Dominion Chapter 23 - Final Draft (Patreon)

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 remembered seeing pictures of girls throwing themselves at him. I’d scorned them then. Thought they were useless groupies. Thought I was better than them.

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

I’d never thought of drugs as a way out. Now though, that escape would’ve been worth the ridicule. This… This was what joy meant. For me, it was finally, for a fucking minute, being able to forgive myself. Or at least forget. Or maybe just to not care.

It was… bliss.

After an eternity of luxury though, the feeling faded.

After an eternity, I remembered Emma’s death.

After a moment, I remembered those under my Dominion.

I sat up, surprised to find myself unrestrained. I was even more surprised by the presence of my thralls. Most were 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 Mannequin and probably Siberian, too.

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

One woman’s presence was pinging on my awareness behind me. Not under my control. Just like the Nine.

It could only have been one person.

“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. My throat felt chalky, like my mouth had been hanging open while I slept. I suddenly registered the drool on my cheek as feeling began to return to normal, and wiped it off with my sleeve.

“Not my objective,” came her stern voice. “More… shaping you. How you reconcile yourself with your god is your own business. My work is for the living.”

Was she speaking in prose on purpose? Her voice reminded me of an old novel. Or maybe a narrator, about to tell a grim story. All intentional. All specifically geared towards me.

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

“No. And Yes. 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 plain-looking woman. German, maybe Italian? She had no noticeable accent, or maybe her accent sounded just like mine. She wore a suit, but it fit her well. No one would mistake her for a man, if they took note of her at all. Her hat was the most noticeable thing about her, and it was barely worth mentioning. A plain grey fedora. Possibly expensive beyond belief, or just dirt cheap. I couldn’t tell, but then again I’d never been a connoisseur of fashion.

“So you admit to manipulating me. For no purpose but to specifically make me something I wasn’t. But you can’t control me, or what I do.” I seethed impotently, wishing my own words felt less like ashes in my mouth.

I turned to look down at Emma’s body. Her mouth had been curled into a twisted smile, lips cut off but done so to make it look like she was sneering at me. It had the feel of Bonesaw’s work.

I turned back to her, stealing my resolve. “I could… deny you your right person. Right now.” 

The woman rolled her eyes at my threat. I clenched my fist but she ignored that too. She took a step forward and sat down on a shelf of metal Kaiser had warped, which just happened to look like a rather thin bench. Exposing herself to me? To attack? She looked relaxed. Either she was an idiot, or so unbelievably sure of her safety that I couldn’t hope to contend with her.

I assumed the latter.

“Why? Why all this? Why me?” I asked, hating the pleading tone in my own voice.

“If you were who you were before you received your powers, I would have said that the world needed you to become a hero like no other. To matter. 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, utterly certain of her words, and they held me as sure as the Siberian’s grip.

“If I told you now that it was to save the world from a devastation more total than anything Jack could ever do or Bonesaw could ever concoct, you would roll your eyes. You have been jaded, and good works would no longer sway you. You’d think me a sadist. Another villain toying with your life, giving you a goal that could make you feel good while you do my bidding. The idea of me, your Crazy Hat Lady, having heroic intentions would be absurd to you. But they would be true and yet you still would not be the right person.”

“Save… the world? From what?”

I hated that I was taking her words as truth, but I believed her. Her way of speaking lulled me in. They would be true. They were true. I didn’t believe her. And yet I did.

“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. Usually, I could only feel an amalgam of the collected 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 all the rest.

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

The woman didn’t let me do more than that before she produced a gun and shot both of Lung’s eyes in quick succession. I blanched and flinched back, shocked by the loss of perspective.

Lung toppled out of my control for a moment, and I lost his perception as pain overwhelmed him and continued to do so. He didn’t die, though flames circled around him in a wild frenzy.

“I’ll kill you! I’ll killyou kiillyou… kill… Ahhh!” 

Under my direction, Kaiser encase him in a dome of metal, and muffled his screams along with the light of his flames. He would be back under my control as soon as the pain faded. He would be blind for some time, though. No matter to me. He screamed in rage, but inside he felt nothing but pure animalistic dread. 

“There is little outside the realm of my powers. Do you desire friends, fame, fortune, and awe rather than fear in the eyes of those who know you? Four hundred and fourteen steps. Three weeks. A trifle. Or have you changed your dreams? Obscurity, anonymity, the life of the peaceful hermit, yet still near those who you could cherish for the rest of your days? One thousand and seventy steps. Or have you found infamy to your taste? Dominion, the villain who saved everyone, now a queen of all the land, sea, and sky. Only those most trusted allowed even the taste of freedom, and even then only existing to serve your every whim? Easiest of all. Ninety four steps. Yet no path would last beyond the Ending that approaches. But if my hopes are founded, you might just help to prevent that.”

“Wait, steps… steps on a path? What...?” I asked, uncomfortable at how… good all of those lives sounded. Even the last one… I wasn’t as opposed to it as I thought I would’ve been. Not opposed at all. 

“Your will is stronger than Kaiser’s steel. Stronger than Jack’s words. Though not beyond me. That was by design. You were smelted, forged, quenched, and soon will be tempered. Your tormentor’s death was a catalyst, one of many. It has given you the instinct to fight instead of flee. Dragon was another. Dominion, too. 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. The last step is key. You need to know success. After that, I will be finished with you. After that, you can be free of even me, should you wish it.”

I shook my head, trying to come to terms with this situation, and what she was saying. To know success? Forging 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 immunization 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 metal bench. “But then you would be leaving your father in Jack’s hands. He only let you live to torture you more.”

She turned and pointed up at the wall of the gymnasium. I almost unwillingly looked to where she pointed and paled. Carved into the wall with a knife was a message for me.

“So disappointing. Fortunately, we hadn’t ever discussed the punishment for failing my test. Don’t you worry about it, little Taylor. We’ll discuss your abysmal report card 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. You 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!?”

“Stopping them myself would be as counterproductive as it would be trivial. I cannot save the world. You probably can’t either. But you might, if you grow. All of this has been to make you into the right person. Fail and I will find another… But you won’t fail. I know. It is all part of the path.”

“What path!?” I hated her self-assurance. I hated her. But what could I do? She was an idiot and I had to be suicidal to believe her, and yet…

“You’d best go soon. He won’t wait forever. Here. You’ll need this,” she said, completely ignoring my outburst as she held up two small vials. She tossed me one of them. One of Bonesaw’s. How many had she managed to take? The vial looked just like the three the tinker had given me to immunize people to my power, but the color of the liquid inside was different.

“It can reverse their immunity,” she said, clarifying. “Bonesaw used it to give Penny and Valiant back to you after your trial with her.”

I gazed at the vial in awe. With this, I could take Siberian herself as my minion if I could get around her damn skin.. Or maybe the hat lady herself.

“I don’t recommend that. Bonesaw would be your best target,” the woman said softly. “It would be wasted on the Siberian. And me.”

I growled. How the fuck? “Then why are you keeping one? Need your own leverage over me?”

“Something like that,” she said.

Her voice took on that of a teacher closing a lecture. Dry and dull. But still somehow suited to making me listen with the intensity of a lion on prey. “My work is for the living. Billions and trillions of lives are truly on the line. More lives than just our world. Or ten worlds, or even a million. Would you not ruin the life of one girl for even a chance at saving all of that? And would you spite even the devil himself, should he offer you the chance? Go save your father, Dominion. You’ll find them at home. I know you will choose well. Door, me.”

I jerked as a hole into another reality opened. The woman walked through without a word. I shouted after her, but she was gone in the blink of an eye, leaving me alone 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 vial. 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 plan the Hat Lady had for me. But that meant leaving my Dad to his fate. Both of them had hooks in me that they knew I couldn’t ignore. Both were using the same lever.

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

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I didn’t go immediately. I liked to assume both my leash-holders thought I would, but I didn’t count on it. Instead, I thought things over. The hat lady, for I still hadn’t managed to learn her name, was a problem for later. Jack and the Nine needed to be the priority right now.

What I had. What I knew.

Jack had an ability beyond projecting blades. Dodging beams fired through walls confirmed that for me. That should’ve been impossible, but he had done it anyway. He knew what I was going to do.

He knew what “I” was going to do.

And he’d been doing the same thing for years without dying. The odds were good that he had some sort of precognition, or perhaps a danger sense that alerted him when a person was planning something, and maybe even what they were planning.

So… if Jack knew what I was planning… could he even be beaten?

No… it was more specific than that. He could tell what I was planning to do. Not why I was planning to do it. Maybe. Hopefully. If that was true though...

I took stock of my resources. Sirens blaring outside told me the Protectorate, or at least the PRT were all around the area, though the gym and my hostages were likely the only thing that had kept them from just bombing me out of existence.

I had a veritable army… though still less than I’d had in the gym. Vista, Kaiser, Lung, the trashy acceleration field guy and the tinker girl who’d been with him. I didn’t know their names, so I decided to call them Layer and Wheels for reference later on. I had Faultline, Victor, and eight mercenaries. And of course. Penny. Eight capes. At least two of them were gang leaders.

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 appreciation for her art,’ as she sometimes said. But that was a vain hope. He, and now 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 simply dealt with 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.

After seeing how well I’d fared against them, I finally felt powerful. Not powerful enough, probably. But strong. Strong enough to take what I wanted. I truly believed that. I was Dominion. And the Nine owed me for their part in making me. But how could I fight them and win where I’d already lost, without Valiant to counter the Siberian? 

The only way that made sense. Counter what I already knew they would do. Who better than I? Who knew more of the nine than me?

Bonesaw was actually pretty predictable. She would have a new pet parahuman, probably Sophia transformed somehow, since they’d taken her from the gym. I was sure why Bonesaw wanted her. She would’ve been interested to see another attempt to biologically circumvent my master power. But Kaiser, Faultline, Layer, and Wheels would probably be enough to deal with whatever Bonesaw tried.

Mannequin was quite simple to counter if 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. Unfortunately, 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. I worried about him though. I didn’t know if Jack would take his fighting on my side personally. Probably not… but he could’ve hurt Ned to hurt me. He knew I cared for the monster. Then again, perhaps his loyalty was all feigned. If he’d seen me fall and decided I was no longer worth following, that meant I might have to deal with him as well.

Burnscar, Lung could handle. Lung couldn’t see, but he didn’t need to to counter her. If I needed him for anything else, I might have trouble. Then again, if I had to resort to using the fire dragon, things had already gone to hell.

Siberian… Siberian, I could do nothing about. Dodge and pray.

I didn’t know how I would counter that technicolor gas if they used it again either, but this time I knew what to expect. I wondered what those two capes had been thinking of as Bonesaw spliced them? 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 together, but not with force, or even coercion. He did so when none of them seemed to really have the same motivations. All of them… 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 he also loved winning. And murder. I couldn’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, both 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, similar to ‘Good Girl’ for Bonesaw. I’d watched Mannequin wilt at the mere mention of it.

Shatterbird was dead now, but Jack had held her with lust and temptation. Her adoration of him was obvious and he used that. I’d been too terrified back then to realize it. Perhaps her dislike of me had been rooted in jealousy? That seemed too simple, and I didn’t want to make assumptions that would lead me nowhere.

All of these powerful people, and yet Jack pulled all the strings.

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 been determined to do.

But it was words. It was all words. That, and uncanny knowledge of what I was going to do. Deafening all my minions had actually surprised him and put him on the backfoot, but hadn’t stopped him from predicting me. So I would hear him. And I would be swayed, like I always was. Like all of his projects were. Even if I wasn’t, he would have a contingency. Probably three of them at the very least. Bonesaw’s operations on me? Surely untrustworthy. My own abilities could be taken away, rendering me helpless. So… how could I win?

Scorched earth? I could attack the ground around him and make the land so dangerous that it might kill him. Might kill me too, but that would probably be worth it.

Siberian. Again. Fuck.

So many parahumans. So… many… parahumans.

My eyes widened.

In all that time… Jack had never, ever, been interested in normal people. The closest I’d ever seen him come to even feigning interest in more than terrorizing them was the very night we’d met. He’d let Bonesaw turn a woman into a monstrosity of blades, but he hadn’t done it for her. He’d done it for me. Because of my control of her. Because she was an extension of me. Because he could use her to manipulate me.

An idea, an inkling began to form, as I looked over my minions. Maybe… It would be a big gamble. But maybe… it might just work.

I turned to Vista and began to speak.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

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. The capes, Wards and Protectorate, 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.

I still wasn’t sure why Dragon hadn’t been involved at the school. She seemed like the obvious person to send in, but she hadn’t showed up, even after most of the Nine had left. Miss Militia, who was also immune to my power after our meeting on the rig, also hadn’t shown, though they might not have trusted her immunity enough to risk her. Actually, the lack of PRT interference was probably the Hat Lady working in the background. I had to physically restrain myself from seething at the thought of her, letting Penny massage my back to sooth me.

At least now I had some idea of what the fuck she wanted. She wanted me to change mentally in some incredibly specific way. Path. Whatever.

For now, the enemy of my enemy... I’d need all the backup I could get, no matter how much I hated the sources of that backup. Being captured by Dragon while I’d been drugged to the gills would’ve been… unfortunate.

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

Finally, my home came into view, and I let Vista go, running her to the edge of my radius as a sign of good faith. I hoped and prayed the Protectorate, and Dragon more than anyone, might try to help me. But if not, well… Vista didn’t deserve to die like Valiant and Watson had.

The Nine had probably noticed that I’d released the civilians. Emma and Valiant notwithstanding, and now that I’d let Vista go, there was a chance that I’d engendered enough good will to get a bit of amnesty on that point. Keeping her would’ve been nice but letting her go was necessary if I wanted to avoid the heroes going nuclear. The others, I had to keep.

I felt the Nine as they entered the range of my power. They 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 toppled, 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 hadn’t gained control of them, of course. I never could. But I’d learned to feel their locations, even if their senses weren’t available to me. Bonesaw and her puppet were in the basement. Jack in the living room. Mannequin I couldn’t feel but suspected he was nearby. Siberian, I had never been able to feel. 

Two people 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. The other was utterly unrecognizable from the strange senses I could get from her. And yet the way my power could hold her made me sure of who she was. Sophia. She was in the basement, but her senses were strange. Wider. Like she could feel the entire room on her skin. She was in agony, she couldn’t move, and she was terrified.

She wasn’t alone.

I opened the door slowly, stepping inside the home I’d grown up in.

I had my army circle my home, preparing our assault. Only Penny followed me inside.

Jack was there, seated in the living room chair. He was the one my powers were slipping around. He looked afraid. Pale as a ghost. I’d never seen Jack look like that before. He didn’t seem to be able to speak, but his eyes widened at the sight of me.

Jack was also there, sitting on the couch next to the Siberian. The one that I knew. The one my power could only register as present. Had they cloned him?

Siberian was chewing on a human leg, because of course she was. It was actually a bit amazing how trite their intimidation became after a while.

“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. Would it really have been that hard to just stab the girl? She died anyway.”

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

…Back to the clone, as grim realization set in.

“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 this time. There were scars, but they were in the same places as those on Jack’s face. It would be hard to tell the difference.

But the eyes were enough.

Jack probably meant it to be symbolic. He liked to think himself a philosopher. Fitting. Accurate, in a fucked up way, but hardly original anymore. It was cruel. But nothing more than what had already been done to me. This too, I could weather. Did he really think this would get to me? After Emma? After… everything?

“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, there can only be one me. Still, she–!”

“Shhh!” I hissed 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, assured of his victory. He knew what I was planning before I did.

So why hide it?

I pulled out the vial.

“I must admit, I expected a little more care for your poor dad. Oh? The vials. I was wondering about that. How did you do it? It was actually what convinced me to let you live. Stealing from Bonesa–!”

“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, while thinking furiously about what advantages I might have. 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–!”

“He really doesn’t ever shut up,” I said. “On and on and onnn–!”

Jack, now truly annoyed with my dismissal, sliced through the air with his knife to stab his lookalike in the shoulder. My dad jerked and screamed soundlessly, trying to pull away from the extended knife. His voice wasn’t working though. Nor was his body, it seemed.

Oh Dad. 

Jack retracted it, as I knew he would. He wanted to see the grief and sorrow in my eyes. The disbelief. The anger. He lived for outrage and fear. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“I guess I’d better get to it. I’m sorry I ran away, Dad. For the things I said when I called a few months ago. Maybe things would’ve been better if I had gone to the Birdcage. God knows I deserve it. My power… only takes. And I guess I’ve grown or… or been shaped to fit it, too.”

Tears were trailing down Dad’s cheeks. He probably couldn’t even hear me. I was sure the stab wound hurt, but probably no more than his impromptu surgery had.

I took in the room, surprised to find two dead PRT officers on the floor. Throats were slit, decaying and even attracting a few flies despite the early time of year. Discarded like so much chaff. More evidence that Jack only cared about Parahumans.

Perhaps they’d been Dad’s protective detail?

Well. Perhaps their deaths would be what I needed to prove my theory. If I was wrong, I died. Or lost, which was probably worse.

“I don’t know if I can save you. Probably not. But… can you forgive me? I’m not a very good person anymore. If I survive this, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be normal again. But I don’t think I want that anymore,” I told him.

Jack seemed content to listen. The Siberian looked ready to dive at me.

Burnscar was in the kitchen, watching over the island that separated the rooms. Bonesaw was in the basement. Fuck. That would make things hard.

“I want to matter. Maybe that’s from Jack. Maybe it’s from me. But even if I don’t die today, and you somehow make it out alive… I’m not coming home. Okay? Not to say it’s the right thing to do, or even to make amends. I’m one of the Nine.” Jack grunted, while Siberian frowned. I shot them both a glare and continued on. “Or close enough as would make no difference to anyone else. But not because I was forced or coerced or prodded or any of that. It’s because I want power. I want it like you wouldn’t believe. And Dad?”

He seemed to find the will to focus on me through his wound. Blood leaked over his shirt. It wasn’t fatal, though. Not enough blood for that.

“I’m gonna take it. The city, the country, the fucking world. So… can you maybe just… forgive me?” I asked.

I waited a long moment. Letting him look back at me for a long time. Finally though. He nodded.

I breathed out, feeling at least a little true contentment.

“Pretty speech,” Jack said. “It’ll be fun to make you recite it to Bonesaw. She’s preparing a surprise for you below. I wonder, how would you handle being stuck inside your little bully forever? Never able to hear anything but her? I know you have an issue with small spaces.”

“That the best you can do? This, too? It’s supposed to intimidate me?” I replied, finally turning to look at him with a deadpan expression. “You’re slipping Jack. You’ve made my dad look younger and stronger. How terrible.”

Jack grinned. “So what was your plan? Hope you could stab one of us with the vial? You might’ve had a shot with Valiant. Those glass knights were a true pain. Shame that one had to go. Might’ve been fun making something of him after we’ve disposed of you. I wasn’t quite done with you yet.”

“It was a shame. He was a powerful cape. You are so fond of those, after all,” I agreed. “But I think that’s enough words really. Siberian? Still siding with Jack? Any chance you’d mind just biting his arms off? He could really use the handicap,”

Siberian shrugged and looked at Jack. Jack held up a finger and wagged it at her. She grinned, showing off wicked teeth, then turned back towards me.

“I thought not. Well, Jack, it’s been… horrible. It’s time for you to die, though,” I said, letting the contentment of my Dad’s forgiveness wash over me, giving me strength. “The Nine are mine, now.”

He snorted. Cackled a little, before meeting my eyes. He nodded at me too, a sharp contrast to my father’s, a manic grin of pure amusement coloring his features. He knew my plan. He thought it was idiotic. He knew I couldn’t win.

His knife came like lightning, but I was quicker. I dodged to the left, letting the knife spear the bookcase that held Mom’s favorites behind me. Dad struggled, but couldn’t move.

Siberian stood slowly, content to play with her food. She stepped in front of Jack while I brandished the vial at her. She flinched back, and then laughed silently, play acting fear.

A spear of metal blasted through the television and slammed into her side. The spike didn’t penetrate her skin, but it did manage to shove her aside. Jack took full advantage, his blade flashing. I wasn’t quick enough to dodge again, but the metal spike warped upwards, creating a shield. The knife clanged loudly against the thin metal.

Burnscar screamed in frustration from the kitchen as it became apparent that Lung was stifling her flames again. “Siberian, do something about the fire fucker outside!”

I considered letting Lung blast the Siberian with fire in the hopes of distracting her, but didn’t dare risk letting Burnscar have enough flames to enter the fray. Instead, I used the mercenaries to begin firing. One on the roof set a grenade to blow a hole in the ceiling. I backed away, Kaiser’s metal protecting me from the periodic lashes of a blade while I always made sure to keep at least two sets of eyes on Jack’s dagger.

Penny aimed at Burnscar and fired a beam at her head, but the girl ducked backwards, ceasing her attempts to manipulate fire. Jack retaliated in kind, stabbing for Penny, but was blocked by Kaiser’s metal again.

Siberian made another lunge at me, but I used Layer to cover the living room floor in rings. Amusingly, Siberian bounced a few feet before landing in another and bouncing again, tossed about like a ball in a wind tunnel. After a few moments of this, she seemed to grow irritated and did something that just cancelled the effect of Layer’s acceleration fields and fell through them to the floor. 

Fucking Siberian.

I sprinted away towards the corner of the room just as the grenade on the roof exploded, blasting a hole into the ceiling. A second escape route if I needed it, and it also served to obscure Siberian’s view for a few moments. 

Chaos erupted as all of my mercenaries began to fire, six rays of purple beams crisscrossing through the house, leaving holes in the walls that let the afternoon light spill through. Jack dodged lazily. Siberian let them hit her and she acted like they tickled.

Burnscar wasn’t so lucky. One of the beams struck her in the stomach, punching a hole straight through. She screamed and toppled to the floor, clutching at the blood gushing from her stomach. I didn’t give her a chance to recover. I followed up with Penny’s sniper beam, slicing through her skull with a spray of blood across the linoleum floor. Just like that, Mimi died.

Lung erupted. He smashed through the corner of a wall, wreathed in flames as he tore out a side of my home, leaving me and Jack coughing in the dust. 

Funny. Jack wasn’t immune to old fashioned dust. Another hole in his unbreakable façade.

Lung lunged for the Siberian. His eyesight was rapidly returning but things were still blurry so I had to control him via the views of others around him. As a result, his clawed hand scraped the sofa instead, missing Siberian entirely without her even needing to move. I took advantage of the moment of distraction to dash towards Jack, the vial upraised to stab him and gain control.

If I could control Jack, I won everything. And he knew I planned to stab him with the vial. I would try with all my heart to do so. That was all there was to my plan. 

That had to be all there was to my plan.

He dodged my wild swings before lazily backhanding me across the face. I sprawled to the ground right in front of my Dad, who was still struggling to move. Kaiser attacked, which distracted Jack just enough to keep him from hitting me with a lethal blow. I screamed as the blade aimed for my heart took me in the rib instead.

My minions halted jilted by my own pain and temporary inability to control them perfectly. I paid for it. My mercenary on the roof and Layer both suddenly died, spines snapped by two chained limbs. Jack wasn’t idle either, finally tiring of Kaiser’s ability to protect me, he thrust his knife towards one of the few remaining untouched pieces of wall. I tried to get the man to dodge, but was too slow with the pain addling my control. 

The knife took Kaiser in the eyehole of his armor and sliced through his brain. He died faster than Mimi had. 

Mannequin landed upon the roof and smashed through it, landing between Jack and me. The spears in his feet cut through the floor, buzzing saw blades extending from his arms, as he swung them down at me. Only the deaths of my thralls gave me enough forewarning to dodge back out of the way.

Penny used her bludgeoning beam and managed to snap off one of the buzz saws from Mannequin’s arm. Its empty handle folded back into Mannequin even as he reeled in his other chain arm from above, leaving a trail on the roof of Layer’s blood.

Come on… they have to hurry…

As if my thoughts had hailed them, bullet fire echoed from outside, joining the periodic burst of rays that the mercenaries were still using to carve holes in the house. The bullets slammed into Mannequin, repeatedly denting his pristine form. The bullets didn’t seem to ricochet off him like normal ones would, instead falling dead as they hit him in the confined space. Miss Militia entered my range, firing into the house along with the mercenaries. She appeared from nowhere, evidence of Vista’s power. 

I almost cried with relief. They probably couldn’t help much, knowing my suspicions about Jack’s secondary ability, but all the help I could get would be needed.

Siberian had been tearing Lung to pieces, but the dragon man had grown taller than my house at this point and controlling him was actually becoming difficult. Not that I was losing control, but keeping him from crushing my own thralls was harder and harder. He’d done his job though. He’d made a hole in the house. Four entrances now. That had to be enough.

“Really?” Jack shouted, delighted. “You already tried this Dominion! I can’t be killed this way.”

To emphasize his point, the Siberian stepped away from its newest carving on Lungs scales to grab hold of Jack, just in time to make him invulnerable from a series of tinker tech beams that would have skewered him just like Burnscar.

I grit my teeth in frustration. I wanted to know what was going on! But if I knew… then so would Jack.

I was getting desperate, and running out of Parahumans fast. Faultline ran through one of the openings in the collapsing wall and reached out to touch the Siberian. To my shock, and joy, the creature ripped into pieces before evaporating nothingness, with a wonderful scream. 

I turned Faultline to run towards me and hopefully to be an added layer of protection between Jack and I, but Siberian reappeared like she always did and skewered my minion through the chest with her claw. She lifted the woman up, feet dangling as I felt the blood in her mouth. She didn’t die quickly like the others had so far, and I was forced to feel her last breaths as she hung there.  

Suddenly, it happened.

Just below me, where Bonesaw was happily ignorant of the battle above, someone jabbed her in the back with her own vial. Someone cloaked with tinker tech, who’d snuck in. I didn’t know how. I couldn’t know how. That was the key. It was someone not under my control. A mercenary. The first one I’d given my two remaining control vials to. I’d trusted them, perhaps stupidly, to find a way to stab her with the real vial the Hat Lady had given me.

Trusted their greed really. 

The vial I had been using was empty, but Jack had never realized it because I’d given everything I’d had to trying to stab him with it. Hiding what I was really doing with it. Trusting someone else. Hiding my real intention by not letting myself know how they were even going to attempt it.

And now, Bonesaw was mine. 

Jack’s eyes widened suddenly in shock. Too late.

Spiders erupted out of the basement door under my new puppet’s power. Bonesaw got to work immediately, synthesizing more of the antidote to the Nine’s immunity. Most importantly of all, through Bonesaw, I would soon have her creation. The lizard man and darkness generator who had taken my whole army out the first time. I wondered if Jack would fare better. 

“Where is Crawler, Jack!?” I shouted, as my spiders surrounded the three remaining members of the Nine.

Mannequin took ahold of Siberian as well, and Miss Militia stopped firing. Still, she entered the house as I spoke.

“Clever,” Jack said, looking somewhat irritated, as he saw Bonesaw walked up the stairs. “Very clever. The vial in your hand is empty, isn’t it? Well, this just went from fun to tedious. Siberian? Kill her. She’s taken Bonesaw captive.”

Siberian’s expression went from playful to livid in an instant. Dragging the other two along, she lunged faster than Jack’s knives ever could.

I didn’t even have the time to flinch before the Siberian stood before me, her gore covered claws reared back to cleave my head off. I screamed, firing everything I could at the invulnerable woman.

Then… she just popped. Poof. Gone, just like she had done when Valiant’s knights had impeded her. Unlike then though… this time she did not reappear.

Jack seemed stunned. Then, angry.

Miss Militia fired. Bonesaw’s spiders pounced on the two, but Mannequin sliced them to ribbons as they came. My mercenaries too seemed uncannily unable to hit Jack. Penny’s beam weapon did nothing. Even Lung took a heaving swing and still the man managed to wriggle out of the way just before being crushed.

I took the moment to pull my, somehow miraculously unharmed dad to the ground, where at least he might be a little safer than sitting up, paralyzed upon the couch.

“You can’t beat me, Taylor!” Jack shouted gleefully as he dodged and weaved. Victor could see him now and was sapping his skill. Had been attempting to sap his skill to dodge for the entire fight, but the man could move like lightning. 

“No matter what you have, no matter how many you control. I can take yo–!”

But not fast enough.

A purple beam from one of the Mercenary’s guns took him in the back. He toppled to the floor. A frown of fear on his face and a hole in his chest.

He stared down, incomprehension. Looked back up, his eyes filled with utter disbelief. Such a simple weakness he’d had all along.

I grinned, as Penny held up a finger. 

“So King fell. So too do you, Jack. Goodbye.”

She fired. This time, he could do nothing to stop it. His brain exploding out of the back of his head was the most satisfying thing I’d ever seen.

After an indeterminate amount of time spent just staring at his corpse with tears of joy falling down my cheeks, I turned to look at the other mercenary immune to my control. The one who hadn’t fired until he had a clear shot. The man who’d killed Jack Slash. 

“Thank you… and thank God,” I said before tumbling into the shredded couch. I looked up at Mannequin, my army surrounding him, each of them aiming for him.

“It actually worked,” he said. “Hot damn, we’re going to be so rich. You’re still lucky you chose me and Frankie, though. Most the others would’ve turned tail,” Larkin said, stepping into the now destroyed home, holding his rifle barrel down.

“It wasn’t luck. I spelled out my plan. You and he both seemed eager to try, and I can feel emotions. Dimly. The others didn’t. Though… that one might’ve,” I said pointing to the dead body on the roof. 

“Yea. Seamus was a bit of a daredevil,” Larkin replied. “Shame. Ah well. Just so you know, I’ll be taking the bounty for killing Jack.” 

“As agreed. Thanks for trusting my hunch,” I said. 

Mannequin was still standing there, just dumbstruck by how easily and simply Jack had just died. I finally turned to him, and he swayed a little like a broken doll.

“So. The Nine’s under new management, Mannequin. You can go off on your own, and get caught sooner or later. You’re good, but the dents in your armor are enough to prove that you’re not that good. Or… you can join my Dominion. What’s it going to be?”

Mannequin looked at the array of capes — Bonesaw included — under my control. The mercenaries with weapons capable of penetrating Bonesaw’s enhancements. Lung. Penny. 

He sat down on the armrest of the destroyed couch.

“Dominion,” Miss Militia said, as she slowly lowered her own weapon from Mannequin. “My first instinct is to place you under arrest. But I think you’ve earned at least a bit of leeway with what you’ve done today. What… happened between the rig and now? What made you change sides?”

Ah. That little lie.

I looked at the heroine and scoffed. “Change sides!? What gave you that idea? After what Dragon did? Tricking me into the Birdcage just because I had a scary power? I was innocent then. I didn’t deserve that. And clearly, ways around it could have been found. But now… well. Now I hold all the cards.”

She stiffened. Her weapon, a handgun of some sort, switched back to the machine gun she’d used on Mannequin. I watched her swallow as a cold sweat broke out on her brow.

“But… Vista told us you were still trying to be a Hero…”

I grinned a smile every bit as manic as any Jack ever had.

“I really did want to know,” I said, standing. “If you could take the pressure. If you could take the manipulations. If you could withstand making the best of bad choices over and over again until you could no longer see the good in yourself. It might’ve been interesting,” I said to her. “I’d like to have known if the best of the PRT was as good as they claimed. I’d like to think you would have stayed a paragon. I’d like to think you would never have sunk like I did.”

The heroine met my eyes coldly. “I wouldn’t have.”

“I believe you. But… well, I did.” 

Bonesaw’s spiders fired three times, claiming Miss Militia and the two Mercenaries as mine once again. I grinned.

This would be the start of my Dominion.

Now, to see what Bonesaw had done to Sophia... and to find my damn steed.