Villiany and Blackguards Incorporated #7: Maria of the Dogs

Villains and Blackguards Incorporated (VABI) is an organization found on Earth 32aa which has dedicated itself to protecting the interest of those of differently enabled morality and enhanced humanity. They take care of legal expenses and investments. It has become a very successful organization and is considering spreading to other Earths. In case they do here are some of it's members.


VABI is very mindful of its members privacy. In a world of secret identies or alter egos being wanted by the Authorities VABI appreciates its members needful paranoia on the subject. However, VABI is also often the target of infiltration by the Authorities. Because of this VABI has a team of investigators when a member exhibits suspicious actions. Sometimes these investigations reveal something amazing, and nothing was so amazing or world threatening than the discover of Maria of the Dogs.

It started with a thief by the name of Ben Cross who had way too much money compared to what VABI could account for. What really made VABI interested was he was taking the money to VABI to be cleaned then taking that money and recleaning it elsewhere. It was in the investigation of Ben Cross that eventually lead to Maria of the Dogs. For you see, there never was a Ben Cross. Only Maria.

The investigators after some time worked out the origin and powers of Maria. Maria was a feral child when people finally noticed her. Her mother and father will always be a mystery. What people saw was a small wild child with one arm scarred with bite marks surrounded by dogs. The dogs that were with Maria didn't seem to have done the biting, instead they did her bidding. They formed a pack of petty crime. A local priest tried to win her over and eventually did for a bit. But his attempts to take her to a safer place to live scared Maria and the dogs attacked. The priest would live but Maria knew he would tell on her so she did the only thing she could think of. She opened a wound on her arm and fed the priest blood.

It was the first time the mass mind that is Maria of the Dogs added another human. Instantly, there was an adult's perspective not to mention intelligence and experience to help guide Maria. Also, there was now an adult human body to protect her from the law. What bothered Maria, though, was parts of the priest refused to intergrate into the whole. The priest was fighting her. This never happened with the dogs since being pack animals to begin with they welcomed the intergration. This left Maria in a quandry, for having tasted human intergration once she was hungry for more. She knew though that she can't have a host of shadow personalities in her head. It would drive her insane. It took a little thought but soon she had a plan for recruitment.

The priest body went back to his work. Maria now lived in his house and spent most of her time reading now that she was instantly literate. The priest body would find those where suicidal and gently guide them. If they were receptive they were given a new deal. Lose who you are, but not your life. To those of a certain mindset this seemed a good deal. Slowly, Maria added one human than another without conflict. She grew in power and in knowledge. At one point she tried recruiting terminal patients but she didn't like the death feeling.

When Maria of the Dogs reached fifty human bodies and twenty five canine ones it went and bought a patch of land that was fairly remote. There they built something that looked like a church. Maria hoped that now there was a "body" of followers that they can increase recruitment along the lines a cult. She wanted to be careful though. She realized that she represented a huge threat to humanity. So that is why she began farming out agents to launder Maria's assets, and that is how the VABI found her.

VABI was impressed to say the least and wanted better access to Maria of the Dogs. An envoy was sent and eventually Maria of the Dogs was won over as a full member of VABI on the condition that her true size and nature was not general knowledge. It has been a good alliance, though VABI has taken a DNA sample without permission or knowledge of Maria of the Dogs. It was simply too tempting to have their own mass mind on the staff.