"Hello, you've reached the front desk of the Nova Hero Agency. How can we help you today?"

...

"Ah, well for reporting a crime this isn't the number to call, you... y-yes I know, but you should really call the... Sorry, I'm afraid I'm going to have to end this call. Please call the authorities, this is a private agency for recruitment... Okay, goodbye... yes, you too." 

With the heaviest sigh I can manage, I put the phone down and rest and elbow on the desk, hand against furrowed brow. This job is so difficult, even if I'm grateful to Nicole for getting me work while my resume is not exactly shining, a part of wants me to go home early and bury my face into a pillow. I know it'll deny me the sleep I want, but I'll be alone at last. Looking around the room I scoff, realising I'm alone right now too. Apparently the old reception was too chatty, they won't have to worry with me, my face is a deterrent from those who'd come with bright eyes to harass their favourite heroes' time. New Cassiepeia is the world's most superpowered city, the streets are like front row theatre. Even I cannot help but admire them, argue with the cynics who point at the heroes as a reason for their counterparts. 

It isn't fair. My Nic disappears in the cold and empty nothing that surrounds this planet indifferently, she finds power absolute enough to make the worst of humanity shine. Instead of razing this city to the ground, she's raised it up, this very building a monument to heroism and progress. I can feel a twinkle in my eye and blink away the sleep, that elusive sleep that has my days blending together. Fatal insomnia, a frightening name to be sure but one that I'm determined to laugh at boldly all the way until I'm old and wrinkled. Only then can it take me. 

Having done me one favour already in securing me financially, I asked the hero of this great city to help me with that golden glow of hers. Nicole told me she'd do everything in her power except for that. I've fantasised about her burning my retinas with her cosmic stare until I see what she did in those far reaches. Strong as she is, the woman shakes when I ask what happened in that black hole that made her into something super. It hurts more than the strain in these tired eyes, the constant head-fog that has me so easy to lie to. 

I don't want her to save me, I want her to stop me. There's a crow in the sky above me, heralding change, cursing me. Ever since last week I've been inspired by something less than heroic, there was something portent and proving there that I try to look away from. Perhaps I'm too tired to turn my head.

Fingers tap idly at the desk and I wonder where Nova is, our city's finest guardian, she's been so distant since that day. I don't know if she'll help me anymore, over something so petty. She's seen the crow. Distant murmurs that spell my sleepless paranoia, I scratch at the desk and ignore the ringing of that damnable phone. It's just another useless whelp, isn't it? A hand strokes over the bruise on my face and I decide to delude myself no longer, I was in my right mind back then after all. 

A week before my mask began to slip. I'm told to lock the door to the office, there's an altercation just outside. In a flash the powers come out, an explosion that has my drooping eyes open wide as I cower behind the reception desk with hairs standing up on my arms. In this haze I feel terrified, though the fear excites. It's a rush, I'll admit, to be able to witness our heroes at work first-hand. Perhaps I'll be saved from a kidnap attempt, how fun.

Fat chance, I'll be overlooked if I'm lucky and smashed into rubble if I'm not. Once Nova returns from overseas it'll be over in as quick a flash as it began, leaving an aftermath to scoff at. Just as I begin to grow bored, I feel the entire building shake as one of our new heroes is thrown into the basement through several layers of concrete. A hulking brute of a villain this time, the exact opposite of the sorts that intrigue me the most. Not that I have any love of villains, they're scum only fit for elevating the image of our real saviours. Gosh, I sound like such a fangirl. Nova number one! 

Bright eyed and cheery I am not, though I feel the same emotions even if my body can't relate. With my heart pounding and my better sense left in tatters from all those mind numbing callers, I race downstairs and swipe my card for entry before realising the power has gone out from the impact. "No, I'm going to miss Nic's entrance..." I rush back to my desk and hastily root through the drawers until I can find the physical door keys and return with something of a smile on my face. Is that new hero dead? I'd rather not walk in on a corpse, though it wouldn't be the first I've seen. No matter how you slice it, this city is built on violence. Nic suggested it can be directed like a play, even if the actors aren't aware of their script. I concur, manipulating monsters for our own gain makes us smarter heroes... right?

When I reach the basement I immediately begin to cough, covering my mouth and nose with the sleeve of my fleece and quickly reaching the collapsed hero. Disappointingly, her gas has already incapacitated the brute who sleeps peacefully as if he didn't just commit an act of terrorism. My eyes trace over the collapsed hero, who seems hurt. It looks to be that when she was launched into the concrete, the force was enough to burst those canisters of gas she wears to incapacitate villains and keep peace. A non violent solution, how quaint. For a moment I realise that I've ran straight into the same gas that put that villain on his back, but haven't I already breathed in enough? 

The hero paws at my arm like a needy puppy and I let out a bitter laugh, sleep really does elude me then. Like oil and water. I realise that the poor thing beside me is begging for her mask that can filter the gas, it must have been knocked off from the impact. Picking up the face mask and putting it on, I give her a sympathetic look and twitch my fingers in the air. "I-I'm sorry, there's only one." My weak excuse appears to incense her and I accidentally laugh, not sure how much gas it would take to put me out with my disease but knowing I'm not super. If it's her or me... I... 

Something possesses me to take hold of her face and turn it, inspecting the sluggish motions in her eyes as she stops coughing and begins to accept the gas into her lungs. Each heavy breath makes her sleepier, more suggestible. Is that right? I remember this one's induction, I handled the paperwork... who'd have thought that Florasma's own daughter would sign up to fight villains. This gas is based on her mother's old formula, it's much weaker but in return it spreads much farther and quicker. It's quite impressive, I'm fangirling again.

"Wh-what... are uhh... uhh... you d-doinnng? I..." She's so sleepy, it's a little cute if I'm honest. Is this how Florasma felt when she had those heroes under her thrall? The power is intense, holding something super under your sway. Her eyes spell fear... she's scared of me? Something about that is so funny that I laugh again, the voice modulator in the mask making it sound more menacing than I'd intended. 

"Shh... it's okay. Nicole... I mean, Nova, will be here soon. Looks like some uhm... concrete, fell on you. I don't want to move you so I'll look after you until then." Calling for help doesn't even occur to me but then, the giant steaming hole should give us away well enough. "Why do you look so frightful of me? It's me, you see me every day more or less. Is it cause I touched your face? Took your mask? I'm sorry, I'm not a hero like you..."

The woman's eyes soften, she looks like a wounded doe. There's a black bird cawing in the sky telling me to get away. Instead, I feel temptation on my fingertips again, undoing the front of her uniform without thinking. 

When the incapacitated hero's eyes widen and she weakly grabs my wrist I catch myself with an innocent giggle, my dark eyes inspecting her curiously. In this state, I could probably... 

"It's okay, remember? You can trust me, I just uhm... need to check if you're hurt. You're okay with this." It was meant as a question, but something in the way I said it... only when her eyes go dull do I realise that the gas is making her submit to those words, the woman nodding. All this at my fingertips from a few softly spoken words? Undressing her like I'm opening a present with my name on, I feel giddy and high. When I catch myself acting strange I blame it on how tired I am, or on the gas I've breathed in making me delirious and unaccountable. A present with my name on it, huh? With a creeping smile I pull the pen meant for scheduling and write my name across her stomach, staring up at her as I do so. 

"Mmh... y-you're..."

"I uh, just wondered how effective this gas is. Nicole wants only the best in her agency you know? So I'm testing it?"

"Wh-whaaat?"

What am I doing? I'm acting like a villain, but for once I'm enjoying myself. Nicole only looks at me with guilty golden eyes since she rejected my plea, a receptionist likely won't hold her interest for very long. A villain, though... I've mind to kill two birds with one stone. These third rate brutes are just making a mess of the place anyway, not a violence easily directed after all. It's the cunning ones that intrigue me most, I think. 

"Oh be quiet... I just wrote my name on you, that makes you mine. O-okay? Will you agree... to be mine?" I know I'm pushing my luck but I'm turned on by the silly fantasy, I suppose that makes me wicked. It's okay, Nic's a bad person too, I wanted her to use me as she does others but for some reason that's where the line was drawn. I must try harder to get her attention, to force those undoing eyes to free my spirit from this body. More than anything the woman hates her own weaknesses, which is no doubt why I toil behind a desk all day in the building she owns. 

"I'll... nngh... be... be good? Yours?" When I realise how much control I have over her it makes me dizzy, but owning a hero seems like trouble. Maybe one day, for now I can see if all that silly self hypnosis trite I desperately studied to help my lack of sleep can be applied to more suitable subjects. 

"That's... that's good. Very good in fact, that you just want to focus on how good it feels to be good. Agreeing more easily, more confidently, with words that pull you down into uh... a state of total relaxation and... compliance. Will you be compliant?" I want her to say yes, finding this game of testing limits rather enjoyable when weighed against those pacifying calls upstairs. I realise Nic intends to keep me caged and sedated, my figurative violence directed and neutered at her whim. In a city of fists, my words could be quite wonderful and unexpected. Perhaps I'll study some more, my days are much longer than everyone else's so I'll exceed in no time! I'll expose Nova's weakness to the world and yet none will be able to snuff it out until she finally finds me worthy of erasure. Then she'll have no weakness, her golden grasp perfect at long last. I'll do that for us.

"I'll... comply." The light has gone from the hero's eyes now, her breathing so uniform as the gas makes her easy for me. I don't need easy... I'm going to put this mask onto her face and convince her on my own terms. I'll--

Thwack!

A fist slams into the side of my face and the mask comes flying off, as I land onto the concrete spluttering and coughing, I stare up into the golden glow that eludes me. The stare of submission soon softens when she recognises me in those dimming eyes, looking between the hypnotised hero and where I've landed in a panic. I wonder if she's fearing that weakness again, not wanting to be exposed. Will she cover up what I've done, will she even understand it? 

"Misty? I... why are you..." Nova, the pride of New Cassiepeia, stares at me but not in the way I'd love her to. Not with endless gold. "I thought you were a villain! I see the gas is affecting you, it isn't your fault, whatever you may or may not have done. She won't remember, I promise."

Smiling wrly, I sit up on my elbows and cough. The woman could see I was wearing a mask, or that I'm still in control even now, but she intends to cover this up like I had expected. "Sorry Nic, you know I'm such a fangirl... I love superheroes." Cough, cough. "I... don't think I want to be one anymore though, a wine connoisseur doesn't want to be mixed in with the red."

"You're confused. Let's go upstairs." Nova eyes me with pity, the gall of her to not wear a mask, she declares she has no fear but I know it lays on the ground with bloodied cheek. 

"I was taking advantage of her mind... hehe, it was like playing with putty. Now I get why the villains get so pissed off when you come in and stop them at the best part." Nova places the mask onto my face without giving me a choice, picking me up as though her punch somehow knocked away my ability to walk. The woman cradles me indulgently, not wanting to lose me but feeling her grip starting to slip. I realise that Nic must have seen the crow long before I did, the privilege of being fully awake day in and day out. 

"I could see, please don't do that, not where other people might see. Are you getting back at me? Tell me this isn't something petty, Misty..." The most famous woman in the city, perhaps the entire world, meekly searches her sleepless receptionist for any modicum of guilt she can use to keep me tied down. Why feel bad, this was just a dream. 

It'll be time to wake up soon.

Nails clash with desk as my mind lifts from its descent into memory. I had tried to use hypnosis to make myself forget, to restore this fragile dream, but I've slipped again. I'd like to tell myself that Nic has my best interests at heart, that she wants to help me rather than hide me. The most she's given me in the past two weeks is this bruise on my cheek, I'll cherish it for every second it stays. This is what love is, a dark stain on my face that makes the woman too scared to look. That's some power I have, to make the strongest person in the city avert her eyes. 

Florasma's offspring passes by and I tilt my head, deciding to test more limits. "You, come here." I demand confidently while leaning over my desk. When the woman jumps and rushes over like such a sweet, obedient thing, I remember where I wrote my name and trace over the spot with a daring finger. "I wasn't expecting you to recognise your... owner?"

Our greenest hero in the agency looks like a deer in headlights again, clearly just as surprised at her sudden show of submission. "I... yes, I'll comply." She says it like a guilty confession, knowing that it's wrong but unable to get me out of her system. 

Until I'm capable of standing on my own two feet, I need a little help. "You're going to help me rob a bank, okay?" I don't know if I truly intend to follow through with such an audacious declaration, but I want to gauge her reaction. 

"Wh-what... why? That's... we're heroes! I mean, I'm a hero..." Awwh, she's adorably flustered. Nicole didn't make her forget enough. 

"I'm not! If we do it while you're not working, there's no issue. Do you agree? Nod your head for me." My fingers finally stop stabbing nail into desk and I stand, one of those talons lifting up her chin. I snap my fingers and she drops her head, so I lift it again and repeat. Panic fades from her eyes with each and every nod, a new surrender that pollutes her morals with my black smog.

"Why... why a bank?"

"I don't want to come to work anymore." 

"The end!" With a satisfied grin, I stroke my fingers through the hair of my latest acquisition and inspect her face for intelligence. This one barely had any before I started talking, but I'm quite a good educator. "So you see now, I know what it's like, Firefly. I know how it feels to yearn something you can't have, to love someone but not have the attention you want from them. We're very similar, Laura, me and you. I want to help you get what you want, but I need absolute loyalty in return. Here, I'll write down my name.... I could tell you liked that part of the story, you get off on this sort of thing just as I do, we're so alike."

The vigilante named firefly tries to lean forwards but I hold her neck, gently pressing her back against the wall and writing over her bare thigh. "Property of Miss Murmur." When she sees the words, something tells her she can't deny them now that the ink kisses skin. I see her smile and feel glad for it, one more violent thug redirected to serve a better purpose.