Planning for Future Expansion

Still grumbling to himself at the destruction of his balcony, William made his way back to his throne and sat down, thinking over the meeting that had just taken place. He knew he had stacked the deck extremely heavily in his favor in order to achieve the outcome he was hoping, that had gone as planned, what he hadn't expected to happen was for him to lose himself entirely to his bestial half during the negotiations, nor had he expected the concession from Aires to be so easy, despite all his preparations. Still, he mused, in the end things had gone well all things considered, and he now had, if not an alliance, then at least a pact of non aggression, with the one of the biggest players in the game. Glancing eastwards, though he couldn't see the outside, his eyes narrowed into a glare of concentration, knowing that while he may have won the war with Aires and his lot, there would be more enemies to come, and soon. He would have to act fast and strike first.

Anna entered the grand throne room at a measured pace until the massive doors closed behind her, at which point she broke into a sprint for her lover. Throwing herself at him, she wrapped him in a large embrace, reassuring herself that he was still with her. William returned the favor, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close. "It's done, love. I did it, he agreed." Not saying anything, just trying to bury herself closer to him, Anna nodded.William placed his fingers under her chin and gently lifted it so she was looking at him, "What's wrong, love? We don't have to worry about him anymore, at least not for our safety, I still have to go myself, bring one of the Praetorians with to keep there as a diplomat and deal with other shit, but he can't bother us anymore, so I don't see why you're..." He trailed off seeing her eyes narrow into a glare at him. "Anna?"

Suddenly tearing herself out of his embrace, she glared at him with her hands on her hips, "I was worried sick you fuck, that's what's wrong! You send me and the girls away 'for our safety', going so far as to order them not to let me come back, and then I have to sit and wait, terrified that suddenly I'll feel you die and have to deal with that and a war against the most powerful individual on the planet!" Anna felt a sense of satisfaction at the abashed look her mate was giving her, before raising an eyebrow at his next words.

"He's actually not the strongest, well, at least, not the only strongest."

Anna looked at him in askance, "What do you mean, I haven't sensed any new powers cropping up."

William coughed and rubbed the back of his head, "So the meeting didn't go quite as smooth as I might have implied, and, well... I may have gone hulk on him."

Anna's delicate eyebrow raised even farther, "'Gone hulk'?"

He nodded, "Yeah, I, uh, I lost myself completely to my instinctual half for a while. It was crazy, I only meant to go about 50/50, change my look to be closer to our full infected state, and be a bit taller and such, but when, things, happened, I lost total control. I grew to probably around 11 feet, got even bigger, I basically looked exactly like the Emperor from the comics, but the really scary part was, I wasn't in control, at least, my rational mind wasn't it was all Wey'land, none of William. I managed to get control over myself after a few minutes, but during that time, Wey'land actually matched or even slightly exceeded Aries' strength."

Anna just looked at him with her mouth slightly agape, "You were stronger than Aires?"

"As or slightly more so, yeah, seems that way." William nodded to her.

She just shook here head before looking around, "Well, the place seems mostly intact, so it looks like your little "hulk" incident didn't cause too much damage, so, tell me about the meeting."

William stood upon his balcony, gazing out over his lands. In the days following the meeting, he had ordered the drones to finish the nest, subsuming the existing buildings into concentric rings, with the tower at the center. The next ring consisted of the modified buildings, where the Praetorians lived when not directing drones in tasks or completing assignments within the tower itself. After that, what used to be a postcard worthy example of Western suburbia had been transformed. Rather than have the drones waste the time it would take to demolish and then clean the debris of the unused houses, they instead created layer upon layer of the tar-like organic material that composed the rest of the nest over and around the remaining buildings, creating an underground labyrinth with cleverly disguised entry and exit ways blending into the uneven terrain. Heh, William thought, even though they lost, the Japanese did have some pretty good ideas when it came to military logistics. Outside of that sprawling waste, the desert stretched out for as far as even his enhanced eyes could see, but, much as he had insinuated to Aires, what the eyes see can be deceiving, for while he may have taken inspiration from the Japanese inside the nest proper, outside of it was much more like something straight out of Vietnam. Hundreds of miles of tunnels, built and reinforced by the liberal application of their unique blood, wound throughout the desert. Dispersed throughout these tunnels were dozens of hollowed out chambers, which were used for a variety of things. The most common were incubation chambers, where the many eggs created by Anna and Sa'lai were stored, waiting to be given hosts to transform. Other chambers contained nothing but small alcoves dug into the walls, these were used as barracks for the drones tasked to maintain the tunnels and watch for intruders. The last, and most heavily guarded of the hollows contained the massive eggs that held the power to create new Queens, for when the Hive needed to expand or when it conquered new lands. Already they had their eyes looking towards easterly expansion, drones creating new tunnels to create a network underneath the new city that was nearby.

William chuckled to himself, let Aires have what little area there was to the west, the Hive would spread and consume the rest of the United States... His musings were interrupted by a mental call from one of his Praetorians. My Lord, there is a broadcast that you should see.

Pushing off the balcony, he made his way inside and down to the Nerve Centre, a floor of the tower dedicated to information gathering, as well and keeping an eye on various national and international news sources to determine the state of the world's nations in response to the virus. It was currently being manned by a Praetorian named Le'deh, one of six whose sole job it was to monitor the happenings of the world, each running four hour shifts with their own crew of drones. It had been a pain to create a special sub-network for each Praetorian and their drones, while keeping the Praetorians linked to him, but he had wanted them working at peak efficiency, and that meant not distraction from outside influence and allowing each Praetorian to train her drones how she wanted for maximum efficiency for her individual style of leadership. It sounded odd for a hivemind to have such a thing, but William was never one to sacrifice efficacy for image.

"What is it, Le'deh?" William asked as he entered the Nerve Centre. At a mental command from the Praetorian, a drone brought a live broadcast onto a large central screen.

Wey'land growled as he saw the face of his annoying neighbor once again. Turning to Le'deh, he barked, "Let me hear it."

She nodded and pressed a few buttons, "...We are the gods of the Contagion sweeping the country and soon the world..."

Wey'land snarled as he listened, annoyed that his plans would have to move forward, but his expression became incredulous as he listened further, "...I will hold court for both inhabitants of the city and those who are not. All those who wish to meet with, make requests of, or treat with and negotiate with me are welcome to come to my Citadel and present your case. I promise that you will be heard fairly..."

With a glare at the monitor, Wey'land snarled once more and ordered the broadcast muted. This would **** him to move forward with his plans sooner than he would have liked, he was sure that if the bastard knew he was causing an inconvenience he would be delighted. After mulling the problem over, he ordered one of the off duty tech Praetorians, Ya'ni, to gather a camera and any other equipment she would need to make a similar broadcast and meet him in his throne room in ten minutes.

In a mood, Wey'land stalked out of the Nerve Centre and grabbed a passing drone. Too annoyed to bother with mental commands, he growled at it, "Go find my mate and have her meet me in the throne room in five minutes." Before throwing it towards one of the many disguised corridors throughout the tower, where it scampered away to do as it was told.

Having been calmed down by his mate's presence and calming words, Wey'land watched as the drones under Ya'ni's control finished preparing to stream his words to the world.When she signaled that everything was ready, he took a deep breath then looked directly into the camera.

With a horrific grin on his face, showing off his razor sharp silver teeth, he began, "Peoples of the World, my name is Wey'land the Emperor, and this is my Empress..."