Mind Control University: Class 762
Chapter 1: Orientation Pains
by sleeperhit
I spent a good long while asking BD questions that day. I tested plenty of things- reading whatever BD had that constituted a mind, trying to move a pencil with my mind, trying to show BD to Peter to see how covert this whole MCU thing was supposed to be... and all of the above came up negatory. So regardless of my psionic potential, I had a long way to go, PLUS this place was on such a discreet level that no one around me was capable of even LEARNING about it! I considered that somewhere between the scariest and funniest parts. Honestly, not being able to confide in anyone other than the yes-girl that was BD was the toughest part. At the very least, BD had the answers I needed:
At this university, students would be pulled from all manner of universes from across all manner of existences- low-tech, high-tech, magical, non-magical, basic, wild, alternatives to the one I was familiar with, totally unique ones, and… pretty much anything in between and beyond. Each student invited has the potential to become a powerful mind-controller, but their willingness to become such, their sexual roles, and even the pretenses under which they are brought to MCU vary greatly. Our teachers and all our subjects (hypnosis, technology, chemistry, psionics, and chi) are heavily focused in mind-control, but can actually teach us things outside that niche when applicable, especially in technology (everyone’s at different tech levels, you know? Get everyone on the same level). If a student is caught in the act of brainwashing and/or subjugating another student, the victim is released and the student is punished as my old friend The Dean sees fit.
Oh, and that last one leads into the big point that we were heavily encouraged to successfully mind-control and subjugate our fellow students.
...also that doing so by drugging the cafeteria food is not allowed, because we need to try a little harder than THAT. Also to make the cafeteria a bit of a safe haven, also to encourage cunning so we don’t get caught, and... you get the picture.
Either way, I had spent the best part of all of these months preparing for this. Very. Moment. I got myself all sorts of gear: noise-cancelling headphones to block out any auditory attempt to take mah brain, a 3D printer, the best VPN and computer I could find, stealth audio/video recording equipment, multiple simple smartphones, a “surprise tool that’ll help us later” as Mickey Mouse would say… and contraceptive. It was still college. But that wasn’t all: BD told me I was a telepath, so I began a maaaassive search all through the internet and everywhere I could to try and awaken that psionic potential ahead of time AND IT ACTUALLY WORKED. Mostly. Definitely. Kinda. Sorta. Partially.
...I could sense emotions and minor thoughts, as well as make pens wiggle on the edge of my desk…
But that was STILL better than nothing! I was going places no man of my world had gone before in only- WAIT, IT WAS ALREADY 11?!
Hoooooooooly shit. It was time. Oh my god. Deep breaths. Calm down. In. Out. In. Out. In out in out in out inoutinoutinout WOOOOAAAAAAAAH okay that's not how good calm breathing works. Wow, I'm dumb. Okay, whatever. Not like anything was going to stop what was going on right then and there. My bedroom door had already turned into... a golden door, wow fancy. I'd prepared for this. The last few months had been all leading up to this. Here... we... go...!
I opened the door to a profound wave of disappointment.
Well, in all fairness, the fact that it was a college at a literal IN-BETWEEN OF THE MULTIVERSE would’ve been more than enough to fuel any massive expectations. But taking it on its own merits? Yeah, it was just a really nice college campus+, like a normal “good” campus with just that much more funding and polish. Which made sense, considering the available resources (and to-be-available resources, since the free will of those with resources wasn’t really a factor), but it still wasn’t exactly the otherworldly environment beyond anything a tripped-out Jack Kirby could imagine that I was half-expecting.
Buildings of various materials sprung up from the ground, some of which recognizable, others not so much. Stepping into the main hall, a minor spiral motif was extremely present in the decorations and designs. Even the massive floor mosaic was a portion of a spiral, since the whole thing was too big for me to see just by looking down at my feet from ground level. So many spirals, in fact, that it was starting to make my head spin a bit, so I steeled my focus and headed towards the assembly hall for orientation- along which way I finally got my first taste of the student body.
Said student body was not was I was expecting, frankly. But in the way I was expecting to not expect, so whether it counts or not remains a mystery. Every which way I turned, someone crazy was there. And when there wasn't something crazy, there was something so seemingly normal it FELT crazy that it wasn't more strange-looking. I even considered playing a game with myself- I turned to the left... and saw a brunette girl with frosted tips in a cozy pink wool sweater. She looked pretty normal.
Then I looked to the right... and saw a six-foot-five slender bipedal FUCKING LIZARD GIRL. WHAT the fuck.
A girl over behind me looked like she had a borderline-sci-fi sense of fashion, these wavy tattoos, and earrings that almost looked like they glow- OKAAAAAY I needed to look away, I couldn't tell paranoia apart from rationality. I took a peek, and... they seemed to be glowing with some weird light. Nothing nefarious... yet. I'd remain cautious, still.
It was probably the best play to stay far away and observe for now, not get on anyone's radar when I didn't have to. One girl had a light spaghetti-strap white blouse, and she looked ready to pass out from exhaustion. A purple-haired girl was trying to strike up conversation, her left hand fitted with a weird bone gauntlet and her right hand busy holding a big book with loose papers flitting all over the place- and yet always vanishing; they were likely teleporting to whatever part of the book this girl stuck them in to begin with. And one girl... HER HAIR MOVED. HER HAIR WAS LITTLE SNAKES. SHE WAS AUDREY II. I tried to imagine her using them in a kinkier way, getting her little minions to tie someone helplessly... heh. Fun. I-
Wait.
Over in the corner, a blue-and-green dot caught my eye. I spun around and saw another girl. Was she-
I was sitting in the auditorium, waiting patiently.
...what.
WHAT.
Was I just... teleported to the auditorium, alongside all thirty-nine of my (female, BD did confirm both class size and the nature of how the school tried to group up those who would find the rest of their classmates attractive) classmates, likely for someone's opening address? Wicked.
Wait, I had the information head-start, on the sorts of things "ThE dEaN" allowed me to know! Given... well, logic, that would probably only mean things that she would say today! I could tune it out and continue to scope the competition! They would have my undivided attenti-
A mature woman in a flannel shirt and panties, gorgeous orange hair flowing down to her ass, appeared on the stage. "May I have your attention, please?"
Ho... I mean... w-wow... she... she could have my everything. She could have my babies, my bank account, my free will, my-
Wait. That voice. The suspicious reaction that implied mind control. The one giving the opening address. Could it be...?
"Thank you. Now, allow me to present myself. I am known under a number of names in various culture, but you may refer to me as Miss Mesmerra, or rather, Dean Mesmerra, as I run Mind Control University. I am a goddess of mind-control. That's not bragging, I mean it completely literally. When a hypnotist places their subject in a helpless trance, I am there. When a mad scientist places the brain-rewriting helmet on their victim's head, I am there. When a rag of chloroform or hypnogas is pressed against a struggling victim's mouth, I am there. When a witch casts a charm spell on someone, I am there. When a telepath plays with an unsuspecting mind, I am there. When a ki-master overpowers their opponent and forces their soul to submit, I am there. Wherever one mind directly seizes control of another, there I am, and so it has been for eons."
It was the literal goddess of mind-control that had to step in to stop me from breaking the system.
I was off to a pretty fuckin' great start. But time to analyze the rest of the student body! There were a couple of others that caught my eye as I flagrantly ignored what the Dean was talking about:
There were some... not-humans. I mean, it'd be racist (speciesist?) to assume humans were the only intelligent life in the multiverse, but... what looked to be a succubus, a Japanese demon (an oni, I think they were called), a neko, a foxgirl in a cowboy hat, and a FUCKING ELF. WOAH. ELVES EXIST. OKAY.
Although... a couple others took my eye more completely. Firstly... the multiverse granted me the unbelievable sight of what appeared to be fiction brought to reality. A girl with jet-black hair and outfit, along with a long grey scarf... and a girl in a grey full-body suit with a dark bandana and a gruff demeanor. Aizawa... and Snake. I could hardly believe it.
But even beyond them, I spotted a blue-skinned girl, adorned in gold jewelry and exotic clothing of a gold trim. That, along with her flowing hair that seemed to almost be floating, convinced me she was a genie; Disney hadn't prepared me properly for such a moment. A blue-haired girl grabbed my attention next, despite her unassuming modern street clothes, purely for having a cute complexion. Her face was somewhat attractive. Her, along with a less-cute mint green-haired girl in a leather outfit radiating an extreme aura of emotional intensity.
But of course, the one that interested me the most. The one that eluded me earlier-
"Any questions, girls?"
Dammit, there the train of thought went again.
Anyway, I had taken stock of the girls. I had notes on what I saw, but only one thing to immediately act upon. Hm, this would require some high-level reconnaissance. Or at least, some reconnaissance. Nevertheless, I would have to do some good old-fashioned stalking to-
GASP!
That gasp reverberated long enough to force me out of my analysis stupor. Looking around the room, everyone seemed to be in the same state of being, the only difference being one blond girl in a white button-down was now on the stage and not sitting down where she was when the address started. I noticed on the side of the room, a corkboard with a lot of little cards had appeared.
As had the crowd of thirty-some-odd girls rushing to grab one and then dispersing like Pikmin at the dropping of a bomb rock.
...FUCK!
Okay, okay, run, run, grab a key, grab a key, grab a key! I let my psychic instincts guide me as I grabbed it! They hadn't done shit before, but all great stories lean on the moment of desperation like this, so maybe if-
Oh. I... had already grabbed one and was twenty feet past the corkboard. With everyone staring at me.
Well, at least I had a key in my hands. I faintly heard a soft giggle as I dashed out of the room. It was weird enough that I heard such a soft giggle from that far away, let alone how suspicious it was that that giggle was clearly MEANT to be heard by me at that point, but I had no time to worry as my legs carried me all the way out to a little hill, right outside the building. It was a pretty sight, but I was still confused why I bolted there like that. Out of shame? Out of... confusion? Out of strategic choice? Frankly, I still don't know.
...oh right. Because she had walked out here too.
She stood on the hill, marveling with a confident smirk the area that sprawled out before her. The swipe-like marks under her eyes almost accentuated it to look like she was squinting hard to scan the horizon, like a sniper. Her white dress flapped gracefully, yet tastefully, in the delicate breeze, as did her loud yet equally-tasteful green and pale green hair, parted directly across her head and separated by color. But most enthralling of all about her was her arms- or rather, her wings. Two gorgeous wings of green and blue feathers sprouted from her shoulders, dangling loosely at her side but ready to flap and take her into the skies at a moment's notice.
She was a harpy. A classic, bird-like harpy. Or at least, she looked like one.
Which, okay. Wow. She was cute. All the fetishes and little things that I was thinking of, the ability to fulfill them all with this winged beauty! Having her as a shoulder parrot, just obediently sitting there like a pet, WITH the novelty bonus of not just being a cat or a dog! Or-
“I know you’re standing there. Can’t say I know why, I haven’t said a single goddamn thing this whole time.”
She hadn’t even turned around yet, but I wanted nothing else. Her voice was REALLY nice, wow.
Wait, Detective Mode. She was confused about me following her, she hadn’t said anything (implying in itself that she expected her voice to have that effect), and her voice was super pretty? Bingo, she had a hypnotic voice and motivations that didn’t concern the student body.
“Eh, sorry. I just got curious when I saw you escape from the crowd quickly. No one else was coming this way. Hope I didn’t draw a crowd our way… sorry…”
“Impulsive curiosity isn’t always something to be ashamed of. Whether it is now, we'll see, but whatever. So…” she finally turned around. “What exactly ARE you doing here? Both with me, and at this school?”
“For the second one, I don’t think I could have possibly refused. This place is so far beyond anything my home world has ever conceived, other than the most outlandish fiction!”
“Heh, I suppose that’s fair. And the first one…?”
“...it’d be weird if I explained it. So weird that I don’t even know if I wanna stick around further.”
“...I guess I’m similar in why I came to this institution. This seems to be the only place that can grow my stomach until it’s bigger than my eyes.”
“Oh, ho! We’re even more alike! You might be a rival to me yet! So if you’ll indulge your rival with your name and what exactly your eyes are seeing that’s so big…?”
The feathered girl turned back around, looking over the splintered neighborhoods pulled from every corner the students were pulled from. “Defteri Asimi. The one who will slay a god.” She leapt off the hill, flapping her wings furiously. “BY THE WAY, FOR GIVING ME THE TIME OF DAY LIKE THAT, I FEEL LIKE I OWE YOU ONE, SO I’LL TELL YOU NOW IT MIGHT BE BEST TO HEAD BACK TO YOUR ROOM AND SET YOURSELF UP. THEY SEEM LIKE SOMETHING OF A SAFE HAVEN. NOW WE’RE EVEN!”
And like that, she was gone.
My target flew away.
Yeah. I had decided. This girl, Defteri Asimi, was the target of my ambitions. This school wanted me to enslave someone? I figured, the beautiful harpy with the blinding ambitions that left her easily manipulatable would be it.
I stared down at the key in my hand. It had… a psychic stench? Almost like it was connected to a powerful signature. And judging by the raw seriousness and leather in that stench…
Oh. She’s the one who grabbed the other key, wasn’t she?
- - -
With a little trepidation, I approached the door. Room 7, huh? Okay... but where was the doorknob? Was it a magical opening? I should probably hold up the room ke- yep, that worked. I could push it open now? Weird, it had to be some kind of magic to make it open like this. I walked in, and-
...wow.
This wasn't a dorm room, it was an upper-middle class house furnished like a MANOR. A jacuzzi in a bathroom larger than my old room. A mini-fridge. A WHOLE fridge alongside an entire kitchenette. Two bedrooms looking utterly stunning with beds likely genetically engineered, despite not having genes, to be as soft as possible. This was insane! And...
Yep, she was there. Miss Leather Cyberpunk stood before me, a weary eye her only gift to me as she managed to steal glances of suspicion away from her belongings, which she had plopped down on the couch.
A welcoming sight indeed.
Managing to tear my eyes away from her for any amount of time, I plopped my belongings and behind on the other couch and began unzipping. Where did I put it...
I have no reason to trust her.
Consoles, PC tower, I knew I put it in this bag...
D'AH! One minute in a new environment, and I'm already starting to lose my mind, aren't I?
The lengths I went to to get this thing. I swear to god if I left it at home...
You'll drive yourself mad, Fansa. You don't even need to trust her. Malcontent or not, she appears harmless.
Oh, right, I tucked it in here...
Oh, I really can't help my own paranoia. I need to get a grip one of these days.
I'll do it...
I'll do it...
NOW!
NOW!
...now, I don't necessarily think she KNEW I was going to hold her at gunpoint due to the sheer tension in the room, but she was clearly readying some form of magic aimed at my cranium as well, so...
"Well, I don't know if this makes me trust you less or more right now," I cracked.
Was that a small smirk? Guess the rock could have a sense of humor. Nevertheless, it was gone fast.
"I'm going to assume your weapon is of a lethal variety?" she uttered with a mildly panicked resolve.
"I don't think that's much of an issue in a place like this. Real question is, what sort of magic were you about to blast me with?"
"Wh... what? This... probably isn't magic. And what do you mean, 'not an issue'? You hold something lethal! You really want to be responsible for taking a life?!"
Hold on, something was up with her. I closed my eyes as I mulled it over.
...wait.
She didn’t know about the death wards? She didn’t know about the death wards.
Shit, I had more of an advantage over the people at orientation than I thought. Still didn’t excuse me from not paying attention to the questions being asked, but whatever. I had the download on her. Wow, she was gonna fall fast. Just, stay calm, Nico. Stay calm...
"L-let me get this straight. Ignoring me for a second, you don't know if you were about to blast me with magic, meaning you were either cursed with something or signed up for something you still have too little knowledge of. And regardless of THAT pathetic showing, you knew that your powers wouldn't kill me. So, something to pacify me. And given how much you were hesitating to even do anything to me, it clearly isn't something like a sleep spell. If I had to wager a guess, I'd say... draining me of life energy, potentially proving fatal? How much of that did I get?"
Oh, she's wavering. She's wavering hard.
"That's not... W-how did you..."
"Oh, I know, have known, and can learn a great many things, miss... uh... Fansa Tellion." Creep route. I was going creep route. I was able to skim her thoughts just enough to get her name. It was FUN to go mastermind every once in a while!
...aaaaand the good feeling was gone. Her face went completely white.
Uhhh...
"J-just enslave me already. I knew from the start I wouldn't last five minutes in a place like this. What other things do you know? You've probably put some kind of cryptic mind-programming package in my head by this point, haven't you? Just, take me, do whatever you want to me, then kill me when I get in your way! But I probably don't need to tell you your own plan, do I...?"
UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...
"UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH..."
Yeah, she was very suitably broken... as were her tear ducts. Wwwwwhoops.
Look, I had come to this school to both kick AND eat ass. There was nothing hotter in the universe than a sapphic brain rewritten until my happiness was the only motivating factor left.
BUT THIS SHIT? TOO MUCH. I had clearly crossed a line. It was time for Nico Doubtfire to come in for emotional damage control...
"What?" She whimpered, utterly defeated.
I quickly flipped the safety back on and chucked the gun over my shoulder. "Hey, hey! Look, okay? It's gone. I brought that for self-defense, and you were REALLY freaking me out like seriously I could've sworn you were gonna take my life right then and there and I have NO idea where that confidence came from within me BUT THAT IS NOT THE POINT! The point is, you don't need to worry about me. At least, not in the way that registers me as a threat. And my psionics aren't that developed, all I scraped was your name. No time bombs on me."
Fansa's face contorted as the extra dash of confusion and desperation added to the despair; she plopped onto the couch. Quickly, though, she recomposed herself. Must've been through a lot to be able to do that... "But then... why did you scrape that at all? Why didn't you just stop at calling my bluff? What made you do ANY of that?!"
"I, uh... kinda get carried away when I'm in my element, putting the pieces together, all that. Uh, I apologize."
Fansa looked up at me, nearly as composed as when she walked in, but her eyes noticeably scared from my... ah, untamed Batman impression. Shit, I felt REALLY bad. "Hm... Fansa? I can't help but feel like we got off on the wrong foot." I stuck my hand out.
"My name is Nicoletta Doulis, and my hand is outstretched. Put 'er there."
She looked at my hand, her expression softening by the second. Slowly, her hand reached out for mine, her arm getting dragged along in the process, and our extremities met in the middle- her face quickly turning a faint shade of red in the process.
"Uh... something the matter? I mean, something else?" I nervously chuckled, quickly shaking and letting go of her hand. She clearly found that a tiny bit embarrassing for some reason.
"I'm... going to assume that gesture doesn't have the same significance where you come from as from my old zip, does it?"
Ah, so "zip" was a Fansian (or maybe her world, I didn't know) way of saying "their neck of the woods." Noted. "Well, from my 'zip', what we just did was a bit of a formal way to greet anyone of any level of familiarity- it just conveys a sense of purpose, of formality, or a 'this is how we TRULY introduce ourselves' aura. I'm going to assume it... doesn't for you?"
"The grabbing or holding of hands is a romantic, borderline lewd gesture done only between those with either a bond of passionate love or close friendship or familial bonds," Fansa replied, totally deadpan.
"Hand... holding... lewd...?" I replied, quickly breaking out into a fit of repressed giggling, which I forced down as fast as possible. "Well, prolonged hand-holding is usually reserved for couples in my world, too, but it's far less rigid in its interpretations. But hey! We're gonna be rooming with each other for a good long while now, so best to get the bond of close friendship out of the way, huh? Or maybe even a bond of..." I paused. Fansa's face was tensing up again, her eyes starting to bulge out of her head.
Ohhh my god, she was okay with the implications of the shake.
"...no way. DAMN I've never had anyone latch on to me like that, that's WILD!" I squeaked out as I burst out laughing.
"No, no, no, no, NO! You STOP that, Nicoletta! I was only reciprocating under the assumption that you didn't... mean it THAT way..." her words trailed off as she turned away, her face flaring up as if to tell me "Don't give up, Nico! She DOES find you attractive!"
"Ahhhhh, don't lie to me! I see that color on your face! Multiversal matters or no, human reactions are human reactions! Ha haaa!" I was having a lot of fun by this point, even knowing that humans could be built differently in different worlds. I wasn't an idiot.
"HmmmmmmmMMMMMMM..." came the passive-yet-frustrated grunting of Fansa, who I was actually VERY scared of. Her energy drain was still an unknown quantity that I didn't want to piss off. Hopefully, she knew I was coming from a place of good humor.
Hopefully.
"Eh, okay, I'll get out of your hair a little bit. Though, my world has absolutely no magic, no chi or whatever despite what some probably-lunatics-but-who-knows have to say on the matter, and technology's a relative thing anyway. What exactly, and to the best of your ability I don't blame you if you don't know, were you going to zap me with earlier?" To hurry along my explanation, I mimicked the hand motion Fansa did earlier during the stand-off.
The minty melted ice queen (HA! ha? ah...) got up and started to pace around the floor, before finally staring at her arm and letting the crystalline neon flame dance along it, toying with it at her fingertips. "Okay, I... I must be honest, I don't know everything. All I know is that I had this Vamp Fragment grafted onto my soul by a group I joined when I was fourteen years old. It allows me to suck the strength, abilities, and energy out of people, though the abilities only last for a little bit." Suddenly, her head jerked up towards me. "I-I PROMISE you, it's mostly an intimidation tactic! The seal of a Fragment is unique to each one, and those in the know understand what each color means, so I don't need to do much mo-"
"SSSSSSH-shhhh-sh-sh," I whispered as I brought my finger up, inching across the room towards her.
"Did... did you just shu-"
"Yes I shushed you. Whatcha gon' do about it, huh?" I asked, sealing the rhetorical question with a wink.
"...I'm beginning to regret picking up the key that I did."
"Ah, you're just flustered in the face of true beauty, sweetie."
Fansa's face told all, the red of her blushing cheeks actually complementing the slowly-forming look of unbridled fury rather well. "Nicoletta... I'll have you know that I HATE to use the Vamp Fragment out of a respect for the life around me. And my respect- AND PATIENCE- concerning you is dwindling. Fast."
"Haaaaaaa ha, I get it, Fansa. A good threat, honestly. If I didn't beat any semblance of outwards reaction out of me and replaced it all with more overconfident bullshit spewing from this face orifice of mine all before coming here, I'd actually be really taken aback. And by the way? 'Nicoletta' sounds like someone's calling me in to discuss how they found out I was the one who posted nudes of the principal on the bulletin board in the school lobby. IF SHE'S THAT DESPERATE ON TINDER, SHE'D LET THE WORLD SEE IT ANYWAY!"
"...I'm not going to pretend I understand much about what you're spewing besides that it mostly has to do with your former principal being a closet slut, but uh... what would you rather me call you?"
"Stupid me, forgetting to bring gloves..." I quickly snapped out of it. "Uh, what was that?"
"A nickname. You went on a tangent before you could give me a nickname you'd prefer."
"Right, right! Well, uh, I feel like we could just leave it at Nico. That's what everyone calls me anyway."
"Right... Nico," Fansa said, mulling the name over in her mind before smirking. "A pleasure to meet you." She raised her left hand, ring finger completely tucked in, with every other finger pointed straight out and her wrist at a 45-degree angle. "To celebrate, I think you ought to learn my proper greeting now," she grinned.
I returned the gesture and smiled.
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