Dominion Chapter 23 - Draft (Patreon)

A/N: It's been a while since I've actually given you guys an early access benefit. So a 3k snippet from Dominion sound good? I know Sowing doubt won the vote and I'm working on that too... but this is getting really close to complete. I want to finish it. So... enjoy this terribly unedited version of half or less of the next chapter. 

As always with chapters like this, scenes are subject to change or deletion before the final chapter is released over on SB. 

Chapter Twenty Three – The Homecoming

I felt good. Honestly, I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt so good. I’d heard of Newter before even becoming a parahuman myself, and remember seeing pictures of girls throwing themselves at him. I’d scorned them then. Thought they were useless groupies. Thought myself better than them. 

I was just ignorant. Or perhaps even then I wouldn’t have enjoyed the feelings running through me. Then, things weren’t so bad that I needed to run. The bullying? I could’ve lived with that if I’d known what was coming after. 

Now though, the escape would’ve been worth the ridicule. This…? This was what joy mean. For me, it was finally, for a fucking minute, being able to forgive myself. Or at least forget. Or maybe just the ability to not care. 

I was so tired of being pulled and prodded around. Changed. 

I reveled in the feeling. Even waking felt amazing. Even knowing I was likely going to be spliced with someone, or turned into a monstrosity, or tortured, I felt great. 

I sat up, surprised to find myself unrestrained. Even more surprising was the presence of my Thralls, all where I’d left them, almost all of them feeling equally euphoric as they too recovered. Crawler was gone, as were the impressions of the rest of the nine that I could usually feel. 

I stood slowly, looking around the ruined gymnasium. Crawler, apparently, hadn’t been affected by the euphoria cloud, because he had clearly continued rampaging after we’d all fallen unconscious. The wall had holes in it where Crawler had clearly continued trying to fight the Siberian. 

Jack, Mannequin, Burnscar, and Bonesaw were all gone though. But I wasn’t entirely alone. 

One woman was pinging on my presence behind me. Not under my control in the same way the nine weren’t. 

“So. It’s your turn to make a play for my soul, I guess? Finally came out of the shadows, Crazy Hat Lady?” I asked softly, not turning around. 

“Not the goal,” came an older, stern voice. “More… shaping you. How you recount yourself with your god is irrelevant.” 

“Not even a hint of remorse. I should’ve known you’d be more heartless than even Jack. Did you orchestrate my encounters with the nine? With Dragon? Fuck, was Laserdream your fault, too?” 

“No. My interest in you began shortly before I first contacted you. You are part of a path that I’ve always hoped for. The right person. Or you will be. Very soon.”

I turned to face her. She was a non-descript woman. German, maybe Italian? She had no noticeable accent. She wore a suit and had short black hair creeping out of it. Her hat was the most noticeable thing about her, and even it was barely worth mentioning. A Fedora. Possibly expensive beyond belief. Possibly dollar store cheap. I couldn’t tell. 

“Unless I choose not to be. Unless I choose to just kill myself like I’ve probably deserved all this time,” I said. I turned to look down at Emma’s body. Her mouth has been curled into a twisted smile. Probably Bonesaw’s work. “Deny you your… right person. Fuck, what in god’s name could you need with a person like me?” 

She took a step forward and sat down on a shelf of metal Kaiser had warped, that happened to look like a rather thin bench. 

“If you were who you were before your powers, I would have said to be a hero like no other. I would have told you that, and you would have listened. It would have been true. But you wouldn’t have been the right person.” She spoke in absolutes, certain utterly of her words. And they held me. Held me as sure as the Siberian’s grip could. 

“If I tell you now that it is to save the world from a devastation more total than any Jack could ever make or Bonesaw could ever concoct, you would roll your eyes. You have been jaded, and good works no longer sway you. You think I am a sadist. Another villain toying with your life. The idea of me, your Crazy Hat Lady, having heroic intentions would be absurd to you, after all the ruin my messages have brought to you. But they would still be true. And you still would not yet be the right person.” 

“Save… the world? From what? And what could I possibly do to fix a problem that big? Especially as a criminal, an outlaw, and a person completely dependent on psychopaths to keep from going insane myself?!” 

For emphasis, I had Lung approach her, looming ominously. For some reason though, Lung actually resisted. I could usually only feel an amalgam of all of the emotions of my thralls. Lung though, was completely terrified. So much so that his own personal fear drowned out all the outrage and fear and even the euphoria lingering from Newter’s drug. 

Who was this woman to Lung? Perhaps she had manipulated him the same as me.

The woman didn’t let me do more than that before she produced a gun and shot Lung in both eyes. I blanched and flinched back. I wasn’t exactly afraid of a gun, but the sheer suddenness of the act had shocked me. 

Lung toppled out of my control for a moment, and I lost his point of view as pain overwhelmed him and continued to do so. He didn’t die, though flames circled around him in a wild frenzy. I had Kaiser encase him in a dome of metal, and his screams were muffled. 

“Your will is stronger than Kaiser’s steel. Stronger than Jack’s words. Though not beyond me. That was by design. You were tempered. You were smelted. Your tormentor’s death was a catalyst. It has given you the instinct to fight instead of flee. The name was to give you the confidence for what is to come. You need not fear loneliness. Bonesaw has already given you the immunity serum. All you need now is to give her the antidote. You need to finally know success. After that, I will be finished with you. After that, you can be free of even me.” 

I shook my head, trying to come to terms with this weird situation. With what she was saying. To know success? Temper me? Shaping me for something? It was all fucked up.” 

“You’re wrong. I can be free of you right now. Like you said. Bonesaw gave me the immunity to my own power. I could go where no one could find me. Or I could have Kaiser kill me right now. I’m beginning to think that’s preferable, to helping you.” 

“You could,” she replied, hopping off the bench made from Kaiser’s power. “But then you would leave your father in Bonesaw’s hands.” 

She turned and pointed up at the wall of the gymnasium. I almost unwillingly looked to where she pointed and paled. 

“So disappointing. Fortunately, we hadn’t ever mentioned the punishment for failing my test though. Don’t you worry about it, little Taylor. We’ll discuss your abysmal report card over with your father.” 

–Jack

I snarled, my voice growing in anger and volume as I realized how much I hated this woman. “You let this happen. You could’ve stopped them. Could stop them all if you wanted! You’re everywhere. Can be anywhere. I saw you taking that vial from Bonesaw. Without her noticing. Without the fucking Biotinker noticing you! You let them do this! Let them leave. Let them live! How do you plan to convince me you’re… you’re… heroic, when you do things like this!?” 

“Convincing you of my heroism is absolutely irrelevant. You stopping Jack is all that matters. And here,” she said, tossing me a small vial. One of Bonesaw’s. It looked just like the ones the little girl had given me. I could shoot it, using her upgrades in my arm, but it worked just as well to stab someone with it. 

It could reverse the immunity. With this, I could take Siberian herself as my minion.

“I don’t recommend that. Bonesaw would be a better target,” the woman said softly. “For what it’s worth, Taylor. I am sorry. Door.”

I jerked in sudden horror as a hole into another reality opened, and the woman walked through without a word. 

I shouted at her but she was gone in an eyeblink. Leaving me along with my thoughts, my thralls, my dead ex-best friend, and the ever growing sound of sirens in the distance. 

I stared down at the needle. It looked like a syringe mixed with a dart, and within it a yellow liquid bubbled, boiling at room temperature. 

A part of me just wanted to leave. That would deprive Jack of the game. That would ruin whatever plot the Hat Lady had for me. But that meant leaving my Dad to his fate. Both my controllers had hooks they knew I couldn’t ignore. Both used the same lever. 

And fuck if I knew how I might ever escape either of them. 

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I approached my old home slowly. The Protectorate had come to the edge of my radius more than once as my horde moved through the city, catching and releasing people as we went. Vista was a great deterrent, casually capturing those who actually meant me harm, while I took over their bodies and broke their weapons or vehicles before releasing them as needed. The capes were remaining out of the fight entirely. I supposed someone higher up must’ve decided involving them would only give me more firepower than I already had. 

Probably wise. They’d probably noticed that I’d released citizens. Emma notwithstanding. 

I had no idea what I would be facing, though based on their attitudes and habits, I could assume a lot about what they would do.

Bonesaw was actually pretty predictable. She would have a new pet parahuman, probably Sophia since she was missing. She’d had some sort of immunity to my power, not to mention a power of her own. It hadn’t worked, but it showed that she’d tried to prepare for me. But for a twist of luck, she might’ve hit me with that gun. And of course, she was gone. I was sure Bonesaw wanted her. Probably would’ve interested her to see another attempt to biologically circumvent my master power. But Kaiser, Faultline, the disgusting man with the layers who’d lost his arm and the tinker girl he’d brought with him to the bar would probably be enough to deal with whatever Bonesaw did. 

Mannequin was quite simple to counter of Crawler was still on my side. Crawler would inevitably beat the humanoid over an extended period of time, as he had shown in our last fight. Unfortuantely Crawler was gone, and his disappearance concerned me. I was pretty sure I had his loyalty at this point, but that only went as far as the next fight. If he was still fighting with the Siberian, or if she’d beaten him, things were alright. If he’d seen me fall and decided I was no longer worth following that meant I would have to deal with him as well. 

Burnscar, Lung could handle. Lung couldn’t see, since the Hat Lady had shot out his eyes and they were still regenerating, but he didn’t need to. 

Siberian… Siberian, I could do nothing about.

Valiant was dead. His throat had been crushed when I awoke. That annoyed me. On the surface anyway. Deep down, the grief and guilt at having kidnapped and brought him to his death, was paralyzing. I’d never seen what had become of Watson. I liked to pretend sometimes that he was still alive. That Bonesaw had let him go, to spread appreciate for her art, as she sometimes said. Valiant would never return home. And deep inside, I grieved for what I’d done to the two of them. Hated myself for it. 

But I didn’t spread that guilt to my minions anymore. I just ignored it. I held it in and made it a part of the many terrible things I could let myself mourn for later. After I’d done this. After I’d made the nine my own. Maybe after I’d killed Jack himself. He was a fool not to kill me. 

For the first time in my life, after seeing how I’d fared against the nine on my own. After seeing that only an unexpected trick had been able to stop me, I truly believed that. I was Dominion. And the nine owed me for their part in making me. 

I didn’t know how I would counter that technicolor gas if they used it again, but this time I knew what to expect. I wondered what those two capes had been thinking of. Random chance had brought them together under Bonesaw’s knife. Now they were her puppet, every bit as much as Penny and Valiant had been mine. 

Even if I could handle all of that though, there was still Jack. It always came down to Jack. 

He kept the nine all in line. All together when none of them seemed to really have the same motivation. All of us, beings with powers that seemed superior to his own. 

Siberian seemed intent on protecting Bonesaw, but also on mayhem. Crawler’s focus had always been on finding bigger fights. He loved pain, but also loved winning. And murder. Can’t forget the murder. Bonesaw had been groomed as Jack’s… successor? No. Protégé seemed closer. She wanted to be like him and he adored the attention, so she came up with more and more creative ways to twist parahumans. For fun and to entertain Jack. Burnscar loved the nine when she was consumed with fire, but would rather be anywhere else when there was none. Mannequin…

I didn’t know what Jack had on Mannequin. Guilt? Sometimes he used Sphere’s real name as a barb, and I’d watched Mannequin wilt at the mention of it. 

But there was one more. 

Myself. Jack knew exactly what to say to ruin me. The Hat Lady seemed to be able to circumvent this, her own manipulations preventing me from killing Emma, like I had actually been determined to do. 

But it was words. It was all words. Deafening all my minions had actually surprised him and put him on the backfoot. I couldn’t count on that working again though. I would hear him. And I would be swayed, like I always was. Like all of his projects were. Even if I weren’t, he had a contingency. Probably three of them. Bonesaw’s operations on me? Surely untrustworthy. My own abilities could be taken away, and I could not stop at least one of their members in any way. So… how could I win? 

An idea began to form.

I stepped onto my old lawn, feeling weight there, and instantly felt them within my power. The nine were in my house. It was easy to tell. All of the houses surrounding my own were destroyed. My neighbors. The people I’d grown up with. They were likely all dead. The street was torn to shreds. Dirt and debris filled the sidewalks and chunks of the road had been ripped out and thrown around the neighborhood. Trees were fallen, and nearby buildings collapsed on themselves. They had stabbed the nearest gas station’s sign pole into the collapsed foundation of my neighbor’s house. It looked like some sort of terrible flag. The label had been covered and painted red. 

It was horrifying. And tacky. 

I didn’t gain control of them of course. I never did. But I’d learned to feel their locations, even if their senses and control of them wasn’t available to me. 

But one person did enter my control. Sort of. Much like my power had felt like holding a greasy pan when controlling Emma and Sophia, it now felt similar while holding this new person. My powers slipped around them, like a sled on snow. This was what Emma and Sophia had probably hoped for. My powers could not hold the person and I stopped trying when I began to get a headache. 

I opened the door slowly, stepping inside first. 

Jack was there. He was the one my powers were slipping off of. He looked utterly terrified. He didn’t seem to be able to speak, but his eyes widened at the sight of me.

Jack was also there. The one that I knew. The one my power could only register as present. Had they cloned him?

“Hello there, little Taylor,” Jack, the real one, exclaimed. “We wondered how long it would take you to come to us. You were so disappointing at the school. I’d had such high hopes for you, too.” 

I looked to him, then to his clone. Back to him. 

Back to the clone. 

“… Hi Dad,” I said. “I’ve… been running with a pretty bad crowd, huh?” 

The clone’s eyes softened, tears forming around eyes that never belonged to Jack Slash. Bonesaw had outdone herself. There were scars, but they were in the same places as those on Jack’s face. It would be hard to tell the difference. 

“Bonesaw really did outdo herself. He’s the spitting image of me! She even considered trying to make him trigger with my power, but alas, the job was rushed. We’d have needed a few weeks to–!”

“Shhh!” I shouted at him, holding up a finger like Mom used to. “Sorry, Dad. Jack never learned to mind his manners. It’s actually a pretty big weakness of his.” 

Jack laughed, for all the world in control. For all the world, sure of his own victory. He knew what I was planning before I did.

So why hide it? 

I pulled out the vial. 

“Ah. I was wondering about that. How did you do it? Stealing from Bones–!”

“SHHH!” I hissed again, but never looked away from my Dad. “Seriously. You’d think he was a toddler. Always whining and crying for attention. Look at what I did, lookit lookit!”

I put as much petulance into the words as I could. Bonesaw had used Emma and Sophia’s trick to make Dad immune to my power and she had done it better somehow. But it still wasn’t as good as her serum. Could I use that? Probably not. 

“You’re beginning to bore me, Little Ta–!” 

Vista’s power lengthened the space between us by nearly the length of a football field. I laughed at his annoyance. 

“He really doesn’t ever shut up,” I said. Jack sliced through the distance with his knife in a blink, stretching across the stretched space to stab my dad in the shoulder. The clone my dad had become jerked and screamed soundlessly, trying to pull away from the extended knife. 

I was sure he was horrified. I wasn’t sure if I could save him. Probably not. He wasn’t restrained but he was probably being controlled. Bonesaw once again.