PsyKick was riding high as most of the latest incarnation of M.A.L.I.G.N. were loaded, restrained, into one or another form of meta-prison transportation. There were a couple who seemed to get away a statistically improbable amount of the time, Macabre being almost the poster child for that.

The combination of incredible resilience, inbuilt healing factor, and strength enough to be hard to restrain for long made it difficult to keep her down long enough to stand trial, though it happened just about enough to give hope it could eventually be done permanently.

As the person who’d found and stopped Cascade, Tyrone had gotten plenty of praise, and he’d taken the time to make his three conquests particularly effusive. He hadn’t told them what to say, but they’d had no choice but to pay him his respects, especially to the news crews once they started to show up.

Sunstone was the one he was getting most resistance from, but he had plans for that. Just as soon as they got back to HQ…

Very few of the team were headed back to HQ. Ms Miracle was, as she was on monitor duty - that’s why she’d been coming to talk to Osprey - and Sunstone lived there.

Bulwark had given PsyKick a surprised look when he volunteered to help with the paperwork, but had been willing to let him, even given a nod of approval. To PsyKick, the message was clear: the more he pushed his limits, the more he took charge, the more he was rewarded.

It was no wonder he was so happy with himself. As soon as they were back in HQ, he reached along the psychic conduit he’d established to Ms Miracle, the one which went from being one conduit to five strands, one clutching each wrist, one for each ankle, and one penetrating her head through the back, a psionic link that she imagined as puppet strings. You’re going to offer to help me with the paperwork.

She almost jerked to a halt, movement that had been nearly natural stiffening. “Oh, PsyKick,” she said in a lilting, dreamy voice, “I can’t leave you to do all the write-ups yourself. Let me help?”

He ignored the confused look that Sunstone shot at them and smiled. “I’d be glad of it, Miracle.”

*

They sat across from each other at the conference table, laptops in front of them. Out of sight from D.A.N.I.E.L.’s camera, though, there was more going on; Ms Miracle sat with her thighs parted, her long boots shed under the table, and her ankles resting on PsyKick’s thighs, where under helpless compulsion her nyloned feet were slowly stroking and teasing his cock.

Tyrone had opened up his mind, just a little, on the lower emotional stratum; he was feeding some of his arousal back into her head down those same puppet strings, having ordered her to hide her reactions from D.A.N.I.E.L.’s observations.

She was so much easier to mentally manipulate, and he didn’t know why, but he had noticed that the more pleasure that poured into her mind, the easier it was to make her head do whatever he wanted.

He’d been a fool the whole time he’d been studying under Mentros. Hanging back and trying to advance his mental skills slowly had just allowed people to write him off as a sidekick. The more he pushed, the more he experimented, the more impact he could have.

So why shouldn’t he push? Why shouldn’t he test his will outside of combat?

And what better way to hone his skills for metahuman conflict than by testing his control on some of the most powerful metahumans in the world?

There was the slightest whimper from Ms Miracle, as the pleasure he fed back to her spiked on that idea, but she got herself back under control quickly enough that he couldn’t imagine the AI watching over the Justice Guard would come to any dangerous conclusions.

Tyrone was really enjoying the feeling of Ms Miracle’s feet on his cock. She moved with a rote precision that almost felt like she was used to this kind of thing, though he dismissed that thought almost immediately; obviously untrue, and unworthy of him.

All the same, he’d been able to create this need in her in moments, then develop it over time.

He’d been taking it too slow with Sunstone. That was why he hadn’t been able to break through; not her own issues. It was all his own fault.

He’d fix that.

*

He didn’t stop by Sunstone’s room on his way out; he wasn’t entirely sure how many clues D.A.N.I.E.L. would overlook in close succession, but there was such a thing as pushing it.

Instead he reached out as he was at the front door, slipping down her connection, planting an address in her head. You need to be here, he had her think. In half an hour. It’s important. Why it’s important doesn’t matter.

As he completed the placing of the last thought in her mind he could actually feel her confusion vanish. She had started to wonder; she wondered no longer. It didn’t matter.

He’d been a fool not to treat it all as being this simple before.

The address was, of course, the apartment that Osprey had been compelled to rent while she’d still believed herself in control of her own mind. It was PsyKick’s home away from home, now; he had an apartment of his own - he was on a junior Justice Guard salary, after all - but it always needed cleaning and lately it was in as bad a state as he’d ever let it go.

Osprey met him at the door. “How’s my milf toy?” he asked, giving her ass a squeeze as he stepped by her. He wasn’t sure whether he was going to keep her in her costume once he had this session going the way he wanted to. He’d see how he felt.

She was smiling, as aroused now as she had been when he first made her a toy; that had only taken a thought. Right now her thoughts gave way to his whenever he slipped a new one into her head.

He wasn’t sure if she was vulnerable to mind control or he’d accessed something in her which made her more susceptible. He didn’t much care.

“You tell me, Sir,” she answered. Her voice was low, husky, eager; every bit the milf a young man would want to play with. The best toy she could be.

She turned and followed him in.

“Hm.” He looked at her speculatively. “That’s right. I get to decide that for myself, don’t I?”

“Anything you wish, Sir.”

Which Tyrone knew was not a full answer, but which felt even better; to give him an answer, she would have to decide for herself. Instead, she left the decision entirely to him.

Where it should be.

Tyrone smirked. “You’re in the mood to help me make another toy,” he told her, and simultaneously, in her head, Osprey believed she was thinking I’m in the mood to help Sir make another toy.

“Anything you wish, Sir.” Lorna meant that more fervently than she’d imagined she might; there was none of the jealousy she’d often felt about lovers in the past.

Of course, jealousy was an emotion a person might be entitled to. Lorna was a toy, and toys had no say in how and when they were played with.

It was just nice to know ahead of time what her role as a toy would be.

“You got many clothes around here?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Good. Go put yourself together a slutty little milf costume. Then wait where you are. I’ll summon you when I want you.”

“Anything you wish, Sir.”

*

Ms Miracle hummed to herself as she finished sorting through the sheaf of observations she’d made on what had turned out to be M.A.L.I.G.N. business, satisfied that while she hadn’t caught it in time, she’d registered enough odd activity to fill out their case before prosecution happened.

She was just as pleased to be able to write off what she’d initially thought was happening, what had turned out to be a false flag suggesting the return of the Nightmare Klan. They represented exactly the kind of South she hated seeing still existed, the kind of beliefs and attitudes she wanted to live long enough to see dwindle away.

And to cap off a positive day, she was back under someone’s control but with a pretty near zero chance that it would lead to someone trying to use her powers to make the lives of others worse.

Amy wasn’t foolish enough to admit to any of her colleagues just how deeply she enjoyed being controlled, how much it was effectively a fetish for her. But she was honest enough with herself that she was perfectly clear on those points.

She tagged the data for forwarding to the relevant prosecutors and left it in D.A.N.I.E.L.’s care, sure the job would be done, and turned the non-emergency displays back to the extra monitoring feeds. She was wondering whether she could put herself back in PsyKick’s line of attention with plausible deniability once she was off shift.

One of the green indicators began blinking; a Justice Guard commcard which had been outside the radius for synchronous communication was back inside. Miracle smiled, glad to see another of the team back in the vicinity, and toggled through to see who might be stopping by HQ soon.

*

Tanya felt like she was sleepwalking. It wasn’t the first time since she became partially fae that the world had seemed intangible, almost a dream, and she had a dim sense that there had been some other dreamlike experience in the recent past, but the details were beyond her reach.

Which was, after all, not uncommon in dreams. Perhaps this was what life was going to be - the human side of her, hurt and lost, the fae side of her seeing everything as a fraction of all that was real, as being somehow less important, less relevant, as if somehow she existed in reverie.

The fae presence within her sometimes felt like a whole other self. Sometimes it was more like a shadow around her, a marker of who she was versus who she might hope to be. Lately it seemed remote, absent; or that was a reflection of how she felt herself.

It surprised her how much being in a fight had brought her back to life. The focus on doing something - on stopping M.A.L.I.G.N. - had taken her thoughts away from the hurt, from the loss.

Then it was done, and by the time she was back at HQ, she was back inside her own head where the ache was, with only a brief excursion to wonder what was going on with PsyKick, who kept staring at her and didn’t seem to realise she was obviously going to notice.

Now she found herself at the door to an apartment building she didn’t know, with a number in her head she hadn’t heard before, determined to visit.

She rang the appropriate bell and waited; a few moments later, the intercom buzzed, and the door clicked open.

Which didn’t tell Tanya whose address this was, but the more she tried to probe her mind for that, the less important it seemed to be, and the less focus she gave to the problem.

Instead she went inside, pushed the button for the elevator, and let it carry her up.

The apartment door she was visiting was ajar when she reached it, which for Tanya almost cemented the idea that she was in a dream. She went in curiously, without fear, and did not even notice that in her curiosity her pain had been lost, however temporarily.

It just looked like a regular apartment. She walked along the short hallway, ignoring the first two doors without knowing why, and stepped into what turned out to be a lounge.

The lounge wasn’t empty. A young man was there, hair cropped short, stripped down to his boxers, a tattoo visible on one shoulder that read Emily. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite place him.

I should be on my knees.

She had no idea where the thought came from - some hidden impulse of her own, perhaps; or some factor of the dream, or even her fae half-self. It wasn’t at all the sort of thing she did, and yet it felt natural to step forward, lowering herself on her hind leg until that knee touched the ground, and then to lift the ball of her other foot from the floor, tucking it behind her as she knelt, knees perhaps three or four inches apart.

The next thing to do is to crawl to him.

This thought seemed more natural. Perhaps it was just that it came so closely on the heels of the other, perhaps it was something else, but it seemed completely reasonable, even obvious, and strong - one of the strongest, most convincing thoughts she’d ever had.

She leaned forward from the hips, first, reaching out with her slender arms, until her breasts all but brushed the carpet, her head low, her eyes on the man (and damn it all, where did she know him from? Why couldn’t she place him?), her ass up in the air. In her costume, this was an invitation; arousal seemed to spill outward from the thought of crawling, changing every part of her self that it touched, like milk being poured into a mug of coffee.

Slowly, deliberately, trying to keep her arousal from her face at least until she could see how much he was enjoying it, ass swaying from side to side as each muscular thigh slid forward in turn, she made her way over to him. It was the next thing to do. It was the logical thing to do. It was the only thing to do.

I shouldn’t be so sad all the time. I’m a happy, smiley kind of girl.

It was a strange thought, but it struck a chord, resonating with every part of her which missed the happy go lucky young woman who had existed before the Shimmerwave. She shouldn’t be so sad all the time.

She just couldn’t help that.

Give him a smile and he will solve your problem.

It wasn’t her own thought, and she knew it wasn’t her own thought. In other circumstances it might have led to panic, but every motion of her crawl had doubled her arousal, and any fear or worry became just a delicious edge to her excitement.

She smiled, and she meant it to be tentative, but her hindbrain (or something else) had other ideas; her smile was wide, shallow, and almost entirely artificial. Like a toy.

Tanya had noticed something stirring in his boxers already, but in response to her artificial, obedient smile she saw a much stronger reaction, a twitch that couldn’t have been imagined.

See? You’re turning him on. Bringing pleasure. And isn’t pleasure better than sadness?

She couldn’t deny that it was.

You’re thinking too hard. The two of you can make each other very happy if you just suck him off or let him fuck you.

Tanya’s mouth jerked closer to the cock she knew was hidden in his boxers. Most days she would have preferred to kiss and tease her way into a pussy, but she liked the occasional cock (as a treat, a stray thought that, unlike these intrusive messages, she couldn’t be sure didn’t come from her) and in any case, she was on the edge of such pleasure that the loss, the emptiness, would be filled.

And yet some part of her hung back. This, a small voice in her head insisted, was not how you healed.

Pleasure is more important than your trauma, Sunstone (Tanya). Let it go and concentrate on what’s important.

Feeling herself addressed in both identities was a jolt. The uncertain part of her which had dug its heels in lost its grip. She looked up into his eyes again, startled, and from this new perspective her open mind produced a flash of insight. This was PsyKick. He was in her head.

Say it.

Her mouth, so close to the cotton hiding the tip of his cock, opened wider as she gasped, but the words weren’t the only thing that popped into her mind. A jolt of power drove a wedge through all other thoughts.

“P.. Pleasure…” she stammered, “is more… uhhh… more important than my trauma.”

Again.

“Pleasure is more important than my trauma.”

So what will you do?

“Let it go… and concentrate on what’s important.” Her lips were dry; she swallowed, then found herself asking “May I suck your cock?”

“No,” PsyKick said, “but you’re going to let me fuck you.”

“Yess…”

“Yes what?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Good girl,” he said, and he smiled. “But you don’t have to be a girl.” She felt a shift in the tightness around her head and knew he was splitting his mental focus, knew he was reaching out to someone else.

“I don’t?”

“No,” PsyKick told her. “Let me introduce you to one of my toys. Although you already know her.” He looked up, then, and from her hands and knees she turned her head to follow his line of sight.

She recognised Osprey much faster than she’d recognised PsyKick, even though her mask was missing and she wasn’t wearing her costume. In a pair of tight leopard-print leggings and a creamy bustier whose cups cherished and displayed the nipples of her magnificent tits, there was nothing hidden, no part of her soul not bared.

And she seemed to have so little of her personality to bare, her eyes glassy, her lips parted, a glossy sheen to them almost hiding the thin trail of saliva making its way from Cupid’s bow, her motions not-quite-smooth.

Like a toy, she thought, and knew that when the same thought had crossed her mind a few moments ago to describe herself, it had been PsyKick putting it here, and that he had meant this fate.

PsyKick sent a pulse of pleasure flooding out from her clit to wash over her entire body, and even on hands and knees she nearly lost her balance and fell. Her mind did not reel only because it was held fast in his power.

She couldn’t feel any trace of the hurt or loss that had come to define her.

*

Lorna had given herself up entirely to the other mind in her head. She was his toy. He could play with her however he chose.

At his thought, she moved forward behind his new toy and helped her out of her costume. She moved slowly, taking her time, and enjoyed the sensation of only having her owners’ thoughts in her head.

That was the way a good toy milf should be.

She took Sunstone by her shoulders and turned her around, her back to PsyKick, and thought she was smiling encouragingly, though in reality her eyes remained glassy, her lips vacantly parted.

PsyKick thought further, and Lorna put her hands to Sunstone’s sides, a few inches above her hips.

Then she lifted, turning her wrists, and the result of her superstrength was that her fellow toy’s face was buried in her own bare tits, her legs spread and held at the right height for Psykick to almost step forward into her.

His hands came forward to take the younger heroine toy by the tits, and he was fucking; Lorna became motionless, not a thought in her pretty little head, her powerful arms and legs locking in place to become a fuckstand.

She was sure that the new toy was enjoying herself, partly because she wriggled so enjoyably in her grip, partly because of the wet, needy mewling that was muffled in her chest.

Then she saw PsyKick freeze into place. His eyes rolled back into his head and, oh so slowly, he slid backward out of a disappointed Sunstone and crumpled, one joint at a time, to the floor.

Lorna’s mind was not active enough to wonder what was happening before another voice emerged into her head to say SLEEP, and she knew no more.

*

It had never occurred to Tyrone to wonder how it would feel to be fitted with a power nullifier unit. That wasn’t something that happened to heroes.

He knew the feeling all too well now. A dullness, an absence of the extra senses he used to understand the minds around him. A slow atrophy of the mental muscles he needed to work his magic, from the inability to exercise them.

He had been held on his own for some time, not as a punishment but out of compassion; adjusting to the presence of others when he couldn’t sense at least the shape of their mind, couldn’t read something of what they were feeling by an information channel so natural to him now that its absence felt like the shutting off of colour.

They had questioned him. Mentros, especially, had questioned him. Not to learn what he did - they’d had ample evidence of that, he learned, from the moment Mentros entered the HQ and reached out mentally toward Ms Miracle as a greeting; he’d sensed something off immediately and had quickly learned what it was.

No, they wanted to understand why. To hear, from his own mouth, what had led him so far astray.

Everything he had offered up, every one of the justifications that had seemed so strong in his own mind, just felt empty and dry when he spoke them aloud.

Then they had held him for a while. Osprey had even visited him. Said, quietly, that she could not understand and could not accept, but that she would forgive.

Now he was being moved to a holding cell for trial, which was to be as covert as possible out of respect for his former toys.

Tyrone was not happy. Not at all. He deserved better than this.

Perhaps he should move. A continent that Mentros rarely visited seemed like a better place. Europe, perhaps. Monaco seemed like a fun place.

But all of that would have to wait until sentence had been passed. Tyrone had decided to plead guilty and hope his sentence was reduced.

A few years on, a few years older, and once he was out, nobody would ever call him sidekick again.

*

Tanya stepped back from the bookshelves and studied the way she’d laid everything out.

She hadn’t taken many possessions with her, didn’t own much that hadn’t been twisted by the Shimmerwave. But a new start deserved a new outlook, and with the weight of her loss lifted, she’d found an apartment near the Justice Guard HQ.

A place that would change with her, unlike the bland HQ residential room that had appealed mostly because there was no good way for it to change, because it was unlikely she’d ever grow attached to it.

When the situation had been explained to her, she’d had to be restrained from attacking his unconscious form. She couldn’t believe he’d done what he’d done. The ego, the attitude… everything about it was disgusting.

And a part of her didn’t like that her pain and her loss didn’t cut so deep anymore, like she had been robbed of her proper grieving. But it would be foolish to let the pain back in, to cling to the past.

Tanya had decided to embrace the future, and the moment she’d done so, the strange feeling that her fae side was out of sync with the world had gone.

She’d make Sunstone a name the world would embrace.

*

Her shift on monitoring finished, Lorna left the HQ and took to the skies. It was early afternoon in America, but that meant Europe’s nightlife was already stirring.

Landing in a Paris back alley, she changed from her costume into her leopard print, the better to show off her milfy qualities.

She wasn’t a toy, and she’d vowed never to be a toy again. But she was a milf, wanted to be a milf, embraced her milfhood.

And in the student clubs of this city there were plenty who would treat her as such, and never know they’d spent the night with a superheroine.

She took her time making her lipstick and her eyeshadow just right to send the message she wanted.