Val popped a pretzel bite in her mouth and shrugged. “No, I don’t feel weird at all. Why?”

Yun-hee’s cheeks were red as she tried to avoid looking at Val’s chest. “Seriously? You don’t notice anything?”

“I mean,” Patti interjected, leaning forward and sneaking glances at the people around their table, “do you at least see how other people are reacting to you?”

“Reacting to what?” Val looked around the food court. As far as she could tell, nothing was out of the ordinary. Nobody seemed to be staring at her strangely, or whispering to their friends or family about something odd she was doing. In fact, nobody seemed to notice her at all.

If anything, it was Weiss who was turning heads. Her punk-esque, goth-adjacent style was uncommon to begin with, but it stood out even more in a mall so boring that there wasn’t even a Hot Topic or a Spencer’s. As she approached the table, carrying two trays of food like she’d been waitressing for years, she got her share of looks both dirty and the other kind of dirty.

She set the trays down and grinned. “So, what were we discussing?”

“N-Nothing!” Yun-hee stammered.

Val rolled her eyes. “She thinks there’s something weird going on with me.”

“Is there?” Weiss asked.

“N–” Val started to speak, but then narrowed her eyes and glared at Weiss. “…I dunno, Weiss. Is there?”

“Well, I certainly don’t notice anything strange about you,” Weiss replied. “Other than how pretty you are, of course.”

“Of course.” Val picked up her slice of pizza, still keeping her eyes fixed on Weiss. “But it’s not like I’m unusually pretty today, right? I haven’t done anything different, have I?”

“You seem to be asking me a lot of questions you should already know the answer to,” Weiss chuckled. “C’mon, enough talking, you need to eat some real food.”

“Food court pizza is not what I’d call ‘real food,’” Yun-hee retorted.

“No, it’s better.” Patti took a bite of her slice and hummed. “God, y’know, sometimes the, like, cheap version of something just hits in a way the ‘real’ version doesn’t.” She motioned towards Val’s half-finished cup of pretzel bites. “Take, for example, the humble soft pretzel. I’ve had plenty of ‘real,’ traditional pretzels. The premium shit. And you know what I’ve discovered?”

“Tell us, Patricia,” Weiss said, enraptured.

“Absolutely none of them compare to the stuff they’ve got here.” Patti grabbed one of Val’s pretzel bites and practically moaned as she swallowed it. “God damn per-fect-ion.”

“If you like them so much, you can get your own.” Val pulled her cup in closer. “But you’re dodging the question, Weiss.”

“What question?” Weiss responded, feigning innocence.

“You know what I’m talking about! Yun and Patti think there’s something weird with me, and I don’t feel any different, so clearly you’ve given me some suggestion that I can’t remember.”

“Why are you so sure about that?”

“Because you do stuff like this all the time.”

“Do I?” Weiss sat on Val’s lap and got right in her face, smiling. “Well, you can hardly blame me, can you? I just can’t help myself. I see you all the time, all pretty and mindless and suggestible. Why, anyone in my position would take every possible opportunity to fuck with that head of yours.”

“Get a room, girls,” Patti said, rolling her eyes and eating Val’s pretzel bites.

“H-Hey,” Val stammered, her cheeks turning redder by the second, “give those–”

“Ah, ah!” Weiss grabbed Val’s cheeks and turned her head away from Patti. “Don’t worry about her. Focus on me, darling.” She rubbed Val’s thigh with her other hand, humming softly. “Well, that feels more like fabric than skin. I think you’re at least wearing pants.” Her hand crept up to Val’s stomach, pressing against her thin sweatshirt. “Hm, feels like you’re wearing something up here too. But, who can say? I could be lying. Maybe you’re actually naked, merely imagining the clothes you’re wearing. Tell me, Valerie, has anyone else reacted strangely to you today?”

Val tried to think about her day so far, tried to remember what had happened before she sat down at this table. But the more Weiss’s hand rubbed her body, and the more Weiss’s voice whispered in her ear and planted all sorts of tantalizing images and idea in her head, the harder it was for Val to keep her thoughts in order. “I-I… I dunno…”

“Yes, you have such a hard time knowing things today, don’t you?” Weiss chuckled. “Perhaps it’s not your clothes. Perhaps it’s your mind I’ve messed with. Have you noticed any slowness in your mind? Any moments where you forget a word, a name, a number? Maybe I’ve actually turned you into a dim-witted bimbo, so stupid that she can’t even remember how stupid she is.”

“Weiss,” Yun-hee said warily, “people are staring at you. Maybe you should take this somewhere private?”

“Oh, but we’re not doing anything naughty. I’m just sitting in my girlfriend’s lap, it’s not like we’re fucking.” Weiss paused, raising an eyebrow. “Are we fucking, Valerie? Could you be so suggestible, my hypnotic words so persuasive, that I could be fucking your brains out right here, right now, and you wouldn’t even realize it? My, if I could do that, who could say if we were even in the mall right now! Maybe all of this is merely an illusion, my words fueling your imagination to create a kinky scenario in your mind.”

“G-God,” Val whimpered, “please, Madame… just tell me already…”

Weiss giggled. “Very well, darling.” She cleared her throat. “Clear.”

Val blinked. She expected to feel something – the sensation of unfamiliar clothes against her skin, a sex toy hidden away where she didn’t notice, a sudden increase in intelligence – but instead there was… nothing? She didn’t feel any different at all. “Wh-Wha… But…”

Yun-hee gasped. “Oh, fuck!” she squeaked, covering her face with her hands.

“Yun? What’s…” Val squirmed, looking down at her own body in disbelief. She still looked and felt exactly the same as she had a moment before. What was Yun-hee reacting to? “Weiss, what’s going on?”

“Would you care to explain, Yun-hee?” Weiss said, smiling wickedly. “Or would you rather I be the one to describe it?”

“I-I… um.” Yun-hee swallowed. “You do it. Please.”

“Alright.” Weiss slid off of Val’s lap and back into her chair. “You see, Valerie, I was telling the truth when I said I hadn’t done anything to you. Your mind was completely free of any post-hypnotic suggestions or triggers – well, aside from the ones you usually have, anyway.” Her eyes flicked over to Yun-hee’s. “Hers, on the other hand…”

“I don’t understand,” Yun-hee muttered. “I-I could’ve sworn Val was…” She furrowed her brow. “Wait, Patti, you saw it too, didn’t you?”

“Acting!” Patti exclaimed, reaching across the table and high-fiving Weiss. “Fucking got you, nerd!”

Val brushed herself off. “So… I mean, I get why you’d mess with Yun, she’s really cute when she gets flustered–”

“H-Hey!” Yun-hee stammered.

“Well, you are!” Val giggled. “That’s just true! But, Weiss, why include me at all? Why not just mess with Yun?”

“Because you’re really cute when you get flustered too,” Weiss replied, kissing Val on the cheek. “Besides, we need to reinforce the hierarchy of our newly-expanded polycule.”

“Newly…” Val’s eyes widened. “Wait, does that mean…?”

Weiss nodded, then turned to Yun-hee, raising her cup of soda in toast. “Yun-hee Andrews, welcome to the bad guys.”

Yun-hee tapped her cup against Weiss’s. “H-Happy to be here,” she replied, smiling awkwardly.

“Wait, since when were we bad guys?” Val asked. “I thought we were doing good.”

“Well, the cops think we’re bad guys,” Weiss said. “And what we’re doing is still technically illegal, so.”

“I guess, but that doesn’t make us bad guys.”

“What are you two talking about?” Yun-hee asked.

Val paused. “…Oh. Uh. I guess I hadn’t, um, t-told you.”

Yun-hee’s eyes narrowed. “Val. Please tell me you’re not doing any vigilante stuff on the side.”

“I… W-We might, potentially, be doing some… vigilante stuff. On the side.”

“Aw, what!” Patti frowned. “And you didn’t even let me help?”

Weiss raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to help?”

“Fuck yeah I do! I’m dating two superheroes and I don’t even get to fight bad guys? That’s bullshit! Especially when you’ve been hogging all that for yourself!”

“Well, okay, what would you do, then?”

Patti smiled brightly. “Explosives!”

“Wha–” Weiss sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Okay, I should’ve expected an answer like that from you. But we’re not in the business of blowing stuff up, Patricia.”

“But you never know, right? What if you’re stuck outside like a bank vault that you gotta get into?”

“Why would we need to get into a bank vault?”

“I don’t know! But if you were, and you didn’t have me to blow it open–”

Val leaned over to Yun-hee while Weiss and Patti continued to argue. “I’m sorry about not telling you.”

“No, you were right to,” Yun-hee replied. “The Bureau is trying to tighten its leash on all of us. I even heard Gibson got recruited by them.”

“Really?” Val raised an eyebrow. “Huh. You’d think that would be a conflict of interest or something.”

“I really don’t think they care either way.” Yun-hee sighed. “Either way, though, you should be careful.”

“I will. Thanks.” Val drummed her fingers on the table. “So, uh… what did you think was up with me?”

“Oh, Yunnie?” Patti cooed, wrapping her arm around Yun-hee’s shoulders and pulling her in close before she could answer Val. “Bzzzzzzzzzzzz…”

Yun-hee gasped. She covered her mouth with her hand, stifling a moan as her cheeks started to turn red. “Th-That’s– Patti, please, w-we’re in public–”

“Then I guess you’ll just have to be an extra-good girl and keep quiet,” Patti grinned. “Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, bzzzzzzzzzzzzz…”

Val turned to Weiss and smirked. “Vibrator trigger?”

“I’ve taught you well,” Weiss smiled. “Of course, you still remember yours, don’t you?” She touched Val’s hand and gently pressed her finger into Val’s wrist, slowly creeping it up the back of Val’s hand.

“Mhm!” Val nodded, squirming. “Y-You don’t need to remind me–”

“Oh, shut up,” Weiss whispered, kissing Val’s neck. “Just shut up and take it, you little slut.”

Val whimpered and curled her toes. “Wow, you’re really t-turned on right now, huh?”

Weiss chuckled. “Can you blame me? Seeing you drift off into subspace with just the suggestion that I’d done something to your mind, knowing I’ve now got three little hypno-sluts to play with… god, it’s like Christmas morning.”

“Th-Then, uh… how about you, um… u-unwrap me?” Val winced at her awkward attempt at dirty talk. “I-I mean, uh…”

“Oh, you’re just adorable.” Weiss pecked Val on the cheek and pulled her hand away. “Patricia, Yun-hee. I don’t think I can contain myself out here. Let’s cut this shopping trip short and bring our new girl into the fold properly, back at my place.”

Patti pouted. “Aw, already? But I had so many ideas for public stuff! Can we just meet up with you later?”

Weiss grinned and poked Patti on the forehead. “Silly girl,” she purred as Patti’s eyelids fluttered and her body went slack. “I wasn’t asking. I’m ordering.”