Jessamine returned to the commander, and he knew solely from her expression that his fear had been justified.
"Now, then, what to do with you?" she said, looking the man up and down. "Should I let your memory be erased again so that you don't remember cheating on your wife?"
She made a pointed glance below his belt, forcing him to remember the passionate kiss they had shared, and he would have shuddered in horror if he were able. But the commander could once again only communicate with his eyes: Please, he begged.
His warden saw this and smiled darkly.
"Alright," she chuckled. She snapped her fingers, and the man found himself in St. Peter's Square surrounded by his men—exactly where he had been when Jessamine first arrived.
She didn't erase my memory, he realized. He also began to recall the events that had led up to this point and came to understand that he possessed no agency whatsoever.
He couldn't look around, but from the few men that were in his line of sight, he knew that his platoon was just as immobile as he was. In the quiet stillness of the night, the true gravity of the situation made itself known to him.
The nullification zone is gone.
There's nothing holding her back anymore.
She could destroy this city—destroy the entire Union.
How will we escape?
Am I hoping for too much?
Oh, Maddalena, my dearest… forgive me.
I didn't mean to—it's not my fault—I was a fool…
Forgive me, please.
He heard something in the distance: civilians, most likely wondering about the activity at the Vatican. The Union had issued a shelter-in-place order as soon as the impact had occurred, but the people of Rome would've heard the gunfire and the silence that followed.
And people are nothing if not curious.
Please, my love, stay home.
Don't come looking for me.
"I have some questions," said Jessamine, "and I would greatly appreciate some answers."
The commander hadn't heard her approach, so she must've travelled in the same way that he exited the Basilica: instant teleportation.
He hadn't heard a chant, and there was nothing on her body which indicated she possessed any runic devices. Thankfully, his will was strong, as the memory of her masquerade threatened to resurface… but he rejected the temptation.
She can teleport people instinctively.
That makes her a threat of a different class than any other living magician, even Ultimates.
Jessamine had not yet entered his field of view, so it was impossible for him to even guess what questions she might have, or even if the questions were directed at him. They might be rhetorical for all he knew. She could be manipulating him again—the possibilities overwhelmed him with apprehension.
"Interesting," he heard her mutter, "I didn't expect that. Okay, on to the next one."
The commander's imagination proved a more potent source of fear than anything he could've seen. It was primitive in the first hour, focused solely on the possibility that she might appear suddenly before him and commit untold harm to his body, but the second hour brought a different kind of dread: the awareness that he was unable to defend himself, and that she might forcibly give him another reason to seek forgiveness from his wife.
In the third hour, though, he was struck by the conspicuous lack of reinforcements and entertained a new thought: The Union might not even be aware of the danger it's in. They might think that we're handling the situation.
…but wouldn't they know that they've lost contact with us?
What has she done to prevent help from arriving?
He became more despondent as his thoughts turned towards the future of his nation and as the continued evidence of Jessamine's exploits assaulted his ears.
My son… you are safe. She doesn't know about you.
Leave this forsaken land.
Find safety, and live well.
Mama… Papa…
I'll see you soon.
When Jessamine finally graced his sight, the act to which he bore witness horrified him beyond imagination.
She stood before one of the soldiers opposite him—it was difficult to make out details due to the fading moonlight, and the only light was that of a rifle-mounted flashlight from a nearby comrade—but he could see her removing her subject's tactical helmet. It was discarded without a second thought; he knew the sound of a helmet clattering against stone by heart.
Next, she appeared to move her hands around the man's head in a circular pattern, tracing a path horizontally through what should've been his temples.
When she was done, she grasped the top of his head and picked something up, once again throwing it away mindlessly.
But this time he didn't recognize the sound.
It was only as the mysterious object entered the path of the stock-still flashlight that he could get a glimpse of its composition: hair, bone, and a lot of blood.
It was his scalp and the top of his skull.
Dear God.
D'Angelo, what has she done to you?
Forgive me.
I couldn't protect you.
Jessamine now danced her fingers over the man's exposed brain. If she was using magic, the commander couldn't see any visible effect at this distance, and the lack of information only fueled his latent imagination and fear.
"Fascinating..."
The whisper echoed across the empty courtyard. The commander wasn't sure how many of his men were left; he could only see a handful. Perhaps the Domino Witch had specifically avoided entering his line of sight in order to magnify his terror—if she would impersonate his wife, why wouldn't she be so petty to torture him further?
Wait; something's happening.
She hadn't healed him, but she stepped back and snapped her fingers.
D'Angelo reflexively grasped at his head but recoiled in pain and stumbled backwards… it looked like he was doing his best not to fall, and the commander could very well understand why.
"You look like someone who can use magic," he heard the Witch say. "Do some magic for me."
The Sergeant didn't need to be told twice. He recklessly threw a fireball at his oppressor, to no effect, but he used the opportunity to begin running away.
At least, that's what he had planned to do.
The Domino Witch appeared directly in front of him, and the commander saw her reach towards her hapless escapee, though at this point it was all he could do to make out basic movement.
He saw Sergeant D'Angelo fall to the ground, and he didn't dare guess why.
"So you could use magic instinctively… I see."
The Witch effortlessly glided to the next man the commander could see.
"What about you? Let's take a look under the hood."
By the time she had finished with the last man in his sight, the sun was about to rise. Normally, the rising sun brought with it the hope of a new day: now, it only brought the promise of the full revelation of the Domino Witch's horrific experiment, as well as the threat of what she might do to a city about to wake.
Jessamine walked out of his field of view, and he could no longer hear her footsteps.
Did she teleport away?
As the golden Sunday rays pierced the sky, the commander collapsed on the edge of the square.
The paralysis had been removed.
His body, stiff from the hours of forced positioning, still yet refused to move—and neither did he have the will to try, for he feared what moving might show him. With the dawn came the expected sounds of urban life; sirens in the background let him know that help would soon be arriving, and for a moment, he felt that life could return to normal.
Until, that is, footsteps rapidly approached him; he recognized the footsteps, but more importantly, he thought he recognized the voice that followed.
"Darling!"
It sounded like the Witch, slightly different, but not different enough to matter. He rose to his feet and greeted the newcomer, fury in his eyes.
The thing was rushing towards him, doing its best to appear anxious.
"They told me you were here, injured, barely alive!" it cried, embracing him as soon as possible. "Are you okay? What happened to you?"
It looked like his wife, but now he saw it clearly: her form looked as if it had been pulled straight from his memories, which is to say—it looked like a fantasy. He had always regarded his wife realistically and appreciated her thusly. This thing before him was not his wife, of that he was certain.
And its voice now more closely mirrored that of the Witch, vindicating his suspicion.
The commander didn't hesitate.
I will avenge my brothers.
He grabbed her neck with as much force as his exhausted muscles could muster, his fingers viciously digging into her trachea as she struggled for breath. She fought with incredible vigor, doing absolutely anything she could to get him to stop, but her eyes soon rolled back into her head as her resistance faded like the night.
It was then that he realized: The Domino Witch wouldn't succumb so easily to strangulation.
She's playing dead.
She's trying to get my hopes up so that I make a mistake, and then she'll humiliate me and kill me.
He could indeed see the faintest hint of chest movement coming from the impostor, and he scowled with disgust at how he had almost fallen into her trap.
I can't shoot her—we already tried that.
But what can I do?
"Get up," he said stoically. "I know you're not dead."
The not-corpse levitated before him, uttering a sound which could've been a form of laughter if its source was any more human. It rotated so that it now faced the commander and lowered itself to the ground, standing before him in a stance which his wife never adopted.
He examined it carefully now and saw that its eyes lacked the distinct spark of life, which only further fueled his rage.
This thing is not a woman.
It's a monster.
"Drop the act. Change back to your original form."
The false-wife cocked its head.
"But this is my form," it replied as a grin teased the corners of its mouth.
He had seen that grin before, and he wasn't fooled.
"I know my wife," said the commander, "and that's not her."
"Oh, but it is."
He watched with bated breath as a handful of shimmering wires appeared all over her body and began extending upward. They converged a few feet above at something that resembled a marionette's control rod; but the spectacle continued, and he saw a hand form around the rod and knew instantly to whom it belonged.
"You—"
His voice halted as he looked again at the creature before him and was dismayed that the face did not resemble the fantasy he had encountered in the Basilica. This was a face he had known for nearly forty years, a face he trusted, a face he loved.
It was the face of his wife.
Jessamine laughed, her voice betraying the location of her still-invisible head as the rest of her body materialized above the commander.
"You killed her, bastard!" he shouted, rushing forward to examine his wife's corpse. "God damn you to hell, witch!"
Jessamine dropped the control rod and the body crumpled into the commander's arms; he caressed her face as Jessamine moved to hover beside him, utterly relaxed, as if enjoying a pool on a hot summer day.
"I did no such thing," she whispered innocently, clasping his shoulder in her hands and nibbling on his earlobe. "I only told her where you were—I was trying to be nice, you know—but then I arrive to find you've murdered her… imagine my shock!"
She lowered her voice and put her lips directly on his ear, gently flicking her tongue over the fragile flesh.
"Imagine my arousal," whispered Jessamine, "or maybe you already have…"
She violated his ear with her tongue, and he couldn't shake the impression that her tongue had more in common with that of a cat than that of a human. He recoiled instinctively as his assailant laughed at his discomfort.
"You have become so pathetic," she chuckled. "You were so consumed with thoughts of me that you didn't even recognize your own wife. And, yeah, I may have played with the intensity of those thoughts a bit… but, deep down, you know that you were remembering how I allowed you to look at me in the Basilica. You can't deny it. You want me, not her, and that's why you killed such a subprime specimen."
Jessamine continued to float around him, peppering his body with love bites as the commander struggled to maintain his composure. He trembled with the energy of ten thousand different impulses boiling beneath his skin. His anger battled his libido; his shame found an opponent in his desire for justice. Nothing was clear in his mind, which was drowning in a whirlpool of emotion. He did not look at her, and he did not even look at his wife's body. When he finally spoke, his voice carried the gravitas of decades' worth of grief, anger, and retribution:
"…what do you want, Domino Witch?"
Jessamine smiled, shifting to face him head-on and planting her feet on the ground.
"You've given me everything I want already," she replied, gesturing to the scene around them. "This time has been truly enlightening, and to study the stimulation of your brain just now? Utterly priceless."
For the first time this morning, he allowed his eyes to wander over the battlefield.
Calling St. Peter's Square a "battlefield" was not entirely honest, for no true battle had taken place—yet the number of corpses laid out in formation around the impact crater testified otherwise. Each was missing the upper part of its skull, and though the ground was soaked with blood, brain fluid, and pus, the brains themselves were missing. The Domino Witch must've taken them, and it didn't appear to be a clean extraction; the state of the soldiers' brain stems was too haphazard.
Scattered behind them were various bodies he didn't recognize: some city policemen, some civilians, and other miscellaneous militants had received the same treatment as his men.
That explains why no backup has arrived, he thought.
"Now," she continued, "I have a message which I would appreciate if you would deliver. Tell the New Roman Union that I will spare their nation—"
She paused, snapped her fingers, and the city was suddenly filled with blaring sirens indicating that the nullification core had been removed.
"—as long as you keep my identity a secret. I don't care whatever else you may try so long as that condition is upheld."
He looked back at the Domino Witch and saw something remarkable: a smile without a hint of malice.
"…I do not have the authority to agree to those terms."
"Did I ask you to agree?"
He sighed, utterly resigned to his fate.
He advanced through the stages of grief quickly, Jessamine noted.
"No, you did not."
"Excellent. We understand each other."
Jessamine turned away but for some reason looked back over her shoulder, raising her hand and looking as if she was about to snap her fingers.
"I just wanted to say… you won't be able to bury your wife."
"No—!" he cried, reaching for her hand, but she snapped her fingers before he even got close. Both the Domino Witch and his wife vanished, leaving only a faint stain of excrement where her body had lain.
"No, no, no!" he sputtered, falling to his knees, eyes overflowing despite never having been given permission.
You couldn't have at least given me that solace?
The Union would be arriving soon, but he had no strength left to give to his nation. He was a liability, not an asset, and there was no recompense. He had been thoroughly eviscerated by the Domino Witch and would forever remain such.
The commander found the two things he needed: a sidearm, and the helmet-mounted camera from one of the nearby corpses. With any luck, the forensics team would be able to stitch together the footage from every camera to be able to see how the platoon was defeated, and they'd surely see this recording as well.
He set the helmet on the ground and adjusted the camera angle accordingly.
"Do not underestimate the Domino Witch," he said, standing at attention a few paces back from the camera. "She is deadly beyond reason."
He suppressed the urge to vomit as he recalled the night's events.
"I have a message from her to the ICV. Do not reveal her identity, or she will remove our beloved Union from the face of the Earth. I have no doubt that she is able to deliver on that threat."
He saluted.
"Thank you for allowing me to serve my people," he concluded, before putting the barrel of his sidearm in his mouth and pulling the trigger.