Devil's Consultancy 36

“Zip the thing.” Tanya instructed as she maneuvered her own yarn-based character around the screen. 

Ace’s yarn guy lassoed the button on the background and yanked it, shifting the stage by turning the page of the fabric stage behind them. She lightly giggled at the whimsical action. Tanya responded by defeating the enemy that appeared as a result. 

Tanya had simply teleported everyone back to the hotel room to clean up, change out of their uniforms, and relax after the stressful day. Ace wasn’t that much larger than Tanya was, so she was able to wear the looser clothing Tanya had stashed away without any physical issue without needing to use the garment that the Joker had provided to her. She was now wearing a cream colored sleeping gown, while Tanya had put on one of her many childish sleepers that would have been uncomfortably tight on the slightly larger girl. 

Kara hung up her phone, having finally finished reporting on her part of the incident. Tanya had put effort into making the reporting requirements relatively light on actual paperwork, but a relatively thorough oral report on the phone with a staff member who ran through a questionnaire to ensure that little was missed was the minimum consideration. “Finally. Is Dick done in the shower?” She glanced over in the direction of the hotel room’s bathroom, and blushed intensely before looking away. “Ah, not yet.” 

“How exactly did you think that would go?” Tanya asked sarcastically. Didn’t she have super-hearing, too?

“I’ve been using my X-ray vision a lot today, okay?” Kara said defensively. “It can be hard to stop using it afterwards, it’s complicated!”

…Okay, she could actually understand that. Most of her close calls with her secret identities occurred in the first twenty minutes of switching from another identity. It sounded like a similar problem. 

Ace outright giggled at the exchange, which was frankly the most emotive she’s been since she’s got here. A good sign for her future mental health. Just in case, Tanya had brought out what she considered her ‘heavy duty’ psychic defense, a recently developed enchanted tiara that she glamored into invisibility in the bath so that no one knew she had it on. It tended to have side-effects with prolonged use, hallucinations mostly, but that was due to the fact that every human in this world was at least a little psychic, martians wouldn’t be able to telepathically speak to them at all if they weren’t, and the tiara functioned as sensory deprivation for what little psychic senses she possessed. 

Was it overkill? Probably, but while Ace was probably safe to trust… she wasn’t in the habit of trusting in ‘probably’ without at least taking some measures, just in case. 

After another few minutes, Richard came out of the bathroom wearing one of the hotel robes. “It’s open for you, Kara.” He said casually, and the kryptonian rushed into the door he just vacated in a blur. “Heh. So what are we going to do with Ace?” He asked, as if Ace wasn’t there. Rude. 

“Depends.” Tanya replied, “I didn’t want to address the issue so soon, but…” She paused the game. “Ace, do you require some kind of accommodation? Can you control your powers without any external aid?”

“I can.” Ace said softly. “I spent a lot of time controlling my powers.”

“I’m more worried about your control when you’re asleep.” Tanya clarified, “Do you require some kind of containment to prevent accidents?” Hey, Bruce came within range of her sense of him… he must be in the elevator. It wasn’t surprising that he was able to get access, given the whole ‘Richard checked in under his own name and is still technically a minor’ thing. 

Ace looked away nervously. When she glanced back, she got the full view of Tanya’s deadpan expression. Flinching, she fiddled with her nails, which had been painted black after the bath. Tanya was vaguely surprised she even owned black nail polish, but then remembered it was a years old decoy bottle that was only there to stop people from questioning why she didn’t have any.  “...sometimes stuff happened to my room overnight.” She admits. “Stuff gets moved, the guards who fall asleep on watch get nightmares… not often though.”

That is a problem. “I can draw a containment circle, it should isolate anything within it…” Even if she didn’t know exactly how Ace’s powers worked, a blood sample worked into the circle tends to work on even the most obtuse metahuman powers, in her experience. “I imagine you’d not want one of these…” She pulled out one of her backup tiaras. Despite what Richard says, they were not her just never wanting to run out of telepathy protection, they were so she could share when hostile telepaths were around. 

Ace flinched at the sight of the gem-encrusted headband. “N-no. No thank you.” Tanya put it away. 

“It’s for the best, I’m not sure how well it’d work.” Tanya admitted, “Telepathy, absolutely. Telekinesis? Less clear.” She withdrew it back into her pocket dimension. “Still, we can get you set up any way you’d like.” Tanya assured her. “It might require some time to get everything arranged, but you deserve a chance at a relatively normal life.”

“Like you?” Ace asked faintly. 

Tanya laughed. “Oh no, my life is anything but normal.” She gestured around them. “I do try, sometimes, but our money alone makes life as a Wayne completely removed from normal.” She gave Ace a smile, though. “But… in a good way, I think.”

There was a bit of a commotion at the door, and Bruce barged into the hotel room, followed by some hotel staff that were quite stressed at the whole thing. “Dick! Tanya!” He shouted, “I flew over the instant I saw the broadcast!” He made a very good impression of a worried sick parent. 

Still, Ace looked a little twitchy, so… showtime. Tanya gasped in delight and bolted straight into Bruce’s waiting arms, the yarn game forgotten. “Daddy!” She shouted, using the full strength of her enhanced frame to make his ribs strain with the force of her hug. After Bruce grunted in pain, Tanya relaxed her grip and scrambled up onto the man’s shoulders, looking back at Ace. She seemed relaxed once more, but also… kind of wistful? Tanya wasn’t quite confident in her assessment of the girl’s expression, she may just be projecting. “Ace, this is my Dad. Daddy, this is Ace. She was kidnapped from the government by the Joker.”

“I see, I see.” Bruce said, pretending to have just learned this now. “Well, I’m always happy to meet your friends, Tanya.” He declared, walking up to the twelve year old (Tanya had asked) and extending a hand. “Bruce Wayne.” He said, introducing himself. 

“It’s nice to m-meet you.” Ace said politely, a little intimidated by Bruce. Hm, did she try to read his mind? Tanya didn’t know exactly how Bruce protected his mind, but it was supposedly pretty effective. He just smirked and mentioned those damned Tibetan monks that he uses as a scapegoat for any vaguely mystical technique he learned on his journey. She knows for a fact he learned that breathing technique from the League of Shadows, not those monks. 

“So, have you finally changed your mind on the idea of additional siblings?” Bruce asked smugly. 

Tanya pinched the bridge of her nose. “I don’t think Ace living in Gotham’s a good idea.” She said, distinctly not answering the question, “The magical pollution might have a bad effect on her.”

“Well, she needs to go somewhere, and I’ve already asked Mr. Jones, he’s not willing to foster.” Damn it. J’onn would have been perfect. “Most parents won’t be able to spare the resources to handle a metahuman of Ace’s strength.” He paused, then regarded Ace once more. “...Incidentally, is Ace your real name?”

Ace shook her head. “I was just called ‘Subject One’ by Cadmus.” She said, more sad than anything else. Cadmus was filled with a bunch of incompetents, trying to turn her into a feral animal… Hundreds of years of knowledge on how to bend a child’s mind to patriotism and the instant magical powers enters the equation they throw it all out. Shameful. “I don’t remember what I was before.”

“Do you like the name Ace?” Tanya asked, genuinely curious. “Or would you prefer another name?”

She took a moment to think about it. “...Ace is fine.” She concluded, “For now, at least.”

“So, should I call Alfred?” Bruce said, far too amused at this. 

Tanya huffed. “We have to consider her identity, too. Wayne manor isn’t exactly inconspicuous, it would be waving a giant red flag to whatever incompetent spooks were responsible for the Arizona installation.”

Bruce paused. “...Yeah, you’re right.” He admitted, “What’s the alternative, though? I don’t think the Kents would be up for it.”

Tanya thought for a moment, sorting her mental list of the Justice League’s roster for compatibility. “...Yeah, I can’t think of anyone that I’d both trust with a young girl and would be willing to take a random metahuman orphan.”

“Then just take her into Justice League custody and get her into the mansion clean and legal.” Richard said, “It’s not like Bruce Wayne’s not known for being a dedicated supporter of the League as well as being able and willing to adopt orphans.”

“That’s true.” Tanya admitted, “I suppose as long as we go on the bureaucratic attack, the manor’s really the best choice.” It could set a worrying precedent, but it wasn’t any worse than this ‘Project Cadmus’ that Ace was supposedly a part of. 

Bruce brightened, still in full ‘Big Daddy Wayne’ persona. “Right, so Ace? If you’ll have us, I’d be happy to welcome you into the family, now that Tanya’s rescinded her veto on new siblings.” Something about how he said that was ringing alarm bells… 

Ace attempted to match Bruce’s brightness. “Yes!”

Richard clapped sarcastically. “Okay, great, new little sister.” He said, annoyed. “Now can you leave, Bruce? I still want to enjoy my vacation from you.”

Ace faltered, but as Bruce had turned around Tanya leaned back to hung upside down so she could whisper: “Dick’s fighting with Bruce because he’s being stupid.” 

“Oh, like Jack.” Ace said in understanding. “He was mad because he wanted to be King, but his real name was Jack.”

Tanya snorted, and as Bruce walked a little forward Tanya slipped down and landed on her palms, tilting to the side in a half cartwheel to get back on her feet. “Closer than I thought you’d be.” Tanya said, “But yeah, in the morning you’ll need to go with a member of the Justice League, there’ll be some legal battles, you might end up with citizenship papers for Atlantis or Themyscira…” Tanya paused. “Actually… Diana might be willing to take custody.” She already stays over at the manor quite often… 

Bruce stiffened at the proposal. “Hey now, I know where you’re going with that, and I told you last time-”

“Inherent incompatibility of a mere mortal like yourself and an immortal demigoddess, I know.” Tanya said, waving away the concern. “If you think for a second that I’ll let old age be the end of you, you underestimate my power.” Despite being the most chuuni thing Tanya had ever uttered, there was not a single trace of sarcasm in her words. 

“What was it that the Joker said that one time we had a bug in Lex’s limo?” Richard asked rhetorically. “There’s nothing ‘mere’ about that mortal?”

“It’s the nicest thing he’s ever said about you.” Tanya agreed, “But I think you should bring it up with Diana.”

It took a bit more back and forth, but by the time Kara came out of the bathroom, clean and dressed for bed, Bruce was on his way out, with a promise to send a volunteer Justice League member to the hotel room in the morning to take custody. 

In a completely unsurprising move, Diana earned Ace’s trust in record time via the expedient of giving the girl permission to rifle through her head, and flew off with the girl after a quick but emotional goodbye. 

Unfortunately, the events ruined Tanya’s plans to gamble, so if they wanted to get to Jump City on schedule… 

-----------------------

“You enjoy your drive, Richard!” Tanya shouted as the boy drove off, a dozing shadow duplicate of her real body in the passenger seat. “Okay Kara, time to enjoy ourselves.”

While Tanya did want to find some loophole or polite fiction that would allow her to gamble while being only ten years old, it wasn’t that important. Instead, while Richard finished the final leg of their journey, Tanya Degurechaff, CEO, will have her own fun. 

Kara whooped as they walked towards the casino, the early hour not impeding her enthusiasm one bit. “Where do we go first?” She asked, excited. “Blackjack? Poker? Roulette?”

Tanya hummed as they walked in the doors of the Nottingham Castle Casino, a Robin Hood themed monstrosity, pausing only to flash their IDs at the doorman. It was understandable, while Kara was 21 and thus free and clear, Tanya’s body was only physically about eighteen, and they could easily be mistaken for fraternal twins. But her ID said she was 37, and while the bouncer went so far as to check the national database, she was allowed inside without any further issues. 

“If I didn’t know any better,” Kara whispered after they had gotten passed, “I’d have thought you were genuinely ecstatic to still be mistaken for a teenager.”

“I’m a very good actor.” Tanya said seriously. “I get a lot of practice.” Gesturing for Kara to follow, she turned and went towards the chip counter. “Yeah, I wanna convert a million to chips.” She said casually, flashing her bank card. She hadn’t yet decided which body she was going to gamble with, so she had made sure she had a liquid budget available in both identities. As her CEO identity was only a multi-millionaire, she had reserved a smaller budget for this face, but once you get this high the distinctions were largely academic anyway. 

The clerk’s eyes widened. “Uh…” She did a poor job hiding pressing a button behind her desk, presumably calling a manager. 

Tanya rolled her eyes. “I thought this place could handle that much. Kara, can you believe Bruce recommended this place?” Specifically, this particular casino was not owned by organized crime nor any company that was particularly unethical. It was, however, owned by Oliver Queen. He busted the organized crime syndicate that used to own it and picked it up on the cheap, to hear the story. The Robin Hood theming wasn’t even his idea, supposedly. 

Kara shook her head sympathetically. “Unbelievable.”

An older gentleman dressed in a formal suit smoothly arrived. “I’m sorry ma’am, this desk isn’t equipped for high rollers. Follow me to the VIP desk and we’ll get you set up.”

“That’s better!” Tanya said, feeling a little bad about being so rude, but… being a bit aggressive in public life, the few times she was visible anyway, was part of her CEO persona. A little arrogant, easily offended, anyone who saw her act should understand immediately that she was ‘new money’. 

Soon enough, Tanya and Kara had a carrying case for their high denomination poker chips (plus another filled with smaller denominations) and, after a few more minutes, seated at a high stakes poker table unloading it. “Okay, so these little flag-colored chips are one thousand dollars, the red and blue ones with the diamond markings that vaguely remind me of Superman’s logo are twenty-five thousand, and the black and yellow ones are hundred thousand.” Tanya paused. Wait, was Queen patterning the chips after Justice League members? She looked at the thousand-dollar chips again. Yeah, that little bit of gold on them did kind of remind her of Diana’s star spangled swimsuit of an outfit… 

“Fresh meat.” Commented one of the gamblers, a muscular young man who Tanya immediately pegged as someone with a serious gambling problem, exacerbated by the fact that he was actually somewhat skilled at gambling. 

“How are you two young ladies today?” Asked a middle-aged man wearing a white suit and cowboy hat like some kind of stereotype. “Blind is two thousand.” The dealer gave the man a sharp look, but dealt the two of them in. 

“The fee to use the table is only twenty-five dollars per half hour.” The dealer said, smiling politely. 

“We’re ready to win some poker.” Tanya said boastfully to the older man. Tanya took out a hundred dollar chip from the other case. “We’ll stay for an hour and see what we feel like then.” She said lightly, “Okay now Danvers,” Which was Kara’s fake civilian family name, because apparently that was Martha’s maiden name, “-remember what I taught you.” They had spent most of the trip between Smallville and here playing casino games in the back seat of the car. 

“Play the players, not the cards.” Kara parroted, which was not the most important lesson, which was ‘The money should be considered gone the instant it is converted into chips, do not cheat even if you lose it all’.  

“‘Sup.” Said the last player, a pretty boy that Tanya immediately recognized as the singer that Zatara had been talking about the last time Tanya had been hanging out in the Belfry with the girls. Typical teenage heartthrob, and he was absolutely as pretty in person as he was on the poster. 

Ignoring her hormones, back in the Imperial army, Tanya didn’t gamble much. Gambling with one’s subordinates was ill-advised for many reasons, she made sure she didn’t intrude on the common soldier’s free time by forcing them to pay attention to the boss for cues on how much fun they were allowed to have. Visha supplemented the 203rd’s supplies with items won through gambling with other units, or so she’d heard that was how her adjutant was always able to supply Tanya with coffee. She also wasn’t invited to the officer’s parties to gamble, not that she would have wanted to go to a place with such thick cigar smoke, but it made her time in the Imperial Army a bit… lonely, in hindsight. 

Hand after hand, Tanya’s piles got lower, with the occasional top up as her reckless betting made her opponents completely unable to tell whether or not she was bluffing. Kara played more conservatively, betting small and folding easily with only the occasional big raise or bluff call, which let her bully out a steadily larger pile, even if a lot of that pile was taken from Tanya’s. 

As usual for such a game, the waitstaff fawned over the players holding the valuable chips, providing drinks and expensive snacks to keep the players in the casino and to extract tips. The waitstaff were all beautiful, of course, not only the girls but also the few men that came up to the pair of blondes and flirtatiously distracted them from how much money Tanya was losing. 

She declined alcohol, of course, Bruce and Alfred would be incredibly disappointed in her if she didn’t, although Kara gleefully drank the complex mixed drinks that were on offer, as she was old enough for alcohol and also Kryptonian, so she could handle a lot more liquor than it looked. Tanya instead made sure to order her favorite rich person snacks and fancy mocktails, and if anyone noticed that they were the same snacks that Tanya Wayne favored, they were welcome to dig up the decoy backstory where both Tanyas were half-sisters. 

Having lost one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in an hour, Tanya got up and urged Kara, who was up fifty grand instead, to pack up and go to another game, as the stupidly pretty singer that all the teenage girls adored was a much bigger jerk in person than his persona implied, and she felt disappointed in herself for that not being enough for her to be disgusted with him. 

Tanya had a lot of experience in ignoring her own hormones. Even back when she was a man, he wasn’t able to, say, resist the impulse to look at a pretty girl on a poster, but he was always able to put such feelings aside when it was needed, such as when discussing sexual harassment complaints with particularly attractive office ladies. As a girl, it was a little bit more difficult to ignore, but she chalked that up more to the strength of teenage hormones more than anything else; it’s not like she clearly remembered what it was like to first notice girls like that. Nor does she really remember what it was like to notice boys like that for the first time anymore either, but she does remember the teasing. 

It was fine; as someone who has experienced life as both a boy and a girl, she wasn’t going to panic into an identity crisis just because she wasn’t a hormone-free machine instead of a human being. She could always just shed her mortal form if she needed to separate herself from their influence. 

“That was fun!” Kara said as they left, carrying the chip cases. “What do we do next?”

“I was thinking of some blackjack.” Tanya said, “I’ve never counted cards before and I want to give it a try.” she knew the theory, of course. 

As it turned out, counting cards was a lot harder than it sounded like. She lost track of the count within ten hands, laughed at Kara’s poor luck, and overall had a pretty good time. 

They spent pretty much the entire day flitting from game to game, letting the casino steadily pry wealth from their hands with luxuries as she lost more per hour than most families in America got as income all year. 

In the end, after fourteen straight hours of gambling, Tanya ended up flat broke in the chips department while Kara had two hundred thousand, which she promptly bet on Red for a single roulette spin… and lost it all. 

Kara accepted the complimentary hotel stay they had been offered at one point, having consumed enough high-proof cocktails to actually feel it over the course of the day, and she would be able to make her way back to Smallville tomorrow, on her own. Assuming she doesn’t just go back up to the Watchtower for whatever reason. 

“Better luck next time, Miss Degurechaff.” The floor manager said as she walked towards the exit. “We at Castle Nottingham hope to enjoy your patronage at a future date.”

Tanya waved him off. “It was fun, but I’ll probably not come back. I don’t want to lose another million.”

“If there’s anything we can do for you to improve your stay, name it.” The manager said, “We have a cab service?” He offered. 

“Nah, I have places to be.” She said, “I’ll just teleport.” With a wave of her arm, Tanya created a ring of magic that shot down around her, swapping her cocktail dress that she had been wearing all day for the witchy outfit she usually wore for press appearances as ArcWayne’s CEO. With another burst of silent magic, she warped up to the top of a tall spire of some kind, she wasn’t one hundred percent sure what it was but it had aircraft warning lights on it. Now fully away from anyone who could overhear her, Tanya incanted her longer range spell. “Rhine. Berechnung. Mahou. In the morn I left a shade, it is time to force a trade.” With a burst of magic, Tanya’s surroundings shifted from ‘Vegas’ to ‘Richard’s car’ once more. The shade that had been left behind dissolved from the transition, making it look like she just teleported by turning into a mass of shadows and vanishing into thin air. 

As it was part of her intent with the spell, she was also back in her true form, now wearing the same white dress she had in her storage that the shade was wearing. Faking a yawn, Tanya looked around blearily. “What’s goin’ on?” She asked. 

“We’re ten minutes away from Titans Tower.” Richard said, driving around. “Did you enjoy losing way too much money?”

“Yeah, it was pretty fun.” Tanya said, repeating her words to the casino manager. “Not something I want to do very often, but if Bruce gets sucked into gambling when I’m around I won’t try and find an excuse to leave.” It still was kind of painful to her to throw a million dollars away to one of the most predatory industries out there, but at least the process was entertaining. Even if it would probably be better if she wasn’t sober the whole day. 

They continued to chat for the time it took for Richard to drive into the secret underwater tunnel that led to the giant T-shaped skyscraper in the bay, Titans Tower. Once inside, they rode the elevator up to the residential floors, the ones in the wide part of the building. All the stuff underneath was more for business. 

Oh? It looked like there was already someone here. Time to meet the team…