The hardest thing about having absolute power is knowing just how much power you really have. I don't want to get into the boring and tedious business of ranks and hierarchies among the psychically inclined--there's simply too much strangeness out there to calculate easily, entities that have never walked the earth in human form and minds that occupy no living brain and brains that have overflowed their skulls to become ambulatory--but suffice it to say that I am possibly the most powerful telepath on Earth. Certainly I exist in a rarefied plane of entities that can easily, trivially command a human will; to me, the average person on the street is a ludicrously fragile construct of thoughts and impulses that I have to take great care not to warp or deform simply out of the unconscious desire to do so. To want is to have for me. That is... well, it's more dangerous than you know.

I thought I had come to terms with that. I believed for the longest time that I had reached a certain state of Zen complacency regarding desire and longing, achieved a state of inner calm with the help of my immortal mentor that allowed me to focus on what I could give to the world instead of what I could take from it. For the longest time, it seemed like I had no deeper desire than to teach the next generation of human evolution what it needed to know to be an enlightened force for good. And certainly when I touch the minds of my Utopians, I can feel a degree of pride in my success.

And yet. And yet for all that I know the minds of others, intimately and deeply down to the core forces that shape their personalities, I still find that I don't know myself nearly as well as I believed I did. Worse, I don't trust myself the way I once could--where I was once convinced that I was preparing humanity to resist a graver threat than anything we'd ever imagined, now I look back on my actions and I wonder how selfish they truly were. When I sapped and subverted the wills of Earth's bravest and best, turning them into my obedient thralls, was it just a part of the grand design that we worked for all those years? Or did some treacherous part of me enjoy twisting minds and thoughts into the patterns of blank, blissful obedience? Did I ever truly change, or am I the selfish young woman who took sadistic pleasure in puppeteering human beings for my own entertainment?

I know. It all sounds like the most pretentious kind of navel-gazing, a woman with all the privilege in the world endlessly agonizing about the dangers of being tempted to gorge herself on power over the weak and helpless. But these aren't merely idle questions to me. I spent years letting out--for all the right reasons, perhaps, but still letting out a side of me that expertly manipulated people with all the levers a telepath has at their disposal. I twisted minds using sexual pleasure, turned human beings into my abject and devoted slaves while smoothing away their memories to ensure that they could never ask the questions that would allow them to resist my complete control over them. And now that need is over, now that I've freed those enslaved wills and left them blissfully untroubled by any knowledge of that period in their lives where they obeyed without thought, I have to ask myself... how much did I enjoy it?

That's what runs through my mind as I watch the swaying, stumbling, drooling woman the world knows as WildRose, but I know so much more intimately than that. "Um, uh, uh... hi, Prof," she giggles, her thoughts tangled into a pink froth by arousal and ecstasy as she struggles to resist the desire to sink to her knees in front of me and mindlessly masturbate herself into a fugue of obedience. "I, uh... I think I got a little problem." I can barely see the cause of her difficulties through the obscuring mist of pleasure in her brain, but it's clear she's operating on little more than instinct by now. When she falls victim to some effect that threatens her independence, her natural desire is to come running to me to help set her right and fill her empty head back up with all the right ideas.

I know that. Because I'm the one who put that natural desire there to begin with.

Oh, I cleared away her programming when I freed her after the Grand Concordance, same as I did with all of the others--hero and villain alike. But I also allowed the memories of my manipulation to fade from her mind... simply, or so I told myself, to prevent her from being traumatized by the lingering recollections of being used by someone she trusted so completely. It was the easiest and kindest solution, but I knew even at the time that WildRose and the others would continue to trust me as a result. Was this what I secretly longed for? Was I hoping that I could once again twist and pervert that trust into mindless, helpless compliance to my will?

I don't think so. But I don't really know. The unshakeable belief in my own good nature I once held now stands in delicate balance against the memories of watching this same woman--through her own eyes, no less--fall to her knees and program herself to trust and obey me without question. I liked it. It was necessary, but it wasn't necessary to revel in it the way that I did. I never had to play with her like a toy, I never had to pair her off with her beautiful partners in orgies of lust and desire that they only remembered as the spiritual equivalent of a doctor's check-up. I did those things because I liked them... and the treacherous, traitorous, wicked little voice in the back of my head keeps reminding me that I could do them again right now and WildRose would never even know.

Am I that person? Has treating human beings like playthings become a habit to me now, every bit as much as trotting back to her friend and ally for help has become for WildRose? What will I do, if the candyfloss tangles that are all that remains of her once sharp mind tell her to kneel and submit and show me her beautiful body once more? What will happen if there's nothing to hold me back but myself?

I don't know. I do not know anymore, and that thought terrifies me more than any killer robot or demon from the astral plane. "It's alright, my child," I murmur, affecting a confidence I don't truly feel. "You're safe with me now. You can rest." WildRose slumps to her knees, her eyes crossing and uncrossing as she childishly attempts to peer at the causes of her fogged and jumbled thoughts, and all I can think of is how good her pussy would taste if I pushed her onto her back and began to lick.

That wouldn't be the end of it, I try to tell myself, uncertain whether I'm admonishing or advertising the path that lies ahead of me. If I decide to make a transaction out of this, giving WildRose back her own mind in exchange for a few stolen moments of blissful obedience to my will, I can already imagine that she won't be the last to sink into my control. Villains use mental manipulation on a regular basis, it's as natural to them as breathing, and I'm aware of the bitter irony behind that statement as I contemplate the sheer number of superheroes who would cheerfully line up to submit to my mental probes and fall victim to my domination as a result.

And how long would it be before I decide that it's simply easier to leave a few backdoors in their heads, just to make the process of subjugating them a little bit quicker and simpler the next time I have an itch to scratch? How much longer after that before I begin manipulating the villains every bit as secretly and subtly as I do the heroes, creating opportunities for the 'mental cleansings' that are secretly just chances to satisfy my baser urges? And how much longer after that before I lose any connection to my own humanity and simply play with people like toys as I did in my wayward youth?

I like to imagine I would be stopped before it got that far. But if I'm wrong about myself, am I wrong about that as well? I feel myself teetering on the edge of a relapse. WildRose feels it too, and her hands drift listlessly down between her thighs to rub herself through her costume. I can see my own scowling face through her eyes as she teases her cunt, barely even able to understand why I might not enjoy the sight of her masturbation. Surely there's a reason I'm not stopping her. Surely I'm not already so corrupted that I'm just going to allow her to pleasure herself deeper into mindless compliance.

I can hear that treacherous voice again, equivocating furiously at WildRose's expense. I know she's happy right now. I know that whatever the bubbles of sweet, submissive fog are that have churned her mind into a froth of giggly obedience, they feel good to her. I know that she wants to find someone to own her, to guide her and tell her what to think and how to please. I know that if I were to tell her to strip out of her costume, I wouldn't even need my telepathic gifts to compel her to follow my instructions. Whatever indomitable will has helped her to escape the clutches of the villain who did this to her and led her to me, it's almost exhausted now.

She would give herself so beautifully to me. I would feel her pleasure as she teased her slick cunt with her fingers, see through her eyes as she ate my pussy with all the skill and devotion she's capable of. I could sift through her memories, find whoever did this to her--I can already tell they're no match for my mental energies even if they're able to scramble a simple human brain through exposure to their untrained psionic emanations--and I could stop them forever as only my enthralling will can. And if Sharpe and Shadowstryke have already fallen victim to this effect, well... I could care for them. No one would ever have to know how long it takes to cure something like this, not when I'm the only expert in my field.

And they would want to obey. Oh god, I can feel it, they would crave structure and order and authority to give their disordered minds shape. They would be overjoyed to be told what to do, they would ache for my commands and thank me every time I told them to give in to the sexual impulses that echo loudest in their diminished and disoriented brains. They would beg to fuck me and each other, and who's to say that would even be so wrong if it made them happy and fulfilled and contented to finally have purpose in their lives?

I would, of course. But I don't like it.

That's how I recover myself, though. One moment at a time. There's never going to be a point where I don't want to give in to my darkest urges, but that doesn't mean I must. I can reach out instead, take WildRose's wrists and gently but firmly tug them away from her crotch before using my telepathic abilities to reconnect her scattered thoughts back into coherence. I can choose to be a better person today, and maybe that will make it easier to be a better person tomorrow. Or maybe it won't, and I'll just have to keep working harder at doing the right thing. It's never impossible, though. Even if a part of me wants to pretend it is.

WildRose snaps out of her fog quickly once I put my mind to it, her eyes refocusing and her breath quickening into a momentary gasp of panic. "Sharpe and Shadowstryke!" she cries out, glancing at the way she came in as if she expects to see them just around the corner. "We've got to help them, they're still back in Samson City--it was this woman, Bubblehead, she... she just looked at us, and suddenly everything went all weird!" She jumps to her feet, her coordination restored, and I feel like something else has returned to normal as well. Call it trust. She still believes in me, despite everything I've done... and how can I possibly repay that trust with betrayal?

The voice in the back of my head has some suggestions. But I push it away and go to be a hero once more.

THE END