You poor, stupid thing.

Eleanor Quinn’s words echoed over and over in Trinity’s ears, becoming more and more mocking with each turn. The world around her was echoing too, overlaid on itself again and again, and spinning too fast to see. The vicious electric shock Quinn’s costume - the Peregrine’s costume - had given her was still coursing through her, making her twitch and see white. It took several long seconds for her to even be able to raise her head - precious seconds she didn’t have. Trinity knew Quinn was already shaking off her mind control. That had been her best shot, and it hadn’t worked. There was no way Quinn was getting that touchy-feely with her again, at least not until her brain was dribbling out of her ears.

It was over.

“Don’t worry, you’ll live,” Quinn said to her. There was some strain in her voice, but she was forcing herself to sound breezy. “You shouldn’t have tried that, though. Not cute at all. It’s pretty obvious I would have a little just-in-case at the ready. My suit can detect a large range of intrusive energy emissions, and respond with an appropriate deterrent. It’s… I forget how many volts. A lot.”

It sure felt like it. Quinn was back on her feet, looming over Trinity, while the small-time villain was having to fight to make it into a sitting position. Quinn seemed content to let her struggle.

“Deep breaths, babe,” Quinn went on. “And give me a straight answer, if you’d be so kind: why? Was it really such a bad offer? Co-ruler with benefits? You’d get just about everything you ever wanted! I thought I was offering you a sweetheart deal.”

Trinity managed to make it upright and fixed Quinn with a vicious, resolute look. “You’re just not really my type,” she replied thickly.

“And there was me thinking we had chemistry.” Quinn sighed theatrically. “Oh well. I still win, that’s what counts.” She clapped her hands. “New deal! I’m going to give you the same treatment I’ve given Radiance, and then I’ll see if you can still be useful to me. If you can, we can still be besties - albeit on slightly different terms. If not, then…”

She trailed off. Trinity glanced at Radiance. The superhero was still standing there as if nothing had happened. She was utterly motionless and stiff, and looked more like a human-sized doll rather than a person. And she was still wearing Quinn’s device; a large, metal visor that had attached itself over her face, a blinking, moving light suggesting it was still at work twisting Radiance’s psyche. The city’s greatest superhero looked utterly helpless and placid. The sight was mesmerizing, and made Trinity’s heart throb.

“Did you actually think I was ever - ever - going to work with you by choice?” Trinity sneered as she turned back to Quinn. “I thought you were meant to be the smart one. Gadgets, clever plans, that kind of shit.”

“Annoyingly, yes, I did,” Quinn snapped. “People don’t say ‘no’ to me, Shimmer. I always make sure that seeing it my way is in their best interests.”

“You’re crazy,” Trinity snorted. She stretched her legs a little, testing them. “That little ‘I’ve got a crush on you act’? That was your amazing scheme?”

“It wasn’t just a scheme, you know.” Quinn sniffed. “We could have had some good times. Some hot times. Plus, even the Peregrine gets lonely some-”

“Fuck off!”

It wasn’t Trinity's wittiest crack ever, but it helped her to psych herself up. She surged off the couch as quickly as she could. Her legs stumbled and slipped underneath her, but Trinity didn’t need to get far. There was nowhere to go. She just needed to take Quinn by surprise one last time.

“What are you doing?” Quinn asked disdainfully.

Trinity ignored her. She only had one goal in mind: Radiance. She managed to cross the distance between her and the superhero before Quinn stopped her, and then she raised her right hand and slammed the base of her fist into the device on Radiance’s face with all the strength she had left.

It slipped free and clattered to the ground.

Radiance blinked like she was just waking up, and peered at Trinity with confused, bleary eyes. Trinity wanted so, so badly to throw her arms around the superhero and explain everything - but she couldn’t. There was no time. She just had to hope that whatever Quinn had been doing to her, it had made her weak enough for Trinity’s plan to work.

“I’m sorry!” Trinity cried, and planted her hands on each side of Radiance’s face.

For the second time in as many minutes, Trinity mustered as much of her shimmer as she could. The sensation of all that power suddenly erupting out of her like a wellspring was comforting. It felt good to feel powerful again, but Trinity couldn’t savor the moment. She simply tried her hardest to ram all of that power into Trinity’s head all at once.

The tips of Trinity’s fingers glowed like purple suns, and torrents of iridescent, glowing shimmer flowed out of her. The strange purple glow sank into Radiance’s skin, bathing her in its unnatural light. Trinity sure as hell had some mixed feelings about that, but she didn’t have time to listen to them. She had to focus. Radiance was weak, but she was still fighting back. She tried to shake Trinity off, but weakly, like a thrashing child. Trinity could sense formidable mental walls and dams inside her, cultivated over years of battling villains. But she knew from experience that they could be beaten, if the conditions were right.

They were right. She could feel the dams breaking.

Radiance’s struggles were weakening, bit by bit, and Trinity’s shimmer was seeping deeper and deeper. It moved inward from her temples, lighting up veins and nerves until it ringed her eyes. Trinity knew she’d won when Radiance’s pupils flashed a brilliant, supernatural violet. For a moment the color fluctuated, like Radiance was making a last-ditch effort to throw off Trinity’s control, but then it settled stronger than ever. Trinity could see all the tiny little blood vessels in Radiance’s eyes were tainted with her color. She had her. Radiance was hers.

“Radiance,” Trinity said urgently. “Listen to me. Her.” She turned and indicated Quinn. “Eleanor Quinn. Peregrine. Whatever you call her. You need to take her out right now. Right this second. Knock her out. Now. Go!”

She pushed hard as she spoke. Trinity couldn’t leave room for hesitation or doubt. There was simply no time for that. Once Quinn was out cold, she could catch her breath. Until then, they were both still in danger.

Radiance rocked back and forth for a moment, like a great tree swaying in the wind. But then, she took a step forwards - towards Quinn. Trinity watched her stiffen and tense as she filled with purpose. She was actually going to do it. Her last-ditch, hail-Mary play had actually worked. Trinity was starting to allow herself to celebrate inwardly.

Then she noticed that Quinn didn’t look worried. Not even a little bit.

“Radiance,” the billionaire said calmly, as the muscular superhero advanced on her. “You’re going to do it my way. Don’t listen to her, and get down on your knees. Kneel. Submit.”

The superhero froze. She swayed again, this time much harder. Trinity was worried she was going to keel over. She held her breath as she watched Radiance shiver and twitch, her brainwashed mind fighting with itself to decide who it was going to listen to.

“C’mon,” Trinity whispered to herself. “C’mon. No. No. No. No, c’mon.”

Her prayers fell on deaf ears. Radiance crumbled. Placing one foot out before her, she sank to a kneeling pose, like a medieval knight pledging her fealty.

To Eleanor Quinn.

Trinity’s vision started to blur. A moment later, she realized that little tears had started to form in her eyes. For some reason, in the moment, that got under her skin more than anything else. This was it. The end. Was she actually going to cry? Was she going to give Quinn that kind of satisfaction?

God damn it.

“Do you see now?” Quinn said gently, like she was being kind. Like she was a good doctor delivering bad news. Standing over a kneeling Radiance, she looked all-powerful. “You can’t win against me, Shimmer.”

Trinity was starting to believe that. Defeated, she took a couple of miserable steps back towards the billionaire and slumped down on the couch.

“Don’t get me wrong, I admire the attempt,” Quinn added. “But it was hopeless. I’m going to be running plenty of tests on that power of yours, but my working hypothesis is that it’s a subtle kind of energy manipulation. The brain runs on electrical impulses, and when you get in someone’s head you can manipulate those.”

She seemed disgustingly pleased by the sound of her own voice, but Trinity didn’t have the energy to make fun of her for it.

“But a power like yours isn’t the only way to do that,” Quinn continued. “My little gifts do the same thing, or at least a close enough approximation. So what’s the difference?” Quinn’s smirk was radiating malice. “The difference is that I’ve been inside Radiance’s skull for longer than you can imagine. The mind is layered, Shimmer. Superego, ego, id. Conscious and subconscious. It’s unfathomably complicated. There’s only so much that you or anyone else can do in a single moment.”

She reached down and stroked a possessive fingertip along Radiance’s cheek.

“I’ve had hours. Weeks. Months.” Quinn’s eyes bored into Trinity. “Her thoughts are all mine, Shimmer. I’ve drilled my command words into every level of her psyche. Your power is meaningless, because my control always goes deeper.”

“I get it,” Trinity replied lifelessly, but Quinn wasn’t done. Not yet.

“At this point, there’s nothing I couldn’t make her do.” Quinn’s eyes were shining. She was utterly intoxicated with power. “Nothing. I could make her break the law. I could make her kill. I could make her betray her oldest friend. Do you truly get it, Shimmer? Radiance belongs to me.” She cocked her head to one side. “In fact…”

Quinn reached down further, placing the tips of her fingers underneath Radiance’s chin and using them to tilt her face upwards. Radiance simply allowed the other hero to pose her. She wasn’t completely in a trance, but nor was she completely awake. She looked like she was trapped in some kind of waking dream and, like a lost, confused lamb, she looked up at Quinn for guidance. The use of that trigger phrase had hammered Radiance’s thoughts into submission, leaving her broken mind to reshape itself around whatever commandment Quinn had just handed down.

“Use your tongue to pleasure me, Radiance,” Quinn told her. “Do it my way.”

Trinity wished Radiance could have offered even a slither of resistance, but she didn’t. She just nodded slowly. Quinn moved to unfasten the lower portion of her costume and shucked it down to around her hips. She had nothing on underneath, and she was visibly wet. The whole time, she made eye contact with Trinity.

“Eating women out on her knees probably isn’t her usual style,” Quinn said, smirking. “But I’ve trained her very, very well.”

Trinity couldn’t look away as Radiance slumped to her knees, obediently pressed her face between Quinn’s thighs, and started licking her pussy. The spectacle was utterly obscene. Two of the most famous and renowned heroes in Future City were having sex, and both of them were like twisted parodies of their public selves. Gone was all of Radiance’s power, and her formidable confidence along with it. She seemed like a different person altogether, so utterly placid and submissive. There was a perfect, unnatural calm to the way she was going down on Quinn, kissing and tonguing methodically along her lips like a well-trained sex slave. Trinity shuddered as she wondered how many times she had been made to pleasure Quinn like that.

Quinn, meanwhile, looked like a goddess. She radiated power in a way that no superhero should, like she was reveling in the sheer hubris of her own control. Despite shedding some of her costume she was still recognizable as the Peregrine, but she had none of the calm, the nobility, and the singularity of purpose that the citizens of Future City would have attributed to her public persona. The expression on her face was nakedly malevolent, and there was nothing noble about the way she was riding Radiance, resting a hand on the back of the other hero’s head and insistently pressing her into her cunt. She didn’t moan or squirm with pleasure, but she let out a kind of low, satisfied purr, her eyes alight with pleasure.

Seeing the two of them like that was all but hypnotic.

“It all ties back into the trigger phrase,” Quinn explained. Her voice was even, but took on a slight, suggestive huskiness. “My research on other subjects found that making sure all of their thoughts and feelings were linked to a single command was the most effective way to overcome any resistance. I’m quite pleased with my choice. ‘Do it my way’. Innocuous enough to use in almost any situation, but still with that nice, satisfying air of command.” She licked her lips. “It’s keyed to me, specifically, of course. Just in case you were wondering.”

Trinity wasn’t. She’d already known that there was no way something like that would work.

“You’re going to be the same way, Shimmer.” A slight moan crept into Quinn’s voice. The thought of brainwashing Trinity seemed to bring her more pleasure than the tongue inside her cunt. “Once I’ve peeled all of the secrets out of your head, I’ll teach you the words that will own you - forever.”

Hearing that made Trinity shudder. She couldn’t help but wonder: what would it feel like? Quinn looked so domineering. So powerful. Kneeling for her almost seemed right.

“And then I’ll teach you exactly how I like to be fucked,” Quinn promised. “I’ll show you exactly how to touch me. Exactly how to please me. Your brainwashed little mind will lap it all up. It’ll become part of you. Just like it’s part of Radiance.”

Trinity looked at the entranced superhero. As far as she could tell, there was no expression on her face at all. She was completely lost in the task of eating Quinn out. She looked totally, blissfully blank. Droplets of Quinn’s wetness were smeared across her cheeks.

Which one of them was she more jealous of? Trinity was no longer sure.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. She wouldn’t have to worry about anything anymore. She wouldn’t have to make decisions anymore. It would all be out of her hands.

Just thinking things like that felt like a sin, but Trinity couldn’t help it. She was exhausted. All the fight had been beaten out of her, and besides, her secret, shameful desires were starting to bleed over and taint all of her thoughts. What did she want, at this point? It was impossible to tell. She knew she should want to be free, but she remembered how wet all of Radiance’s punishments had made her. She should hate Quinn with every fiber of her being, but something about her made her shiver and throb with need. It was all so confusing. Quinn could make that confusion disappear.

“Fuck, she’s good at this,” Quinn moaned. The way her hand rested on the back of Radiance’s head was becoming more possessive, starting to curl into a fist in her hair. “It’s so hot. You’ll see. I’ll make her go down on you too. I’m not the jealous type. I love it when my toys play together.”

Toys. Fuck. That word made Trinity’s cheeks burn. She had a sudden vision of herself and Radiance together, kneeling, submitting to brainwashing, serving Quinn. It was devastatingly hot. Within moments, the fantasy had seared itself into her mind.

Quinn noticed the way Trinity was shivering. “Oh?” she commented. “You like that idea, don’t you? I’m sure you wanted to keep her all to yourself, but you’ll have to make do with her tongue in your pussy. Trust me, she’ll be very, very devoted.”

It was impossible for Trinity not to imagine it, not to lose herself in lustful desire. Her body craved the sensation. Frustrated need had been growing inside of her for days. The way Quinn had treated her earlier was still echoing in the villain’s body, and her cunt demanded release. Any release. Quinn seemed to sense that.

“Go ahead,” she urged. “Touch yourself.”

“W-what?” Trinity whimpered, shocked.

“I know you want to, Shimmer.” Quinn laughed. “It’s obvious. You’re practically dripping all over my couch.”

The mocking condescension in Quinn’s voice certainly wasn’t help with that. “N-no,” Trinity whined, in pointless denial.

“Why deny it?” Quinn was moving her hips now, grinding her pussy against Radiance’s face. Radiance didn’t react to the indignity, she just kept trying to eat out the billionaire as best she could.

“I… I…” Trinity didn’t have a good answer to that. It wasn’t like she wasn’t tempted. Like she wasn’t having to fight the urge to just reach down between her legs and pleasure herself. She knew it would be incredible. The shame would just make the pleasure burn even hotter. “I just can’t! Not… not that. It’s too much.”

Quinn laughed again. “Come on. What have you got to lose? Nothing you haven’t already lost.” Suddenly, she filled her voice with steel. “Do it. Touch yourself. Now.”

Trinity immediately stopped whining and squirming. Quinn was impossibly commanding. Trying to disobey her felt like fighting gravity, or pushing against the tide. She couldn’t believe she was going to do this. She couldn’t believe that the sight of Radiance eating out Eleanor Quinn was doing this to her. She wasn’t even brainwashed yet! But knowing that was part of what made it all so sinfully hot.

Her cheeks scorching with forbidden heat, Trinity reached down and planted a shaking, unsteady hand between her thighs. She started to rub herself.

It felt just as good as she could have hoped, and the sensation of her fingers against her cunt only became more intense when Quinn’s lips curled into a victorious smirk. It felt good to bend to her command. “There you go. Good girl.”

Trinity moaned. She couldn’t take her eyes off of Quinn and Radiance, standing before her, locked in pleasure. It was awful, and they were both beautiful. Trinity wanted to be Quinn, looking down at Radiance, feeling her tongue, using her body. She wanted to be Radiance, kneeling in mindless worship, thoughts wiped clean of everything except devotion and servitude. She wanted it all. She wanted to drown herself in mind control and sex.

That was what Quinn promised, wasn’t it? Mind control. Sex. Freedom from choice. Maybe, deep down, that was what Trinity truly craved. Maybe she hadn’t truly been trying to escape. Maybe Trinity had just been baiting Quinn into taking away her free will. Had she genuinely been trying her hardest? Trinity wasn’t sure. She couldn’t help but doubt herself at every turn. Hopefully, Quinn’s mind control would free her from that too. Trinity was always full of doubts. She wanted that to end. She wanted oblivion.

And Quinn would give it to her. Trinity could tell that for sure. The billionaire’s eyes were shining maniacally bright, and she was staring back at Trinity just as intently as Trinity was staring at her. The pleasure Radiance was giving her seemed secondary to the pleasure she got from seeing Trinity touch and debase herself at her command. Clearly, for someone like Quinn, breaking another mind controller’s will was the greatest thrill imaginable. Despite the very short time they had known each other, Trinity felt sure she knew Quinn’s madness intimately. She wouldn’t stop until she’d completely dismantled every last trace of Trinity’s psyche. Unlike with Radiance, she didn’t need Trinity to be able to behave normally as a public figure. She just needed another tool.

She was going to break Trinity utterly. It would be slow, but every little step along the way would be tortuously pleasurable. And she wouldn’t stop until Trinity was completely and totally hers.

Trinity’s hand, stroking her pussy through her clothes, started moving faster and faster. She was so close.

“Stop,” Quinn commanded, before Trinity could reach the edge.

Trinity stopped. Obedience was easier than protest, though she did let out a small whine.

“You stop too,” Quinn said to Radiance. She callously shoved the superhero’s head away to one side. “Do it my way. Sit there and be quiet. Don’t bother thinking.”

Radiance obeyed perfectly. She simply stopped in the position that Quinn had shoved her to, saying and doing nothing. Her eyes registered perfect emptiness; the expression on her face was transformed from serene to obscene by the way she was streaked with Quinn’s wetness.

“I just can’t wait any longer,” Quinn said breathily. “I’m the worst. I always wanted to open my presents before Christmas, too. But I really, really need to see you wearing one of my little gifts, right this second.”

She walked over to where the brainwashing device had fallen when Trinity had slapped it off of Radiance’s face, and picked it up. Then, she stepped towards Trinity. Trinity’s eyes were locked on the sinister visor in her hand. She knew what it was going to do to her. That fate was perhaps just seconds away now. She found herself holding her breath. Quinn bent down, putting her face close to Trinity’s, caressing her chin in a mockery of a lover’s touch.

“We can do this the hard way,” Quinn told her. “The forceful way. It won’t be that hard, obviously. Not with Radiance here to help me. But I don’t think you’re going to make me do that. We can do this the easy way. You’re an easy kind of girl.” She laughed. “You’re going to be a good girl, aren’t you?”

Trinity could only reply with an awkward, twitchy nod. Part of her hoped Quinn wouldn’t make her say it. Part of her hoped she would. But Quinn seemed content to just watch her, and enjoy the sight of her broken will.

“Good,” Eleanor Quinn said, as she held the visor up to Trinity’s face. “Night night, Shimmer.”

The visor closed over Trinity’s eyes, blotting out all light. With the darkness, other sensations seemed to recede, and she could focus only on the quiet whir of a hidden motor as the visor clamped down around her face, forming a perfect, inescapable seal. Trinity sat very still. She wondered what was going to happen; what it was going to feel like. It didn’t take long for her to get her answer.

The black screen embedded in the visor flared to life in front of her eyes with a burst of static. It completely dominated her vision, stretching from corner to corner, and in the perfect darkness that seemed to surround her, it could have been any size. It felt vast. The static was gentle. It swirled in strange patterns, soothing and magnetic. Trinity was reminded of how it felt when she was going to sleep.

Then, the eerie tranquility was broken.

OBEY

The word struck Trinity like a thunderbolt as it was blared into her brain. It flashed on the screen in front of her in block capitals for just a fraction of a second, painfully bright, but the after-image was seared into her retinas for seconds afterward, pulsing in time with her heartbeat. She twitched at the flash, and then was suddenly aware of her muscles locking down and freezing her place. It was just like the electric shock Quinn had hit her with earlier.

OBEY

The second pulse was stronger and brighter than the first, and it was accompanied by a sound - or at least, it seemed that way. Trinity knew that didn’t make any sense. Quinn’s device didn’t cover her ears. There were no speakers. But even so, she could hear it. The word ‘obey’, echoing in her ears over and over again. She couldn’t tell whose voice it was. It sounded like it was coming from everywhere and nowhere. It sounded like Quinn’s voice and Radiance’s voice and Trinity’s own voice. It sounded like every voice in the world.

OBEY

Again. Trinity felt herself seizing up and shutting down. The word ‘obey’ had stopped disappearing from behind her eyes between the flashes. It was stuck there, permanent, looming over her, accompanied by that itching, voiceless voice. Trinity tried to piece her thoughts back together, but there was nothing for her to hold on to but ‘obey’.

OBEY

Trinity twitched again. The sensation of an electric shock inside her head was growing and growing. It turned all her senses into liars. She could hear the word ‘obey’, even though there was nothing to hear. She could feel the word ‘obey’ being etched into her skin, across every inch, bigger and bigger and smaller and smaller in infinite fractal patterns that left none of her untouched. She could even smell and taste ‘obey’, even though that didn’t make any sense. She just could.

OBEY

OBEY

OBEY

BREAK

OBEY

That single change in the pattern was impossibly dizzying. The new word beat itself into Trinity’s beleaguered brain like the scream of a new god. Break. Break. Break.

OBEY

OBEY

OBEY

The word ‘obey’ was starting to become meaningless, a mere constellation of shapes that unraveled before Trinity’s sightless eyes into nothing more than a collection of lines. But at the same time, it meant everything. Its meaning was all-important. It was all she had.

OBEY

SURRENDER

OBEY

Surrender. Obey. Break. The words all bled into each other now. They were no longer flashing singly, but each over and over again, until every single flashing word looked like a thousand flickering lights crammed into the space of one moment. Trinity couldn't think about anything else. Not where she was. Not who she was. Not even her own name. Just ‘obey’.

OBEY

OBEY

BREAK

SURRENDER

OBEY

FALL

OBEY

OBEY

SUBMIT

SUBMIT

OBEY

It went on and on like that for an ocean of meaningless time. For what seemed like an eternity, Trinity thought that her head was going to split open as it struggled to hold all of the words being forced through it. Then, without warning, the sensation flipped completely, and it felt as though her head was collapsing inward under the pressure, her mind and her very self spiraling down into a void. The word ‘obey’ beat and battered against the walls of her mind like driving rain.

And then, all of a sudden, it just stopped.

Trinity blinked wildly as the visor came away from her face. The room around her was bright, and didn’t feel real. But all was as it had been before; Radiance was kneeling quietly to one side, and Eleanor Quinn was looming over her.

“I think that’s enough for now,” the billionaire announced breezily. “I wouldn’t want to fry your pretty little brain all at once. What would be the fun in that?”

Trinity wasn’t sure if she couldn’t move, or just couldn’t muster the will to. Her mouth was dry and her throat hurt, but she couldn’t stop her lips from moving, mouthing the same word over and over again.

“Obey,” she murmured. “Obeyobeyobeyobeyobeyobeyobey.”

Quinn noticed and smiled. “The first part of the process is crude, I admit,” she said. “But you know how it goes: you have to break someone down before you can build them back up again. And demolition is always… messy. Right now, you’re nothing more than a blank little doll who does whatever she’s told.”

“Obey, obey, obey,” Trinity repeated. Her voice steadily died away into nothing, even as her lips kept forming the word. “Obey, obey…”

“That’s right.” Quinn laughed. “You know, I like you like this too, Shimmer. It’s so much fun! But let no one say I can’t be generous. You deserve a treat.” She looked around at Radiance. “Did you think I hadn’t noticed the way you’ve been looking at her?”

Trinity didn’t respond.

Quinn was undeterred. “Stand up,” she commanded.

Trinity stood up. She moved instantly. She didn’t think or hesitate. Obedience was immediate and instinctive. The part of her mind that would have served as a filter between Quinn’s orders and her own will had been scooped out.

“Here.” Quinn took Trinity’s arm and guided her into position. “Kneel.”

Trinity knelt, and found herself kneeling directly in front of Radiance. Without realizing it, she’d mimicked the superhero’s submissive pose.

“Oh my goodness!” Quinn clapped in celebration. “Look at you both! A lovely little matched set. You’re adorable, truly.” She grinned from ear to ear. “Now, both of you: do it my way. Kiss.”

The command made her shiver, but Trinity couldn’t disobey. She stretched forward, lips slightly parted, preparing to kiss Radiance. Radiance mirrored her. Trinity looked into the superhero’s eyes; there was nothing there. She was blank and glassy. Trinity wondered if Radiance saw the same nothingness in hers. 

As Quinn watched, hero and villain pressed together in a perfect, passionless, mindless facsimile of a loving kiss.