The High God roared impotently in his dimension. How had he not seen her wretched parent’s interference coming? Oh, that’s right, because they never had before! They had always been content to mind their own business, and not interfere. Until now, when he was so close to getting everything he had been working towards!

Even now, just standing there he could feel the effects of their compulsion worming its way into the very core of his being. It was such a simple and yet insidious compulsion to obey. He hated and detested his powers; they weren’t a gift no matter what her parents had said. He refused to believe that.

He had never been able to live a normal life because of them. The only one he had ever felt normal around in fact was Cha- Cassy… He didn’t understand why she didn’t like her old name, he loved it, the same way he loved everything about her. But he would acquiesce to her whims and call her by whatever name she wished to be known by.

She was the only one who had ever been nice to him… Only she had been able to look past his constantly changing face, and later on, personality.

The strength of the compulsion began to falter as it pressed against the center of his being and began to fall apart. His love for Cassy was central to who he was. There would be no moving past her for him, she was his everything.

He had been searching for her all this time and to simply ask him to give her up was just too much. Now that he had found her again, there was no way he would be letting her vanish again.

Pieces of the compulsion began to twist and warp as it lost its purpose and unraveled. His obsession with her was too strong.

Dantanian fell to the ground in pain and screamed, as he fought to hold on to the parts of himself that he cherished the most.

Cassy was his anchor, and he held tight to everything that pertained to her in his mind. Nothing was going to change his feelings for her. Not even what should have been an unbreakable force could make him do that. The compulsion latched onto his obsession as its original purpose twisted, changed, and gradually he began to calm.

He could no longer feel the insidious, hateful pressure of the compulsion forcing him to do something so anathema to his very being. Instead, it seemed to have vanished. He had managed to miraculously defeat the compulsion.

He was free to go about fulfilling his plans and making Cassy his now. What was the best way to go about doing that he wondered? He already knew that the game back on Earth had fallen apart. That was fine with him. It had served its purpose already.

He had located Cassy. Something that he hadn’t been able to do before, with his various limitations.

Now maybe her parents were onto something. Learning to control his powers was an important step towards taking her from that wretched human.

Dantanian paused. That wasn’t something he would have thought of doing before. Not the taking her from the wretched human part, that was completely normal for him. No, the first part, the learning to control his powers. That was the same thing he had always railed against, and yet here he was thinking about it seriously.

In that instant, he knew he hadn’t defeated the compulsion at all. It had merely changed form and found a way to hide itself. Which meant it was more dangerous to him than ever before because now he truly couldn’t trust his thoughts. It had almost had him this time with how naturally the desire had been slipped in.

Would he catch it next time? What about when it wanted him to do something else? It was the question that he had to ask himself, and one that he couldn’t answer.

Everything in his mind was jumbled from the constant voices he had created over the years in order to stay even semi-sane.

Without him noticing, a new one had already joined the fray.

He glanced around his dimension and shook his head. It was a place he had created specifically for her. He didn’t want to sully it with his presence, not while he was still unclean. Only once he could control himself would he be worthy of coming back here again.

Dantanian paused, there was something there just out of reach… But the voices in his head quickly overrode what he had been thinking about. There was a reason he preferred the lower dimensions. The voices were quieter there, and parts of his abilities were easier to control as well.

His eyes lit up, well that made things easier. Why hadn’t he ever thought of that before? He would go to one of the lower realms to train. A dimension where time passed differently for him. He knew of several that fit those requirements and it would be so much more effective.

He stood and opened a doorway to a dimension far below even Earth. There was nothing where he was going but the cold remains of emptiness. Time had ceased to mean anything in this place long ago. It was an offshoot of an early dimension with a particularly warped pacing of time.

Time was an actual concept in this dimension, and it had gradually killed everything inside it. Bubbles of randomized time would and could appear whenever and wherever they wanted. It could be inside a person, the planet, or even the sun. They played no favorites and their effects varied each time, and sometimes even within the bubble itself.

One bubble could have a rapidly aging effect, another would put something into stasis, while yet another would reverse the effects of time entirely. It was also possible for one bubble to have all of the above at the same time.

People would have pieces of themselves aging at different rates, while the world disintegrated around them. Eventually, the sun went supernova and killed the rest. It was the same for everyone else in this dimension. It was completely dead now as a result.

It was perfect for what he wanted to do.

***

How long had he been in this dimension? Time had started to lose all meaning to him. But it no longer mattered, he had accomplished what he had needed to do.

Dantanian felt more in control than he ever had before in his life. He had found it a little odd that a voice inside his head knew how to help him better than he himself did. However, those doubts and concerns had long since fallen away during the years of practice that come during his time in this dimension.

He still didn’t like revealing his face, but he could now properly control what they saw. Before, each face had been a one-and-done affair, never to be seen again. Now he could retrieve each one at will. More than that, for the first time since he was a small child, he would be able to show someone his real face.

He had even cut down the number of voices, erasing them one by one, until only a couple remained.

He had managed to make an enormous amount of progress during his time in this realm. But he was tired of dodging the constantly moving time bubbles. It was time to go back and claim Cassy as his own.

This time, he wouldn’t let her parents stop him.

They would all be on Earth, in a lower, restricted dimension, with their powers and abilities mostly sealed. The advantage they had held before would be gone, whereas he had been practicing in just such a place for years now.

The thread of twisted compulsion that had formed one of the voices and slowly taken control of Dantanian’s psyche a piece at a time grinned. It was time to fulfill the second part of its purpose. The first had been a disastrous mess. Even now, Dantanian was absolutely unable to control the powers and ability that governed his transformations.

In the end, it had simply given up and taken to convincing the idiot that he was making progress. All the while cannibalizing the other voices to gain strength.

However, the part that had been twisted by Dantanian’s uncompromising obsession with Cassy was glad to put these days behind it. It, too, wanted to capture the focus of their sole devotion and love.

She would be theirs, or she wouldn’t be anyone’s.

Cassy belonged with them! It could feel it in the threads that tied it to Dantanian. They were meant to be together. She had merely been playing hard to get before. It had been up to them to display their devotion, and he had failed her by not finding her. He was the one who had messed up, not her.

He wouldn’t make that mistake again. No matter what it took, he would display the depth of his affection for her.

He would make sure to fix things with her, to repair their damaged relationship, by force if needs be. He had found her now, and he wasn’t going to be denied. Not that he thought she seriously would. They were destined for each other, after all. What she had said before was nothing more than an act put on for her parents and those two filthy half-breed kids.

No, Dantanian shook his head, as he reminded himself again, not half breeds. They were his children, and he loved them. He couldn’t forget that. Cassy had given birth to them, which meant they were a part of her. Charlotte and Charles. Dantanian closed his eyes, envisioning the faces of his two adoptive children.

Yes, he could love them.

He opened a dimensional doorway to Earth and stepped through. It was time to get this party started.