Aurora Pavlova ducked and weaved her way through the crowd of reporters. Flash cameras were going off as if the crew of Apollo 23 had just returned to Earth, and for a moment she saw sparks. If only she could wear her goggles everywhere she went! She took a moment to clear the spots from her vision, bringing her high heels to a halt amidst a sea of open mouths and caterwauling questions. To get her bearings, she focused on the one thing that grounded her above all else. The thing that kept her working those long hours, that allowed her to shed all the pesky slings and arrows like rain, and that made her remember why she entered the world of ethically unburdened science in the first place:

Her simple, heartfelt lust for world domination.

After a blissful moment of daydreaming about a planet that screamed her name with the devotion and zeal like unto a Goddess, a perfect smile had returned to her face.

“I understand there are rumours,” she began, waiting for the questions to end and the microphones to aim her way, “that I had something to do with the hero Libertina’s mysterious disappearance. But I assure you, they are just that: rumours. Unsubstantiated innuendo.”

But the vultures were unsatisfied. “What about reports that you and Hypnotica have been in close contact over the years?”

“ACPD is reporting that devices of your company’s design were found at Libertina’s last known location,” another voice cawed. Aurora held up her hand, but a third voice interjected.

“Are you working with her, or are you and Hypnotica the same person?”

Gasps. Eyes turned to the impertinent questioner, then back to Aurora. The unflappable businesswoman on the surface betrayed nothing of the seething, bilious anger at the very accusation. Especially because it was true.

“That’s enough. I am no villainess! It’s a shame the shades of anti-capitalist rhetoric have befallen the noble journalistic profession in this fine city. I am nothing but a humble, honest scientist. When I founded Metronomic Industries, it was to spread what little spectacular genius I have to offer the world. I didn’t do it to accrue power, or to hide myself behind an absurd alter ego. I pray for the safe return of Libertina, as do all good citizens of Aphelion City. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to work.”

She answered no more questions, pushing through the last of the reporters and making it to the entrance of her enormous skyscraper. There, her personal bodyguards, rough men in barely concealed body armour kept the crowds back, nodding once to their boss before returning to their duties with a renewed vigour. Aurora did grin when she heard the sound of a stunstick being unfurled, but only with her back turned, so nobody could see it. It would be a shame to ruin her perfect speech with a hint at her sadism.

Her heels clicked on the marble floor of the lobby, walking over the inlaid mosaic of an Earth in the vibrant green of her company’s logo. That it was an identical shade to Hypnotica’s goggles was the stuff of conspiracy theories. What kind of arrogant fool would put a clue out in the open like that for everyone to see?

She would. She would 100% do that. Because she thought it was funny that nobody had noticed.

As she passed by the body scanner through the little slot that only she was allowed to use, the building’s security team jumped out of their seats. She was halfway through a gentle reprimand when she saw they had their weapons out. Three laser pistols all aimed and ready to fire at her chest. She wore no costume underneath her dress. If one of those hit her, she could actually be hurt!

“GET DOWN, FREAK!” one of them, their leader presumably, screamed. The rest of the motion in the lobby stopped as the guards’ weapons whirred to full charge. Aurora went from a bemused smile to a deadly glare as she slowly, very slowly, raised her hands over her head.

“If this is some kind of joke, rest assured, none of you will have homes by sundown,” she said in a voice so cold her breath fogged. The armed trio exchanged confused glances, then, after much nudging, the least senior guard brought a portable scan unit over. The short woman waved the wand in a shaking hand from Aurora’s head to her feet, and blinked in confusion as a green light appeared on the display.

“My deepest apologies if it’s really you, ma’am, but-” she said, swallowing sharply but unable to remove an obvious lump in her throat. She passed the scanner up and down the CEO’s body again. Green. Clear. Normal. Good thing she didn’t have her suit on today, Aurora thought. The scanner would pick up her various villainous accoutrements instantly. That’s why she avoided scans as normal protocol.

The scanner pinged clear a third time, and the guard turned the readout around to her fellows. All three holstered their guns immediately and babbled profuse apologies.

“You were only doing your job,” she said, warming her tone while imagining how best to fire them later. “But I would like to know why you were all so certain that I was an imposter. Every day I enter this building without getting scanned. It’s my prerogative as CEO.”

“Yes ma’am,” the oldest guard said, doffing his cap, “and that’s why we didn’t stop you when you entered the building…twenty minutes ago.”

***

Meanwhile, sixty-five floors up and inside the personal office of the CEO of Metronomic Industries, an almost identical woman was at the keyboard of the enormous desk’s built-in computer terminal. Scattered across the desk’s surface were paper documents plundered from several of the mounted filing cabinets on the wall, tastefully concealed when retracted by nameplates that hinted vaguely at their contents. Blueprints, legal papers, memos, IOUs, none of which were incriminating. Nothing above the normal level of a corporate stooge, that is.

But Wannabee knew there was something in here. He took another huge gulp of water, liberated from the minifridge opposite the filing cabinets. Perks of being the CEO, he mused. At least temporarily. There was nobody on this level besides the perpetually busy secretaries in front of the office, so there was no one at the moment who could see that despite the office’s perpetual 68 degree temperature, ‘Aurora’ was pouring sweat. He’d actually ditched her coat and tie, dissolving them back into his body with a sigh of relief. Yet despite the rivers of perspiration flowing down his feminine form, the dark brown hair pulled into a severe pony tail remained perfectly in place. Her makeup didn’t smear, her face didn’t flush. She looked exactly as she did from the footage of a press conference she gave six months ago, from which this appearance had been derived.

As a master of infiltration, he made sure that his skills included being a decent hacker. An easier prospect than it might seem, given that his powers allowed him to perfectly replicate any biometric input that might be required on more difficult systems. The data stick currently jacked into the computer’s lone access port provided the rest, giving him a full arsenal of digital lockpicks. But as the last of the gates keeping him from full admin access lifted, he swore in his real voice.

“Darnit. There’s nothing here either!”

It was ridiculous. He’d gone to all this effort, his body literally aching from the effort of holding this form for so long, and Pavlova didn’t have the good decency to keep incriminating evidence on her work computer. No hidden scheme bulletpointed out in a memo doc, no secret camera footage of her driving a windowless van, nothing!

No sign of Libertina at all.

He shook off his doubts. She’d last been seen on her way to confront Hypnotica, and everyone knew the two were inextricably linked. Some even said they were the same person. Impossible to tell, given one wore goggles and the other didn’t. Regardless of the truth, all the evidence Wannabee had found, all the rumours he’d gleaned, it all led to Metronomic Industries. But without solid proof, his team leader hadn’t given him sanction to do something so high profile as impersonate one of the most powerful women in the city. This was purely off the books, without the backing of the rest of the Civil Sentries. In fact, if Sentinel knew he was doing this, he’d be kicked out of the group for sure!

The press gaggle outside had been his idea. The real Aurora Pavlova’s compulsive need to play to the cameras would likely stall her for a couple of minutes. But he knew he was on the clock. If he didn’t get out soon, the cops might get involved. And if a member of a city-sanctioned vigilante group got caught rifling through the office of a prominent businesswoman, it would be a problem for more than just him.

Just as he was about to give up and make his escape, he reached to unplug the data stick and caught his hand on the edge of the desk. Cursing again, he forgot the pain the moment he realized that his ring and index finger had depressed something in the desk. A hidden indentation, barely a thumb’s width, but as he pressed against it, he felt it push back. Like a button. He pressed it all the way in.

The huge wooden desk groaned, and he threw himself back to get out of the way as the floor beneath it opened two. Both wood and carpet peeled apart, allowing a large, metal cylinder to rise from the floor like a ballistic missile readying to fire. Silver with neon green accents, its outer shell was contiguous save for a small, translucent slit where the eyes would be if one were to step inside. As Wannabee watched, it opened itself on an invisible seam with a pop, revealing a cushioned interior and a little console on the indoor hatch. It would be cramped in there. In fact, it was just big enough for a single person. A person the exact height and width of one Aurora Pavlova, CEO of Metronomic Industries.

“Jackpot,” he said, this time in a perfect mimic of the woman’s voice. No normal executive would have this kind of personalized transport pod. She had to be up to something!

Wannabee’s celebration was cut short by the cheery *ding*. The sound of his double’s personal elevator arriving was followed by a musical chime, then by a stampede of heavy bootsteps. It seems as if the jig was up. He thought about disguising himself as a wall fixture or a part of the desk, but he was terrible with right angles. The only way he’d get out of this without blowing his cover was to take the mysterious pod and cross his fingers.

Heart-equivalent racing, he climbed inside the pod, sealed the door, and activated the ‘DESCEND’ function on the console. He had just enough time to stick out his tongue through the glass eye slit at the barrel-chested guards who stormed into the room, guns raised. Before they could do anything but glare in impotent fury, the pod shot down the heart of the building, accelerated to absurd speeds with a combination of magnetic rails and gravity. 

Seconds into the trip, a fresh problem unfurled itself. The cushions would have kept a human being restrained enough, but due to Wannabee’s unique makeup, the force of acceleration became too much for whatever power kept him assembled. His carefully sculpted impression of Aurora Pavlova decohered, becoming a puddle of sentient grey goo for the majority of the ride. Only when it slowed did he literally and figuratively pull himself together, becoming his at-rest, template self out of reflex.

When the pod arrived at its destination, a different person stepped out of its hatch. A twentysomething guy with attractive, yet altogether unremarkable, looks emerged. He was fully clothed, now wearing blue jeans, nondescript white sneakers, and a button-up plaid top left open to show off the tight grey t-shirt underneath. If one looked closer, they might notice little details that were…not quite right. His hair often rippled as if in the wind, even indoors. His clothing clung to his body in places where it should have hung off of it, as if drawn on by an artist who was just getting to grips with how fabric worked. And besides his head, there was absolutely no hair. Not even the standard peach fuzz a mammalian body comes equipped with. Partly because he didn’t like body-hair, and partly because the 90s magazine ad he’d found most of this body in just hadn’t been high resolution enough to capture such subtleties.

But now that he was himself, the exertion of maintaining the form of Aurora faded, and he could focus on just what the hell he was seeing. 

“Holy Hot Dogs,” he said, slightly underselling the view. Within the centre of an enormous, echoing cavern hung a nearly equally massive machine construct the likes of which he’d never seen. Hundreds of screens, all tuned to surveillance feeds from all over the city mounted on a lattice of cables and struts, forming an inverted cone shape as it tapered toward the ground. Interspersed through were mechanical arms. Some held screens, some ended in crude metal claws, others still held devices he hadn’t the slightest clue as to their purpose. At the very tip of this technological stalactite dangled the largest screen of all, hanging right at eye level and above an attached keyboard that poked out the bottom of the apparatus like a wasp’s stinger.

The gargantuan device hung atop a large platform that served as the hub of this subterranean space, with dangerously open walkway spokes going out from the central circular platform. These spokes terminated in large metal blast doors, all closed at the moment. A problem for later, Wannabee decided. This was his chance. It was time to get to the bottom on just who this Aurora Pavlova character REALLY was!

He approached the keyboard, vision entirely filled by the slightly curved flatscreen. It was the only one that wasn’t tuned to a camera feed. Instead, all that this incredibly expensive display offered was a large black field with neon green text, like something out of the Dark Ages.

WELCOME, DOCTOR PAVLOVA. 

PLEASE ENTER YOUR PASSWORD.

Easy peasy. He reached into his ‘pocket’ for the data stick that held his cracking programs…and froze.

Nothing. Frick! In his haste to escape, he’d forgotten to pull the drive from Pavlova’s desk computer. Normally cool and collected under pressure, Wannabee felt the walls close in slightly. If he couldn’t find evidence or a way out of here, his days as a Civil Sentry would be numbered!

But it wasn’t impossible. A warrior wasn’t helpless without their arsenal, and neither was a hacker without their script kit. He cracked his knuckles (literally) and got to figuring out how to break his way into this computer system (figuratively).

His first attempt of surely many was to use the password he’d learned from her main computer. Entering the 18 digit access code flawlessly, he got an error.

PASSWORD INCORRECT. BEGINNING COUNTERMEASURES.

He saw the last word and dived for cover. But no gun turrets sprung up, no laser mesh to cut him into pieces. Seemingly it had been nothing but a bluff. Hackers did that all the time with fake bomb countdowns and ‘this virus will crash ur hard drive’ warnings on their code, like the Pharaohs of old warning tomb robbers about the vile curses they’d endure should they disturb the rest of the dead.

Chuckling lightly to himself, he returned to the keyboard of the console. There were now other options available from the main screen, rather than just the text prompt. Had he triggered a failsafe?

OPTIONS.

SETTINGS.

RECOVERY.

He clicked OPTIONS, and that opened into more submenus. More avenues of pursuit. Click. Click. Clickclickclick.

It was frustrating work. Moreover, the combined time of searching the office above and the computer below was wearing on him. Screen fatigue was a term he’d heard, but never quite this bad. It was like his mind had run a marathon. Dimly he realized that the background of every menu he opened was slightly swirling. At first, it had been almost imperceptible, but each menu made the whirlpools more visible, the text blurrier. Forced him to focus his eyes more and more at the screen… 

“Wait a minute,” he mumbled, “this isn’t right.” He tried to stumble away from the screen, but the gimbal the screen was mounted on moved with his eyes. He spun around, but a new screen snapped into place to to greet him. He looked up, and the structure of screens and arms was descending upon him like a ravenous spider. Soon it had trapped him in a cocoon of swirling spirals. Metal claws came out and latched onto his upper arms and ankles, but he forgot he could shift out of them. The spirals just demanded so much of his attention…the screens. They were important. So important to what he was trying to do…

…now if he could…just remember…what he was trying to do…

***

When Hypnotica left the rickety cargo elevator down to her Subterranean Sanctum, it was in a cloud of foul-mouthed invectives. The old costume she’d stashed atop the elevator was one of the legacy models, before she’s gotten footware adjusted for her extremely regal arches, meaning she was in a painfully familiar fight with a set of yellow calf-high boots just as she reached the bottom floor. The indignity of having to schlep to her evil lair in the freight elevator and in a distinctly retro costume! Whoever this imposter was, they were going to get sooo many embarrassing fetishes!

As the creaking, rattling cage door of the elevator lifted on its rails, she entered the Utility Room of her sanctum with a swipe of her black and purple cape, a theatrical flair only appreciated by the fuse box next to the Z-space generator and the drum of industrial floor polish. Now outside of the elevator’s Faraday Cage, her hypno-goggles connecting to her base’s wireless and filled her lenses with warning icons.

INTRUDER ALERT.

OMEGA CODE COUNTERMEASURE DEPLOYED.

Free from the sight of her employees and the public, she could let the savage glee of a successful trap show on her face. The Mindgrinder Engine set up in the centre of her lair LOOKED like the most impressive lynchpin of her evil schemes, but the enormous inverted tower of displays and mechanical limbs was actually $55 million worth of Red Herring. It was actually there to trick anyone who would so dare waltz into her secret abode into trying to unlock it, where it would proceed to deploy the most powerful hypnotic pattern ever devised: The Omega Code. The backdoor into the human psyche she’d recently acquired, at a greater expense than the Mindgrinder overall.

Putting the Engine and the Code together and she’d created a completely inescapable snare for the heroic types should they come snooping. The actual locus of her criminal empire was in a small room adjacent to the Nexus, where she kept her blueprints for world domination on an airgapped Gateway PC from 2001 behind a blast door strong enough to stop God should he come knocking. Like a normal person.

It seems as if the Engine had paid for itself once more, despite its ludicrous initial cost. Held in a dozen arms and suspended just off the platform in the middle of the room, the young man who had given her almost a full hour of grief—an interminable amount of time in her mind—had his full attention locked on a wall of implacable screens. Each pumped a mindmelting pattern of carefully sculpted hypnotic spirals into his eyes, and were positioned in such a way as to fill his vision no matter where he looked.

He didn’t look like much. A young male, early twenties at the latest, with generic good looks in a way that would make for a good background extra but make for difficult description to a forensic sketch artist. Once she was sure he was both unarmed and totally enthralled, she asked him point blank:

“Just what the hell did you think you were doing in my lair?!”

A slight delay, probably emerging from a sea of null thought, before he was able to answer the question: “Breaking in…need to find Libertina.”

Ah. That. Hypnotica had assumed business was settled, for now at least, with the powerful superhero the first target of her Omega Code hypnotic exploits. That her super-friends would be searching for her was a given, but this was the first cape that had linked Aurora Pavlova to the villainess Hypnotica…or had he?

“And why did you think you’d find her here?” she asked, folding her arms as if that was somehow an absurd assertion.

“Everyone knows you work with her…or maybe are her…but nobody can touch you through your lawyers…” 

Concerning. She wasn’t much interested in the rumours that the proles had about her, but what worried her was that there were heroes who were willing to break the rules to get through her legal bulwark. The threadbare differences between Pavlova and Hypnotica’s physical appearance was one of her concerns when she started becoming the face of her corporation. She’d thought the fact that one wore goggles and one did not would be enough. But perhaps, for the first time, she had underestimated the intelligence of the average denizen of Aphelion City.

That would be a matter for her PR team. She brought herself back to the real matter of concern. This shifter had impersonated her well enough to fool the guards, her secretaries, and even the biometric locks in her building. What’s more, despite having his mind turned to so much cookie dough beneath the kneading of THE OMEGA CODE ITSELF, he did not devolve into goo. She’d known mimics and shifters before; they tended to be nonhuman in their default appearance. This one was holding on to a generically handsome male image, representing an intriguing level of unconscious self-discipline. Once she was sure that the spirals had really grabbed hold of him, Hypnotica decided to probe his defences and see just how malleable this shapeshifter was.

“Well, it’s a good thing you arrived here, eventually. But you’re late,” she began, her voice taking on the curt, clipped tones of a vexed disciplinarian. 

“Huh?”

“You’re late for class! You asked me to train you in the art of performance, and you’ve caused a terrible delay for me.” She pulled one of the screens away from his eyeline, disabling the hypnosis program on it in the process. The intelligence that operated the Mindgrinder sensing what she wanted from it and opening its tablet function intuitively. A second grasper claw even offered a little writing stylus for her to poke at things with.

“Oh...sorry...” he mumbled, distant, but sounding at least a little ashamed. “I must have forgotten.”

Hypnotica made a completely pointless show of rolling her eyes behind her goggles. “Well, I suppose that can be forgiven this one time. But if you’re going to catch up, I’m going to need you to listen closely, and do your best to understand. Can you do that, hmm? Or do I have another student to flunk out of my class.” Even years after graduating, most people had nightmares about being late for class or being unprepared for a test. It was like a cheat code to get someone to comply in trance.

“I apologise, I’ll make up for it,” he said.

“‘I apologise, ma’am,” she corrected needlessly.

“I apologise, ma’am.”

Good. For some reason, she expected more resistance. Perhaps he was a natural submissive. Or perhaps he had a secret desire to obey a powerful woman. She pressed forward, looking for information...but also a potential use for this intruder.

“What is your name, student?”

“Wannabee...” he said.

Hypnotica shook her head. “I don’t have that name on my list of students. Do you have another name? A real name?”

He shook his head. “Not...anymore. Didn’t like them. Got rid of them.”

She arched an eyebrow. Permanent control of his self-image? Intriguing. Perhaps his mind wasn’t so weak after all. Aurora took some notes on her screen, trying to gather her thoughts while her subject’s went through another wash cycle. Poking through the database on the local heroes of Aphelion City, she found him right at the bottom. With a power rating barely above a side-kick and a name near the end of an alphabetical search, no wonder she hadn’t heard of him. He was fairly new in town as well, having left Miracle City after the Emergence of the Cicada Queen caused, among other things, a shortage in non-infested housing.

“Very well, Wannabee. I’ll just make a note here and add you formally later. Some more details, if you please. What is your gender?” The database entry listed male. But...c’mon. This was a shapeshifter!

“Male.” The answer was clear, concise. No hesitation. 

“Have you always been male?” she asked.

His mouth opened to answer. Then, almost sheepishly, he replied: “I can be whatever I want to be. I’ve tried other genders, other forms. But I always return to being a guy.”

“Are you uncomfortable as a woman?”

“No,” he replied, just as quickly. “I just find it easier to be a man.”

Hypnotica couldn’t begrudge him on that one. Despite not trading her transition for anything, it definitely made villainy easier when she could just threaten someone into compliance without a phase pistol in her hand or a hypno-spiral in her eyes. 

“Indeed. Is changing your shape easy? Is there a cost?”

A longer pause as he parsed her words. She really did need to watch her vocabulary when mindthralling simpletons. 

“Holding a new shape takes effort, concentration. The more detailed the copy, the more focus it takes.”

A weakness? Interesting.

“Describe what happens when you take a shape for too long.”

“I get sweaty, my body starts burning up. I get tired, my limbs start to hurt. Like exercise, but for the whole body.” The thought of discomfort made him twitch. She put him back down with a brief crank in spiral intensity, then peppered in some soothing words.

“But you feel relaxed now. You’re safe here, with me. You’re not in any danger.”

He nodded. “I’m safe with you, ma’am.”

Good. Back under. She returned to her line of questioning, though careful not to provoke any more memories of not being relaxed. 

“The form you have now…do you shift into it when you’re at home? When nobody is around?”

“Yes.”

“So it’s not tiring for you to appear this way?”

“No, ma’am, I feel fine.”

Now they were getting somewhere. She looked at his casual outfit, pointing her notepad’s stylus at it.

“Are those real clothes you’re wearing?”

“No. They’re a part of me.”

“So your resting state is clothed. Does being naked take more energy or less?”

“Well,” he replied, then looked up as if trying to think of what to say next. Hypnotica worried that she might have stressed the trance again, but in the end, Wannabee answered more than just one question she’d had: “A little less I guess. Wearing clothes and being naked are almost the same thing in the end. Same height, same weight, same general shape. Changing the big things, moving away from the real me, that’s what takes the effort.”

“And being m-...resembling Aurora Pavlova, I mean. That took effort.”

“Yeah…especially the details…had to get the fingerprints right and everything…”

Putting aside the question, temporarily, as to just how this little shit got her fingerprints, her devious mind had already locked onto a much more compelling idea like a German Shepard on the ankle of a dissident. She could have uses for a shifter for work, but the opportunities that opened up for pleasure…

“Well, I’d prefer if you were more relaxed in my presence. Could you shed your clothes, please?”

The first sign of resistance. “Not…appropriate…” he finally managed, head shaking slowly back and forth, adding a perfunctory: “Ma’am.”

But Hypnotica was undeterred. Leaning on the framing device for this session, she put on her best upset teacher voice and tried again. “I don’t have time for your foolishness, Mister Wannabee. I can’t instruct you if you can’t follow basic instructions! You’d better get to stripping, or I’ll leave a note on your permanent record.”

A little startled, even in his hypnotic torpor, he nodded. As he closed his eyes, his clothing dissolved into his sunkissed skin. What was left behind was a perfectly sculpted image of masculine identity. The lithe musculature of a statue of Apollo, his skin smooth and without blemish or birthmark. The only item of remark was his genitals, which were firmly on the shower side of the grower/shower divide. On display was an impressive nine inches of currently flaccid flesh. Taken together, his naked body looked like a pinup boy from Tasteful Twink Magazine. Nobody looks like that unless they were both kissed by God AND put a lot of effort into their appearance, and yet this was the shape that Wannabee felt most at rest in.

That must mean that, at some point, he made this his default form. Changed his conception of self to make him feel comfortable like this.

And if it could change once...

A pure, villainous strain of thought filled Hypnotica’s mind. Like crude oil poured into a virgin spring, defiling it. This intrusion has opened an opportunity for her. One she’d be foolish to ignore. If there were rumours that Aurora Pavlova and Hypnotica were one in the same, perhaps there was a way to discredit them. But for that, she would need someone to be her.

She would need...a perfect double.

“Well, I believe I know all I need to know about you, Mister Wannabee. And I think I can help you reach your full potential.”

“Oh...that’s good...I want to learn.”

“You’ve spent a lot of time today as Aurora Pavlova, haven’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“But it was tiresome, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So we’re going to work on that. By the time we’re done, you’ll be able to pretend to be her without any effort at all. That’ll be helpful, won’t it?”

He nodded. “That will help. I have to find Libertina...”

“That’s right,” she confirmed, “this will help you find Libertina. Which is what we both want. I have good news, then. It just so happens that I am Aurora Pavlova’s identical twin sister.”

He didn’t react with surprise, but that might have been the trance stupor making such an absurd idea seem downright reasonable.

“I had no idea,” he said in a flat affect, as if she’d just mentioned a bus route had changed.

“It’s true! A secret I keep, which is why I have this secret hideout. It helps me keep secrets, as well as teach lessons to inquisitive boys who stumble in late for their lessons. If people knew I was the sister to a vapid corporate stooge like her, it might ruin my reputation. So I have a secret identity.”

He nodded. So far so good. She set her internal cameras and audio recorders to capture every moment of the next part of the session. She was going to want to enjoy it later.

“So,” she began, stripping out of her hastily donned costume with graceless haste, “since you’re my student, and you desire so deeply to look like my twin sister, it only makes sense to start by showing you my body. That way you can perfectly replicate her appearance. That way you can save Libertina.” The only thing she kept was her hypno-goggles, keeping her safe from the mind-sizzling spirals. The rest fell to the floor in a loose pile, leaving her at once both exposed and totally in control.

He watched her in a fascinated daze as she undressed, confidently showing off her subtle curves, similarly bodyhairless form, and adorably sized girlcock. Unlike his own, Hypnotica was sporting at least half a chub at the moment. Having power over another person always got her excited, and she was just getting started~

He must have noticed that situation too, as his eyes drifted down between her legs.

“Didn’t know you were trans,” he said, without judgement or concern. Just a curious lift to the end of his sentence.

“Ah, you see? There’s a lot about my sister and I that you have to learn if you’re going to give a convincing performance. Give it your best shot. Become Aurora for me.”

This transformation took much longer than when he merely removed his clothes. The bare flesh itself pulled in different directions, briefly revealing its undifferentiated, fluid form before solidifying like grey clay in a kiln. The copy of Hypnotica’s secret identity that resolved in front of her eyes was a decent facsimile, but as someone who had studied herself in the mirror on her quest for physical perfection, she could see the differences. Imperfections. In particular, his version’s cock was still the same enormous length he’d sported between his legs when he’d first revealed himself. A masculine affectation, perhaps. But if he was going to resemble her, it would need to be complete. Total. 

“Let’s start with something obvious: our breasts. The estimation of my cup size is very accurate. But you see how the shape is slightly different?” she said, stepping closer to help him really get a good view of her bare chest. “See the thickness of my nipples? Notice my areolae are slightly different sizes? Notice how they feel to grab.” 

She pulled his hand from its loose grip in the Mindgrinder’s clutches to place against her chest. He squeezed down, making her slightly wince at the sharp little spike of pain. Still hurt a little when she played with them roughly. But she’d earned them from years of HRT, and she’d be damned if they’d be disrespected with a half-formed copy.

After another slower, careful squeeze, he did as he was told. The breasts of the Copy!Aurora changed before her eyes. The level of detail he was capable of putting into his transformations was beyond what she thought a shifter was capable of from just visual stimuli alone. With only a few minutes’ focus, he was able to replicate every detail. Every freckle. Every pore. Even the wrinkles around her nipple.

“Well done, my little understudy!” Aurora extolled. She didn’t even have to play it up much, she was really quite impressed. “How are you feeling right now? Is this difficult to maintain?”

“A little. Clothing helps me diffuse what attention is needed...having to keep every pore, every freckle...it can get tiring.”

There it was. The perfect opening for a seemingly reasonable suggestion.

“Then I suppose it’s time for the first lesson. for you to become the perfect actor, you must become your performance. You need to put yourself in this role on all levels. Being Aurora is the only way to get back Libertina. That matters, doesn’t it?”

“Yes...”

“This performance is everything to you, right?”

“Yes, ma’am,”

“Good. Then you must change the way you think about her form. You hold two selves in your mind when you copy someone: the costume and the real. That is holding you back from becoming the perfect copy. From appearing just like my twin sister. When you picture yourself, you must picture Aurora. Picture me. Let your old self become the costume.”

“N…I don’t…” He began to pull at the arms holding him in place. She was afraid this might be a hard sell. This Wannabee was used to taking on other identities temporarily, but had a decent sense of self. She might need a little trick to catalyze the instructions. 

One thing she’d learned in her long career of programming helpless thralls is that it’s a lot easier if you involve a shiny piece of jewellery. She always kept a ring or an amulet on her person for just such an occasion. The current silver band on her ring finger she’d been holding onto ever since her disastrous scheme to marry into European royalty, all for the sake of the title. It’d worked of course, she’d ensnared and married a Count of Lichtenstein and gained all the associated privileges and rights to use it on her stationary, but the first time she tried to count someone down from ten while addressing herself as The Countess reminded her too much of an educational puppet vampire. She took off the ring and slid it onto his finger.

“See this ring? This is your reminder of who you are. This is Wannabee. You can become Wannabee at any time, but when you are Aurora,” she slid the ring off again, “the ring comes off. Do you understand?”

He nodded. They tried a few times of call-response to make sure he understood this underlying concept. Finally, she slid the ring off again and placed it in her pocket.

“Who are you now?” she asked, anticipation making her heart beat faster.

“I’m…Aurora,” the shifter replied. Hypnotica could have cum right there. Sometimes she put in some time for her community, using her hypnotic powers to help trans people, with consent, get over their anxieties about transitioning or how their family might react. But there was nothing on earth quite like force feminizing a man through hypnosis purely for one’s own gratification. After a long drought of regular, non-reprehensible behaviour, it was like a tall glass of cold water on a hot day.

“Good girl,” she replied, keeping hold of her libido long enough to get back on track. “You’re doing so well, Aurora. Let’s keep going and get these details right.”

Step by step, she took him through an intimate tour of her body. Every wrinkle, every scar, even the tattoos she regretted getting on her ankle. Each time he turned that body part of a perfect facsimile of her own. Each time she relegated a part of the Wannabee that was into the costume that only came out when she put on the ring. All reversible, of course. 

But why would she? This was the most decadent form of self-gratification that mad science could ever devise, exceeding the previous record she’d set herself through the invention of the Glory Mirror. And just like that lost, failed prototype, the stimulation of watching someone turn into a copy of her had made her impossibly horny. By the time she’d cleared away the last of the major imperfections, her clit was dripping.

“There’s one last detail. One little thing you need to change before you can be my twin. Be my perfect copy,” Hypnotica declared. She dispatched the arms holding her copy aloft, allowing Aurora to land on her feet. Then, with the lust only barely restrained in her voice, she finished her statement: “You need to let go of your desire to save people.”

This provoked the most resistance yet. An anathematic suggestion could be rejected with enough force by a subject to knock them out of trance, so she needed to be careful. Aurora thrashed as if caught in a nightmare.

“N-no…” Aurora mumbled. Even through the Omega Code spirals, she fought the suggestion.

“See how passionately you feel? People can tell when your heart isn’t into the role. To truly go undercover as my twin, you must become like her. Self-absorbed. Hedonistic. Entirely focused on her own achievement, her own pleasure.”

“B-but Libertina-”

-is cumming her silly little brains out as we speak, she wanted to say. A not unlikely supposition, given the reprogramming she’d given the meddlesome do-gooder. But instead, she interjected with:

“-won’t be helped if you’re easily caught as an imposter. Is your righteous indignation worth her safety?” A pitifully weak rhetorical trap that Aurora wasn’t clear headed enough to see her way through. Despite this, the last reserves of her virtue refused to break.

“I can’t…I don’t know how to stop caring…” Another denial but this time with room to maneuver.

“It doesn’t have to be a matter of stopping. You can just choose to focus on other things.” She stepped closer to admire her handiwork. The shifter looked exactly like her, the details uncanny. All save for the huge cock between her legs, she was a physical duplicate. But her demeanour was all wrong. Docile. Placid. The inferior copy, of course. But an attractive one at that.

“Like what?” Aurora asked, her mouth close enough to feel her breath. Her lips close enough to taste. Surely there was a diagnosable condition for the attraction she was feeling, but that wasn’t important. She could change the diagnostic criteria when she ruled the world.

“Tell me truly, how do you feel at this very moment?” Hypnotica asked.

“I’m…confused…scared…like I’m falling and I can’t stop…”

“Ah! Perfect. That feeling. That confusion. It makes you feel powerless. Helpless.” 

A pause. Then, a nod.

“Speak up, dear.”

“Yes. It makes me feel powerless. Like I’m losing myself.”

An amateur might have thought to reassure her. Make her feel safe. But where was the fun in that?

“Good. Being powerless is submission. And submission is hot. At least, Aurora thinks so. She’s a natural submissive.” A blatant lie. She’d been an obligate domme since she’d enthralled her first prom date. But no matter how many duplicates of Aurora Pavlova she’d create, there could only be ONE Hypnotica. And they’d need to be shown that they were subordinate in all things. Especially under the covers.

It took moments for that idea to lock in. Once the thought patterns had been bent that way, however, the shifter’s skin was quick to flush. A clear conflict of desires was at play. Still bound by that lingering sense to do good, but now, a growing urge to participate in libidinous distractions.

“That’s good,” she said, letting her hand roam around the simulated skin of the shifter’s body. “The more helpless you feel, the weaker you become, the more aroused you get. And you feel the most powerless in my presence, don’t you?”

“Yes!” the answer came, almost shouted. Without thought. Without contemplation.

“I control you, don’t I? I’ve made you into my perfect twin. You had no choice.”

“Yes…I…I couldn’t stop you!” The words came so much easier now. Like the excuse was all she needed to admit defeat. But there was one lingering imperfection she couldn’t abide. The arousal had gotten Aurora hard…and she was almost double the length of Hypnotica’s own cock.

That. Could. Not. Stand.

Hypnotica gripped her copy’s erection underhand, stroking it as she spoke: “Mmm, just this excited. But you see how large and unwieldy your cock is still? It’s all wrong. Not cute at all! Not cute like hers. Here, lie down and I’ll show you close up.”

It was all Aurora could do to maintain her form as she dropped to lying on her back. Hypnotica knelt down at her head, showing off her own length as if it was looming high above. For her, she could probably cum from just a few more minutes of complete hypnotic domination of this former hero. But she did like the idea of taking this last aspect of Wannabee’s former self in a more direct route.

“So pretty…” Aurora said, eyes fixated on the cute couple of inches between the villainess’ thighs. With a twitch, Hypnotica watched as the enormous nine inch cock the shifter had walked in the room with shrunk. Yet it stayed rigid, pointing straight up and aching to be touched. It just…lost mass. Draining away. Diminishing. Becoming the ideal, feminine size that Hypnotica cherished so.

“Smaller,” she chanted, watching the shifter’s shaft retreat back into her body. The last reminder of the former Wannabee’s masculinity draining away. Given away freely. “Smaller…smaller…”

She couldn’t help herself. Hypnotica latched onto Aurora’s cock, wrapping her lips around it while she felt every heartbeat drain its length. Aurora herself got the hint, and after some adjustment from her domme was able to reach the cute cock close to her mouth too. The two formed two halves of a unified whole. No 6 had ever fit so well next to a 9 in the history of sex. And that was a long textbook. They shuddered together. Their tongues moved in tandem. And before long the last of the excess cock had vanished back into Aurora’s body, and she was a perfect twin. No. Not just a twin. A double. A perfect match. An extension of Hypnotica’s self. The only woman she could ever truly love…

…but it was important to let her know who was the real one.

Her lips left the still throbbing clit while she thrust into Aurora’s mouth, shoving all three powerful inches in, over and over, using her as the pleasure tool she was.

“Good girl…good girl…” the villainess offered in praise her head lolling back. The fact that, hours before, the woman around her cock had been a man dead set on ruining her operation was almost as good as the oral she was receiving. Maybe she wouldn’t even fire those guards. Maybe she should give them a raise.

Head so good she was contemplating mercy–truly spectacular. As all good things, however, she could feel it about to come to an end. 

“I’m close, Aurora dear. And when I cum, you will cum too. I give you that, as a gift for becoming my perfect double. My copy. My pleasure is your pleasure…savour it~”

Aurora replied by intensifying her affections, her tongue going into overdrive and polishing every square centimetre of the small shaft in her mouth. Hypnotica allowed herself the luxury of moaning out loud. The room filled with her beautiful (to her) voice as the first thin squirts of girlcum spattered the length of her double’s tongue. Aurora came too, though her neglected cock merely spurted upward once and drooled out the rest around her pubis. But that was enough to cause her to emit her own noises of sympathetic ecstasy, sounding like she was having the best sex in her life as sputtered her wasted seed onto herself. In an answer to a question that seemed as obvious as it had been unanswered, the cum disappeared as quickly as it had been lost, reabsorbed into her body as easily as the extra inches of cock had been.

But in the aftermath of their encounter, Hypnotica’s evil mind knew that a world of possibilities now stretched out before her. A mindthralled shifter could open new avenues of domination. She could lure all manner of victims to her parlour.

However, before she could have her fun…there were a few details she needed to take care of first…

*** 

Days later, Wannabee left the Civil Citadel in a depressed, heel-dragging shuffle. His teammates, for now at least, were too busy chewing over what they’d just learned. He’d told them everything. How he’d broken into private property, used his powers without sanction, and exerted his own form of extrajudicial authority—the one thing this group of masked vigilantes could never do. The Sentry had been there himself and pronounced, in his truly spectacular baritone voice, that Wannabee had just violated the rules set out by the Civil Sentinel’s Charter of Virtuous Behaviour. They’d placed him on leave pending an investigation. Should they confirm everything, in all likelihood, Wannabee would no longer be a member of the city’s foremost team of superheroes.

And yet, the moment he saw the limousine stop in front of 1 Justice Plaza, the only emotion on his face was relief. The black door opened for him automatically, and he slid inside. The vehicle took off the moment he’d slid inside, and now, free from prying eyes, he finally allowed himself a grin.

“Mission Accomplished,” Wannabee told the limousine’s only other occupant. Aurora Pavlova, wearing an incredibly expensive red dress that showed every bend of her hard earned curves, offered a tentative smile.

“Be specific, dear. In our line of work, the details are everything.”

“I told them everything Wannabee did. Breaking into private property, hacking, everything. And I told them what he found about Libertina.”

“They believed it?”

“No. They think it’s fake. That you planted evidence to be found in your systems.” Wannabee’s voice was replaced by a perfect impression of Sentinel. “‘Libertina would never go over to the dark side. She’s too pure of heart! It must be one of Hypnotica’s tricks.’”

Aurora Pavlova shrugged. “They’re right, of course, but they’ll never be able to prove it. You’ve done well. But you’ve been in that shape for hours. Why don’t you slip into someone more comfortable?”

With a relieved sigh, Wannabee slid the ring from his finger. The shifter’s flesh rippled briefly into its undifferentiated grey form before resolving into a gorgeous woman so similar to Aurora’s own appearance. There were some slight differences, of course. While Aurora looked elegant, sure to dominate a board room as much as a ball room, her double wore almost nothing. A short skirt, crop top, and stockings all in black, the only speck of colour on her wares was the large pink spiderweb design that hugged the shape of her breasts. The design made Hypnotica’s nethers tingle. Somewhere, beneath everything, the shifter knew she’d been captured. Ensnared. Trapped in the web of a predator.

“Thanks, sis,” Aura said, leaning back into the cushioned seating. “Feels good to be me again!” They’d had to come up with another name to tamp down the confusion of, technically, having two Auroras. The real one had always hated the cutesy diminutive of ‘Aura’, so she’d given it freely like an ill-fitting hand-me-down to her doppelganger. Besides, her identity as a mild mannered CEO was just cover for her real self anyways. There can be more than one Aurora, but there’s only one Hypnotica.

“Naturally. And I must say, you’re looking particularly delicious today~”

Aura giggled, the profuse compliments about each other’s appearances a running joke between them. After all: they were identical! At least on the surface. If you knew where to look, there were differences to be found. In particular: which one was dominant, and which one was desperately, pathetically submissive.

“Where we off to now, sis?”

“Some charity gala at the aquarium. Raising money for out of work puppy orphans or the like. Must give a good showing, however. The mayor’s wife is there, and I’ve had my eyes on turning her into my footstool.”

“The big one on Lake Street and Vine? Well, that’s gonna be a half hour drive at least, right?” Aura asked, her eyes full of playful pleading. It was less than half that, but the driver knew when to step on it…and when to take the scenic route.

“Oh for sure. You know how traffic can be sooo backed up,” Hypnotica replied, opening her legs and lifting the fabric of her dress to reveal the little bulge in her panties. Aura stretched herself across the distance to press against her dominant double, their mouths finding each other and interlocking perfectly. As if they’d been made for one another. The CEO could feel the press of her pair’s erection against her, and couldn’t wait to make it pop without a single intentional touch.

As they kissed, Aura’s clothes dissolved back into her body, leaving her needy and naked. Despite looking so cute in her slutty outfits, Hypnotica loved to see all of her double’s body when they made love. Moaning with every touch of her dominant’s wandering hands, Aura wordlessly spun herself around to push her shapely bottom against the little fabric encased bump that was rapidly growing beyond the covering capacity of the panties that contained it. Before she could begin, however, a detail caught the supervillain’s eye.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asked, gripping Aura’s hips to help her narrow down the area in question. After a moment of contemplation, the shifter giggled.

“Sorry. It’s still a little new. Let me just…”

Before Aurora’s eyes, a pattern appeared on Aura’s lower back. It’d be a tattoo if such things were possible to apply, but the way it appeared, it was as if her submissive was drawing it on with an invisible pen. It was a spiraling black pattern, looping and curling around into a pair of curling bunny ears around a stylized, swirling pocket watch. A tramp stamp, voluntarily drawn with Aura’s immaculate shifting precision, that marked her as both prey and as an owned object for Aurora’s pleasure. As one of Hypnotica’s captive thralls.

So not quite identical. But as Aura’s ass pressed against Aurora’s stiff clit, such matters became unimportant. Because for an obligate narcissist, the sensation of getting to fuck the person you loved the most in the world was almost as good as world domination.

Almost.