Summoner - Chapter 16 - SomeoneYouWontRemember - Parahumans Series
Chapter 16
Notes:
The process of Mastering Bakuda, was, by necessity, a very meticulous process.
Her control over one's mind for example, was limited. She could inflate and deflate emotions attached to ideas. The good part was that every single emotion besides a few very specific ones always existed to one extent or another, almost like a strange, listed spectrum. The problem was how easy it would be to inflate a sunflower seed into a tree, for example.
It was not easy.
So if her target hated her guts, making them love her desperately would be immensely fucking exhausting, time consuming, and draining, because that emotion of love might as well be one hair in an entire pelt compared to the hatred.
This made Mastering Bakuda into her obedient minion a complete fucking pain in the ass.
The woman's ego was inflated to the sky, for starters, so she had to locate her emotions of importance and worth that were connected to her idea of 'self', and severely dim them, enough to keep her confident and somewhat like herself, but brought down to a reasonably proud person's ballpark.
Then, the usual package of taking the infinitesimally tiny blip that was Taylor in the woman's mind, and inflating specific parts of the emotional spectrum into balloons to foster what she wanted from the woman.
Namely, she focused on three things, at least at first.
Respect.
Loyalty.
Trust.
They were the holy triad of all relationships.
And with these three, she could basically ensure the exact results she wanted, in most people, or at least enable them.
It wouldn't work if someone was so twisted that their idea of respect was to kill her, for example. Or someone so unstable that the idea of 'inferiority' was attached to 'murderous rage', like Bakuda. And to have an obedient minion slash pet, she needed them to understand that they were beneath her.
So, she did what she had to. She took the idea of superiority, attached acceptance to it, then connected it to the nameless idea of Taylor Bakuda had in her head. Then she cranked it up as high as she could, despite feeling like someone was scraping her brain- no, her very mind with jagged glass. Then she went further, instilling the very essence of obedience to the whole mix.
By the end of it, Bakuda respected her, was loyal to her, trusted her about as much as she trusted herself, and had the idea that Taylor was a god compared to her, like a law of nature that couldn't be questioned or denied. She would obey pretty much any command, and even go out of her way to help her without being prompted to.
She also poured a lot of effort into making Bakuda somewhat infatuated with her, more in the way a loyal goon was to the boss they admired than a lover to another, as that would be weird and bit too Heartbreaker-y for her.
Of course, the idea of temperance, patience, and secrecy was the second most important thing of her Mastering process, just to avoid any slip-ups.
Eventually, she was finished, and slipped out of Bakuda's mind.
Then she immediately collapsed on her with a breathless wheeze like a kettle as her legs crumpled like wet paper, and Bakuda barely woke up in time to not have them crash to the floor, grabbing her and the ladder at the same time as she stumbled back into the metal steps.
Bakuda gasped.
"What the fu- you, what- what did you do? Holy shit you… wow. I- why am I not upset? You fucked with my head. You did something. I feel like I should be mad at you but I kinda feel like a kid meeting Santa, actually. Wow, you're… wow . What's your name? That is sick as shit- holy fuck you're amazing. I- do you need something? I'll get whatever you want. Just stick around for a bit? I really feel like I should be mad for some reason but I'm not sure why. I should probably kill you and get rid of it but I haven't felt this content in ages. I don't even want to make someone explode into gibby bits, this is weird. And good, somehow. Wow." Bakuda rambled, awed and still in that ' I just got Mastered and I know it but even though logic dictates I should be mad I feel like I just met god and she told me to be her servant' phase.
When the general confusion passed, it was a bit smoother, but for a bit, she expected Bakuda to behave like this.
Which was not what she wanted, not with this fucking migraine. No, it wasn't even a migraine anymore, it felt like she was mixing a stroke with an aneurysm and a migraine all at once.
Taylor furrowed her brows with enough force to feel like the muscles were cramping, gritting her teeth.
"I should probably straighten up but I kind of feel honored to be your pillow-"
"Stop. Talking." She grit out, feeling like if she tried to say more, all that would leave her mouth would be foam and hissing groans of agony.
Every pulse of blood felt like someone was hammering a wooden stake covered in splinters straight into her brain.
Bakuda, surprisingly, listened, and stopped talking.
"Head… hurts. Something soft." She bit out, curt, barely containing the whimper.
Bakuda nodded, and fixed her footwork enough to let go of the ladder, carefully adjusting to not move her head too much as she held her.
Without having neither energy nor the mental faculties for higher thought, she pushed Evelynn away, instantly feeling a tiny, tiny bit better.
And a thousand times more vulnerable with a freshly-Mastered weirdo holding her.
She swapped to the Rune of Resolve before her mind blanked out, too tired to think about anything.
"I have a couch here in the corner. Will that do, uh... maam?" Bakuda whispered, breathed out, really, and she made an affirmative noise, not daring to nod.
Bakuda then proceeded to very, very, very carefully begin the process of shuffling her around into a princess carry.
She wasn't sure how to handle the fact that she was now in a bomb Tinker's workshop getting princess carried, but thought hurt. Thought came with difficulty. So she didn't think.
So she just accepted the absurdity as it was, as if she was in a dream, and let Bakuda slowly and with utterly bizarre care, slowly carry her to the corner of her workshop, where an old but unimaginably soft couch was waiting for her.
Then soft, fuzzy headphones were put on her head as she tried to find a way to pressure her head and relieve the pain, and she did not resist. With them blocking out even the sound of Bakuda's footsteps or her own breaths, she thought that was it, until Bakuda came back with a wet towel she draped over her forehead, and a small stool chair she put beside the couch.
Then she put water on it, a slip of paper, and a bottle of pills.
She fought with her brain for a moment to actually read the paper.
no painkillers bt i got sleep pills sorry
theyre really strong
u can sleep I'll lock the hatch not even lung is getting in here if i dont want him to
She grabbed the bottle, flipped two into her mouth, and hurriedly washed them down with water.
She had no idea how sleeping pills would interact with a horrific migraine, but they apparently did nothing but knock her out in mere minutes.
She drifted off to the scent of cheap chinese takeout and the faint scent of gunpowder.
It took a few moments to remember where she was and why, and when she did, she barely resisted the urge to facepalm, knowing it would only worsen the killer headache she was still nursing.
Then she got so fucking mad at herself that the headache worsened by two degrees instantly.
That was so fucking stupid. Did she really just eat random fucking pills that Bakuda gave her immediately after she got Mastered and even noted that she should probably kill her? What the fuck, Taylor!
She felt like strangling her slightly younger self. She looked around, and was mildly surprised to see Bakuda still in the room, very, very, very slowly Tinkering on a giant workbench.
After a moment, she realized that she was trying not to make more noise than the headphones on her head could block out.
Brows raising a little from the surprising thoughtfulness, she briefly debated on what the fuck to do.
Bakuda would still need some tweaking in the future to make sure she didn't go ballistic on someone else, seeing as the only person she made her submissive and subservient to was herself, but that could wait, like, a lot.
It would be best to just introduce herself.
Then go home and miserably writhe on her bed until the headache went away by tomorrow.
And by tomorrow she'd have Canary and whoever was with her to deal with.
She slowly got up, grimacing a little, and took slow, shuffling steps.
In the quiet of the room, it seemed that was enough to draw Bakuda's attention, who immediately dropped what she was doing. And somewhat unsurprisingly, turned and beamed at her. Then she tapped her own stomach with two fingers before pointing to the side.
Taylor's gaze slid over to an unfolding metal table with two stools beside it, plastic tupperware on it that smelled of something vaguely asian-themed and medical. With square-ish squiggles on it.
Definitely some kind of Chinese soup.
Bakuda darted back to the workbench, took a slip of paper, and wrote on it, before presenting it to her like a child would a drawing to its parent, holding it spread out with both hands on it outstretched and a self-pleased grin on her face.
This was so fucking weird .
But whatever.
She squinted at the paper, trying to get her pounding brain to register the squiggles into letters and the letters into words.
I think its all bullsht but the chinese shits always argue with the japs about how their soups seem to help with headaches or some sht so i got u some
Chinese soup helped with headaches?
She doubted it, but she was fucking starving and felt like she was four fifths dead.
Still, she turned to Evelynn for a moment.
"Are you lying? Is the soup poisoned?" She whispered, just to see her reaction to it rather than that being a genuine concern, and Bakuda's eyes widened almost comically.
Not because she'd been caught, but, judging from her emotions, because she was on the verge of crying like a puppy that almost got kicked by its beloved owner. There was also a mix of offense and absolute disgust at the mere notion of what she suggested and a strong fear of her that she wasn't sure of its origin-
She thought back to how her mind was structured.
To Bakuda, fear and respect were more intertwined than to most. So when she inflated respect…
She didn't check fear, too focused on what she had to change and not the emotions that it would drag along.
Shit, she'd made her Tinker pet inwardly scared shitless of her, didn't she? Without even meaning to.
It would be a quick five minute fix to tamp that fear down, but five minutes was five minutes too much in her state.
Bakuda was still looking at her wide eyed, dismayed and self-disappointed and scared, her emotions spiraling into a circle and feeding each other. Her eyes glittered with the cold white light of her workstation behind her.
Was she about to cry? Seriously?!
"I- no, no no, never, what- d-did I do something wrong? Was I supposed to poison you? I-I can do that if you want? But I didn't do anything to the soup, I swear. I'm sorry? I can kill the soup if you want." Bakuda whispered, her arms lowering, still looking at her like a kicked puppy. Not a hint of falsehood, just increasing inner anguish.
Great, now thinking she had been told she did something wrong would just make her depressed rather than murderous. How did she even do that?
…
…
Maybe she overdid it a little when Mastering her. A bit more than she usually did. Or a lot.
She thought back to what she changed.
Lower self-esteem, more akin to a simple proud person, raised respect and trust, infatuation, all cranked up to the heavens…
Well shit, this was barely the same fucking person. At least where she was concerned, it seemed. But still, villain bomb Tinker that was dangerously insane. She hadn't been willing to take chances.
WIth the headache she was nursing and the fact- wait did she just say she could kill the soup?
Despite the headache, she couldn't help but burst out into a snickering fit, grimacing and switching back to herself before rubbing at her temples as she powered through it and forced it down. It only took a couple seconds to calm down, but the pain had briefly returned to its previous heights, even if it was fading as the seconds passed.
"No. You did good. Thank you." She whispered, strained.
Bakuda's despondent expression instantly switched to something more akin to a smug preening cat that was trying to tone the smug down to not piss off its owner and barely succeeding.
Curious, she paused, squinted.
"Kneel." She breathed out, and Bakuda's expression shifted to include a bit of surprise. Then she dropped to her knees without hesitation, blinking up at her.
Her eyes flit to a pistol that sat on the corner of the workbench.
She shuffled past Bakuda, and grabbed it, briefly checking the safety switch, then turned to see Bakuda's puzzled, oddly innocent face.
"Head to ground." She whispered, and after a moment of confusion, Bakuda turned to face forwards before bringing her torso down until her forehead was touching the ground.
She took a step forward, slowly descended down to one knee, then put the barrel of the pistol against the back of Bakuda's head, who went statue-still.
"In five seconds, I'm going to shoot. Sit still." She said, her finger tight on the trigger.
"I-I- I don't- did I- but you-?" Bakuda whispered out, terrified and sounding like she was about to cry. The odd tone she used made Taylor think she was about to cry because she thought she did something wrong, more than crying because she was about to die, and she inwardly grimaced at how much she fucked her up during the Mastering process. It wasn't this bad, usually.
But, caution. Caution demanded it. She had to be sure. Absolutely sure. She didn't want to see if Bakuda could kill her with a single grenade because she somehow twisted herself around during the process by accident.
"Don't talk. Five." She murmured, shifting her grip, tilting the pistol to check and be sure of the safety's current mode.
Bakuda didn't do anything but begin to tremble, silent, her fingers clenching into fists on the floor.
Taylor readied a Legend, just in case.
"Four."
Bakuda's jaw trembled as she ground her forehead into the floor.
"Three."
A tiny sound, like a wheeze.
"Two."
Bakuda's jaw opened, trembling with tension, before it snapped shut, her angle allowing her to see how Bakuda's eyes clenched shut in terror and preparation, a small whimper leaving her. Were she Evelynn right now, she might know exactly what that whimper was borne out of. Disappointment, confusion, despair, or just simple fear of death? A mix?
"One."
She pulled the trigger with force, only the muted click of the safety blocking its movement sounding out, but it was enough for Bakuda to think it was the click of the trigger, and she jerked in place, shuddering and quivering on the floor for a second, two, before wide, baby blue eyes swung open and towards her, wide and surprised.
"It was a test. You passed with flying colors. Amazing job, Bakuda. I'm proud." She said slowly, smiling faintly, all the while an inner voice asked her what the fuck made her decide to do this.
No, really, was this necessary? Would Taylor Hebert ever do something like this?
Did she care?
Bakuda took a moment to digest that, before the tension flowed out of her with a sob of relief, her body going completely and utterly limp on the floor. Then she immediately went back to looking like a proud cat. Taylor slowly put the gun on the floor, and put her hand on the woman's head, petting her like one.
The way Bakuda nuzzled back had her realize what she was doing, and she hurriedly pulled her hand back.
This shit was all getting way too weird and she was a bit alarmed at how much she didn't not like it.
"Are you okay?" She asked, finding herself oddly genuine in her concern, even if it was rather half-hearted.
Whether Bakuda was an evil psycho who planned to put a bomb in Lisa's skull or not, she was now her pet, and she liked to think she wasn't an abusive pet owner.
…
This was starting to sound oddly sexual and the thought was severely off-putting and gross. Not because of Bakuda, the woman was hot, but because there was a reason she wanted to kill Heartbreaker, and not become him. There wasn't a gigantic line between her and Heartbreaker beyond the fact she wasn't a soulless, disgusting degenerate, but the line was still pretty fucking big and she wanted to keep it that way.
Bakuda took a deep breath, a little uneven.
"Yes. Sorry about the reaction, I just… you know. I thought you'd kill me." Bakuda whispered, actually sounding a little shaken.
Of course she was. Taylor's word was absolute. If she said she would kill her, in her mind, she was about to die. No questions asked.
Curiosity was going to bite her in the ass eventually, but this was the first person she'd Mastered that was both a parahuman and extremely complicated. This wasn't like taking Ethan's attraction and lust towards children and smothering it in mental hellfire, this was untangling a web of bizarre connections.
"How did that make you feel in those few seconds? What did you think about the fact I was going to kill you?" She asked, and Bakuda paused, blinked the starting seeds of tears out of her eyes, and stared off into a blackboard as she thought.
"I was trying to figure out what I had done wrong." Bakuda said, still whispering just barely high enough for them to converse. Thoughtful of her.
Her head was not enjoying the conversation and the thinking too much, but the damn soup could wait.
"And what if you hadn't done anything wrong? What would your thoughts, emotions, have been then?" She asked, slow enough to not agitate her own ears, and another few seconds passed.
"I- I would have probably started wondering what the reason I had to die was." Bakuda said, confused at this line of questioning.
"And if there wasn't one?"
Bakuda frowned.
"There's always a reason. Not a good one, maybe not even one that makes sense, maybe not even a reason the person doing it knows about, but everyone does things for a reason." Bakuda replied, with conviction that spoke of something personal. "So if you did kill me, you would have had a reason. And whatever it would be, you would have it, and your reason would be right and acceptable because it was yours."
"Even if it was just for my amusement?" She asked slowly, and Bakuda's face grew conflicted, in a way knowing that this should all alarm her, this should be horrifying to hear or at least contemptible enough to her survival for her to react, but also not feeling any of that knowledge, in fact feeling the distinct opposite.
People were emotional beings, not rational ones.
So Bakuda nodded.
If she hadn't put temperance in equal measure in this woman, she quickly realized that had Hookwolf or someone else so much as scratched her, she would have turned half the bay into ashes.
She really liked playing with fire, didn't she?
"Yep. If it made you satisfied or amused and you wanted to kill me, I'd accept it."
"What if I said that there is such a thing as an action without a reason? Would you accept that?" She asked, and Bakuda nodded instantly, even if the mere proposition she made sounded completely illogical, and the Tinker's brows furrowed, likely trying to find a way to justify or understand the thing she'd just accepted as truth.
Was this how cult leaders made people believe in insane stuff? Just getting people so taken with them that if they said it, then it was true in the eyes of their followers? She felt disgusting and powerful in a way that was so much more intoxicating than anything experienced through memories or fantasies.
And that was disgusting, concerning, and most of all, eroded her self-trust. This was a slight problem, and she wasn't too sure of how to fix it.
"Just to be clear, I'm not saying that there is such a thing as an action without a reason. Your opinion was right, keep it."
"Oh, okay. So… can I get up?" Bakuda asked, still on the floor, and Taylor slowly blinked at her, before rising herself, wincing at the mere act of moving her head.
"Yeah. Let's eat. Call me boss in private. Let's talk about my orders for you and then… then I'll take another nap." She whispered as she slowly got on the stool chair, and Bakuda nodded eagerly as she got up and dusted herself off.
As she cracked the plastic tupperware adorned with foreign letters on it and took out the plastic spoons, she idly wondered what the hell she was supposed to feel about this situation besides satisfaction, which was the easy and normal one. The rest of the cocktail she felt right now wasn't.
She might have to meet with an experienced Master and try to discuss ethics or something because this felt too Heartbreaker-y to be comfortable with and too nice to be uncomfortable with.
At the moment however, Bakuda had proven that even if she genuinely thought she would die, she'd sit still and be good for her.
So there was no need for paranoia. It caught on well.
She could relax a bit.
Even if it was in an underground Tinker workshop that could probably delete a third of Brockton if it detonated.
"Ah, that's the spicy one. And they're also pretty cold by now. I have a microwave, may I?" Bakuda asked by her side, hands half-extended, and she realized it would take a bit of time to get used to the whiplash inducing change the woman went through, because it was so weird to hear the woman that had argued with her own Tinker collar that she should turn it into a cockring acting like a child that was exceedingly eager to please her.
Besides, this Bakuda was different enough to warrant it, so she nodded, and experimentally, raised her hand to pat her head like an actual pet.
Bakuda's smile as her hand met her hair was wide and so excited she was practically vibrating in place.
This was so weird. This was so fucking weird. Like, Bakuda was happy, which was nice, but she was petting her like a pet and why did she even do this?
"Yes. Good…"
If she said 'good girl' this would go even further into freaky gross territory and just no.
"...Minion?" She let out, and winced, because that was just stereotypicaly stupid and fuck you Lisa for making her realize that.
This was such a fucking mess.
Still, Bakuda actually bounced on the balls of her feet for a moment with a wide smile as she took her hand back, before gingerly taking their soups and carefully going to the microwave, focused like this was a task of utmost importance.
This was so fucking weird.
She wasn't panicking, but the root of it was there.
Sile had been simple. It was like she went from a scary stranger to a scary but trusty boss that he had irrationally strong feelings of loyalty and commitment to. And the acceptance she connected to such changes make it impossible for people to reject the connection.
Her ex-Merchant minions were roughly the same.
Bakuda felt like she made a complete one-eighty in her entire personality, and she hadn't even been meaning to do that. Likely because the background importance of this and her paranoia made her way, way overcompensate.
The command she'd give the woman to keep up with how she used to act would have to work as a band aid solution until further notice.
For now, she had a far, far better informant on what the ABB was up to, what their plans were, and fucking Tinkertech grenades, which would turn Twisted Fate's cards into nothing but a cheap backup replacement, their only merits being that for each grenade here, one could carry a hundred and four smaller ones on their person.
It had been a great day.
The soup also smelled much better when warm, and as Bakuda brought the bowls back to the table and kept looking at her like she was staring at the Mona Lisa, she idly debated maybe adding more temperance and stoicism into the woman, at least when around her.
On the other hand…
This felt good. To take a horrible person and forcibly yank the driving wheel out of their hands and into hers, make someone who trusted her unconditionally out of them, without having to waste months and years and resources into doing so while constantly wondering who they're going to kill next when they're out of her sight, how they might betray her because they just can't fit with her.
With her disposition when she saw her, it was no doubt in her mind that Bakuda would have ended up being a violent sociopathic mass murderer. There were connections with satisfaction and non-sexual pleasure in the thought of making people hurt, putting them beneath herself and showing them their place. Additionally, people didn't just make entire shelves full of Tinker bombs to look at them, it was obvious that the ABB was going to use these for something, and Bakuda was all too happy to see what her toys would do.
Besides, Bakuda was clearly happy right now, and with that Boston accent, she did not exactly have any close family or friends to mourn her sudden change. She actively hated most of her family. So who the fuck was she really hurting besides her own morals here?
The best she could and should do later was make sure Bakuda wouldn't become a threat if she died somehow, and that she would be happy and somewhat mentally stable, as in, not crumple into a sobbing heap if Taylor ever got mad or disapointed in her, because that was needlessly cruel, honestly, besides the whole... semi-worship thing. Which she could tone down. By how much though...? And she-
Ow, ow, owww.
Thoughts.
Thoughts bad, bring pain.
No thoughts, only soup.
She took a slow sip with her spoon.
It wasn't half-bad, actually, even if it smelled like medicine.
The information grilling and general commands could wait for later. Preferably after food and sleep enough to where the mere sound of slurping wouldn't make her eyes tighten in pain.
Notes:
thought of just nyooming past this, but Bakuda aint a minion, and she's more complicated, and I plan to have her in the story for a pretty decent amount because she's just fun when she isn't being an evil bitch, which won't be a problem now.
some might say this chapter is bad and they don't like where this is going or how bakuda is being treated or characterized.
I'll be honest, if you say that, fair enough, but this is what i wanted to write and do with her, so im going for it :)
(edit: chapter was rewritten a bit to better the tone)