Dorian's faction

Dorian's faction is a recruited and trained force of people with powers, organized by Dorian as his own version of Hero Society. He presents it as a means to end secrecy and persecution, but its promise of freedom is bound to his belief that the gifted stand above ordinary humans. The faction's campaign turns that ideology into coordinated action: a bridge is destroyed, government systems are disrupted, and its members confront Hero Society in Seahill. Its eventual loss of members follows a change in Dorian himself, exposing how closely the organization depends on his will and state of mind.

Recruitment and Purpose

Dorian gathers men and women from lives he sees as chaotic and wins them over with the promise of a life without fear. His appeal is personal freedom: recruits, he tells himself, should be able to live as they choose rather than hide or be told otherwise. He also frames their powers as gifts that should not be belittled. These promises give the faction a cause beyond personal loyalty, and help explain why people who feel threatened or excluded might join it.

That liberating language coexists with a hierarchy in which Dorian places the gifted above humans. He regards ordinary people as beneath the faction, and his recruits are encouraged to understand their power not as a responsibility to protect others but as proof that they need not submit to human rules. In confronting Hero Society, Dorian argues that humans had recently been willing to harm the gifted and that the gifted should not risk their freedom for them. He offers the opposing heroes a choice to join him and live without fear or persecution. The appeal is therefore both an organizing principle and a challenge to Hero Society's claim to speak for the powered community.

Dorian's plans for the group develop alongside his personal efforts to control Esme. While his force is still being prepared, he considers how to bring her under his influence; after their kiss, she avoids him except when they are treating a patient together. This tension connects the faction's larger project of command with Dorian's wish to direct an individual relationship. The evidence presents his promise of freedom to recruits alongside a private impulse to dominate, a contradiction in the way he understands autonomy.

Organization and Powers

The faction has multiple bases, including a home Dorian uses to house its recruits as weapons. The main group gathers in a large training room, where members wait for their turn to be released into action. Dorian supervises their development and directs them to practice until they can control their new powers. The group is not described as a set of copies of Hero Society; rather, Dorian has assembled people with abilities that resemble those of its members, creating what he considers a stronger counterpart.

Its demonstrated roster includes Ajax and Monica, assigned to the bridge operation; Roady, responsible for disabling systems; and Jesse, who carries Echo's power. After extensive practice, Jesse can shift into any animal, and Dorian also values his strength. The recruits' abilities are treated as operational resources: members train, receive assignments, and are expected to act when Dorian gives the word. Dorian's own powers support his leadership. He shares power associated with Apollo and can call on visions of possible futures, using them selectively as he follows a path of his choosing. He contrasts this with Phillip's future-directed outlook, which centers on a future where people like Hero Society's members protect humans.

The faction's resources include more than combat abilities. Roady works from a laptop and has access to a larger computer area supplied by Dorian. In the attack on Seahill, he infects major government systems with a virus expected to take at least two hours to overcome. The disruption gives Dorian's operation a limited window in which to proceed. Together, the training, specialized powers, technology, and delegated assignments show a force with distinct roles rather than an undirected crowd.

Campaign in Seahill

Dorian's order of operations begins with Ajax and Monica being sent to destroy the bridge, the only way onto the island. He watches from a nearby rooftop as the empty bridge is brought down into the water. The action isolates Seahill's access route and marks the start of the wider disorder planned for the city. Meanwhile, Roady begins the system shutdown, extending the operation from physical infrastructure to government networks.

Over the following hours, battles break out in cities around the world as the people Dorian recruited are set free to act. At Seahill, Dorian watches from Griffin Enterprises Tower, the city's tallest tower, as the moon begins to move across the sun. When Hero Society gathers near the tower, Dorian brings Draco there and his own crew emerges from the shadows. He calls on the heroes to join him, presenting the faction as an alternative to a society in which the gifted must hide. None of the heroes answers his appeal, and the dispute turns into open fighting.

The clash is organized through individual matchups. Ajax faces Leon, while Monica is paired against Lilith; Phillip confronts Ron Presley, and Jesse and Echo take animal forms to fight one another. Asher engages Trix, whose powers concern shadows, while Rose fights a newcomer able to manipulate water. Dorian reserves Draco for himself, describing the two of them as the battle's true warriors, and leaves the rest of his faction to handle the other opponents. The scene reveals both the group's capacity to divide its forces and the limits of its unity: Dorian's plan depends on assigning each member a target, while its leader claims the central confrontation for himself.

Breakdown and Significance

Dorian's faction is defeated in the battle against Hero Society, but its decline is also tied to a turning point within its leader. Later, as a struggle rages inside Dorian and change begins to stir, the few members still with him leave. Their departure makes the faction's dependence on Dorian plain: the organization has been built around his recruitment, his command, and his vision of what freedom means, rather than a lasting shared structure able to survive his reversal.

The faction's history holds together two competing meanings of liberation. Its members are offered safety from concealment and permission to use powers openly, but Dorian's contempt for humans turns that freedom into a new hierarchy. His campaign mobilizes real people, individual abilities, and technical disruption on a scale that Hero Society must confront; it also makes clear that a promise of release can become an instrument of control when its terms are set by one leader. When Dorian changes, the faction's members do not remain as an independent movement. Their departure marks the collapse of the force he assembled and distinguishes his changing course from the ideology that first bound the group.