The Boys: Greatest Supervillain (Current World - Fallout)

"Actually, I run it. Well, for the most part." I offered a lopsided smile

"I'm the Overboss and I have a couple underbosses that do their own thing. I'm not big on micromanagement." I casually confirmed, idly noting that Taylor was taking an aggressive posture with her insects. At Nora and Preston, who had his laser musket trained on Yoruichi, rather than at me.

Thank fuck I left Rumi downstairs. Did not need her to tip the scales here.

Nora worked her jaw, her eyes narrowed into slits, "You know who we are. We told you what we're going to do," she seemed to realize and I nodded.

"You didn't kill us. Why? You could have dropped us from the top of a building as soon as you met us. Why didn't you?"

To that, I scratched my cheek, idly noting that I needed to shave. I glanced away from Nora, looking over at the ruined college, giving the question some genuine thought.

"Because I didn't need to and I didn't want to," I offered. I could tell that didn't register with Nora but it was Preston that spoke.

"What does that even mean? Why are you doing this? I thought you were a decent guy, but… the stories I've heard about your slavers…" he offered and to that, I sighed.

"The slavery is all Cinder. She's… kinda really fucked up in the head- and that's coming from me," I stressed.

"But the reason why I'm allowing it at all is because we don't have much of a choice. I took over the raiders at Nuka-World to help pave the way for refugees." I explained, tilting my head at the surprised and confused expressions I got back. And not just from Nora and Preston.

Taylor and even Yoruichi seemed surprised, though the latter to a much lesser degree.

"Long story short -- we're from another universe not that different from this one. Actually, we have a little too much in common, because our universe also blew itself up with nukes, except pretty recently instead of a couple centuries ago."

Preston was shaking his head, but Nora zeroed in on me.

"You aren't bullshitting me." It wasn't a question.

"Don't need to. Things on the other side of the portal are pretty shit. Six million people on Manhattan Island when it could barely support two million when it wasn't fucked beyond all belief," I said, frowning as I felt a pang of guilt.

"We're trying to evacuate from that world into this one, preparing it so we can reach a happy middle ground. But that's easier said than done. Nuka-World is already over capacity, we're at our food production limit, and we haven't even evacuated a million people yet. If Cinder wasn't doing what she was doing…"

The greater good. I never really gave a fuck about the greater good. Mostly because my dream had been to be the greater evil in the world.

And I had been. I sure as hell didn't push any buttons, but I could accept my share of the blame for the world ending.

I'd call it a good twenty percent of the blame was reserved for me -- Homelander had another twenty percent while the rest belonged to the idiots in charge that decided that lobbing nukes at each other was the smart thing to do after Homelander got nuked in Germany.

It never really bothered me. I didn't particularly care about humanity. I couldn't even muster up a single tear for the millions- billions that were dead. But, it didn't sit right with me either, I was coming to realize.

I had made a mess. And as the last man standing in that little apocalypse, it fell to me to clean it up.

Nora slowly lowered her gun, an expression of understanding appearing on her face. And of horror.

"What are you going to do, Law?" She half gasped and half growled at me.

"I'm not sure if it's happened yet, but there is going to be a cascading effect in the Old World. Too many people, not enough resources, with a nuclear winter on the way," I said, holding her gaze. It felt important that she understood this.

"Asami, the girl in charge of things on the other side, is a good person. Honestly, she's probably one of the best people I've ever met, but that bleeding heart of hers turned a bad situation into something that's completely unmanageable."

There had been a way to avoid this right at the very start.

Blow the bridges. Maintain the perimeter.

Accept those that were useful and turn away everyone who wasn't. It'd be the same as killing them, but we could manage it. We could sustain a population of two million. We had the food reserves looted from supermarkets and groceries stores.

We had a trickle of food coming from the New World. But, Asami allowed everyone in, however staggered.

So instead of two million hungry people, we had six million starving.

"It's not her fault. Not really. But, the thing about civilization is that it only exists when people feel like they can be civil. Miss enough meals, get cold enough -- and see that some sorry bastard has more than you… it doesn't matter how noble her intentions are. How much she's trying to help them. They'll see what they don't have, and they'll hate her. They'll lash out, worsening their own situation and they'll blame her for that too. Because that's what people do."

Even if she had asked for the job, I still felt bad for leaving her with it. She had so much hope and optimism about the situation.

Asami thought she was being realistic, but the fact of the matter was she was being blindly optimistic and calling it realism.

Nora knew where I was going with this even as she pretended not to, "Law. What are you going to do?"

"Same thing that always happens when a population gets too big and there are greener pastures elsewhere," I answered simply.

An invasion.

Preston made a noise of disgust, "And the people living there?" He asked, knowing exactly what would happen.

"Historically speaking, it's never gone well for the natives when colonists knock at their front door," I answered flatly. "It's not much of a reassurance, but we're not going to pull an Andrew Jackson on anyone. We'll invade and make room for ourselves -- in exchange, you get to tap into our resources. Fertilizers, industrial amounts of chemicals to make chems and medicine, and you fall under our protective umbrella." I said the words, but I knew it was pointless.

You couldn't make a sales pitch for being invaded and living under someone's boot sound enticing.

"And we just have to put up with slavery and the dead," Preston growled.

I nodded, "Yeah, probably." I admitted it easily enough.

This world had been in a post-apocalyptic state for two hundred years.

A certain mentality was ingrained into the people that managed to eke out a living here. It didn't matter what we said or did -- these people would not accept their populations swelling three, four, five, even six times what they had before.

They wouldn't accept answering to someone when they never had to before.

To live in this world, you had to be a survivor. The people of my world, the Old World, weren't cut out for this world.

That's why we had to put up safety nets and cushion every sharp angle in the house before they moved in.

Nora watched me carefully, "Why are you telling us this?" She asked, cutting right to the heart of the matter.

"One of two things will happen -- you'll accept what's going to happen and probably join up to help mitigate the damage." Preston scoffed and I offered a wane smile, agreeing with him.

"Or, you organize a resistance. You take the fight to us. We fight, and then you die, and then there's more room for us."

Nora clenched her jaw, "You sound certain that you'll win."

"Because we will. Even if you kill ten for every one we kill of yours, we'll still win. There's… what, a hundred thousand people in the Commonwealth? Two hundred thousand? Three? Against six million? Even if you all united in time to fight us, we'd still beat you out with sheer numbers." I stated before pausing,

"But it won't come to that. We have people with superpowers, like me and Taylor. We're more organized. More desperate. And… we have a significant tech advantage."

I could tell that Nora's mind had jumped to the right conclusion and I inclined my head to her, confirming it. A small disbelieving laugh escaped her that was followed by a bitter chuckle.

"Shaun is working with you. With raiders and new age colonist invaders and fucking slavers..."

Her finger tapped on her gun, and I could see the pain in her eyes. I did feel bad for breaking that bit of bad news.

Nora struck me as a good mom. A good person, even. I generally didn't mind being a terrible thing that happened to good people, but this felt different. More personal. And I liked Nora.

"Preston? How are you feeling about his offer?"

"Not a chance, General," Preston answered without hesitation.

Nora nodded in agreement, "Me neither. Are you going to stop us if we go?" She asked, her finger curling around the trigger once more.

I raised a hand up in a shooing gesture, "Nah. Go on and get out of here." I dismissed, and Preston backed away slowly, keeping his laser rifle on Taylor and me. Nora held my gaze for a long minute before backing off.

"Be seeing you, Law." She offered, not turning her back to me.

"See you later, Nora."