Dominion fan fiction

So… this happened because of Vaun Wilmott's 'Dominion' embedded with its weapon of enchantment, Tom Wisdom as Michael. I love that Vaun created a multi-dimensional, fascinating Michael to address the perils of his dynamic 'Dominion' world. I am entranced by how Tom inhabits that with his complex expression, his physicality and the skillful deployment of the intricate details of his engaging, powerful portrayal. Their creation of Michael's predicament picked at my mind like a kind of lunacy. (Thanks, you guys.) I needed Michael to find some of what he required. I don't own Dominion, its plots, places or people. I do own where I deviate from there with imaginative insertions, characters and ideas. Michael, Uriel/Laurel, Furiad, Gabriel, David Whele, Becca Thorn, Louis, Alex Lannon, Noma Banks and Evelyn/Arika are characters created by Vaun Wilmott and borrowed here for a brief meandering. Have fun engrossed in the world of 'Dominion' spun with threads from my wild collection. Inspired by Season 1 and the first trailer for Season 2. Story art is borrowed from a beautiful fan art poster by AssassinoC.

****Please note this is not the first time 'Salvation' was published here. I wrote and published it before S2 began. When deciding whether or not to add a chapter I'd written, I accidently deleted it and did not repost. A dear reader contacted me saying she needed some comfort after one of Vaun Wilmott's heart wrenching episodes and was going to read 'Salvation' again but couldn't find it. I reposted that same day. My readers are important to me and I love hearing from you. Thank you, Eziliveve, for requesting the story's return. ****

Chapter 1

Furiad's Folly

Michael found another abandoned house in the middle of nowhere and flew down to settle in for…however long. Standing in front of the tattered door, he shook his head at its absurd tenacity. He tapped it with his index finger and watched it crumble into a pile of dust. He stepped through the unguarded threshold and set the sack he carried down within reach of a pathetic excuse for a sofa.

There was a large dining table on its side at the opposite end of the room. He lifted it with one hand and wedged it in to substitute for the former door. He turned and sat down hard on the mostly shredded sofa and judging it would support him reclined, propping himself up on the pile of frayed pillows there with a satisfied "Ahhh." Breaking open one of the bottles he carried in the sack, he scoffed with a sneer recalling his most recent plunder.

He had raided a small settlement. It all began as had become typical. First, he found their church or tent of worship…whatever makeshift ramshackle that the straggled population could assimilate to their needs. Here it was a small shed with walls of cardboard, roof of tin. Standing within the church, reverently, quietly and with a desperate hopefulness , Michael listened with every fiber of his being, after having called out - "Father, I'm here. I need you, please. Are you listening? Are you here?" The silence was all he would leave with… once again.

Exiting the hallowed shack, Michael delivered one blow to the wall with the back of his hand toppling the church- of- no -satisfaction into a heap as the archangel casually walked on. Michael needed no more disappointment to feed his despair and the standing house of faith's empty promise offended him.

Hoping for some relief, but knowing he would not get any beyond the distraction of the flavor, Michael had then taken up some food items and the entire supply of drinking alcohol in the community. He was leaving with it when several men charged him shouting for him to stop. Michael's intended tools of distraction were crucial to the settlers for more than the uninhibiting effects of the liquid. They used it as antiseptic, as anesthesia. They had to salvage some of it.

Michael resented the interference. Fury rose up in his breast, unbridled. He loved that sensation. It felt better than the brokenness he carried in his silent solitude. He welcomed being filled with the surge of this familiar thing he knew so intimately. He dropped the collection of goods he held and drew his swords hissing a laugh through his smirk at their foolishness. They were no match. They lay slain at the mighty archangel's feet. He was not satisfied.

His thirst for blood demanded to be quenched. He let it wash over him, let it take him away from his grief. He continued the slaughter, killing with impunity, with pleasure until nothing was left alive. He even killed the settlement's domestic animals. For a moment he was smugly satisfied. Then he saw what he had wrought.

The crooked smile left his expression. He swallowed hard. He felt…shame. No matter. This is what he was. He brushed the annoying prick of otherness aside. This was real, this blood, these deaths. It was honest. No deceptions. This was pure. If this is what came to him, this is what he would take. He sheathed his bloody blades, reacquired his plunder and exploded like a missile into the air. He flew high above the ruin in his wake.

A Great Blue Heron was there in flight. He matched its pace. He admired the creature. It killed and ate anything it could swallow that didn't kill it first. He regarded it as a fellow master of deadly arts. It felt no guilt at its own nature. He envied that. Michael banked away from the lesser avian and descended to earth. He had seen a place to shelter.

Now, in this found collapsing structure, he picked at the sorry food. He found everything unappetizing and so shoved it aside and drank the liquid spoils until he restlessly slept, a half consumed bottle of Scotch whisky perched precariously at his side on the edge of the mangled couch. The contents of the multiple empties on the floor had occupied him until he achieved some state of rest.

Archangels possessed a bilateral brain. Only half of the mind slept at a time. They were never unaware unless medically unconscious. So it was that Michael could hear the winged ones speeding to his location. His marauding had made him trackable and there were those who would gladly take the opportunity to apprehend him. Would it be Alex and his elite with a band of angels…Gabriel… the new angel hunters? Everyone wanted a piece of him. His two blades were at the ready as Fruiad crashed through the roof. They stood face to face with lethal intent etched onto them as if it were part of their bodies.

"Machta duaa enyo " (You dare much) Michael said to the higher angel in their native language. Furiad grinned. His eyes did not. "Ashsho machta duaa enyo , Soleairda" (You are no longer much to dare, Archangel) Furiad flew at Michael in an attempt to get him off balance so that his waiting legion could move on the archangel. He had taunted Michael with a slight to his skill, but the fact was , there was nothing of heaven or earth as dangerous a weapon as Michael. Furiad had brought his best for this attack, but sent in lesser skilled first to make Michael complacent and wear him down. They swarmed him now.

Michael was under siege by a force of 500 angels. He had efficiently and quite gleefully slain 300 when the 200 strong High Guard engaged. They attacked him from every side at once. He avoided their lethal empyrean steel blades with agility, grace and remarkable tactical moves only a being made for such a contest could muster. Their battle raged in the sky and on terra firma.

Thunder clapped as the angelic beings broke the sound barrier repeatedly in their onslaught. The air thickened as a fog of ozone bled from the fractured atmosphere lending a blue haze to the surroundings. Moisture leached from the beleaguered air. Michael lashed out with wings and swords. With sweeping kicks and jabbing leg thrusts he lunged, spun and sliced in a harmony of lethal art that played like a bloody symphony. He was magnificent. The bodies of the slain multiplied.

Failing to make any headway towards Michael's demise, Furiad now employed one of heaven's weapons against him- an act that was forbidden by threat of being unmade. But their Father was not here and only He could order the unmaking. He deployed the weapon. It was a large undulating living membrane that clung unrelentingly with claw tipped tendrils that dove deep into flesh.

To the one in its grasp, it delivered electrical charges in rapid succession interrupting ability to access muscle function. The beast had a stinger appendage with which, after having felled its quarry, the beast would deliver paralytic toxin, allowing it to feed on its still living prey. It was flung onto Michael during this blitzkrieg.

Michael slashed at the 'Welrupt' that embraced him with one sword, immediately amputating the stinger threat. He continued to keep the High Guard at bay with the other, having pierced through the damnable creature. The incessant charges the beast continued to fire through Michael's body finally knocked him to one knee, whereupon Furiad and his forces besieged the archangel en masse and subdued him, having killed and removed the 'Welrupt' in the process.

Pinned beneath his enemy, Michael was brutally beaten. The sickening sound of fist and staff and hilt of sword delivering crushing blows to his body and his pained reaction to the worst of the blows cut the thick atmosphere. Michael threw them off from him, but they rallied. They beat him to stillness, to silence, to unconsciousness.

Furiad stood over Michael with a satisfied smile of success. The High Guard whooped their victory call. The Welrupt's keeper sadly collected its remains. Furiad lifted his foe by the loose of his clothing and brought his face close intending to gloat. The archangel groaned slightly as, limply, his head more rolled toward Furiad than turned.

Annoyed and furious that the archangel could still move at all, Furiad reared back his fist and roaring with rage applied all his might to hammer Michael's bloodied body to the ground. Michael crashed to the bedrock with such force where heat from the friction did not cause the rock to soften enough to be indented to Michaels form, it shattered. Furiad put his foot to Michael's chest prepared to resume his assault if he saw any sign of consciousness. He did not. The newest bloody slice at the height of his cheek bone and at the corner of Michael's mouth contented Furiad with his victory.

Gabriel had ordered that no one, under any circumstances, was to kill his beloved brother. Furiad, leader of the Second Sphere's warrior angel High Guard believed Michael had to be removed from the battle equation permanently in order for angels to have any opportunity for victory over the humans and gain dominion over the earth. And frankly, Furiad just didn't like the "strutting, over -puffed peacock". So he continually pursued the archangel and plotted his end.

He would have been satisfied if Michael had been killed in the skirmish. It would have kept Gabriel from assigning Michael's death to any specific angel and they could just as easily have blamed it on human mob violence. Since Michael had not yet been terminated, Furiad went to a plan "B" which also skirted the "no kill" edict of his commander. He grabbed the back of Michael's collar and flying quickly brought the captured archangel to a band of hunters. They gathered angelic subjects for a laboratory that was the brainchild of Vega politician David Whele.

Becca Thorn had been in charge of scientific research and that included angel research in Vega. Whele had 'negotiated' her into also reporting what she knew of the archangel, Michael. Whele had discovered the intimate association between Becca and Michael and coerced her to the work. He would squeeze whatever he could from her as long as he could.

He knew she would withhold the most crucial bits. Moreover, he suspected Becca would never do what would inevitably be necessary to know how to end the threat to humanity those archangels were, but anything on the archangel's physiology or psychology would be beneficial to defend Vega. So this move was quite a coup.

Unfortunately Becca's contributions became moot when her lover left her murdered on the floor of her lab, her neck snapped. Whele had sneered to himself at her funeral thinking, 'Like that outcome should have been a surprise.' Whele , as many humans , felt all angels were murderous. Hell, archangels were made to be ultimate killers and they were all savage, deceitful, creatures. He'd always known Michael would turn on them.

Not one to ever put all of his eggs into one basket, Whele had already founded and initiated a research lab to do the kind of work he felt was demanded. He'd long known a larger scale research facility than Vegas' was necessary. Now Whele focused on his mega lab's research. It expanded into more areas. Whele's lab didn't wait for an angel to drop out of the sky to study them. His teams of human scientists were having higher angels actively hunted and subjected to the most invasive research in order to find their weaknesses and facilitate the creation of weapons to fight them.

These scientists' and Whele had developed an additional project, one that stood to alter the course of human history. They had begun harvesting angels for organ transplants and gene splicing. They intended to apply those to volunteers in an effort to make humans more invincible. According to current knowledge, that would avoid the pitfalls of Nephilim and still grant advantages.

Never satisfied with enough, Whele pushed the envelope. He ordered them to carry the research further. Whele and his ever ambitious lead scientist still planned to create Nephilim… and they would generate clones. The head scientist had a geneticist capable of altering character traits to make both forbidden and at risk forms of angel viable. Their goal was the formation of a corps of enhanced humanity who would command a human created, human loyal angelic force.

It was to this Furiad brought Michael. Being ruthlessly practical in warfare matters, Furiad believed this delivery of Michael to the human's lab project to be a two- birds –with- one- stone move; a way to, at once, stop the research team's hunters, keeping his legion safe from capture and eliminate their formidable foe. He had found the camped lab hunters earlier and flying down to them , now dropped the still unconscious Michael without ceremony. Keeping himself airborne and out of the able hunters' reach, Furiad uttered a quick instruction and left.

Furiad had decided not to tell the humans their new lab subject was the defender of humanity nor did he tell them he had given them an archangel. Furiad was not as far-sighted as he imagined himself in his tactical plot. Though his plan was brilliant in the short run, on deeper look it reeked of folly. His actions held the threat of disaster. With the implementation of this secret human project underway Furiad, unawares, had just delivered the greatest weapon against his kind into the hands of their most ruthless enemy.