"Kid, I will always be able to get away with this. Every single time. Because your organization lacks direction, it lacks purpose. It lashes itself to an outdated system and feeds on compromise and failure. You can do better. Be a real hero. ACAB."

She hops up onto the back of the pickup truck as everyone finishes piling in, and bangs the side twice.

"Ciao, fuckers. Hope you've got a mover up your ass somewhere."

The driver peels out with the sound of shrieking rubber, and the music begins to audibly thunk, growing ever more distant.

"My friends and I are just helping a buddy move." She lies blatantly, with a toothy smile and humor in her tone.

"Tell you what though, how about we skedaddle, and you can have whatever's left?" She offers, tapping the unlit molotov against the strike pad on her forearm, casually.

"These old meth labs go up like tinder, and if this comes to a fight we're gonna lose most of the neighborhood, plus you've got a kid with you. Call this one a wash and give it a shot another day?'

"Get off your lazy asses! I want this equipment in the van before we get snapped on some fuckers smartphone!"

Standing in front of a group of people is Dominion, a blatantly obvious cape if ever there was one, wafts of smoke puffing from her mouth like she's been sucking on a joint, despite the lack of any actual drugs near her.

Moving around are five men, all lightly armed, rushing back and forth to pole boxes up into a beat up red pickup truck with obscured plates

As the heroes turn the corner, Dominion let's out a long, frustrated sigh.

"All right, leave the rest. I want everyone out within a minute, don't get tagged." She calls out as she pops a molotov off of the metal chest piece she wears, tossing it and catching it idly in one hand.

"How can I help you officers?"

"Go ahead Mecha." She says, with a bit of a smirk.

"Just remember. If you're too blatant, people are going to think we're working together. Certainly not a terrible thing for me, but I'd like that to be a willing thing and not the result of rumor mill slander."

Five to nine hundred pounds, I'd like a nice set to get a proper full body workout. You can pull apart one of the car lifts if you want that too. The hydraulic cylinder is cracked but I think the pump works."

"I'll trade you. I'm sick of my shitty workout. Get me some proper weights and you can have the engine block. Deal?"

"I suppose. But some day, your little corner is going to be eyed by someone you can't simply ignore. And when that day comes, you'll have to make a decision. I hope you'll consider something when that happens. We suffer not from a tyranny of man, or spiritual rot. What eats our world is simple math. Game theory. The people with scruples have fewer levels, so the monsters rise to the top. The game has to end, either when it breaks and millions die, or when someone finally wins."

Her gaze sharpens as she seems to stare through Mecha, taking in all of her. Then, she smiled, a sharp toothed thing.

"You're entirely correct. You and I see more eye to eye than you might realize. I tried to help on the hero side, but the corruption, the broken nature of it all, it opened my eyes. Justice is the privilege of the powerful, and it is only through power that the people can be saved, and protected. Sovereign talks of stability as he sucks the city dry. The Protectorate cling to a decaying system that exists only to criminalize and subjugate. None of this is okay. All of it needs to change."

"He might. That's a risk. But so is him running off. I've got Narcan in the shop, and if that's not enough, oh well." She explains, still tapping out a message on her phone.

"Unless you want to volunteer to drag him off to the detox lockup instead of us waiting for a ride. Either way is fine by me."

With that, she pockets her phone.

"I'm aware. I chose my placement well. These are people who need help. Who need a guiding hand. The abandoned."

She shoves the guy back into the little shack, slamming the door on him, and then leaning up against it so he scrabbles uselessly at it when he tries to get out. She rummages through her sweatpants and pulls out a phone, a cheap touchscreen burner.

"It's like herding cats. You ever have to deal with this sort of shit?" She asks, smoke still wreathing her head.

"Half my people are strung out, and the other half think being a gangster means shooting old ladies. It's a pain in my ass beating some damn discipline into them."

Gerald is trembling, absolutely terrified as smoke blankets his face, both of his hands clutching one of Dominions as she lifts him up bodily.

"That's funny. You think he's getting off with a beating." She says with a dark chuckle. "Gerrys on heroin. He wouldn't feel it if I did. I've got a much better idea."

Gerry is mumbling nonsense, trying to wriggle his way free of her ironclad grip, and failing.

"You're going in a little room, Gerry. Four days. When you get out, we ain't gonna have this problem again. Withdrawal ain't gonna kill you, but if I catch you shooting up again, I might."

"There are cameras. Cameras which Gerald should be watching." She calls out as she stomps her way forward.

Gerald's eyes go wide as she walks over, and he tries to duck back into the security shack. Dominion does not let him, grabbing him by his shirt collar and yanking him from the shabby construction.

"What are you doing in here, whacking off? I swear to God if I...." She goes silent as she catches a glimpse inside the shack. If Mecha follows, she might also catch a glimpse of rubber tubing and an empty needle.

Curly whisps of black smoke begin to waft from Dominion's mouth.

"Intruder. I'd love to continue our chat. But as it turns out, I need to send someone to the hospital today."

"Dangerous choice." She comments, stretching out her sore limbs as she starts to walk through the yard.

"Never seems like it would be, staying on the sides. But people don't tend to like outsiders. Capes have a very 'with us or against us' mentality, even the heroes. And nobody wants a tinker out in the breeze. You're gonna get a lot of recruitment attempts, and they're gonna get less and less nice as time goes on." She points out, not really glancing back at the tinker.

She's heading around the back of the building, towards a little shack near an askew gate in the fencing.

"Hey! Gerald!" She calls out. There's a thud, the sound of scrambling, and then a young man pokes his head out.

Dominion jerks her thumb back at Mecha.

"You let an intruder walk right in. We're gonna have a chat."

"Two and a half means I don't get good reps. It's a six cylinder. Clocks in closer to six hundred pounds. You can't have it. I'm honestly not sure what it came out of, it was here when I got here." She says, taking a swig from her bottle and then putting the towel around her neck.

"Walk and talk with me. What kinda parts are you looking for? This area's my turf, so I know it better than anyone, and I can get you a good deal. And if you like what you see, we can talk about membership. You a white hat or a black?" She asks as she stands up fully. She's oddly not as tall as her physique would suggest, standing around 5'11"

"It was. Now it's a headquarters while we find something a little less rat infested." She explains as she finishes off her last set. The absolute unit of a woman sits up, grabbing a water bottle and a towel off the bench, and turns to face Mecha.

"So. Leather. What's your deal? Materials makes me think tinker. That you're open about it means you're either dumb as bricks or you've got backing. But if you've got backing, the fuck are you doing here? So now we're back to dumb as bricks. You see my dilemma."

Dominion does not stop her workout, her muscles rippling as she yanks the engine block up and down, her workout wife beater drenched in sweat.

Her mask is a welding mask, with two curved metal horns made of scrap, and a huge circular gap melted into the front to reveal a mouth filled with razor sharp teeth.

"You here to fight or to join up, pipsqueak? Either way, lemme finish up these reps first." She calls out, in a voice like unshaved gravel.

The place is a hellhole. Sturdy, sure, but old and poorly maintained. A place that would have been torn down if it was worth the cost of reclaiming the land. A humble little auto shop, that once had vehicles bustling in and out of its double bay, but now it stands almost but not quite empty.

New tenants. Squatters. The old building cleared of grime and dust and given a painting of graffiti fire.

From within the main bay, there is a steady clanging thunk, and the rattling of chains.

It takes a lot to feel a proper burn, now that her body has been reshaped. And not the constant low level burn that boils within her, threatening to burst free and consume all, but a proper muscle ache that brings with it all the feeling of accomplishment that it should. Which is how she finds herself, back against a metal bench, a twisted abomination of metal bracing above her, each hand wrapped in chains for a solid grip as she pumps them up and down, the other end wrapped around an old engine block she is using as a weight. Most of her costume is laying carefully folded, her body clad in basic workout gear that is drenched in sweat, only her mask and the blatantly obvious brute feat revealing to the world who she is.