out of a cutting edge to advance on.

"Tempting," I admitted, flicking a card between my fingers from up my sleeve. "But, I think it's time to clean out the old and embrace the new," I told him. Vandal Savage didn't seem surprised. He didn't seem angry. The only hint of emotion I got from his face was a vague annoyance.

"A pity," he said, his foot digging into the white sand, only to freeze in place as he was surrounded by a blue glow. A containment field that restricted his moments to the point he could only barely breathe. His eyes widened as he regarded me when I strode forward.

"You know what I'm here for," I told him, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Tell me where it is, and I'll put you on ice. Maybe, in a million years from now, I'll let you out to rejoin what human society will become. Don't, and you'll spend the rest of your very long life inside a prison dimension and will only be freed at the heat death of the universe." I told him in no uncertain terms. The phantom zone was something I had the means and willingness to use.

The force field faded around his head, but for a very long moment, Vandal Savage didn't speak. He seemed like he was genuinely weighing his options -- his chances of escape, the odds that I would be killed if he gave me what I wanted, and so on. However, after a very long minute of silent deliberation, he spoke. "It's hidden in a false compartment under my bed. I do hope you understand what you're doing with it, Vergil."

I offered him a thin smile, "Oh, I do," I informed him before the forcefield returned. Vandal Savage had a pale white outline for a brief second before he was teleported away from the island. Directly into a cryogenic chamber below Lowtown's lowest level, where he would spend the next few million years if I had anything to say about it.

The Light was defeated.

"How lackluster," I remarked, striding into Vandal's home. It looked like a modest cabin, no technology of any kind. I imagine Vandal preferred that considering he spent the past fifty thousand years as different flavors of barbarian. Though, I was referring both to the cabin and the Light as I strode to his bed, scooting it to the side and finding the hidden compartment with ease. Within it was a small square that was covered in a silken white cloth. Unfolding it, I held up what I was seeking, admiring it in the morning light that streamed through a window.

"Ding," the Fatherbox intoned, the sound heavy like a brass bell ringing in your ears.

I smiled at the sound as I rose to my feet. It was exactly what I thought I'd be. Now, all I had to do was use it.

"Fatherbox… take me to Darkseid."