Thorn_
CHYOA Guru
It was...a difficult series of events. She had made a lot of progress initially, but it seemed to have stalled. Not by any fault of her own, of course. Just the incompetence of her subordinates. That's what it was. Still, she was on the verge of having all the building blocks she stacked together fall apart until she realized the true extent of her own abilities. With something like this, they would be doing great. Of course, she definitely didn't need to use drugs to wrap people around her little finger, but it was more efficient. Plus, she couldn't be everywhere at once. As they pushed out into the neighbourhood, being able to influence people that way would help massively to undo the damage of her attempts of taking over. And they were still getting better and better equip. Really, all she had to do was just lie on the silk couch she had bought and let things unfold.D100: 2 (Crit Failure)A month laterD100: 100 (Natural 100)
The next month is...A mixed bag, to put it lightly. Overly aggressive attempts to extort the local businesses has lead to the storekeepers banning together, arming themselves and shooting at David's gang when they approach. To make things worse, the police have started to pay attention, sending frequent patrol cars to the neighborhood. Her efforts to infiltrate the Death's Hand have come to nothing - her plan of using one of the fat boy's female recruits as a spy having ended in the girl failing to report in ever again. Low on money and morale, things seem pretty dire - up until the moment she takes a trip to the base of her new biker allies, a sample of her new drug in hand.
"Hmm, I'll give it a huff, I guess." Sitting with the biker she spoke to earlier, the man takes hold of her prototype narcotic, smoke rising into the air as he burns the plant and inhales the fumes. Instantly, the man's eyes go wide, pupils dialating and a goofy grin crawls up his features - a look of complete euphoria. "Holy hell... This is the best shit I've ever had... Have any more?" He says breathlessly, enjoying the high. "W-Wow... You're amazing..." As the biker looks at her, awestruck, Malady realises that her drug has exceeded her own expectations - it's incredibly potent and addictive, but doesn't negatively harm the body like normal drugs do - meaning that her customers won't be dying off. The unexpected side effect, though, is the way that the drug seems to instill a devotion in the user for its creator - her. Testing it out on the biker, she surmises that this feeling of devotion results in a desire to please her. It's not mind control, and a person with strong willpower can resist, but any user is going to feel a keen desire to do as she says, the urge stronger the more recently they've taken the drug. She'd set out to make a cash crop, but also made a means of influencing the people around her.
With the downpayment from the bikers for future shipments of the drug, Malady is able to get more weaponry from Figure 8. Now, she sits in her base, admiring her new haul, as a pink haired nerd rushes in. "M-Malady! Some of our people got taken down - I heard that it was The Finch!"
(Sorry if that was poorly written)
But as one of her latest followers burst in, it seemed like that wouldn't be the time yet. She wasn't exactly surprised by the news. She knew that they were going to cross paths eventually. She must have been expanding too rapidly then, regardless of the setbacks. People were starting to take notice of her actions. With a expanding drug business and having far better equipment than your average street thugs, local heroes were undoubtedly starting to view her as a serious threat. As they should. Of course, she would have already been on Finch's radar prior...but it seemed like now he had decided that he couldn't just let her keep expanding undisturbed.
Ryota...was...somewhere. She'd order her men to keep track of what he was up too. She had put up a wall between him being able to easily work with other heroes or the law here, but she'd need to keep the pressure on that front. For now, she had a more immediate hero that required her attention.
"Of course, it was. He's supposed to, after all. But this is why, we focused on weaponry explicitly to counter his little gadgets." She had to assume he probably had spent time developing some means to avoid her poison. No doubt he would have done his digging by now. She'd have to have a means of breaking that defense. The most obvious thing she imagined was some kind of air filtration system. But he had already seen that she could use liquid forms too. What would he do...
"But must I do everything?" She motioned her hand along her mouth as she let out a light yawn, at the same time some nearby vines descending to where she lied wrapped around one of her knives, she took hold of, idly, eyeing the blade. "I suppose.....how should I do this....hmmm....well, haven't done this in a while..." Looking at one of the various flower beds, she pointed at it. Channeling a mix of dark magic, her plant powers and abilities to manipulate chemicals, she felt it was time to try one of her older tricks. She hadn't used it since coming here, but she got a lot of use out of it before. Raising living plant beasts. She had time to properly prepare a ritual. She couldn't exactly just spawn an army casually right now, but maybe one or two were doable. A good amount of extra muscle and something Finch hadn't see her already do, so he was unlikely to be properly prepared for, if she could manage it.
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