Dennis's POV
The heavy, rhythmic knocks echoed against the thick mahogany door of my study, cutting through the low murmur of our surreal corporate strategy session. The sound instantly silenced the rustle of paperwork and the quiet, measured clip of Harvey legal advice. Beside me at the massive desk, Frank spine snapped perfectly straight. His dark eyes locked onto the door with deep, uncompromising intensity, his tactical instincts momentarily overriding the vulnerability of his naked state. I smiled, feeling the dense, golden chi flare brightly in my chest. While I hadn't entirely forgotten about this scheduled meeting, the interruption still carried the distinct thrill of absolute power. It was time to play God and bring someone back from the dead.
"Enter," I commanded, pitching my voice to carry the resonant, undeniable hum of my Aura.
The door swung inward with a soft click. Oliver Queen and Slade Wilson stepped over the threshold. Their movements were perfectly synchronized, a testament to their shared, brutal history on the hellscape of Lian Yu. As they entered, they instinctively checked out the room like a pair of elite guards making sure it was completely safe. Before they even fully registered the identities of the room's occupants, their eyes darted to the corners, assessing sightlines, potential threats, and exit routes. It was the deeply ingrained reflex of seasoned survivors and warriors.
Then, their tactical assessment finally caught up with the reality of the visual information they were processing. They froze, completely confused and surprised to see everyone in the room entirely naked.
The study was a bizarre, ozone-scented tableau of dominance and corporate administration. Frank sat rigidly beside me, a heavily muscled, sentinel meticulously reviewing international shipping manifests for black-market munitions. Harvey sat across from me in one of the plush leather chairs, his aristocratic grace completely intact despite lacking his signature Tom Ford suit, his bare legs crossed as he dissected shell company charters to outmaneuver the United Nations. Ben was reclined on the leather couch, diligently sorting through dossiers for the Hellfire Club expansion.
And then there was Duke. Sometime during the last hour of intense, magical administration, Duke had apparently felt a little left out of the pack dynamic. Driven by the golden Dawngleam tether pulsing in his chest and a normal desire to fully integrate into the vulnerability and trust of the room, my newly promoted Rank Two security head had quietly shed his own clothes. He now joined them in their nakedness, sitting cross-legged on the Persian rug like an impossibly handsome, superhuman statue, reviewing perimeter defense protocols on a Starkpad.
Seeing Duke sitting there, meticulously planning the mansion's physical security, suddenly triggered a realization. The visual reminded me of what I was forgetting amid the chaos of empire building and multiversal summoning: a security detail for Ben's home. This was technically Duke's job as the head of Aegis Defense's security division. But before today's massive influx of personnel, we simply hadn't possessed enough trusted, magically bound operatives to assign a proper, full-time protection team to Ben and his family. It was primarily for the benefit of his wife, May, who was currently living in a state of high anxiety regarding her husbands new secret life he's been keeping from her mind you if she watched the news she's damn sure aware of it now. But the need still stood. Now that we had the G.I. Joe operatives and a small army of Rank One support staff, establishing that perimeter was paramount. I made a mental note that, right after this meeting concluded, Duke would get right on that.
I pushed my leather chair back and stood up. My flawless, tanned physique practically glowed it no longer actually glowed with the excess chi I had harvested from my earlier sessions since I gave a good amount to Ben two heal him. I rolled my shoulders, letting the ambient Fae magic swirl around me, and walked slowly around the desk toward the two men standing near the door.
"I have a rule now," I announced, my voice carrying an effortless, flirtatious purr that demanded absolute attention. "No clothes in the study. You can keep yours, however, as you won't be here long enough for me to enjoy it."
Slade didn't miss a beat. The hardened mercenary stood his ground, his magically restored dual vision tracking my approach with predatory, unapologetic appreciation. A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, completely unbothered by the sheer absurdity of the situation.
"Well damn," Slade rumbled, his voice a gravelly drawl that reverberated in the quiet study. "And here I was thinking me and the kid were about to show off for a second there. What do you think, kid?"
Slade made no move to hide his eyes as they raked slowly over my chest, my abs, and down my legs. He was assessing me not just as the leader of the Defenders, but as a deeply attractive, incredibly powerful physical asset.
Oliver, on the other hand, was struggling. He rigidly locked his eyes onto the mahogany wood paneling just above my head, his jaw clenching tight. He completely avoided eye contact, staring intensely at nothing.
I paused, tilting my head slightly as I analyzed the archer's discomfort and the mercenaries lack of it. It was slightly surprising, if I was being completely honest with myself. After all, the Dawngleam tethers bound their souls directly to mine, actively rewriting their deepest loyalties and flooding their systems with divine compulsions. But the reality was that it usually takes time, even for the immense power of the Dawngleam bond, to help someone get over their deeply ingrained mortal hang-ups. For a modern man from a relatively grounded universe, the concept of a massive male harem, the open display of polyamory, and the sheer audacity of overlooking the fact that I am much younger than them, or that they are expected to be with me and even possibly sleep with other dominant men despite some being already in a relationship, was a massive psychological hurdle to clear in a single afternoon.
Frank, Scott, Ronnie and Ralph were obvious exceptions to this rule. I had made Frank a Rank Three Life Partner right from the start, flooding his mind and soul with the maximum capacity of the bond's restorative power, instantly obliterating his trauma and replacing his grief with absolute, possessive devotion. Scott, as my very first summon and my originally bonded partner, possessed a tether that would always be a lot stronger and more deeply rooted in his soul than the others not to mention the effect was already noticeably stronger on certain supernatural creatures especially ones like werewolves, as they are already predisposed to pack dynamics and following the pack leader comes naturally even Alphas like Scott aren't exceptions to this apparently seeing as he from day one looked at me like he found the love of his life. As for Ronnie and Ralph when they were recruited he bought a fake memory package for them to make it easier to integrate into their new universe it didn't overwrite their real ones of course but as far as they are concerned both emotionally and physically at least they've already been with me for a while when it happened.
But for someone as mentally strong and disciplined as Slade Wilson to already be looking past these massive societal taboos so effortlessly? It was strange if not impossible for the Dawngleam bond to have done it's job already. That is, until I remembered exactly who was standing in front of me. This was Slade Wilson, also known as Deathstroke the Terminator. Just because the CW Arrow series didn't show the darkest depths of his depravity because it was fundamentally a family-friendly TV show didn't change the core reality of his multiversal identity. He is a real person now, not a rebranded TV character constrained by broadcast standards. And it is an established fact from the comics no matter how much they try and make people forget about it sometimes that Slade is a pedophile.
So, of course, he had absolutely no problem with my physical age. Mind you, this specific iteration of Slade wasn't anywhere near as big a scumbag as his darkest comic counterpart, which was exactly why I picked this version to begin with his good looks also being a factor of course. But either way, from what I can sense from the bond and his gaze he just didn't care about his partners age as long as they can say yes or no not that it matters now as not only would he never cheat on Shado well as long as you don't count inter-pack relations as cheating which I don't the only underage person he is sleeping with in this universe is me. Maybe a three-way with Peter or Flash eventually, so it's fine. I held the absolute power, and the system had ensured me their loyalty would never manifest as a threat.
I focused my attention back on the present moment, dismissing the darker implications of multiversal morality. We had a timeline to beat, and a ghost to summon.
"Ok, I'm bringing her back now," I said, my tone shifting from flirtatious banter to absolute, unyielding authority. "Prepare yourselves."
I watched the air leave Oliver's lungs in a sharp, staggering rush. He finally tore his eyes away from the wall, looking directly at my face. His expression was a chaotic, devastating mix of desperate hope, lingering survivor's guilt, and profound vulnerability. He had spent years carrying the bloody weight of her death on the island, a fracture in his soul that had shaped the vigilante he became. Slade's smirk vanished, replaced by a rigid, breathless anticipation.
I blinked, pulling up the semi-translucent blue interface of the Succubus God System, visible only to me. My Sex Points currently sat at six hundred and twenty, bolstered by the intense, mind blowing sessions with Frank and Ben, but still far from even a quarter of the massive pool needed to secure a sorcerer supreme or equivalent magical heavyweight. Still, eighteen points was a microscopic price to pay to permanently cement the unyielding loyalty of two elite Vanguard operatives.
I navigated to the DC section then the CW multiversal catalog, filtered the search parameters to Lian Yu's temporal nexus, and selected Shado. I bypassed the standard Rank Two hero upgrade, assigning her as a Rank One support operative. The eighteen-point deduction registered with a soft, ethereal chime deep in my mind leaving me with six hundred and two sex points left.
The ambient magic in the study spiked violently and mixed with the heavy omniversal system energy. The heavy scent of ozone thickened, overpowering the lingering musk of sex and sweat. In the empty space between myself and the heavy wooden door, a blinding pillar of golden light erupted from the Persian rug. The sheer force of the multiversal displacement rattled the reinforced glass of the windows and made the expensive crystal decanters in the wet bar clink together in a frantic rhythm.
The light fractured and dissipated like shattered glass, leaving behind a slender figure. Shado stood there, gasping for air as if she had just broken the surface of a freezing ocean. She was exactly as she had been before Ivo's bullet ended her life: vibrant, breathtakingly beautiful, and completely unmarred by the horrors of the island. The golden Dawngleam tether immediately materialized from her chest, snapping seamlessly into my core. It fed me a frantic surge of profound confusion and residual terror, which was quickly being overwritten by the soothing, divine compulsion of the bond.
"Shado," Oliver breathed, his voice breaking completely. He took a hesitant step forward, dropping to his knees next to her on the rug as if his legs could no longer support the weight of his own existence.
Slade didn't say a single word. The massive mercenary simply stepped up beside Oliver, his restored eyes wide, his hands trembling slightly—a sight that would have terrified anyone who knew the true legend of the Terminator. He reached out, his fingers hovering inches from her shoulder, as if he were afraid she was a fragile mirage that would shatter if touched.
Shado blinked rapidly, her dark eyes darting around the opulent, wood-paneled study. She took in the bizarre, ozone-soaked sight of the naked men surrounding her, before her gaze finally landed on the two men kneeling at her feet. She didn't immediately recognize this older, battle-hardened Oliver, nor did she fully recognize this younger, unscarred Slade kneeling beside him, but the Dawngleam tether instantly connected the dots of their souls. She dropped to her knees between them, tears spilling over her cheeks as the three of them collided in a desperate, clinging embrace.
I gave them exactly thirty seconds to process the miracle of resurrection before I projected my Aura, sending a gentle but firm pressure through their tethers that forced them to remember exactly whose room they were in.
"You two can take her and explain the situation to her," I commanded, my voice cutting cleanly but gently through their quiet sobs. "Get her settled upstairs she can share a room with Slade in the main mansion rather than with the rest of the Rank One personnel. We still have a massive amount of corporate work to finish here, and I don't have the time to hold her hand through the orientation talk."
Slade recovered first, his mercenary discipline wrestling his chaotic emotions back into a tightly controlled box. He stood, pulling Shado up with him, and gave me a sharp, deeply reverent nod. Oliver scrambled to his feet, his eyes shining with an absolute, terrifying level of devotion that told me he would gladly burn down the universe if I asked him to. They guided a deeply bewildered Shado out of the study, the heavy mahogany door clicking securely shut behind them.
The moment the door sealed, the suffocating emotional weight left the room. Harvey, sitting across from me, had stopped reading entirely. The legendary legal closer stared at the empty spot on the rug, his jaw slightly slack. He had processed the magic, the naked assembly line, and the shadow war, but seeing an actual from what he understood resurrection rewriting the laws of life and death right in front of him seemed to finally short-circuit his aristocratic composure.
"Did you just..." Harvey started, his voice unusually thin.
I smirked, walking back around the desk and taking my seat. "I told you, Harvey. I am a God. Now, about those Madripoor subsidiaries?"
Harvey swallowed hard, his eyes locking onto me with a new, terrified respect, before he forced his gaze back down to his legal pads.
"Right," I said, clapping my hands once to refocus the room. "Back to the assembly line."
I looked over at Duke, who was still sitting cross-legged on the rug, his Starkpad resting on his bare, thighs. "Duke, I need you to completely overhaul the security detail for Ben's family immediately while you were gone I summoned a total of 50 soldiers and your old G.I Joe friends they can help. S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to keep pushing our corporate and personal fronts, and I want May entirely insulated from any blowback. Pull snakeeyes, 10 soldiers and whoever you feel you need from the roster to form a permanent, twenty-four-hour perimeter around their residence. I want that perimeter set up in the next half hour understand. "
"Consider it done, Boss," Duke rumbled, his deep voice vibrating with enhanced strength. He didn't bother reaching for his clothes, simply tapping aggressively on his tablet to assign the newly summoned elite soldiers to suburban guard duty.
Frank seamlessly slid a finalized munitions contract across the polished wood for my signature, his broad shoulder brushing affectionately against my bare arm. The contrast of my life was staggering. I went from conquering death itself to authorizing shell companies and shadow logistics in the span of three minutes. But this was the empire I was building. A flawless fortress of flesh, magic, and impenetrable legal frameworks, entirely devoted to my ascension. And with only seventy-three days left until Loki ripped the sky open, every signature and every soul was a necessary stepping stone to absolute victory.