“The skillsets don’t transfer over smoothly?” Sama continued archly.

“No,” I shook my head. “Which shouldn’t surprise you. Doing the same things with Magic and Cosmic Energy and Ki and Psi involve very different methodologies. Most of my telepathic ability actually starts from Sersi’s experience, and I’ve built on it on my own. Notably, the projecting power of it is extreme, but the subtlety leaves something to be desired without tons of practice.”

“Yes, I’d noted that the Eternals were not very skilled at most telepathic disciplines, although decent at defending against such intrusions... save from their masters,” Sama agreed thoughtfully.

“Last part, I need to do a full memory sublimation of anyone I Dupe out. They functionally become the equivalent of a minor thoughtstream, and then I send them out with the Duplicate, instead of a random persona.”

She did blink at that. “How much mental stress does that involve with you?” she asked quickly. Having other people become a part of you was like textbook schizophrenia.

“Surprisingly little, especially after going through Sersi’s entire history, and getting exposed to cosmic and Divine Timeless Thoughts. But it means that those people know they are extensions of me now. For some people that is immaterial, but for others it can be very stressful.”

She considered that with a frown. “The Strontians are notoriously proud, but you managed to convince them to do that?”

“They have an overwhelming sense of duty and loyalty to their people. Also, the fact I understand them perfectly and they are linked to me helps a great deal. It’s been long enough that it’s not an issue, although they all know it and say I’ve brainwashed them into acceptance.

“I understand the power-gaming aspects of this, Sama, and I’m rightfully leery of it. What made you press the point at this time?”

“Well, there are a LOT of people who would like Cores who can’t get them. That is a very convenient power-up, right?” Her smile was hard.

“Like Super-Soldiers and Widows?” I hazarded, and she inclined her head slightly.

“Even trusted Primos who are getting on in years.” I just sighed as she continued to smile. “I get it that you don’t want to become the source of infinite power-ups, or seen as a reward.”

“Also, the reality stress.” Sama pursed her lips once again at that point. “Yeah, it’s not as bad as Duping myself, Sama, but it IS a super-power use. I’m not creating a Twenty, but I am creating a Ten Core, empty or otherwise... which means the equivalent of a fully-loaded Nine Core, because that’s what it takes to make an empty Ten Core.” She blinked once. “Strontians are basically Ten Cores themselves. The Gladiator treatment is just refining the energy and upgrading it to full. Doing that to them wasn’t any different from what they normally are, it was just reconfiguring what was already there.

“Making endless amounts of empty Ten Cores?” I let that hang there as she considered it. “Yeah, it’s Power-gamey goodness, and I could probably put up with all the extra memories without too much problem, given my mental Stats, or even purge them after the fact if I can do so without endangering the Duplicate... which is probably not a good idea if they happen to die.” It would probably mean severance of the link to do so, and they’d likely just discorporate and vanish, and would definitely do so if they died.

“So, you’d need someone already at or near that power level to do this safely, without risk, and they’d be the ones least likely to want or need the Core?” she sighed.

“There’s a reason that the cosmos isn’t crawling with Heralds of Galactus,” I noted for her, and she blinked. “I’d be doing the same thing here. Instant open road to Grand Cosmic Powah, Sama. I’m pretty sure at some point the universe would revolt against so many Duplicates...”

“Can we pay the energy cost ourselves?” she asked reasonably, reaching back to touch Tremble’s pommel.

“I think it’s the stress on reality from the creation, rather than the power involved,” I theorized. “Duplicates and Clones place a lot of stress on reality. There’s a reason that the mutants and mutates who develop the power are ‘normal’ people, and not juked-up Twenties. I asked Madrox about it once, and he even said that Dupes who deviate too far from his baseline basically grant him nothing if he pulls them back in. He’s had some Dupes on the Alternity teams who got themselves trapped in temporal shenanigans and stuff, and when he pulled them back in, he got general histories, but the forty years of magical studies didn’t make his core self a Sorcerer, and he didn’t get more than a couple token Levels out of it.”

“Ah, right. I remember a few of his reports about that. He’s become leery of just taking back in Dupes who’ve been gone for extended time periods and developed so independently because of it, as it wastes all their experiences...” Sama nodded thoughtfully.

“He also has his sterility problem. Dupes don’t have true souls, and so can’t form a spiritual channel to make children. Ditto the Clones I make, unless they become a Primary. That’s not an issue if they do have true souls, which is why my Dupes go about getting riders.” Dupes with their own souls naturally didn’t have the same problem, although there was still the problem of swapping their old ‘real self’ for the new one...

“Ah, was wondering if that was an issue about asserting independence or something,” she nodded again. “Does it allow your Dupes to break Twenty?”

“Only with complete sublimation.”

“And le Fey did that for you?” Being not exactly a whole soul myself.

I nodded. “Yes. The Widow in the Web effectively made me her reincarnation, and tied me to this universe in doing so.”

“And still no overarching quest guide to you for plucking you out of nowhere?” Sama asked.

“You want me to guess? I’m bait, she’s a hunter. I’m finding prey for her.”

Sama considered that. “Okay, that’s pretty open-ended as far as quests go. What kind of prey? Artificial worlds, like that Mys-Tech one?”

“Cosmic entities from Outside Creation. Nasty ones.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That prison planet... thing.”

“You and Briggs sense them if they mess with Terra’s timeline. That leaves a whole lot of others out there you can’t sense, and they are all gnawing at the multiverse in one way or another.

“Judging by the way the Weavers came out, those things might be their preferred prey. I imagine the Weavers suck all the power the Things stole from them, and maybe actually kill them forever, instead of just temporarily.”

“No damn wonder you powered up so quickly, and here I thought it was just more Powered shenanigans.” She sounded amused as she considered the implications.

“Yeah, bound to Fate, I’m pretty sure the Widow tweaked things here and there to get me up to where I can start sniffing stuff out for her, or attracting their attention,” I agreed.

“So,” she half-smiled again, that predatory gleam in her eye, “what other kind of power-ups are you planning on?”

“Planning on... none.” I let out a long breath. “I wasn’t the one who gave me an Ultra Core, if you remember.”

“And that Golden Child stuff came out of the blue,” Sama noted slowly. “Completely eclipsed that clever Asgardian boost you took over from the Wrecker. Let’s chalk your Voice of Thunder up to the Widow’s manipulations, working with your Cosmic Chord so you can set up solar-level traps for Things. Cosmic energy neatly sidestepped your lack of psionics. So, you’re missing... bling?” she said, glancing at the Rings on my hands.

“Like, oh, a Quantum Lantern?” I theorized.

“Oh, Zhuli would get very envious, very quickly,” Sama murmured at that proposal. “He might even retire. I imagine the things you could do with access to that much Quantum energy would be impressive...”

“Especially since I could just stow it in my handy capacitor?” I reminded her. “And just use the Lantern to bring up a direct link so I could bring it out at a hundred or a thousand times the normal top rate?”

She stroked her temples. “Damn Powered tricks.” It was noteworthy that the Terrans she was recommending for the Lanterns of the Watchful Order were all Forsaken Nulls. Tool-users using the very best tools, as it were.

Forsaken couldn’t do anything like I could, of course. The Pocket trick was very similar to what Sunny was doing with the Sunstone, it was just a Quantum Lantern was a couple of orders of magnitude more powerful than the Sunstone at the top end.

“Anything else?” she wondered placidly.

“A Shield?” I smirked. “Or seven, as it were. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that Stand is one.”

“You could make them for yourself!” she accused me. Of course she had a Shield. The fact it was rarely seen was because there wasn’t much that could force her to bring it out.

“Yes, but bringing out Shields showcasing seven Virtues would be extremely showy, don’t you think?”

She made a funny face. It was true. That much Sacred Awesomeness of Legendary power would promptly start a heavenly Light show, complete with glorias and arias and auspicious clouds and whatnot, and it wasn’t like I would NOT make my Shields that awesome, because I totally would.

My primary Hexar Shield was Named Hope, and the others were Main-Gauche off it. That wasn’t the same as each being a Shield itself, and their power would increase as each Virtue they could embody was empowered.

“Which Virtues?” Sama had to ask.

“Truth, Valor, Enterprise, Mercy, Glory, and Chutzpah.”

“Chutzpah?” she had to grin. “Okay, even the Russians don’t use that...”

“Well, they’re all grim Follow-the-Great-Bear types. Cheeky upstartness isn’t quite the vogue Russian personality, you know?”

“Not arguing, just commenting. Glory?” she went on.

“Just because it’s Chaotic and fleeting doesn’t mean that Heaven doesn’t recognize that some people have motivations for instants of fleeting recognition. Achieving the impossible for ephemeral rewards is practically the definition of superherodom, right?”

“You are at least acknowledging where you are coming from,” she agreed wryly. “And you are still thinking about getting more powerful...”

I had to wince. “I already had to help kill a Cosmic-class, not-really-finite Entity. It’s plain that my need for power isn’t going to go DOWN...”

She considered the unimportant little rock in the hilt of Tremble, and could only nod...

------

DiDi walked in, and gave the people in the room a once-over without batting an eye.

“For newcomers who don’t know what they are doing, you all managed to create a mighty fine mess,” she informed them calmly, leaning back against the desk in front of them. “It’s all going in the action library, mind you, so expect everyone to read up on it and how gloriously Spider Totems can entertain the disbelieving. Congratulations!”

They all smirked and glanced at one another despite themselves. For an initiation fight, it was more like they’d practiced the craziness for years.

They were all Peter Parker clones, except none of them but Ben Reilly actually looked like him. The Jackal and Osborn had experimented with all of them, trying to make themselves some minions, soldiers, elixirs to sell, pets, or whatever, which had exploded into a crazy brawl that had involved ALL the Spiders, and eventually brought in everyone in the Baxter Building to contain the outbreak of Spider-mutates, multi-armed slave spidermen, mercenaries, and the like.

Also, someone called the Jackal really shouldn’t have been working with a spider-demon by name of Shigolliuth, and wasn’t that a fine mess as over five hundred innocent civilians were turned into multi-armed spider-beings and went on a rampage until it was Banished, barely getting out before vivic fire took it forever.

It was now on the Shit List, and might have had some inkling that if it ever came back to Terra, it was going to feed Her nicely.