Captive

When Lilly woke up, she didn't know where she was. She felt sluggish. Her whole body was cold from her toes to her fingers. It felt as though she'd been frozen. She blinked sleep out of her eyes and started to look around. Where was she? Dusklord didn't seem to be anywhere nearby and she didn't recognise the location. She was in a room of some sort. It was small. There was a TV in the wall. Besides that it was bare. Her mind still felt groggy but Lilly was a hero after all and had been in worse situations than this.

Okay, focus. Calm breathing. Check body. No chains? No wounds? Good to go? Yes! Next thing, look around. Where are we? We're either in a small room or a large box. TV looks high tech. Hmm, tech, metal. The walls are processed metal. Not back in the world where Alister lives. They didn't have the tech for this. That shadow woman took me somewhere else. Where could it be? Anywhere in the multiverse?

No, stupid question. Where would she have a reason to bring me? She was working with Dogma. Dogma is back home. The tech here is like that at home. Most likely, I'm back home. I'll find out in a moment.

She tensed her body. She was aching and felt a terrible cold, but otherwise she was fine. She reached for her power and felt it respond. As far as she could tell, everything was working exactly as it should. Except that no on was here. Neither the Shadow Lady nor Dogma were present to greet her and though this room might have been reinforced, she could bust out of it casually.

There was another piece of the puzzle she was missing.

A moment later the screen flicked on. Lilly's eyes were drawn to it. A frown on her face. The man on the other end looked more haggard than when she had seen him last. He had green eyes and black hair. A chunk of his nose was missing. Lilly's heart skipped a beat and she didn't know if it was in anger or fear.

"Dogma," She hissed.

"Redwing," he said. "We meet again. I admit that I have looked forward to this encounter. You threw me out of time and space. You have no idea of what I have seen or what you caused me to suffer. I've longed to meet you again ever since I came back. But I didn't expect to meet you this way. Naked, Redwing?"

Lilly flushed. Her hand rose to her face but Dogma had let her keep her half mask while she slept.

"I burned my clothes fighting your minion," She lied. "That Shadow thing you call a partner. She's betraying you, you know. You were the one who set in motion the future that you wanted to avoid. She tricked you into it."

If Lilly had hoped her accusation would provoke something, she was disappointed.

"You have no idea what you're talking about, Redwing. But then, that is your normal state of affairs, is it not? I'll cut to the chase. Whether you had clothes on or not when you were captured is absolutely meaningless. From now on you are my bitch. I am going to use your body again and again until you break. I am going to humiliate you and disgrace you, make it so you regret ever crossing me. This is the first day of the rest of your life."

"Really?" Lilly said. "And exactly how do you plan on doing that? I happen to know as a fact you gave half your power to your little partner. Before we were pretty even. Now I think I could probably take you with a little bit of effort. You made a mistake if you think I'm just going to submit to you like this is some twisted porn video."

"I have two ways of ensuring that you do what I want," Dogam said. "Firstly, my ''little partner'' the Shadow Lady is still in my service and I can call upon her to put you down if I wish."

"Big deal. I already fought her. Didn't she tell you, Dogma? Excluding the surprise attack at the end which I am not going to fall for again, I won. You think she's going to save you?"

"The second thing," Dogma went on without hesitation, "is what will really stay your hand. You see as soon as I came back I knew you would come for me again. I had to find some sort of leverage. From our previous battles, I knew that you had a former partner who would be much easier to pick up."

The screen split into two. One half continued to show Dogma while the other flashed to a cell that was not unlike Lilly's. Except that the woman sitting in it was visibly different. She had a lithe but powerful frame with snow white hair and pale skin. Lilly felt her stomach drop out of her.

"Holly."

"That's right. Holly Johns. Otherwise known as the heroine Frostfire. You partnered with her for quite a while and have a strong bond with her to this day. We captured her a few days ago. I knew that I would be able to use her as leverage against you. Not to mention she has her own particular attractions."

"You're not going to touch her!" Redwing raged.

"Don't even try it!" Dogma snapped before she could reach for her power. "Do you see the collar she's wearing? It's tech from a different dimension. The same place I got the Enforcers. It suppresses her powers but not only that it's also explosive. If you damage your cell, it will go off. At that range, without her powers, **** is certain."

Lilly froze. Her mind went over what Dogma had just said. He had to be lying, right? But no. One thing Dogma never had been was a liar and she looked into his eyes now and saw that this had not changed. He was insane, a lunatic, the sort of person who only the top heroes should ever try to take on. He had more ambition and ego in a single pinky finger than most had in their whole body. But he wasn't a liar.

"Here is what is going to happen," Dogma said very carefully. "You are going to stop trying to escape and accept that you have to obey my orders or your friend will suffer. From now on when you cause problems, Holly will be the one punished in your place. You are too powerful for my collar to suppress your abilities, but she is not. I will give you an collar which you will wear but she will be the main focus of my control. Know these things. The technology which goes into my collars is highly advanced. If you try to use your power to burn through it, it will detonate. If you try to do so fast enough that you can destroy it before it does, that will not work. If you move too far away from my base, it will detonate. This applies to both you or her, so neither of you will be able to run for help. Do you understand?"

Lilly said nothing for a long moment. Her heart hammered. Rage and helplessness warred in her heart. She wanted more than anything else to unleash her power and rage through the base. To find her friend, to _crush _that arrogant face that belonged to one of her oldest enemies.

She didn't do any of that, though. She was a hero and that meant something. it meant she believed in sacrificing herself if it saved another person. Right now that other person was one of her best friends. There really was no other option. She'd find away out of it. She'd figure something out. In the meantime she just had to play along.

"Do you understand me?"

"Yes," Redwing growled. "I understand you. You bastard. You win for now but I am going to find a way out of this."

"I have no doubt that you're going to try," Dogma smirked. "But until such a time as you have managed to break my power over Frostfire you have **** but to obey."

After that, the metal door at the side of the room opened with a hiss and a humanoid figure entered. Lilly braced herself but it wasn't a person at all. It was a metal creature, a robot that was armoured with steel and silver. This had to be one of the ''Enforcers'' that Dogma had mentioned. The machine was carrying a collar which it dropped at her feet. Lilly didn't need to ask to know what was expected of her now. Her heart hammered in her chest as she bent down to pick it up. It was made of flexible metal plates that folded around her throat. They felt cold as she pressed them into her neck. As soon as she did this, they jerked to life, binding her throat just tightly enough that she wouldn't be able to ignore it or get used to it.

Lilly didn't know what to say. It seemed like her fantasy had come true in the most horrid way. She felt the machine in the collar trying to suppress her power but as Dogma had predicted it was like trying to put out a forest fire with a bucket of water. But that didn't matter so long as Holly was in his hands.

"Proceed through the doorway for....processing."