The bed was even more comfortable than she had expected. After sleeping on ratty old mattresses that undoubtedly had mold and other health risks, the drastic change simply sent her to heaven.

The following morning had come all too quickly, leaving her incredibly well rested, all things considered, and dressed in clothes that both actually covered her, and fit for the most part.

It was virtually impossible to find an actual shirt that was meant to accommodate her considerable bust and still fit like normal - she got by with looser shirts that had more space to breath, and still managed to make the upper half of the material pull taut. Once again, Sherrel bemoaned whatever it was, genetics, God, Satan, anything that decided the lumps of fat attached to her chest ever needed to be this large.

She couldn't complain about anything else however, as the generic jeans and shirt she was wearing were both comfortable and completely hole-free.

Not only that, but it actually covered her stomach! The shitheads comprising the Merchants had a lot of fetishes, but it seemed every single one of them consistently thought a woman's stomach should be exposed at all times. It was really fucking weird.

Not necessarily because it wasn't hot - it totally would be, but druggies on average did not make for fine viewing material. Sherrel's observations were not just based on what she was forced to wear - oh no, nearly every other woman who found herself either in or being used by the gang faced the same conundrum. The primary difference was, unless the Merchants captured some pretty new thing, most of the regular users didn't get out for their daily exercise, ever.

They weren't a particularly flattering bunch to be around.

The rest of the men somehow still found it appealing for some reason. Sherrel herself was still in the prime of her years, being only 21, and having not been forced into the gang for long enough to lose her toned stomach.

Even before she triggered, she frequently found herself in her dad's mechanic shop, and helped out on the regular. While she was only a rookie at actually fixing cars (until suddenly she wasn't) moving the various parts and heavy metal tools around was easy enough for her to do, and it kept her youthful form from degrading.

So for the first time in a while, Sherrel found her stomach covered by a shirt that fit. For the most part.

She nearly cried once she realized it was something she had missed.

How sad does one's life have to be when they miss being able to find a shirt that actually serves its intended function of covering the torso? Pretty fuckin sad is the answer.

But enough distracting herself - it was time to face the music. Mrs. Rain hadn't refuted the fact that something of a sexual nature happened here, but any form of specifics couldn't be discerned. The blond woman didn't seem like the deceptive type, but it was Brockton Bay. One could never be completely certain.

After finishing dressing herself she departed the room. Just a few minutes earlier, a voice that presumably belonged to Mrs. Rain informed her breakfast was available.

Nervousness almost got the better of her, but her stomach would violently rebel against her if she didn't give it some kind of fuel. Yet another negative aspect of the Merchants, the food was shit. Who woulda guessed?

Sherrel passed through the hallway and into the living room, where Mrs. Rain sat on a couch, waiting for her.

"Ah, Good morning Sherrel. Please, follow me." She obeyed and trailed behind Mrs. Rain as they walked through a different door, opening up into a lavish dining hall. A large table that looked like it could seat at least 10 people sat in the center of the room, with The Dragon, or Aster as Mrs. Rain had referred to him sitting at the head.

"Hello again Sherrel! I hope you got a good night's sleep and that your accommodations were acceptable." Was he kidding? The 'accommodations' were sublime.

"They were amazing, thank you very much for your generosity." He waved his hand in a scoff.

"It was nothing at all. Helping fine young maidens such as yourself is an honor. You'll be safe as long as you like here, and whether you choose to leave this rather dreary town or stay is up to you." Aster finished with a smile, his genial grin earnestly communicating his good will.

Sherrel decided to simply nod in acceptance, turning towards the food that was laid out already. It was relatively simple fare all things considered, but it had generous proportions and looked to be excellently made.

Mrs. Rain sat down on the opposite side from Aster, indicating she held an equal position to him, although she was generally the one fetching or showing Sherrel around. Although, it could just be because she was a woman and it would make her more comfortable.

If that was the case, Sherrel appreciated the forethought.

Still, she needed answers to some questions once she was done plowing through her plate. Anything else could wait - it tasted just as good as it looked. The seasoning was great, the taste was perfect, and her stomach rumbled with pleasure for all to know.

Blushing, she glanced up and saw mirth dancing in the crimson eyes of her savior, and Mrs. Rain looked equally amused. Aster spoke. "It delights me to no end to hear your enjoyment of my food - easy to make as it is. Please, have as much as you want, seconds are available should you desire."

He smiled at her as he said it, his eyes crinkling with warmth. Sherrel found herself smiling back, feeling like a shy teen all over again, and after spending time with the Merchants she found it nothing short of miraculous such feelings could still exist in her.

When she was finally able to find her words, she muttered a thank you and continued eating.

When they finally finished and cleaned her mouth off with the provided tablecloth (some kind of silk thing that she only knew to use because Aster did), she decided it was time to figure out what Mrs. Rain was talking about last night.

"I'm sure you have questions regarding the nature of the rumors surrounding my territory, or so Delilah told me. Ask anything your heart desires, and I shall answer."

Did she just get her mind read? Probably not, but Aster had a powerful intuition, it seemed. "Ah, yes… I suppose I should start a bit with my own story, since I'm the one imposing on you."

Gentle smiles from both ends of the table urged her to continue. "Well, I'd best start from the beginning, in that case. I triggered somewhere around 6 months ago with the ability to make large armored vehicles. The bigger the better, but I could make something like an oversized motorcycle as well if it came down to it. Due to certain circumstances surrounding that I left my hometown, and over the course of several days I made it to Brockton Bay."

Sherrel let out a shuddering sigh. Mrs. Rain gently brought her hand around and slowly placed it over her own, giving her plenty of time to react. Her warm smile remained, and her eyes urged her to continue.

"It didn't take long at all for me to make a stupid mistake. I rode the modified truck I'd taken from home, even though I knew I shouldn't. It didn't stand out too much, but through fucking dumb luck, I parked in the wrong place at the wrong time. When I built the thing I didn't have much to work with, so it didn't have all that many defences beyond being bulkier and heavier than a normal truck, and much more powerful engine wise. I didn't exactly have somewhere nice to stay, so I was loitering around an abandoned section of the docks when I got jumped by a group of drugged up idiots."

Her first introduction to the most glorious of assholes and worst shitstain the world has ever seen, Skidmark.

"With Skidmark being present, my already non-existent chances from zero to less than zero. What followed after that was…" Sherrel trailed off, her mind flashing back through sequences of images and thoughts, moments where she wished she could be anywhere else, anyone else.

"We don't need you to relive the gory details, sweetheart, don't push yourself. We already have a pretty good idea of just what Merchants get up to, and if you don't want to share it, I don't want to hear it." Aster spoke, reassuring her with that same soft smile that he'd worn since she started.

The tinker took a few moments to recompose herself and continued. "Thank you… To make a long and painful story short, I got drugged up with a potent cocktail of the most addicting drugs they had on hand. What followed was… I can't even remember all of it. Rumors slowly made their way to me through the street level dealers I occasionally saw, and when I next had a brief window of clarity, I just knew I had to get out before I was lost forever. Whoever Sherrel Bailey might have been or had the chance to be would be no more if they were allowed to get me again. So I ran - I couldn't take my own vehicles I'd made, but luckily they couldn't drive it either. And then you found me."

Aster's face had changed, now that her story was done and he was changing from 'supportive' mode to 'royally pissed off'. "Delilah, dearest, you once told me I needed a good enough reason to rip Skidmark in half. Now that we know exactly what he gets up to, may I please be allowed to fulfill one of my many fantasies involving him, a locked room, and copious amounts of violence?"

Mrs. Rain let out a sigh and rubbed her forehead as though this wasn't an irregular occurrence. "Yes honey, if that is what you wish to do we can now safely say he deserves it."

Sherrel looked between the two with both amusement and confusion. Seeing Skidmark get brutally murdered would make her quite happy...

She wasn't always a vindictive girl, but getting drugged, fucked, and forced to use her power against her will on things she didn't want to do changed a person.

"While I'm happy to hear Skidmark's not long for this world, and the longer you can draw out his death the happier I'll be, but I did want to ask about the rumors those street dealers also mentioned."

Aster let out a sigh. "I'd be happy to clear that up. You've been kind enough to share your story, so let me share ours. And understand, you might not believe me, but… it's all the truth."

Sherrel simply nodded. Aster had thus far only shown a healing ability, of all things, which was already incredibly rare, but it was context that was important in this situation.

After Kyushu was sunk in 1999, Lung, the man strong enough to fight Leviathan itself, made his way to Brockton Bay. Aster's territory had already been established at that point in time, and when the escalating fighter claimed the title of 'dragon', he took offense for some reason.

Rather than lash out or go out of his way to attack the enemy gang members, Aster had reportedly challenged Lung to a fight. At the time, the Protectorate had been in a panic for fear of mass devastation, since at the time nobody really knew what Aster's power was. They still didn't today, but after the fight went down a massive swathe of the boat graveyard had been annihilated and slagged.

The next day, Lung publicly announced that Aster was 'The Dragon', earning him his current title, and that he would have no hostilities with the man.

Nobody was sure what went down, but the implication afterwards was that somehow, some way, Aster was scarier than Leviathan.

Either way, flash forward over a year later, and the ABB adamantly avoids his territory and never even attempts to encroach near Aster.

Which translated for Sherrel that he was both strong enough to take on Lung, and could heal. Which was a potent combination, depending on what his power actually was.

"I'm a Dragon."

Well sure, he's 'The Dragon' but the way he said it… "As in, you're literally a dragon? The flame-breathing, princess stealing kind? Likes to sit on heaping piles of gold?"

That got a chuckle out of him. "Not quite, but close enough. Let me explain a bit further. I am… fairly old. Older than I look, at least. A long, long, very long time ago in a land far far away, Asteroth the Hero was born with the soul of a dragon. He was unique - a once in a hundred generations rarity. For a time, he had no idea this was the case. Through the work of fate, chance, or some higher power, he was thrust into a rather insane plot by a dragon. The Dragon, if you will, to take over the world."

Sherrel nodded her head dumbly, trying to mentally decipher if she could believe what she was hearing.

"Dragons were… significantly more than the tales this world has. They were creatures born before the dawn of time itself, capable of speech that could bend reality to their will. At the head of those Dragons was Alduin - the First Dragon. It was his destiny to consume the world itself, allowing the cycle of creation to reset and begin anew."

A grim smile appeared on Aster's face even as his eyes took on a faraway look, as he recalled events from his long distant past. "But he became twisted. Alduin's domain, the source of his power beyond that of a normal Dragon, was from the fact he was the 'reset' button of a cycle. He needed the power he had to actually achieve his task. So when he abandoned it and began using his power to rule, rather than destroy, he became weaker."

Aster let out a short laugh. "Not that that meant much, he was still the toughest fucker I've ever had to fight. To make a heroic tale short, Aster the Hero killed many Dragons along the way, absorbing their souls until eventually he faced off with Alduin himself. He succeeded in his task and slew the Dragon. What he didn't know, at the time, was that his fate would be irrevocably altered from doing that single action. Alduin was much the same as his brethren, in that final moment, when I plunged my sword through his eye and I saw his life flee his body…"

He let out a grim snort. "Well, I shouldn't have been surprised by what happened next, but I was. His soul was consumed by mine, becoming a part of me and completing my partial transformation into an actual dragon. It seemed destiny had a suitable replacement for the job of World-Ender, and all it needed me to do was kill the original."

Sherrel, normally a fairly open-minded young woman since she was raised with superpowers being a reality, still found herself boggling at what she was being told. "So… you became the dragon that is supposed to eat the world? I mean… you look pretty human. Mostly."

He snorted, but didn't seem to take offense at her claim. "Indeed I did. While I am most certainly a human now, I became… something other. I am both Dragon and Human, the best and worst of both worlds combined in one form. But let us not discuss the semantics - things will get quite boring if we focus on those tiny details. What is important, is the change it brought about in me as a person, and why you heard those rumors."

Sherrel nodded, agreeing that she probably would have an equally hard time believing what he said regardless of how well he explained it. "Dragon's are by nature, prideful, jealous of their knowledge and power, and a dominating force. If I didn't find some kind of outlet for my newfound… feelings, then I would probably wind up taking over the world or something equally foolish. Personally, I would never do such a thing, but I've discovered all those souls I've eaten over the years have quite a bit of influence over just how strong those urges are."

Aster let out a sigh and used his palms to rub his face. "Somehow. Some way. This… combination of humanity and draconic urges means I can either do something destructive to prove my might… or I can let out those feelings in… alternative methods. Before you look at me funny, let me continue."

A wan smile crossed his face before he continued. "Sex ticks off a lot of boxes for my dragon-born feelings. My humanity refuses to do anything to unwilling persons, which leaves me with either a very, very active monogamous relationship, or a more open one where poor Delilah doesn't have to stay laid up in bed so often."

A glance to the woman in question showed her giving a scathing glare towards The Dragon. "What a delightful explanation you have, husband. How would you like to be laid up in bed for several days?"

Aster frantically waved his arms in front of his face, trying to dispel his wife's fury. "Now now, I'm just trying to give the girl a good explanation. It's hardly like I went into explicit detail, now is it? Ahem."

He cleared his throat, moving on and looking at her instead of Delilah. "Basically, the stories you heard were partially true - anybody who enters my territory is free to ask a favor of me, or be granted my protection while inside the territory. Men can compensate me with money or volunteer work to help out the little community we have here, and women can do the same, or…"

"Let you bang their brains out?" Sherrel couldn't help but say. Aster snorted at her phrasing.

"Indeed. Nothing is involuntary, and the idea of 'having' multiple women appeases my draconic pride even more than just doing the act does. Maybe it seems odd, but I'd rather seem like a loose man than take over the town. That's far too much work."

Suddenly he turned back towards Mrs. Rain. "But most of all… Mrs. Rain, my loving and beautiful wife, keeps me in check far more than any sexual romp or escapade ever could. To understand what we have is… complicated. She fell in love with me, through a strange series of events that would be fitting for a romantic comedy film, and we became entwined tighter than any bonds of marriage could hope to achieve."

He broke off, momentarily silent as he stared into the eyes of his wife, emitting such intense feelings of love and caring that Sherrel could practically feel them herself, and for just a moment she felt jealous. She ruthlessly stomped down the feeling, Aster and Delilah's happiness was something to bask in, and hope to achieve someday.

"She understood and accepted me when I said she might not be the only one I needed to bond with in such a way… and has remained with me, helping me, being my right hand for years now. Ahh, I can be such a sap sometimes! I apologize for derailing our conversation."

Sherrel, after witnessing this moment, seeing Aster wiping a singular tear that escaped from his eye, had much to think about.

"But basically, you're correct. I don't normally go into as much detail as I am now but… you get the idea. They can consider me a playboy, a man whore, whatever they want, but they get their favor and I ensure my draconic tendencies don't make me do something regrettable. With that said, you are under no obligations to us. You may leave, stay, or do as you wish. No favors, no repayment."

Sherrel didn't really know what to believe. On one hand, if the rumors were to be believed, Aster had managed to fight and win Lung's respect. He could heal people with impressive ease. He had an ironclad rule over his 'territory', without having an actual gang to back him up.

The more likely option was that he simply had a broken trump power like Eidolon and had made up some fanciful story to help him get laid. While that wasn't the worst option, it would paint a really shitty picture of her saviors.

But… something just didn't seem right about that.

Sure, he could make up some story to score chicks, but what would be the point? Aster has a smoking hot wife who puts up with whatever's wrong with him, and clearly loves him, as he loves her.

Trying to imagine someone like Delilah, though Sherrel had known her for less than 24 hours at this point, accepting someone who would do something like that just didn't ring true to her. Even if Mrs. Rain hadn't used any obvious powers or done anything other than show her around, she had a nearly palpable aura of danger around herself as well.

Sherrel wouldn't say she was scarier than Aster himself, but that's like saying being trapped in a cage with a tiger is less scary than being trapped in a cage with a cheetah - sure, objectively one is less intimidating and powerful than the other, but she sure as shit didn't ever want to be in that situation regardless.

Hell, maybe Delilah wasn't quite sure about the whole business either, but had seen enough to simply take it on faith.

Heh, wouldn't that be something. Finding someone to believe in, even in this rotten world Sherrel found herself in.

Truth be told, she herself desperately craved finding something. Someone. Anything that she could believe in again.

When her parents let her down, when school let her down, when her friends let her down, when Brockton fucking Bay threw her down into a pile of shit, she would have given anything to have a rock. Just one person to believe in. Just one thing to believe in.

Something that was as steady as a boulder on the shore, bearing the creeping tide over and over again, yet remaining unphased, unmoved. Something she could hold onto with both hands and rely on to keep her on solid ground when she felt like she was drowning.

Maybe she would stick around. Just maybe, if Aster proved to be the kind of person he appeared to be, she wouldn't mind messing around with him.

Internally Sherrel snorted. As though someone like him would want to do anything with somebody like her. Her massive knockers aside she was probably loaded to the gills with STD's from those insipid braindead fucks who took her life away from her.

Here she was, the definition of used goods, thinking that she was worth the attention of one of the single most powerful capes to undoubtedly reside in Brockton Bay.

A single cold hand came to rest over her own, startling her out of her dark train of thought. She turned to find Delilah's piercing blue eyes staring into her own. "Whatever it is you might be thinking, it doesn't look good, so I'd just like to tell you that we all have demons. Things from our past we'd rather not talk about. I have my own, Aster has his, I'm sure you have yours. We don't care about those things. If either of us did, I don't think we'd be able to stand each other."

Sherrel, in the doubt-filled area of her mind, grown by years of neglect and severe abuse, couldn't help but note she had less skeletons in her closet and more a festering pile of negativity and a distinct lack of self-worth.

Delilah gave her a warm smile, seemingly trying to convey her sincerity through force of will.

"You're a beautiful girl, Sherrel, one who's been having a terrible time, from what I can guess. But let me reiterate something - We don't care about that. When Aster and I first met, we were enemies, believe it or not. I followed my orders, at the time, and tried to hurt some of the kind people who live here. Aster objected to that, and naturally, we clashed."

Sherrel looked between the now married couple with curiosity.

"Of course, I lost. Horribly. There couldn't have been a more crushing defeat. Rather than kill me, however, he did something that to this day, I thank him for."

Delilah looked back at Aster for a brief moment, memories replaying in her eyes, invisible to all but her.

"He talked to me. He gave me both an impassioned and logical speech about why my prejudiced and hate-filled ways were wrong. All my life I'd been surrounded by the same rhetoric, and never had a voice of reason telling me otherwise. So when I found out I wasn't quite as big of a fish in the pond as I thought I was, I was forced to listen. It wasn't immediate, but Aster steadily chipped away at my unhealthy state of mind until I finally defected and joined him."

The blond haired, blue eyed woman's stare returned to her.

"He'll do the same to you, if you stay. Maybe the reasons will be different, but he'll find out what's wrong and help you through it, whether you like it or not. Maybe less regarding the whole defecting bit, since you've already done that, and more he'll convince you to spill your secrets willingly so he can help you through it. If you decide to stick around for a while, you'd best prepare for that."

Delilah had a soft smile on her face, indicating it probably was a good thing, not a bad thing. It seemed to have turned out for her, at any rate.

"I'll… consider it. Thank you."

She wouldn't consider it.

She already planned on staying, after all.

What was there to consider?