"What you possess might be in dispute as of right now," Within his mindscape, Richard looked in her direction. "Up to this point, where the power lies is still in-question."

"After all this time and energy spent changing the deepest parts of you, how could it be in-question now?" Elowyn almost asked incredulously.

Amidst their compelling conversation, Richard acutely noticed the conditions outside his brain were in-motion again. Back to dealing with terms of uncertainty that jeopardized them both, he began to lead the conversation in a more productive direction.

"Can you use the Soombakiya here," Richard asked, stepping up to Elowyn who brought her hands to cover his face. She focused, staring intently at him, but never felt the power come forth like it always had.

Richard attire shifted from sweats to his trademark Vector suit, bringing his hands to cover her face. His small smile noted how she remained in her workout attire, a supplicant to the magnetism radiating from his hands in full force. "Then it might settle things if I have this and you don't at this juncture," his voice lowered to a hypnotic cadence amidst her faltering grasp on everything. The arrogant, cocky Dr. Thorn of old would have added braggadocio to his logic of "home field advantage" or "the house always wins," if this was any other opponent. But Elowyn Parnassus proved herself to be of a higher caliber, worthy of a careful guidance, leading the mastermind of a wild stallion to the water, making them drink. In all the majestic horses he'd broken in, none would be more coveted than his current target.

"But the power is merely a vehicle to salvage the situation we're in, so we finally need to return to meditation that gives us the best chance."

The background projected the virtually-still vision of Richard meditating, legs crossed under him, hands laying in his lap, palms facing upwards to gather the energy; the only way to tell if there was movement was seeing his slow inhaling and exhaling. Elowyn didn't readily clue into how every inhale drew the vision of his hands closer, and every exhale brought it further back. But the more Richard at the temple inhaled the closer the vision showed his diaphragm, and the energy being goatherd. And the more that Elowyn watched it, the more her breaths unconsciously matched it.

"Power rests here," Richard emphasized the feeling of his hands on her, as the background Richard's hands rose with the energy in-tow.

"And should be allowed to manifest," The energy saturated Elowyn's temples from the direct touch. The vision making her yearn for what she was already feeling.

"To save us both." Something about his choice of words convinced the confused Lioness that this was good and necessary, and found little reason to question. Filled with anticipation for what the vision would do next.

"But only if we let it," the last few words echoed as Elowyn saw the vision transform to Dr. Thorn in his Vector suiting, taking woman after woman in his grasp, all bearing the beguiled head tilted back and gasp, including Ella and finally Elowyn herself, dressed in attire fit for a new Subprime, derivative of his outfit, emblematic of her deference to him. Seeing herself fully under his control was the moment Richard's surging magnetism struck forward like a vicious cobra striking unprotected temples, creating an echoing gasp.

***

It was at that moment that one of the converted hotel guards decided to knock at the door Hypatia was hiding behind. And it had to be at that moment that Elowyn's body gasped loudly for what was going on in someone else's mind. Hypatia shot daggers at Richard's oblivious smile before readying herself for whomever began letting themselves into the room. The hypnotized guard carry Richard and Junior carrying his mother scrambled to get out of sight as the door opened, one guard checking around the entrance of the suite. Hypatia stood near the opened door, waiting for security to enter far enough in before she came from behind.

"No sound but my voice, no sight but my face, no thoughts but my words." The guard was stunned, as he turned his head to face an insistent Hypatia, the sound of her voice filling one ear as her pearl bracelet filled the other with her arm wrapped around his neck.

"No sound but my voice, no sight but my face, no thoughts but my words." Dr. Thorn had used this rapid induction many times before, to get out of quick jams, to get into her mind when time was of the essence, or if he was feeling frisky.

"No sound but my voice, no sight but my face, no thoughts but my words." Hypatia banked on the hope that Cameron's men had spread out, each searching rooms individually, and that the security guards had become so suggestible already that another layer of control would only add to the most recent giver of orders.

The desired effect took hold, and the guard was given strict commands to report that his search turned up nothing. Hypatia would've smiled deeply at her efforts, were it not for one of Cameron's conscious goons appearing right behind him, followed by another. With no time to subdue two men in the quiet way, martial arts training kicked in as she struck the closest one at his kneecap, and the second advancing one in his groin. Left momentarily stunned, she grabbed a weapon attached to one of their belts, a retractable baton, and used it on their exposed heads just as Dr. Thorn had taught her. Closing the entrance to the suite, Hypatia allowed her weakened assualters to writhe on the ground before being knocked out cold by well-placed kicks.

"Hello Hypatia. Are you going to come out? Or are you going to make us come in?" Cameron's voice calmly stated from the other side of the door.

Trapped as she was, the young hypnotist weighed her options. No alternate means of escape unless she had parachutes for everyone, and no time to call the cops, she took him up on his challenge.

"As your goons learned, come in and get knocked out."

The door quickly opened, but slammed into one of the unconscious men. Cameron tried to force it open with his arms, a gun slipping into the opening. Hypatia struck the hand holding the gun with the baton, and pushed the door closed to slam his forearm in it; Cameron went crazy with rage as he pushed it open and ran to strangle Hypatia with his bare hands. Using his wild momentum to her advantage, she slipped his grip and made him trip onto the ground, she got up to stomp his groin, replacing rage with agony, and placed her knee down on his neck to either render him unconscious, or take things further if need be. 

Fading quickly despite his adrenaline, Hypatia let him up and breathed a sigh of relief, just as a thin pair of arms wrapped around her torso. She would have initiated another takedown if the deep sigh didn't open her up to fresh pheromones from Delphine's grip, dampening Hypatia's adrenaline as her breaths became reflexively deeper. Words starting to come clear as the blood stopped pounding through her veins, and muscles instantly grew limper than they should've been, being talked down by the most successful assault yet. It took focusing on the two mind-melding figures that made Hypatia reach into herself for strength to outdo Delphine; what she got was a alluring tingle that connected quickly with the Doll's forehead, overruling the pheromone user with a sharp "Sleep!" command.

It took moment of surveying the room several times to make sure no threats would be getting up, before she realized she'd finally manifested the energy she was so familiar with from a receiving end. With it still radiating in her, she ran to the comatose bodies, and connected it to Richard's forehead.

***

Hands that held onto Elowyn's face slipped upwards so Richard's index and middle fingers could begin to draw on her temples, at the beginning of the end a battle he'd long thought he would lose.

"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, is mine."

"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, is mine."

"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, is mine."

Richard stressed the words of his mantra carefully, making his monotonous speech rise and fall as needed, making Elowyn follow along with the keys to their escape from his mind.

"Repeat these words with me, dear Elowyn, find the meaning they have taking root in your mind now. Find the power they hold to free us both. Freeing me frees us both. Calming yourself to acceptance frees us both. You can free yourself by calming yourself and freeing me."

Elowyn stared at the man she trusted, beginning to mouth the words he was saying, beginning to repeat them as instructed.

"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, is mine."

"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, is mine."

"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, is mine."

"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, is mine."

"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, is mine."

"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, is mine."

The more they spoke, the more the background reverted to the library, happier than ever to see it fixed in near permanence.

"Do you trust me, dear Elowyn?" he paused the mantra to ask her one more time before setting her on the way to allowing control of both of them.

"Yes...I...trust...you...." she sighed, almost happily.

"Very good, then repeat it for me one more time, the words that will free us."

"You couldn't help yourself could you? Yet again."

The words made Richard nearly jump out of his mental avatar's skin, turning to find yet another presence in his mind.

"E-Ella?"

"....Ella? Are you getting senile, or just run through too many assistants to count?" 

His blank stare confused them both.

"You really don't recognize me here? I'm...."

Hypatia tried to think of a name other than what she used with the Alexiou family, blanking out herself as her thoughts acted differently in this place. Images surrounding them of Richard's past memories in the background put Hypatia in Ella's, in Subprime's place. Training, trancing, working operations together as his only assistant, working most recently on the Parnassus assignment where Richard noticed his young, pretty assistant had caught Elowyn's eye for some reason. Suddenly, floodgates prematurely open flowed out, allowing Hypatia to remember faint notions of being a creation for Ella to play out.

"Ella? I'm...Ella? I'm Subprime?" for the first time in Hypatia's existence, she sounded unsure of herself, flummoxed.

"What has she done to you?" He asked concerned.

"....no more than you've done to me, Vector!" she chose to unleash her anger in a specific direction, citing him as the origin of much of her pent up discontent. He winced at how she'd ceased referring to as Dr. Thorn, or Richard outside of programmed throws of passion.

"I'm trying to save us; you know what Elowyn's plans were."

"No, you're trying to save yourself. I...I can remember everything, thanks to Elowyn. If you succeed, I know exactly what you'll have me go back to, choices that are never mine, for the greater good. For your greater good."

"Who's going to stop these families from making slaves if we don't?"

"Why the hell do you think you're any different?!?" Ella raged at him for the first time, finally free to let what felt like her realest self out. Balling up her fists, she moved in his direction. "If you don't end all this now-"

The world around them surged uncontrollably for a moment, and by the time Richard was relieved of the shock, Ella was gone.

***

Barbs hit Ella's back and ran a stunning voltage that made not only her body, but Richard's and Elowyn's body somehow jump as well, even though she was only in physical contact with the former. Convulsing onto the ground, Hypatia could turn her head a little to see Tennyson Sr. holding a taser, shooting enough electricity in her until she was no longer a threat.

"Thank you for allowing me to land the finishing blow, Hypatia, or should I call you Ella, or Subprime? Whatever or whoever you think you are according to my dear wife, another one of her failed projects." Taking out the cartridge of the taser and attaching a new one in case he needed to use it, he crouched before the shocked brunette, whose face became twisted by electricity and disgust. 

"I should kick myself for not recognizing that name sooner, so very Quant, or Quant wannabe. A Quannabe if you will." Ella wanted to rip his throat out if she had more control of her seizing nerves.

"How odd for Elowyn to give you that name, a famous woman mathematician whose fame partially comes from a brutal, Byzantine end. Maybe in the end, she knew you'd be handed over to Cameron Donatell, who though he'll never read history, will be happy to repeat it on your body. Flailing, skinning, stoning, and probably some more unmentionable acts, all at a discount since I'm giving you away for free. A Vector and Subprime for the price of one Quant is quite the deal. You're trash to me, personally, but one man's trash, is soon to be another man's torture Doll."

"F-f-fuckkkk...y-you T-t-ennys-son!" she stuttered out.

"Before I give you away, maybe. I'll have to show my son how to deal with your kind of woman. But in the meantime, let's get everyone back home. I know I can't wait..." Tennyson said before she passed out. 

Given the unenviable task of waking everyone up from varying degrees of hypnotizes states or concussions, Tennyson gathered up everyone he could, and prepared to bring everyone back to the compound. A pissed off Cameron decided not to take chances, using his own SUV to transport Richard and Ella back to his property immediately, not allowing his enemies to join forces one more time.

***

Internally, Richard could sense enough of what was happening, already feeling the connection stretch to dangerous levels.

"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, is mine." He hastily engaged in his mantra again to regain the strength needed to begin to exit the state, foolishly believing he had time to leave it with a new slave.

"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, is mine."

"A calm mind is controlled, is freed, is mine." Dominant vitality found it's way into Elowyn's voice and her expression, highlighted words she wanted him to focus on. Richard turned to face Elowyn in her velvet dress, a sight that took him back to the shirtless attire of leather pants. Giving him a long, hard stare, she disappeared right before his eyes.

"To answer your earlier question, of course I trust you, my good man," Elowyn's disembodied voice echoed all around where Richard stood, stunned, suddenly-defensive.

"Elowyn! We're in trouble. We need to focus our energies to get out of here!" Richard stressed the severity of the situation.

"Now that assertion from you I don't trust. You had ample time to free us as we were, but Ella was right. You couldn't help but incentivize staying here long enough to change things. But honestly, neither can I. Because unlike you, I trust that our bond is already greater than you would ever admit. Strong enough that I can finish what I started for good."

Richard already felt their proximity being stretched beyond what even the loosest monks of the monastery would consider "unsafe," and yet the bond remained strong. Elowyn was right that he would never admit why that was.

"But despite everything you've done that a good man wouldn't do, I trust you my good man."

"I trust you to be exactly who you are, exactly the Quant who would take advantage of one last-ditch effort to gain lost ground and emerge victorious."

"I trust you to be utterly, adorably predictable. You just couldn't help yourself, you never could. Not with Ella, not with anyone, and of course not with me."

Projected flashes of all of his moments of domineering quickly replaced the library, growing strangely more faded as they played over and over. 

"That helplessness is one I encouraged, cultivated, enriched within you. It helped you fall to your hubris in the first place, and into my hands with Subprime. It helped you expend all your efforts in fighting the inevitable. It helped you when you needed to help us both."

Flashes of all his moments of succumbing followed, each one bearing more pristine clarity than the last. They all came back to his memory as fresh as they happened, as the quality of Elowyn's voice gained more consideration from him.

"And for your gallantry in saving your Mistress from that last bout of suppressing my will, I rewarded you with one last semblance of hope. Regardless of it being false or not, you earned it. I hope you enjoyed your last gasp of independent control, before showing you why you should trust my words. Implicitly. From now on."

The way the words, the quality of her voice carried it's own aura and energy, he realized in utter disbelief that Elowyn was exuding Soombakiya from her speaking. The tactile version was often the strongest, while auditory was the weakest, a fact Elowyn easily upended.

"You please your Mistress so much in the truths you shaded in our time here, how bonding is needed when we were already inseparably-connected. How abstract the concept of time is supposed to be in a brainwashed space. How power should ever matter when it lacks control. An admirable attempt, making me believe in your power, never letting me consider my own control over you. Early on, you might have succeeded, were it not for your subconscious already answering only to me."

Richard fell to whatever surface was beneath his feet, safeguarding the last of him by futilely covering his ears with his hands; it didn't make a difference to her audible energies as Elowyn's voice caressed his skin, communicating her will to his skin and nerves, correctly interpreting whatever she wished.

"Because from the start, you know how things should have been."

Her voice ran across him, flowing into him, as the warping background showed the temple again, but in an alternate reality as a young Elowyn was with him in his training, exceeding him in his studies, ahead of him in learning the difficulty of Soombakiya. His first true exposure to it was feeling her hand holding his face, holding his mind, holding the sum of him enchantingly-captive. 

Richard on the ground watch the scene play out, feeling heart strings strummed at as Elowyn's voice manipulated his emotions.

"You know how things truly were, how you wanted them to be."

The pair of Quants-in-training shared so much time together, so many casual moments of them opening up to one another, learning about their pasts, their ambitions, hopes and dreams. Elowyn's hand often covered his as she spoke, emanating the energy effortlessly, daily. Young-Richard found his body complaining if she touched him without it. She filled almost every waking thought, daydreaming of her company, dreaming of her growing empowerment. He followed her lead closely behind in progress and success, accepting that even if he was impressive and more adept than anyone, she was his better in every regard.

It was hard not to harbor the same admiration for young-Elowyn that he held for present-Elowyn, staring at the young woman who would've easily captivated his younger self. He shook the memory off as it felt like he was swimming in her words, finding it harder and harder to fight off the suggestions.

"You know how things became, how there was no turning back for your heart and soul."

He proved himself to be her advocate, the only temple inhabitant who celebrated her accomplishments without reservation. He didn't know exactly when he'd fallen for her, but he couldn't admit the fall was anything but hard. She obviously noticed it too, she had to as every scheduled and unscheduled touch prompted a reaction. Knowing that he'd shown an honest way of sharing his capitulation with her, they shared forbidden kisses, each one more alluring than the last. It was their kisses, her gracious gift to him that got them in-trouble. It got him probation, but she was expelled from the order. In their last moments, he cried for the unfairness of it all; Elowyn shushed him, silencing him with one more kiss, programming a need to continue his training, and to find her when he finished.

Richard tried reminding himself of his training, his solitary accomplishments and how he got himself kicked out, but it hardly seemed true anymore compared to the edict from Elowyn to finish training, to be her teacher when he could find her again. To be hers.

"You know how sullen things were without me, how crestfallen you are when I'm not around."

Life after the order became an endless search for Elowyn, constantly taking on Quant jobs to never lose his edge, constantly feeling the unrequited love of someone he might never see again. He tried to satiate himself with pretty girls who showed any modicum of her promise, to gorge his submission by throwing himself at their feet, to be taken, to instruct them how to be as good as Elowyn. Even Ella, the most promising of them all, the one worthy enough to remain under him as a sidekick, never filled that space Elowyn hollowed out.

The part of his mind screaming of manipulation was like sand, slipping through fingertips that missed her touch, washed over by a tide of sorrow, praying for a tide of a different emotion to wash over him.

"You know how things would turn out, if you found me again, if your purpose in life was reaffirmed."

It was just another job the infamous Vector would take, posing as a simple specialized accountant to investigate some conspiracy. The details of it were forgotten the moment he laid eyes on an older Elowyn, his Elowyn, the Elowyn whose words were as magnetic as she was irresistible. 

"Richard, how nice to see you again," she beamed in her lovely black velvet dress. Life had taken them in different directions, but the married woman still walked up to the working Quant and kissed him as if no time had passed. Richard kissed back, forgetting duty and all else. "I...."

The actual Richard was no longer watching the background; at some point, he'd slipped into playing himself in the thrilling narrative, slipped into Elowyn's velvet embrace, into her seductive gaze, into the leather pants she loved. His naked flesh was there to toy with. Her power surged through him with every breath. The surroundings found a structure hold to, solidified into her sanctuary, lit only by the moonlight pouring into the space. He stared up at her portrait, and back to her face, lost in a programmed love.

"You know you want to say it. You need to say it. You won't deny yourself this any longer, because you know my wish is for you to give in, to surrender to the life you know is yours. To make your existence entrenched, embedded, and enriched, in my power."

The last vestiges of inner resistance barely stood on a slippery surface, waiting to fall down as lips quivered to form new, life-affirming words.

"Well, my good man, what say you?"

"I...I am yours Mistress Elowyn. Always yours. Forever yours, if you'll have me."

Elowyn tipper her head back to laugh triumphantly while Richard just stared in-awe.

"The time I would've spent to tunnel my way this deep into you, and it ends with you pulling me here, levying the last bit of yourself to my disposal. I couldn't have planned this better!"

"I knew the ending that was to be, but I was so afraid of it. Afraid that I'd get what I deserve. But..." Richard began to respond unprompted. "But you showed me that I do deserve it, I deserve wanting and need to obey, but...I'm only suitable for the privilege if you deem me worthy. The way I feel...thank you Mistress for helping me conquer that fear, for making me need as I now do."

"You're welcome. But your mind need not fear anything ever again. I won't allow that, because, as you say..."

So lost in her brainwashing, it took forever to notice that they were so physically separated that their connection was just about severed. But a part of her was still there, at least an echo. Elowyn's form remained as clear as ever, perhaps his manifestation of the woman who'd never leave his brain again. Richard could feel her lips turn magnetic from the space between them.

"A calm mind..."

The hands pulling his head close were magnetized. 

"Is controlled..."

The attraction between their lips was happily inevitable

"Is free to be mine..."

She smiled and whispered as the distance between their minds closed forever.

"Is MINE!"

Somewhere beyond the sanctuary, the last word pierced the buried depths of him echoing through levels and levels and levels, all the way to his core that most would classify as a soul. Elowyn's declaration of ownership reverberated, and echoed all the way back to the sanctuary where they he kissed his Mistress deeply, filling him with the energy to bring them both back to the physical world, no matter where they would wake up.

Wherever he'd wake, the first word upon his lips would be the first thought of the rest of his life.

"Yours...."