Literature / Super Sales on Super Heroes

PANCAKES!!!

Super Sales on Super Heroes is a 2017-2022 series of superhero novels by William D. Arand, taking place in a world where superpowers are fairly common. It's a world of Grey-and-Gray Morality, where heroes aren't always the good guys and villains aren't always that bad. The series currently consists of 5 books.

Felix Campbell lives in a city that has recently been taken over by a supervillain named Skipper. Skipper and his cronies immediately declared independence from the rest of the country, renamed the place Skippercity, and made a number of changes to the law. Many crimes are now legal, including slavery. Despite this, the city's economy is booming thanks to no longer having to pay federal or state taxes, while also taxing any formerly illegal activities. Any remaining superheroes in Skippercity are either killed by citizens for a hefty bounty or captured to be sold as slaves.

Felix has a unique ability to modify any object he owns, which he sees in his mind's eye as a stat sheet, as if in a role-playing game. Any modification costs a certain number of points. Unfortunately his daily pool of points is too low to made good use of his power, so he's stuck in his job managing a fast food joint and living in the house his aunt and uncle left him after skipping town.

All this changes when he accidentally purchases a super-slave (he thought he was buying a box full of bismuth he planned to turn into gold and sell). The super is nearly dead, having been tortured and mutilated for nearly a month. Since he now owns her, his power allows him to modify her as well, but he also learns that he can draw on her power to increase his daily point allotment. Realizing this, he quickly buys two more supers in the same condition. He uses his power to slowly repair their physical damage. To his surprise, after a brief period of adjustment, the three women (Kit, Miu, and Ioana) quickly accept the live of slavery, especially since Felix is actually a pretty decent guy, and one of his first promises is that he would never sexually assault them or force them to sleep with him (slaves are magically-bound to follow direct orders of their master).

Felix hits on the idea of buying a pawn shop, which he can use to buy items for cheap, improve them with his power, and resell them with a sizable markup, especially since Kit trains him to use his power to see stats of potential property, making him a master appraiser. He quickly buys three more slaves at an auction: Andrea, Lily, and Felicia. In less than three months, Felix is now the CEO of a quickly-growing organization of hundreds of slaves and indentured servants and attracting unwanted attention from rivals.

In book 2, Felix expands his operations to the city of Tilen in the setting's US-analog and even to a parallel world. He's even considering setting up an HQ in the neighboring country of Wall.

In book 3, Felix continues trying to expand, having set up operations in Wall after a series of events that leaves the world slowly crumbling apart, only to get surprised by a visitor from a portal he had nothing to do with.

In book 4, Felix is recruited by an overgod to take over another world that appears to be a lot more like ours and dropped there with only three companions two years before that world's Mass Super-Empowering Event. Felix's power undergoes a change, as well as the abilities of the companions that go with him.

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The series provides examples of:

• A-Cup Angst:
  • Being a half-Dwarf, Felicia really doesn't like being a short girl with a AA-cup. So her first request to Felix is to be made taller and to get a D-cup. Ioana appreciates the change.
  • Later, Andrea suggests a statue of her, but with bigger boobs. Then she starts wondering exactly how big they should be and decides that C is probably the max, since any bigger would make it tough to wear tactical gear.
• All Your Powers Combined: In book 2, Felix secretly grants Eva every power his inner circle has, plus a few others. He makes the powers temporary in order to reduce the point cost.
• Alliterative Name:
  • Lilian Lux. Also applies to her brother Lucian.
  • Miu Miki.
  • Felicia Fay.
  • Ioana Iliescu.
  • A borderline case with Kit Carrington, since both are pronounced with a hard "K" sound.
• Alternate Universe: After Felicia builds Felix a portal generator, he has her look for a suitable parallel universe to set up an offworld base, expanding Legion's influence. The one they settle on has only primitive tribes, so Felix assumes they'll be easy pickings. He doesn't know that this universe has Physical Gods. He decides to call this place Legion, or Legion World. At the end of book 2, he moves the Legion HQ to this world to honor his agreement with Skipper. He decides to try to explore other worlds, only for his mysterious benefactor to appear and tell him not to do that, calling in one of the two favors that Felix owes him. Felix is smart enough to oblige.
  • In book 3, people from another world makes contact with Felix. This parallel world is more similar to Real Life geographically than Felix's world and even has some of the same countries (for example, there's a US in that world but not in Felix's). That world is less technologically advanced but has many more magical races, including dragons. Felix establishes an alliance with a country called Yosemite on that world, which is run by a man who turns out to be his cousin.
  • In book 4, Felix is dropped in yet another world that's even more like ours. There's barely any magic (at least for another 2 years until a Mass Super-Empowering Event), and while there are some non-human races, most of them are extinct (dragons, beastkin). Felix is only allowed to bring three companions with him (although he manages to get a fourth one through trickery), but everyone (Felix included) undergoes certain changes to their abilities. Felix's points no longer reset every day, allowing him to bank the points without them expiring. He also becomes able to modify himself. However, since slavery is illegal in that world, the only people he owns are the women he brings with him (and only if they're married), so he has to find another way to get points.
• Amazon Brigade: Felix's inner circle and his most powerful assets are all women.
• Amoral Attorney: The legal firm that manages his aunt and uncle's assets, including the house he lives in. One of the first things they do in the novel is demand that he not only pay them rent but also pay them $150,000 of the rent he was supposed to have been paying for the last several years. Fortunately, once he learns that Lily used to be a lawyer, he has her look over the contract, and she manages to find a loophole.
• Astral Projection: Lily's brother Lucian has this ability, except no one knows. All Lily knows is that one day, he simply fell asleep and wouldn't wake up for many years. Felix upgrades his ability to allow him to return to his body any time he wants and also fixes a pre-existing mental defect (it's implied the kid was autistic, given his eidetic memory). This earns him Lily's undying gratitude.
• Ate His Gun: An Other does this in book 2 after being wounded in order to avoid slowing down Felix. Having left her pinky finger with her Prime, she knows she'll be re-absorbed.
• Babies Ever After: In book 3, Felix finally knocks up Andrea's Second and Adriana's Second (the Primes want to remain useful to Felix during the pregnancy). The Seconds move to Legion Prime, so they can live in nature. Lily is also considering whether she wants children. Andrea and Adriana are trying to convince Myriad to return. They also want her Second to get pregnant by Felix as well.
• Barrier Warrior: One of the spells Lily can cast is a magical shield, which is powerful enough to stop most attacks. She starts to habitually cast one over Felix when he goes outside after people start trying to assassinate him. At one point, Felix takes a 50-caliber round from a sniper miles away. The shield takes the brunt of the impact, but Felix is still knocked down from the residual kinetic energy. During another fight, a speedster tries to outmaneuver Lily, assuming it takes time for her to cast spells and not realizing that Felix has recently upgraded her power. The speedster runs face-first into one of her barriers and breaks a lot of bones.
• Blood Knight: Ioana, aptly known as War Maiden, used to challenge any super to a fight (frequently to the death). She didn't care if the other person was a hero or a villain. It was the fight that mattered and proving herself to be better.
• Butt-Monkey: Defied, but it's always a close race. As the stories progress more and more people have it out for Felix and Legion, and a good 70% of that isn't his fault. It starts with the heroes guild, which is to be expected when he starts carrying around one of the most frighting villains as his personal laywer, but you learn they actually were trying to kill him to break the slavery contract to get The Auger, Kit, back. From there it just increases in the numbers and influence of his enemies. By the end of the third book his enemies, past and present, include: Various business factions. The Heroes Guild. Skipper City. The National Government. Skipper herself. Tielan and Wall's local government. powerful people at Physical God levels of power (the creator and thus person closest to physical godhood is his ally which is the only thing that keeps things from getting out of hand). A group of skilled individuals that hop dimensions freely, and finally their boss who is implied to be similar to the above mentioned physical but acts more like the devil. Several of the listed are implied to have been turned against him by others on the list.
  • It's also defied within Legion. Due to Felix being able to power up people and using his administrators to help make sure nobody gets dragged down then nobody really gets the title of "Butt-Monkey" within the organization. They're either empowered to make sure it doesn't happen, or simply put somewhere that their existing talents and aptitudes can actually work respectably.
• Cat Girl: Andrea is a wolf "beastkin". This means she has pointy ears on her head and a tail, but that's about it. Sometimes she behaves like an animal, such as sleeping on a pile of Felix's clothes or at his feet (he finds it weird but doesn't have the heart to tell her to stop it). She later reveals that she considers Felix to be her Alpha right before walking into his bedroom and making it clear she's no going to take "no" for an answer anymore.
  • Though Andrea is close to the classic attitudes of cat girls, being peppy and loyal, beastkin all have the same kind deal of "human skin and faces with some animal features". They also have a few Furry Reminders based on their species, but it's usually more to do reactions or physical contact, for example it's never brought up if a rabbit beastkin is vegetarian or prefers carrots.
• Crossover: The series crosses over with several of the author's other series, such as Otherlife (Felix's benefactor Runner Norwood) and Wild Wastes (Felix's cousin Vince Campbell).
• Death Is Cheap: Felix eventually learns he can bring his dead slaves or indentured servants back to life. It costs him a sizable amount of points (both repairing the body to just before death and changing the status from "dead" to "alive"), but the person comes back without any ill effects. Lily is able to confirm that the resurrected person has a soul (i.e. not a zombie). Kit writes up the paperwork to have the slaves/servants indicate whether they would like to be revived after death. Predictably, it splits based on their religious views. The only one who can't be revived after death is Felix himself, since he can't affect himself.
• The Devil: Apparently, there is
• Egopolis: One of Skipper's first acts upon taking over the city is to rename it "Skippercity".
  • Felix does something similar after discovering a parallel world. He decides to name it Legion Prime, after his company.
• Elaborate Underground Base: Thanks to Felicia's design, Andrea's workforce, and Felix's ability to upgrade his property, they quickly expand their homebase into a large underground complex, filled with apartments, cafeterias, training rooms, workshops, etc. Felix's eventual plan is to buy up all the property in the area and connect everything into a vast underground neighborhood with schools, shops, and all other things people need. Felicia can only salivate at the opportunity to build something so grandiose. When Felix makes a deal with Skipper to leave Skippercity and Tilen, he has his people destroy all the above-ground structures, leaving only the self-sufficient complex underneath, knowing that Skipper would never find it.
• Elite Mooks: While Felix isn't exactly a supervillain, his original six slaves end up becoming his key assistants in running Legion. He also tends to upgrade them exclusively, so they are also among his most powerful assets.
  • Lily is in charge of all legal and accounting issues, including keeping track of his points.
  • Kit runs his HR department, which also doubles as intelligence, since Kit and all her subordinates are telepaths.
  • Ioana is Felix's head of external security.
  • Felicia is in charge of housing and all things technical.
  • Miu is in charge of Felix's bodyguards.
  • Andrea is... well, she's many things, including a cook, a secretary, a personal assistant, and Felix's own private army.
  • A later "hire" named Victoria ends up becoming the head of internal security.
• The End of the World as We Know It: At the end of book 3, the other deities cause all possible apocalypses to happen all at once. This includes the Zombie Apocalypse, giant demons, global winter, creatures in the dark, various underground monsters, etc. Felix manages to get a large part of Legion out of this world and onto Legion Prime and Vince's world. Runner apologizes to Felix for failing to save this world and promises it will never happen to any other world.
• Entitled Bastard: A small variation is the hero's guild major issue in a nutshell. They do various bad or horrible things throughout the first two books simply because they think they deserve anything good that they desire or get. Blow up a school with children in it to kill Felix so you can get The Auger back? Well, they need The Auger to defeat skipper, and she follows Felix. Never mind she was only in as good of a state as she was because of him, was loyal, and they never tried talking to him face to face and just decided he needed to die was the best course of action. Another example is early in the second book when Felix is having an official meeting and the hero's guild wants to have a hero there to represent their interests. The second Felix tries to force accountability by taking a picture of the hero after he refuses to state his name for the record the hero tries to steal Felix's phone and is only stopped by super powered bodyguards. it leads to their downfall, as once skipper goes on the warpath while religious magic gets stronger the heroes get too gung ho about stopping her, but their attitudes and refusal to back down or ask for help ends up killing a majority of their members, the few left seem to be newbies, and thus just as gung ho as before, or people who are very cynical and honest about the guild itself.
• Evil Counterpart: While Felix is hardly a paragon of goodness, everyone in Legion knows that he cares about them. Felix also makes sure to give people powers and jobs that mesh with their personalities and goals. Meanwhile, Skipper is a ruthless leader, who casually sends people to die and gives them powers that Skipper desires, regardless of what the underlings want.
• Family Theme Naming:
  • Evan and Eva Adelpha, brother and sister. He's a magic-user, and she's a telepath with Intangibility.
  • Also, after Andrea splits off into another Prime, Felix decides to name the other Prime Adrianna. His mysterious benefactor, though, lets him know he personally would've gone with Alexa.
  • Lilian and Lucian Lux, another pair of siblings. She's a magic-user, and he has astral projection.
• Fantastic Racism: This is inevitable in a world with all manner of races living in the world besides humans, including elves, dwarves, ogres, trolls, and beastkin. Felix is hit with that in the second book when a sizable "human supremacy" faction tries to sabotage his run for governor by pointing out that he sleeps with Andrea, a beastkin.
• Fantasy Contraception: It's revealed at the end of book 2 that one of the first things Felix has done after starting to sleep with Andrea is to make her infertile. The problem? He didn't tell her, or anyone else for that matter. Runner calls him out on it in the epilogue and suggests he knock her up and get some happiness in his life. Besides, she's starting to wonder if there's something wrong with her, since she does want cubs from him (well, she is part-wolf).
• Femme Fatale: Felix can't help but acknowledge Lily's stunning beauty. At the same time, he doesn't even consider the option of trying anything with her, even though she can't harm him directly. Lily constantly flirts with him, but Felix is smart enough to know she just enjoys toying with him, so he does his best to ignore it. This changes later when they do start sleeping together, although it ends up becoming a strange arrangement, since Lilian seems content to share him with Andrea.
• Fictional Earth: The primary world the series takes place in is geographically different from ours. The country surrounding Skippercity is supposed to be similar to the US (it has states, for one), but there is no United States in this world. The unnamed nation's southern neighbor is called Wall, which appears to be a parliamentary republic and doesn't seem to be a stand-in for Mexico.
  • On the other hand, Vince's world is much more similar to ours from a geographical standpoint. It does have the US, except it's an empire, whose capital is Sacramento, and a number of smaller nations exist on its territory, such as Yosemite.
  • And, of course, both worlds have superpowers, magic, and fantasy races.
  • The world in book 4 is even more similar to ours, and it's heavily implied that it has just recently gone through a global pandemic that had a lasting economic impact and has made people wary about shaking hands. There's little to no magic and non-human races either don't exist or have gone extinct (e.g. dragons, beastkin). Then again, Felix learns that this world is on track to having its own Mass Super-Empowering Event in a matter of years.
• Fingore: It becomes standard practice for Felix's soldiers to cut off a pinky before going into battle and leave it at the HQ. This way, if their body cannot be retrieved or ends up being vaporized, Felix can still bring them back with the pinky.
• Firing Day: When Felix finally decides that he's had enough of his job as a fast food joint manager, he walks into his office after a week of "sick leave" and is happy to see the regional manager there. Before he walks in, he fires an incompetent employee, whom the regional manager was hoping to get in the sack, then he insults his boss. The manager finally fires him, and Felix happily calls HR and has the manager repeat what he said to the rep. Why not simply quit? Because being fired means he also gets severance pay, including the pay for all his unused vacation days.
• Gender Rarity Value: Apparently, there are a lot more women on Vince's world than men. It's one of the reasons why Vince has many wives, but it's also why the women of that world have significantly fewer compunctions when it comes to sex. If they want someone, they will let them know.
• Geometric Magic: Lily can cast spells by drawing glyphs. Some can be drawn quickly, while others can take hours or even days. The first upgrade she requests from Felix is the ability to cast Instant Runes.
• Groin Attack: When a super-strong hero lands on the roof of their car, Andrea calmly takes out her gun and empties it right into the hero's junk. While it's not enough to do any permanent damage, it still hurts like hell.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Felicia is a half-Dwarf. Like all Dwarves, she is great at building things. Basically, anything she can think of, she can build. She does, however, demand that Felix make her taller and give her bigger assets.
• Happiness in Slavery:
  • Most of Felix's slaves find they really don't mind their new status, especially given the alternatives (e.g. being owned by someone with fewer moral scruples or dead). He sees them as people rather than property and doesn't like forcing them into something they don't want to do. He also starts upgrading their stats and powers, if it benefits him or as reward for a job well done. He even seriously considers starting to pay his slaves and providing them full benefits. At the second auction, Felix purchases an underage female super simply because he doesn't want anyone to abuse her. He then puts her into a nice private school, hires her a tutor, and also makes sure to purchase her brother, as well as put them into adjacent rooms. It gets to the point where his slaves/servants start seeing him as some kind of messiah, who rescued from a bad fate.
  • In the second novel, he realizes that slavery is his main weakness, as all it would take for him to be destroyed is for Skipper to outlaw slavery. So he has Lily draw up an indentured servitude contract, which he plans to have everyone in Legion sign, turning them from slaves to indentured servants, a status that is legal both within Skippercity and in the outside country (technically, any slave that leaves city limits is automatically free, since slavery is illegal in the states).
• He Knows Too Much: Once Skipper realizes that Kit can block her powers, she immediately grabs a gun and shoots an underling in order to keep him from telling anyone about it.
• Healing Factor: After Andrea Prime's arm is torn off by a hero, Felix gives her the power of regeneration, and she grows back the limb in a matter of seconds.
  • Dragons can heal from many wounds. Even lost limbs can regrow given enough time.
  • In book 4, after Felix becomes a dryad's "grove husband" (involving planting a tree seed in his chest), he gets regenerative abilities that can let him come back from anything short of a headshot.
• Healing Hands: In a manner of speaking. Felix's ability to modify any object or person he owns also allows him to repair damage to them. However, he doesn't actually have to touch them or even be in the same room as them. At one point, one of his slaves is hit with an electrical attack, causing her heart to explode. Watching from his command center, Felix brings up her character sheet, sees that she's seconds away from death, and repairs her heart with points in moments. Afterwards, the woman is assigned as his temporary bodyguard, and she's clearly in awe of him.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: The Nullifier can prevent power usage for anybody within a certain range, but only up to 5 people. In a world where supers create groups and order coordinated strikes he ends up on the lower end of the power scale, as all sides know him and will simply send 6 supers to take him out if needed. Turns out he's quite a bit more useful, as while in Legion employ they find out that he can simply block powers that are forcing their way into his zone of control even if the person isn't there, and was a Spanner in the Works for what was the most coordinated and impressive attempt on Felix's life to that point.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: late in the third book Skipper breaks into the religious conference that Legion is contracted to protect trying to find and kill Felix. She starts killing hostages to try and get the others to spill where Felix is only to end up pissing off the priests so much they invoke their powers at once, which dooms their home planet by unleashing all the apocalypses at once and would have surely killed Skipper if she didn't have a dimensional portal generator in her pocket enhanced by another being like Runner, and in the end it even failed to kill Felix because after so many things went wrong he cooked up so many contingencies that he managed to escape and recover most of his people lost in the aftermath.
  • Implied to be why Felix's power works and gets empowered on what he owns. The big meeting between Felix and one of Runner's nemisis' biggest lackies was because both ran the slave trade in alternate universes hinting that where the nemisis is slavery is pushed, which means Felix will have fuel for his powers, and the ability to foster goodwill.
• Human Resources: After Felix asks Felicia to build him a machine for cleanly disposing of dead bodies, the resulting device looks like cross between a wood chipper and a toaster. The body is fed into the chute, and the device them converts it into sausage. When consumed, the sausage provides a permanent power boost. While Felix is a little squeamish to eat sausage made from human flesh, some of his slaves eagerly try it and swear by the taste and the effect.
• Jumping on a Grenade: In book 2, a grenade lands not far from Felix. Having been shot in the leg moments before, he knows he won't be able to get away before it goes off. Julia then leaps on the grenade. Just before it blows, she looks at Felix and tells him that he better bring her back. The explosion rips her body in half but doesn't kill her immediately. Fortunately, an Adrianna Other is there for a Mercy Kill, and Julia has left a pinky finger for Felix for just that eventuality.
• Keystone Army: Legion. Everything hinges on Felix's unique power. If Felix dies, everything he has modified will go back to its initial state. Since no one in Legion wants that, they do their best to keep him safe.
• Les Yay: Ioana goes after Felicia, especially after Felix increases Felicia's height (to that of a petite woman rather than a Dwarf) and boosts her AA-cup to a D (at her request).
• Literal Split Personality: Felix quickly figures out that all of Andrea's Others are actually their own selves. When not separate, they all coexist in Andrea Prime's mind. Some are only marginally different, while others (like the Death Others) are very different. Eventually, Andrea splits the militant Others into a new permanent Prime, whom Felix names Adrianna. Near the end of book 2, he also learns that Myriad, the original Andrea Prime, has likewise split off and left to roam Legion World.
• Loan Shark: In order to buy some of his early slaves, Felix goes to Dimitry, a loan shark working across the street from his job, and asks for $20,000. Dimitry is a little put off by Felix's directness, but likes the approach. In return, he wants double the amount in 3 months. Later on, Felix and his slaves raid a bad guy lair in retaliation for attacking him. Kit determines that some of the guys there worked for Dimitry, so Felix calls the loan shark to make amends. Dimitry appreciates the offer and the candor, which starts a beneficial business arrangement between the two. In the second book, with his bid for governor, Felix decides that Dimitry is a loose end, so he offers the loan shark to turn his organization into a satellite of Legion. Dimitry would only be answerable to Felix, who plans to stay hands-off. Dimitry agrees and signs the contract, and Felix immediately grants Dimitry several superpowers, as well as de-aging him to mid-30s.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • Early in the second book, Felix visits a school in Tilen, where he demonstrates how anyone in his employ can learn skills instantly. He teaches a student to solve Rubix cubes in a matter of seconds. Then he gives him several more cubes and tells him he'll pay him for every cube he solves. Some time later, he sees the student carting in a wheelbarrow full of solved Rubix cubes. The student points out that Felix never specified the time limit or that the cubes had to be the ones Felix had brought, so he went across the street to a toy store and bought a bunch more. Felix is impressed and agrees to pay on the condition that the student signs a contract with Legion for several years. He tells Lily that the kid will fit in with her legal department just fine.
  • In book 1, Lily explains to Felix that, since he is the CEO of his corporation, he has to pay his employees, and some of that amount can be deducted from his taxes. However, since he also owns all of his employees, he's pretty much paying himself anyway. Eventually, though, the Skippercity government closes the loophole.
• The Magic Comes Back: Well, more like "The Religion Comes Back". According to Felix, back before things like magic, superpowers, and all manner of non-human races came to be, various religions were a lot more powerful. Then, almost as one, they all faded. After Felix has Felicia open a portal to another world, all the religions and cults suddenly become much more powerful and zealous. Apparently, all the deities moved to that other world long ago. When the portal was open, they moved back.
• Magic Enhancement: Lily's second requested power is the ability to store spells in mundane objects. This way, she can give amulets to Felix's other slaves.
• Magically-Binding Contract: All slaves are magically-bound to their master. They are unable to harm him and must obey his direct orders. In addition, after Kit comes up with the idea of hiring indentured servants, Lily helps her write up a legal and magical contract, which must be signed in blood. The contract prevents the servant from divulging any information about Felix's organization or acting against the interest of said organization. But the indentured servant contract is only valid for a certain number of years. When a reporter is mortally wounded right in front of him, Felix calls for one of his teleporters to deliver him a contract, since he can only heal those in his employ. She expires before signing, although her bloody finger leaves an imprint on the paper. Felix, figuring that some higher power has to be responsible for his unique ability, tries to desperately bargain with it, claiming that a blood imprint has to count as a signature. Eventually, after promising two favors to the higher power, a window to fix the reporter suddenly pops up in front of him, and he's shocked to see that a part of the cost of reviving the reporter also includes "2 favors".
• The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life: Felix admits to Lily that his dating life is likely to be worse now than before. He refuses to date anyone he owns, since he can't know why they're doing it. As for anyone outside the organization, they'd have to agree to sign a magical non-disclosure contract, since he can't have anyone blabbing about his business. He doesn't really mind, though, as the business take up so much of his time there's little left for a personal life. It all changes when Andrea walks into his office and tells him that she's not going to take "no" for an answer anymore before walking into his bedroom and creating two more copies for some fun.
• Me's a Crowd: Andrea can create multiple copies of herself. Felix initially assumes they have a Hive Mind until he observes that each Andrea is subtly different from the others. In fact, Andrea Prime actually has multiple personalities inside her, and she splits them off when she wants to and re-absorbs them afterwards (while also absorbing their memories and learning new skills). Most Andreas are about the same, although a few are different. Eventually, she asks for an upgrade to be able to re-absorb the others' memories selectively rather than completely. She was previously a mercenary known as Myriad, who would accept pretty much any job and leave behind a large trail of bodies. While she normally acts incredibly silly (Felix notes that her Intelligence stat is really low), when it comes time to fight, she turns into a cool-headed soldier, who can quickly analyze a situation and act accordingly. Things get even more complicated when Andrea decides to permanently split a number of copies into a new "prime", whom Felix names Adrianna.
• A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Kit's years of being the hero Augur have taught her this trope. Being unable to shield other people's thoughts without her helmet means her enemies have learned to bombard her with nasty thoughts. Thanks to Felix's upgrade, she is now free of that particular weakness. The only person whose mind Kit is unable to read if Felix, presumably because he's her master.
• Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: Felix's bodyguard Victoria prefers to fight with her custom-made sword. She's incredibly deadly with it. However, during the final battle of book 1, she learns her mistake by charging a group of hostiles and getting a bullet in the head for her trouble. After Felix revives her, she starts training with guns too.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Felix can do that at will, provided he has the points, but only to others and only to those people he owns. His power will also inform him of the stat requirements for the chosen power. Some powers are cheap, while others can take most of his daily point allotment.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: Any time Felix's people capture an enemy, they usually get an offer to become an indentured servant. The alternative is to have Lily suck out their soul, after which they will be fed into Felicia's sausage machine. Some still refuse, mostly because they don't believe that Felix and his people would actually kill them. Since Felix isn't a movie supervillain, he does go through with it.
• One-Note Cook: Andrea can only really make one thing in the kitchen: pancakes. But no one complains, because her pancakes are delicious. It helps that she can split into multiple Andreas, so she can probably feed all of Felix's slaves with the mountain of pancakes she makes every morning.
  Andrea: PANCAKES!!!
  • Adriana, on the other hand, is just as good at making waffles.
  • Myriad likes French toast, immediately causing Andrea and Adriana to throw her dirty looks and call her a heathen.
• Our Dragons Are Different: In book 3, Vince defeats and marries a female dragon. Then other dragons join Yosemite and Legion. Apparently, Best Her to Bed Her is typical of dragon maidens, especially when they get tired of all the pillaging and decide to nest. They typically spend most of their time in human form (except for horns on their heads), but can turn into dragon form at will. They are inhumanly strong and possess a Healing Factor.
• Phone-Trace Race: The cops habitually tap people's phones. It's all perfectly legal in Skippercity, as are the bribes to remove a tap from someone's phone for a day or two.
• Physical God: Felix is shocked to discover that they exist in the parallel world, when the natives summon them to fight Legion forces. Felix ends up summoning his own divine benefactor to deal with them. Some time later, two of those gods (a war goddess and a trade god, her husband) come to Felix and end up hammering out an alliance. Felix has Felicia build a machine that channels all the devotion Legion has for Felix and beams it to the two gods, boosting their power immeasurably. They participate during the final battle of book 2 and prove to be more than a match for dozens of other gods thanks to the machine.
• Police Brutality: The second book opens with Felix in a Tilen PD interrogation room. He's questioned about his "employees", some of whom are known killers. One of the detectives gets a little too annoyed at Felix's responses and slugs him. Naturally, Felix is immediately demanding to be released lest he sic his team of experienced lawyers on the cops for the unprovoked assault.
• Polyamory: Felix eventually ends up with Andrea, Adrianna, and Lilian. Lilian isn't particularly happy with the arrangement, but she learns to accept it after it's made clear that it's the only way she'll have Felix at all.
  • In the third book, Felix meets Vince, who is revealed to be his cousin from a parallel world and his genetic half-brother (their fathers were twins). Vince is a powerful man in his home country of Yosemite and has many wives. Apparently, it's the norm for powerful men to have multiple wives on that world, and many people from that world wonder why Felix, as powerful as he is, has only three. Several women express interest in joining Felix's harem, and Andrea wouldn't mind, but Lilian definitely would. They try to convince her that, by not allowing him to have more wives, she is "limiting" him. Felix just brushes it off as a cultural difference.
  • In book 4, Felix ends up in yet another world and is only allowed to bring 3 companions with him. He chooses Andrea (beastkin), Faith (dryad), and Goldie (dragon), although he deliberately orchestrates his departure to ensure that Miu would make Runner's life a living hell until he relented and sent her as well. One condition is that all four women become his wives, which they're all happy to do. They all sleep in the same bed, but he usually only has sex with one of them at a time. To him it's less about being in love with them and more about giving them all what they want.
• Possession Implies Mastery: Felix's ability only lets him modify things that he owns.
• Power Nullifier: Felix eventually learns why the superheroes are after Kit. Her core power (area telepathy) somehow interferes with Skipper's ability to see possible futures. Once Felix figures that out, he resolves to give area telepathy to a number of other employees.
• Psychic Powers: Kit is a powerful area telepath, although she can't turn it off without a special helmet. One of the reasons she eagerly agrees to serve Felix is because he can turn off or dial down her power at will. After a while, he upgrades her power to directed telepathy, while also leaving her the option of doing an area scan. During a firefight, he gives her telekinesis as well, followed by the ability to manifest realistic illusions.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Felix may not be a nice man, but he firmly holds this belief. His first promise to his slaves is that none of them will be sexually assaulted or forced into any sexual act against their will. He even refuses to date any of his slaves, since he can never be sure if they like him for who he is or for what he can do for them. When a city official suggests a deal in exchange for Felix allowing him to sleep with some of his female slaves, Felix immediately shuts him down and sends him away. When the official starts messing with Felix's business and continuing to insist, Felix decides he has no choice but to have the official assassinated, but he instructs the assassin to Make It Look Like an Accident.
• RPG Mechanics 'Verse: Felix's power lets him see an object's stats and spend points to modify them.
• Rewatch Bonus: After reading the second and third books going back to the first will have some subtle things that are made more important later. Miyu's psychotic obsession rears its head twice in view of Felix but he doesn't notice since she's normal the rest of the time. The first is when he restores her after the attack on the warehouse while Felix is away, as saving her marks her mood as "Flustered" but he just assumes she's confused rather than quite possibly really dealing with her awkward feelings for him for the first time, and the second is when Kit tries to read her mind after Miyu makes a subtle show of possessiveness towards Felix, first almost breaking into her psychotic nature when he insists in putting himself in danger and she can't stop him and then when Kit picks up on the clues Miyu keeps Kit from reading her mind using a technique Miyu herself describes later.
  • A small one but during the daytime assassination apparently one of Felix's would be assassins had a clear shot at his head and somehow missed. At the time they declare it a miracle that he missed but it seems likely that Runner actually did preform a miracle to save Felix, as Runner's desire to stay hands off from Felix's struggles before gods get involved most likely stems from wanting him to become a more capable leader and the most daring and suicidal assassination attempt that otherwise would have worked from sheer audacity would have most likely been considered exempt from Runner's attempts to let Felix grow on his own.
• Samus Is a Girl: Skipper is a woman.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: This is how Felix deals with the principal of the private school where he put his underage slave. When the principal tries to expel her for being behind, Felix rips him a new one by pointing out that no one at the school even tried to assess her education level before placing her. Lily then buys up the school's considerable debt, and Felix uses that to buy 80% ownership in the school.
• Sequel Goes Foreign: Sort of. Since Skippercity is officially an independent city-state within the US, any trip outside the city limits counts as going abroad. Much of the second novel takes place in Tilen, a major city in this setting's US-analog. Legion also establishes an HQ in the neighboring country of Wall, as well as on a parallel world.
• Sibling Team: At the end of book 3, Legion and Yosemite merge into a single entity, ruled by Felix and Vince. Since Felix is a much better administrator than Vince, he is the one in charge, with Vince being in overall command over Legion-Yosemite's military branch. Both are happy with the arrangement.
• Spin-Off: The series is eventually revealed to be related to the author's Otherlife books, when Felix's benefactor reveals his name - Runner Norwood.
• Super-Empowering: Felix is able to give anyone he owns (either a slave or an indentured servant) superpowers. The only power he can't give people is his own, but he's able to make a whole squad of teleporters and a team of telepaths/telekinetics from ordinary people.
• Super-Speed: A speedster tries to outmaneuver Lily, knowing that her Geometric Magic takes time to cast. However, he doesn't know that Felix has recently upgraded her to Instant Runes and slams at full speed into a shield she has cast in front of him.
• Superhuman Trafficking:
  • A perfectly legal business in Skippercity. Felix becomes a major slave-owner of both supers and normal humans. But unlike most, he treats them more like valued employees than slaves. This ends in book 2, as Felix realizes that everything he has built can come crashing down if Skipper decides to outlaw slavery, so he has all his slaves become indentured servants instead, which is allowed not only in Skippercity but in the outside country as well.
  • Averted in book 4, as Runner tells Felix straight-up that slavery is illegal in this new world. The only ones he'll be allowed to own are the women he brings with him, and only because they'll all have to be his wives. The idea of going back to indentured servitude doesn't even pop up in Felix's head, so it can be assumed that there are limits on that as well.
• Take That!: The name of the country to the south of the US-analog in this setting? Wall. Apparently, someone finally got their way.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Averted during the final battle of book 1. Lily drops her guard to talk to Felix about knowing the value of the human life and gets a lightning bolt through the head for her trouble.
• Teleportation: Felix upgrades a group of normal humans, giving them teleportation as well as the equivalent of 4 years in medical school as knowledge. Their task is to teleport in during engagements, retrieve the wounded, and teleport back, where they can stabilize them and either heal them using normal means, put them into one of Felicia's medical beds, or wait for Felix to heal the damage using points. They are a large reason why Legion sustains zero permanent losses during a major assault on their HQ.
• That's What She Said: One of Felix's bodyguards in book 3 keeps turning everything he says into a Double Entendre. Subverted, when another bodyguard tells him that she's scared and nervous and is using this as a shield. Felix starts doing it himself to help her.
• Thinking Up Portals: After witnessing a portal accidentally opening into his office, Felix gets the idea to give Kit that power. He also asks Felicia to build him a portal machine. This allows him to quickly move between his Skippercity and Tilen HQs.
• Uncanny Family Resemblance: In the third book, Felix meets a demigod named Vince from a parallel world. Vince looks remarkably like Felix, and it's soon discovered that their fathers were twins. Felix's uncle and aunt were accidentally sucked into that world. His aunt was killed by some nasty critter, while his uncle remarried and had Vince. Due to the fact that time flows faster in the world, Felix and Vince are about the same age.
• Undercover Cop Reveal: The first favor Dimitry requests of Felix is for Felix to bring Kit to Dimitry's place of business and mind-scan his employees to find a rat. She uncovers a cop, who has been embedded in Dimitry's organization for six years, in a matter of seconds. However, instead of simply turning him over to Dimitry, Felix gives him the option of becoming his indentured servant. He would continue being an undercover cop in Dimitry's organization, but also provide intel to Felix and funnel disinformation to the cops. The cop decides to agree, since Dimitry would also go after his family. The cop later finds a Loophole Abuse, allowing him to tip off his colleagues, prompting Felix's people to kill him.
• Unwanted Harem: By book 3, the number of women trying to get Felix into bed skyrockets, much to Lily's chagrin. This now includes dryads, elves, and dragons.
  • Even before that there were shades of this in the first book, with Andrea herself being a one woman harem, and being the only active attempt to get him in bed, as well as kit revealing Lily has feelings for him for being the first person to ever see her as another person and show it makes Felix uncomfortable about both. Those were the only two actively after him, but thanks to Andrea's openness about the subject, even going out of her way to announce it to others, the subject comes up enough to feel like this to Felix.
  • In book 4, Faith (dryad) calls Felix her "grove husband", while Goldie (dragon) addresses him as "nest-mate".
• Winds of Destiny, Change!: One of the two gods, with whom Felix strikes a bargain, is a god of trade. When his power is boosted by Felicia's machine, he is able to increase the luck of everyone in Legion by a large factor. Felix feels that if he bought a lot of lottery tickets at that moment, he would win every single one.
• With Us or Against Us: Felix adopts this view closer to the end of book 1. Anyone who is not Legion or one of his allies is his enemy.
• Would Hurt a Child: The bad guys of the first book, who are superheroes, attack a school to draw out Felix and then blow it up with kids still inside. Since Felix only owns two of them, the rest are dead permanently.
• Yandere: Book 2 reveals that the normally reserved Miu is one. Apparently, it's a nasty side effect of her amplification power: everything she feels is doubled. Thus, her love and devotion for Felix turn into madness. She knows she can't have him, since he's with Andrea and Lily, but she also wants to kill them and eat their flesh. Apparently, she's been habitually killing Others, especially those who have slept with Felix. In book 3, Felix outright call her "[his] little yandere".
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Lily can suck out another person's soul in order to boost her own power. Since Felix's point allotment is directly based on the power of his slaves, each soul she consumes is a benefit to him as well.