Not a Team Player

[Lord Dominator]

The barracks may not be the most comfortable place Dominator had ever slept, but they were at least safe, warm, and they had a bed. The other members of the Koopa Army had swiftly learned that it was best not to annoy the green-skinned tyrant, and had wisely decided to leave her to her rest.
 
When, at last, Dominator stopped snoring, it was to raise herself from her bunk with a loud yawn and a stretch.
 
"Okay, note to self, no more rum pineapples. Ever."
 
The woman grumbled as she stalked towards the communal bathroom. The door opened, she stepped inside.
 
"GET OUT OF HERE! NOW!"
 
And after the frantic koopas and assorted other freaks and weirdos fled, she was free to go through her morning routine in peace and tranquillity. This wasn't going to work on a permanent basis, but then, she'd never intended that it would. She had business that she needed to take care of, the question was whether she could extract anything else of value from these Koopa Troops before she went on her merry way.
 
When she finally emerged from the bathroom, most of the other soldiers were arranged up by the far end of the barracks, a Koopa in a helmet waving a crop beneath their noses.
 
"Alright you horrible lot!" 'Drill Sergeant Koopa' - as Dominator decided to name him - barked to his erstwhile charges. "We're going to head down to the parade grounds and do some training drills!"
 
His head turned towards Dominator, wrapped in a bathrobe with a towel holding her hair up. "I guess little Miss Prime over there won't be joining us? Afraid to pit yourself against the little people?"
 
Dominator hadn't been paying much attention, focusing more intently on getting herself a morning coffee - which, to her delight, she had achieved. She took a long sip from her beverage, and smacked her lips - only then aware that the rest of the troop were now staring at her as though expecting her to respond to some sort of challenge.
 
"Hm? Oh, sure. Let's do this."
 
The training ground was hopelessly archaic by Dominator’s standards, just a flat expanse of concrete over the ashen terrain, studded with a few token efforts at obstacles for the troopers to run their way through. It hardly looked like the kind of place that Dominator could really stretch her legs – although she was, at least, now wearing actual clothes rather than her bathrobe. She’d already learned, though, that the limits to her body were a lot sharper here in the Omniverse. Maybe it wasn’t the worst idea to put herself through her paces.

What followed was, honestly, embarrassing. Pits to be leapt over (or, in the case of her ‘comrades’ plunge into screaming), logs to be dodged (or blocked with one’s face), barrels hurled down a stairway by an angry gorilla – as though it were possible to do anything other than leap nimbly over them at every turn.

After an hour of running, jumping and twirling her way through the challenges, Dominator was fine – her comrades? Less so. Koopas weren’t, it turned out, naturally agile beings – a shortcoming that she would have thought the Drill Sergeant would have known, being a koopa himself, but whatever.

The Drill Sergeant didn’t seem to have taken too well to her effortless dismantling of his obstacle course. He had turned a bright shade of red, and was even now waving his crop underneath Dominator’s nose whilst she inspected her nails with a casually disinterested air. As though she cared what some smarmy little turtle thought of her.

“You must think you’re pretty clever, huh?!”

Dominator looked down at the soldier as though she’d only just noticed his presence.

“Well.” She said, “I did create an invincible robot army capable of destroying an entire galaxy. So yeah. I’d say I’m pretty clever.”

The Drill Sergeant quivered with helpless rage, and then pointed sharply at the ground.

“That’s it! Insubordination! Get down and give me twenty!”

Dominator folded her arms across her chest, and cocked her head to the side. “No, I don’t think so.”

The little koopa’s eyes burned with an inner fire, “What do you mean, no?!”

Dominator merely shrugged her shoulders, “Well, I agreed to help your army. Not become a part of it. And since I could easily destroy you, I don’t see why I should listen to a word you have to say. Do you?”

The Drill Sergeant leapt into the air, literally bouncing with anger. “That’s it! Trooper Dominator! You and me! We’re going to fight!”
Dominator smirked, and cracked her knuckles. “Well, if you insist. This should be… fun.”
 
The other members of the patrol had formed up into a crowd, surrounding the pair as they looked each other up and down. A Shyguy – strange creature with a mask and concealing black and white striped robes, Dominator had never seen one before – stood between them, whispering the rules of engagement to the pair. She couldn’t really make out most of the details, but given that she’d already proven the army didn’t care about cheating, the only one that really mattered was making sure she didn’t accidentally kill the Drill Sergeant.

She wasn’t really too worried about whether or not he would return the favour to her. He was what, three feet tall?

The Shyguy gave a sudden blow on a whistle, which Dominator took to mean that the fight was starting – and then a fist cracked painfully into her jaw.
The Koopa Troops around them jeered and whooped as the Drill Sergeant landed the first blow, and Dominator was sent stumbling back a few paces – sneakers digging deep into the dirt as she steadied herself. She rubbed the mark that he’d left. The cocky little thing was actually taking up a martial stance, beckoning for her to come back at him.

“Okay then.” She said, “No more nice Dominator.”
 
Leaping into the air, Dominator came down with a tremendous crash, fist leading the way to hit the concrete where the Sergeant had been moments before. Her leg lashed out as he leapt away, and she followed up quickly, a palm strike from her gloves finally making contact with the turtle soldier’s centre mass. He was tougher than he looked, however, and rather than being winded as she had expected, took the opportunity to lunge upwards and crack her on the chin again – this time with the top of his bony head.

Dominator snarled, and clenched her fists. Bright lava began to pour across the gloves, and he backed off. She punched forwards – a smirk on the Sergeant’s lips turning to a gasp of obvious surprise as Dominator’s arm simply kept going, shooting across six feet in an instant to plough into his face. The burning-hot fist sent the creature hurtling backwards into the crowd – a far more palpable hit than he had scored on her, and one which sent the two unfortunate soldiers who caught him sprawling to their feet as well.

Retracting her arm, she flexed her fingers. “There. Point made.”

“Oh no, we’re not finished yet, not by a long shot!”

Getting back up to his feet, the Koopa’s hat may have been knocked off, and his pride damaged, but his fighting spirit was still clearly very much intact.
He was also holding a mushroom – bright red with yellow spots, which he shoved into his mouth and greedily chomped down on.

“What? You think lunch is going to be the secret to beating me? Give me a break.”

Oddly enough, nobody else was laughing. In fact, the other koopas were backing off – even the ‘referee’ was stepping back, and it did not take long at all for Dominator to work out why that was.

When she looked back at him, the Drill Sergeant could look her in the eye. And then his shadow fell across her. Stretching higher and higher into the sky, he kept on growing until he was a good thirty feet tall, looming down on her as though she were nothing at all.

“STILL FANCY YOUR CHANCES?”

Dominator did not, and rather than press the issue, she turned tail and started to run. She did not get far. Two fingers descended from above to pluck her up by the back of her shirt and dangle her from his grip. Her sneaker-clad feet continued to kick as though she could flee, but there was no ground beneath them as he raised her up to look him in the eye.

“You know.” She said, “I feel like we might have gotten off on the wrong foot.”

At which point he hurled the would-be galactic tyrant towards the ground as hard as he could.

Dominator barely had time to activate her armour, and that is the only thing which stopped the impact being immediately catastrophic. The metal frame absorbed much of the impact, though it still knocked the wind out of her, and one large koopa foot was raised above her prone body.
Even dazed and confused, she couldn’t fail to hit such a large target. Her arm raised up and the cannon whirled back to life at her command. A burst of hot molten metal splattered across the sole of the Drill Sergeant’s foot and he howled as though he’d just stepped on a thumbtack, hopping on the other and clutching at the point of impact.

The ground shook with every movement, and by now the rest of the koopas had scattered for fear of being caught in the crossfire. Back up to her feet, Dominator fired blast after blast of hot metal at the immense target. Each one individually could do little more than annoy him, but she could hope to cover him head to toe in the clinging, restrictive metal – she didn’t really see that she had any other options…

And then the whirling cannon began to wind down, thick black smoke choking from its barrel. The subtle glow of red on her armour died away, and Dominator’s eyes went wide behind the visor.

“Oh… no…”

The enormous koopa above her twirled in place, and then toppled over backwards, crashing to the earth with an enormous THUD which sent reverberations through the area, before slowly shrinking back to his normal size, atop a thoroughly pancaked Dominator.

The woman could scarcely move, her armour having retracted back as she looked up at the roiling red sky. For his part, the little koopa didn’t look much better; pockmarked and covered in tiny abrasions, the fall on its own had done a fair amount to batter and bruise the unfortunate ex-giant.
The koopa raised one shaking finger, “And don’t.” He reiterated. “You forget it!”
 
It took some time for Dominator to recover, and when she did she still felt as though she’d been rung through a mangle. The woman cracked her neck, and looked over her shoulder at the tall barracks. Oh, sure, she could have stayed – could have slept nice and easy and not had to worry about what other lunatic Primes (and secondaries, come to that) might be waiting out there in the wasteland…

But she had promised the teenager that she would meet that ‘Warren’ individual in the Tangled Green before too long, and whilst she would have liked to stay and build her power a little more before she went to meet him… what the encounter had really proven was that she wasn’t a good ‘fit’ for life under anyone else’s roof.

No, for now, it would be best if she found somewhere good to settle down and create a worthy home of her own. This place had a number advantages, ready access to Volcanium X being primary amongst them, but she’d be foolish not to at least see this ‘base’ that Warren had created out in the Tangled Green.

Perhaps it might give her some ideas of her own.

And so she strode off back into the wastes. Now she just had to remember how to get back to that portal she’d come through originally. How hard could that be, right?

[Lord Dominator]

This was the unglamorous work that nobody ever thought about when it came to being a villain. Oh, sure. The hero would burst into your evil volcano-top lair and smash it up, but did they ever stop to think about the amount of effort it took to create such a place? The architectural challenge of piecing together the right kind of materials in the right fashion to prevent everything falling in on itself? No. They just saw evil volcano-top lair as though it had a great big bullseye painted on it. No respect for the hours, days even, of effort which traditionally went into such constructions. 

Lord Dominator, once feared throughout the Galaxy, was now literally up to her elbows in ash and dirt. The green-skinned woman had returned to the cave overlooking the Koopa Garrison, and had done her best to clear it of the majority of the debris which would otherwise get in the way. She wasn't entirely certain how well this was going to work, but she could at least get things started - of that, she was absolutely sure. These things would always take time, but since a ship didn't exactly seem practical (there was simply no way that one worthy of her magnificence would fit through the gates) a relatively secure base was a decent secondary option. 

Dusting her hands off, Dominator retreated to the mouth of the cave and looked in. It wasn't the largest space in the world, but as an entrance hall, it would do. Closing her eyes, she raised both her hands and reached inside herself, focusing on the right kind of image. She wanted something intimidating, something solid, something which said 'hey, if you're here to cause trouble, back off'. As though being situated in the middle of a lava-filled hellhole wasn't going to do most of that work for her. 

Her stores of Omnilium had increased markedly since her arrival in this misbegotten place, and the power flowed much more easily now that she knew - roughly speaking - what she was doing with it. The thought that she was imposing her will on reality itself was a pleasing one, and the light which flowed from her did so with flashing hints of red and green amongst the pure whiteness. It was just as amusing to think that Kyle, that pathetic koopa who had tried to kill her, was in some roundabout way helping to provide her the space she'd need to become even more powerful. 

The world shimmered and warped as she solidified her desires, painting the picture firmly in her mind's eye. The entrance to the cave became one sealed-shut vault door, marked with Dominator's broken-heart symbol. The metal was jet black, shot through with brilliant red lines, and behind it the same material formed up into a nearly perfect cube.

Dominator was sweating profusely from the effort, but the heavy door opened with the barest touch for her, and retracted into the walls of the cube with the perfect hiss. There was little light this deep in the cave, and a six-foot circular hole remained in the floor. Setting herself down cross-legged, Dominator finally took the necessary step - summoning up a drill sized to carve deep into the rock, and create the first elevator shaft for her lair. She popped open the side, inspecting the inner workings to make sure that everything had in fact been created to her specifications... then it was the simplest thing in the world to programme in the parameters and set the device running.

As the automated minion set to work, she flopped over backwards. The near-deafening noise of rock crumbling and cracking before her wasn't enough to keep her awake. But, she consoled herself, this would be the last time she'd need to sleep on anything so hard and unforgiving as a bare metal floor. From here on out, she would have the privacy and security she craved.


When Dominator awoke, the noise had subsided and what little light there had been was now entirely gone. Plunged into darkness, she had to retrieve her phone and activate the torch to see what she was doing, but a quick flash down into the deep tunnel sure looked like things were off to a good start. Now it was just a matter of setting things up properly.

Before she could really set things running, however, she needed to get the power source in place. Her fingers dug into the side of the elevator shaft, and found the ridges the drill had left in its wake. Slowly, carefully, she scaled her way down - grumbling every pace of the way as her sneaker-clad feet slipped against the rock. It seemed to take forever, but at last she found the bottom of the shaft, and the large circular chamber hewn from the bare rock face where she had instructed it should be. 

Her phone illuminated the drill, and there was some satisfaction in taking that power back into herself. No longer necessary, she didn't have to simply bury it as she would in her own world. There were some advantages to this Omniverse, even if she was loathe to admit it.

"Now come on, Dee." She murmured to herself, "Let's get this show on the road. Time for these idiots to learn just what it is you can do!"

Both arms spread wide, and her mind sang with the complex series of calculations, the incredibly intricate schematics, which she had laboured over for so long in her home dimension. The device was the true pinnacle of everything she had worked to achieve; capable of swallowing the energy from entire worlds and containing it for her use, the result here would be, she knew, spectacular!

... she was wrong. 

When it flickered into life, the Pyro-Regulator was a mere shadow of what it had once been. A large platform of circular metal, and a few trailing wires from the ceiling, threaded throughout the complex, but with no fuel... at least, until she reached into her pocket and produced the first containment sphere. 

Dominator tossed it into the middle of the room, and immediately the machine sprung to life. Cables snaked hungrily around the sphere, and the tiny amount of Volcanium X within was immediately siphoned throughout her new home. It was barely more than a few drops; just enough to get the lights running. The spluttering sphere of precious fuel wasn't much, but it was enough to illuminate the vicious smile that now tugged its way onto Dominator's lips. She had felt the same flutter of emotion when she'd created her first Pyro-Regulator; it was little more than a spark... but even the greatest infernos had to grow from something, and this was her beginning!

"Yes! Yes! Yes! Who's the greatest Bad Guy in the Omniverse? Right here! Who made a Pyro-Regulator in a cave, from nothing but a few scraps? Aw yeah, this girl right here! Give it to me baby! Give me all your Volcanium! Hah! Yeah!"

The moment of exultation banished the fatigue from her limbs, and Dominator treated herself to a little dance, clicking her fingers and scooting around the circumference of the new heart of her empire. Buried deep in the mountain, she needed more if she was going to build up a decent staff of serving bots - let alone a proper army - but flush with excitement at the possibilities her new home represented, Dominator smashed her hands against the bare rock of the corridor outside the power centre. 


It took much of the rest of her reserves to coat the rest of the base. Five rooms in total, joined by a central elevator shaft and threaded through with power from the Pyro-Regulator. The walls were all the same polished metal, glowing softly from the dim red light of the Volcanium X flowing through them. With enough time, enough Volcanium X, and enough tender love and care, it might one day be a match for the capital ship she had so lovingly designed - but for now it was just the bare essentials.

At the top, of course, a throne room - because what self-respecting galactic conquerer could be without one of those? The space was largely empty right now, just an impressive throne atop a tall cylinder of metal. When the Volcanium X was flowing more freely, that could be illuminated in the magma-drenched style which she preferred...

The next level was the dungeon. A large space filled with barred cells; again, rather minimalist at the moment and unlikely to hold any determined Primes or sufficiently powerful Secondaries, really... but she could work on that later; it wasn't Primes she was concerned about dealing with at the moment.

The third level was the garrison. At the moment, again, mostly empty but for a couple of square, simple beds which could be used to house guests. No thrills or luxuries; the servants she'd create eventually didn't need such things, and she could hardly afford to spare the space herself.

The fourth level were her own chambers. She wanted to be as close to her precious Pyro-Regulator as possible, so she could feel the warmth of it as it grew and grew. Perhaps surprisingly, she kept her tastes modest; a simple kitchen with the basic amenities, a bathroom, a bedroom. So long as the Pyro-Regulator could maintain hot running water, a decent oven, and keep her refrigerator chilled... she could take care of making her own entertainment for the foreseeable future; there was more than enough to do. 

And of course, on the fifth and final level, there was the Pyro-Regulator itself. Her pride and joy, and the fruits of all her labours. Now that she had somewhere to store her Volcanium X, the Omniverse no longer seemed like such a primitive and hateful place. Now, she had all the tools she really needed to make herself comfortable. 

Which, of course, was really the point.

And with all of that energy expended to create her new home, Lord Dominator had never been so happy to be able to flop over into a simple, fluffy bed covered in pillows and blankets... and rest up. 

At some point, she was sure, people were going to come calling. But for now, she could let herself just sleep and not worry about it. That, was a problem for tomorrow's Dominator to deal with.

[Lord Dominator]

"She thinks I'm an ORC?!"

Dominator's voice echoed in her throne room, the woman's phone held in front of her as she scrolled through the posts on the dataverse. From behind her helmet, her eyes narrowed angrily. Being ignored was frustrating enough as it was; that wasn't the way people were supposed to react to being needled online! But to be mistaken as an entirely different species to her own? That was... intolerable. 

Her fingers danced over the keys, and her expression soured even further. Her lips pulled downwards, and she stood slowly from her seated position. She'd given her a chance to apologise, and she'd thrown it right back in her face!

"Who the FLARB does she think she is?!"

Throwing her communicator across the room, the tiny machine bounced off the wall with an expensive-sounding tinkle. Throwing her hands into the air, magma burned brightly across her fingers, and she stretched her arms up over her head.

"Okay, Dee, calm down, calm down. She's just some stupid twit on the dataverse. You don't need to care what she thinks. What does she know? She's trying to build a wall to keep out ninjas. She's a moron."

Her sneakers squeaked across her empty throne room as she walked over to the broken device, and picked it up. She was getting pretty good at this omnilium stuff now. It was barely any effort at all to focus it into her fingertip and press it against the cracked screen. Slowly, surely, the glass melded back into one smooth plane, and Dominator looked back around the room. Who was she even talking to? She was here all alone!

... and that was the problem, wasn't it? 

Back home, nobody would dare talk to her the way people here did. If it wasn't that idiotic 'heroic mercenary' completely failing to show her even basic respect, it was some lunatic Princess confusing her with an orc - whatever an orc was! Something bad, by the sound of it. She should, at least, do a basic data search to find out...

The array of images that greeted her inquiry had Dominator's eyes widening like saucers. 

"I don't look ANYTHING like that!"

The howl of impotent fury echoed through the whole mountain, Dominator's shriek reverberating through the metal corridors which made up her home as though it had been designed specifically to augment her voice. 

"Okay, that's it. I'm going to destroy her. I'm going to hunt her down, and destroy her. Every person who has ever said a nice thing to her? Dead. Dead! I'll kill them all! Maybe I'll make her watch, first! After I've made her apologise for calling me an orc. Because I am not an orc!"

She'd let herself start to get complacent once her plan was put into action. Gathering power was all well and good, but if she didn't go out and use it then there was no point in having it! Power which couldn't be abused was no type of power at all. If she was going to get the respect she was due, here, she needed to make an example of this little creep. She needed to show her just what it meant to insult LORD DOMINATOR!

As she ranted, Lord Dominator walked over to her elevator, and jabbed the button. Slowly, the interior of the mountain responded to her demand. Stepping into the elevator, soothing music played over the speaker. It did not help her much. Her eyes still fixated on the little dataverse in the palm of her hand. 

"Oooh, I know! I'll string her up over a pool of lava and then slowly lower her into it! Then she can be like..." Dominator waved her arms around wildly to illustrate the point, "Aaaaugh! Nooo! I'm sorry Lord Dominator, you're not an orc! You're the greatest in the galaxy aaaaugh I'm so dumb and stupid and now I'm burning to deatttttthhhhh..."

Horrible gurgling noises ensued, and the elevator came to a gentle stop with a 'ding', and the doors opened to reveal the Ashen Steppes laid out before her. One of these days, she was going to have to figure a way to make the journey more comfortable. Maybe some sort of hoverbike? But, for now, the walk actually gave her time to think - and fixing her phone was one thing, but creating a whole hoverbike? No, if she was going to kick up production, it was going to be for important things first - luxuries could follow afterwards. 



By this point, the Koopa Garrison had come to know their strange new ally quite well. Lord Dominator often said that she didn't want anything to do with the Koopa Troopers, but in reality she came down every few days or so to poke around, make sure everything was still going smoothly, and that there was nothing she could do to help. It would be a stretch to say that they were becoming friendly with the would-be tyrant, but she was becoming a regular presence around the garrison.

"Lieutenant." Dominator said, letting herself into the Koopa's office. "I want to ask you a few questions."

The little soldier looked up and raised an eyebrow sharply. "Lord Dominator." He replied, "I suppose telling you that you're supposed to make an appointment wouldn't help?"

Dominator slid herself into the chair opposite the Koopa's desk, and folded one leg over the other, lounging backwards to make herself as comfortable as possible. 

"Princess Bonbon Sunshine. What can you tell me about her?"

The Lieutenant looked momentarily taken aback. "Not too much." He admitted, "One second."

Hopping up from his chair, he walked over to a filing cabinet and rustled around in there for a few moments before he pulled out a slim file. Setting it down on the desk, he opened it up - aside from a crude drawing of the girl, there wasn't an awful lot of stuff in there to be going on with.

"We've run into some of her people before. They're bad news. Allied with Camelot but, we don't think the relationship is exactly amicable. She heads up a group called the Anti-Evil Enforcers."

Dominator pulled the folder over towards her and looked down at it with a sceptical eye. 

"This is why I prefer working with robots." She muttered, "Look at this. 'The bad men hurt us up real good'. You people need some serious training when it comes to writing reports."

The Lieutenant huffed, "Well, anyway." He said, "We try to keep our heads down over here. The A-E-E? They're bad news. If you're not human, they're basically on the 'kill first, don't bother to ask questions' school of 'heroics'. To tell you the truth, that isn't a school we have much experience with."

Dominator hummed thoughtfully as she eyed the report, the crude drawing. It sounded like they weren't completely powerless, that much she could ascertain fairly easily - but it was hard to get any useful idea of how strong this 'Princess Bonbon' actually was from the report alone. Beating up koopa patrols wasn't exactly difficult. Still, if she had the backing of Camelot, that might indicate that she was powerful enough to be a concern.

"Why do you want to know all this, anyway?" The Lieutenant asked, "Do you know something we don't? Is she coming here?!"

Lord Dominator shook her head, "No." She replied, "I don't think so, anyway. I'm going to her."

"Uuuh, are you sure that is a good idea?" 

The look in Dominator's eye was enough to silence any further questions that the Koopa might have been contemplating asking. She didn't say another word as she rose from the seat. 

"Thanks for the file." She said, "This has been very helpful. I'm sure I'll make good use of it."



Back in her lair, the elevator opened up to reveal her dungeon. The one part of the mountain which did actually have other living beings in place. The moment the elevator doors opened, the captives flinched back away from the bars of their cells. Dominator strode down the corridor until she was situated in the middle of it, looking over the unfortunate souls she had been able to capture. They were a sorry lot; weak, feeble, wretched beings all of them. Extracting any kind of entertainment out of them was almost more work than it was worth.

"Please, please Lord Dominator." A trembling voice raised up. "Let us go, we, we're no threat to you..."

Dominator opened the door to the captive's cell. Desperate, the young man tried to push past her. He was a scrawny elf, scrappy and - most importantly for her purposes, easily portable. 

"I know you aren't any kind of threat." Dominator said, as her hand - stretched wide and grasping - closed around the poor boy's torso, lifting him up into the air. "That's why I captured you. Honestly, I didn't think you were stupid as well as weak."

The elf struggled against her grasp, but her grip was tight and she held him upside-down, looking into the poor, desperate secondary's eyes. 

"Anyway!" She said, cheerfully. "I'm afraid we're going to have to speed things along. I wanted to take my time, really see if I could get to grips with the process here, but, I guess it doesn't matter."

"P-Process? What do you mean?"

Dominator's smile spread wide across her lips, and the unfortunate elf's blood ran cold in his veins. 

"Oh, you'll see."

As he was dragged off, within the cells a beautiful woman - also elvish, but by far the best dressed in her elegant blue gown, unbowed by the horrors that she had been put through - touched her fingers to the bars. 

"Do not lose hope." She murmured to the survivors, "My brother will find us, of that, I am certain."