The Rise of Lady Splendor

“MA-DAM!!!”

Mesmerism, Arousal, Domination, Attraction, Mysticism, as Hannah Price spoke the secret word of power, the union of those five qualities, the air cracked with arcane energy and a swirl of purple mist filled the broom closet.

In the wake of the incantation, the mild mannered librarian was gone and in her wake stood a tremendous vixen.

Of course, no one had been around to see it and there were no security cameras facing the closet door either. Secret identities didn’t work if you didn’t keep them secret.

The buxom ingénue stood inside her makeshift hiding place at M.O.O.N. Labs and pulled her long black locks back into a sensible ponytail. Luckily Hannah had planed ahead and put a hair scrunchie on the shelf before her transformation.

Even as her own voice was sublimating itself into Lady Splendor she wondered why this force of nature didn’t have a tiara or a headband, anything to keep her hair out of her face. 

It just wasn’t practical to fight anything with luscious thick raven black locks cascading everywhere.

But those thoughts merged with the power radiating from deep inside, and as the broom closet door flew off its hinges, that power was in the driver’s seat and Hannah was just the co-pilot at best.

There were gunmen in the building and they had to be stopped.

The sound of her flat hard-soled boots echoed down the hall as she ran. She wasn’t running headlong into danger, she was trying to lure out one of their number to better begin her work.

It didn’t take long before a masked man with a futuristic rifle, a ski mask, and a ballistic vest was snooping around with his weapon at the ready.

Then, he happened to see her and stopped dead in his tracks.

She had the effect on some people.

Well, most people… really, all people.

Total captivation.

It was useful.

Being a pretty enough in an utterly forgettable and plain blond sort of way, Hannah was always a little stunned and jealous to see the undeniable allure her alternate persona had.

She wished just a little bit of that would rub off in her civilian life.

The gunman stood stock still, blinking, his arms dropped to his sides, his rifle dangling from its strap.

Lady Splendor sashayed up to him, her hips swinging side to side while her left hand moved like a snake charmer’s flute. 

He was swaying back and forth with that motion, his eyes were glazed over.

The masked gunman watched her as she came closer and closer. 

He saw her knee high black leather boots, and the purple crushed velvet leggings that were tucked into them. He saw her black leather breastplate, something like a corset and something like armor, that accentuated her hourglass figure. Its shoulder straps were slung over a form fitting long sleeved shirt of impossible fine purple hued mail and she wore soft black leather gloves.

He saw her dark purple mask that covered everything from her brows down her cheeks, showing off her soft red lips and her glowing violet eyes. 

Her hair was up in a rushed sort of bun, if he had more of his mental faculties he would have thought it didn’t go with the look, but he wasn’t in any place to think anything at all.

He saw her and in the brief moment he had to try and break from the spell she was weaving around him, he fell helplessly into the captivating motion of her approach.

“How many of you are there my sweet soldier?” 

“Eight,” he blurted out before realizing what he was asked and before he could choose to say or do anything. The sound of her voice was the music of flutes and harps.

“Is that counting you?” She was running her fingers down his cheek.
“Yes.” His body was paralyzed.

‘That’s an awful lot of you isn’t it?” He heard her voice physically filling him, occupying a space inside him that he never knew could be shared or touched.

“Yes.” He said it because he thought that’s what he was supposed to say.

“Wouldn’t seven be an easier number for me to manage? Especially if I had a friend to help me?” His body shivered in physical revulsion to the suggestion but he couldn’t help but agree.

“I’m so glad you understand. You do understand don’t you?”

He was a very weak man, the quality of his character was marginal at best and she folded him like a piece of paper.

“Are the other seven bad men?” It was almost cruel, the way she would use the tone of her voice. 

She would twist her words and questions into a condescending and domineering lilt, and the shame her subjects would feel only reinforced her power over them.

When he nodded again, she smiled.

“You’re a bad man too aren’t you?”

She saw him physically respond again. What he was hearing was revolting, but it wasn’t untrue, and the truth poured out of him.

“Yes.” His voice was deadpan, but he was sweating and trembling.

“But if you help me stop them, then you can be a good man, you can be good for me. You will be good for me won’t you?”

He nodded and she felt him break. 

She felt the entire scope of his body and soul shudder and then snap under her sway.

“Go stop them,” it was a terrible thing to say but she had no qualms about being terrible. “Go and stop them all, I will be with you, go and stop them.”

She watched him walk back down the hall. 

Then she heard gunfire and yelling, and more gunfire, and then silence. 

Her bond with him had broken, he was gone from this world. No one would miss him, she felt this to be true.

As soon as the gunfire started Ted Stevens had ducked and covered like he would have in a school earthquake drill. He didn’t know who these men were, but he had a hunch, and he had no idea why one of them had come back in and started shooting.

By the time Ted opened his eyes three gunmen were dead and the other two that were still in the room were franticly swearing at each other.

His ears were ringing from the shooting and his heart was beating out of his chest. The other hostages in the room, three scientists in white coats who looked even more scared than he was, were doing about the same thing as him.

He took a deep breath, this was the sort of thing he had trained for, this was all part of the job.

He figured the gunmen were here for the Magnetic Pulse Generator, a non-lethal weapon the lab was developing to disable anything from cars to tanks. It was being developed for the city’s new Enhanced Crime Taskforce, and Ted was here to check the progress.

They’d taken his gun and his phone, but they hadn’t bothered to cuff him or anybody else for that matter. These guys were moving fast, they were effective, efficient. But something was going on, something had thrown them off.

“What the fuck? What the fuck was that? What just fucking happened?” One of them had trained his rifle on the other hostages and was shouting at them for answers. The other one had knelt down over Ted.

“Alright buddy. If you don’t want my partner to shoot all of them, why don’t you tell me what’s going on?” He sounded as serious as you could get.

“I have no idea. You’ve got the radios, you’ve got the eyes out there.” He was doing everything he could to not stare at the rifle that was less than ten feet away.

There was dead silence in the room.

“Maybe it’s a rival gang.” If Ted could get them just a little more off balance, maybe he could make a move, “maybe it’s an Enhanced coming to get one of the other toys here.”

A single loud pop echoed down the hallway.

“Mmmm…mmm…ugh…mmm”.

“That’s my good boy, show me how much you love your toy.” Lady Splendor watched the masked criminal fellate his handgun as she held it between her legs.

She’d discharged the weapon in from of his dumbstruck eyes and waited to make him suck it until the barrel had cooled down.

She’d slid out the clip before she empties the chamber with that shot.

“Take it. Put your hands around it, show me, show me how good it is.” He’d buckled faster than the last one, eye contact was enough

“This is the only thing that makes you feel strong, this is the only thing that makes you feel brave. You love it, show me how much you love it.” His hands were clasped around the gun and she was pushing into it softly with her hips, mouth fucking him with his own piece.

The man’s battle rifle was still slung from his body, but he was too far gone. 

Hannah, the part of Hannah that was merged with the ancient spirit of the Splendid Princess, was still learning the scope of her powers and how much force she could exert over the wills of others.

She wanted to stop this humiliation, but the great essence inside her was making her watch. The Splendid Princess had been a powerful sorceress in Antiquity, and whose essence had come to Hannah when she accidently read a the Princess’ lost spell book aloud. 

Now, she was showing Hannah what the librarian didn’t want to see. This was a weak and wicked man, this crass humiliation was destroying his pride and his ego, it was consuming him, neutralizing him. They had put his mind into a loop, locking him into a self-perpetuating cycle of pleasure and shame.

He would stay this way as long as she needed him to.

There were six more at most, less if the first one managed to do anything before dying.

Lady Splendor knelt down and took the man’s radio off of him. She clicked a few nobs until she found what she was looking for.

“Burke? Burke, that’s going on, what do you see.”

No one could see the wicked smile etched across her face, “I see Burke, but he can’t talk right now. Who. Is. This?”

She didn’t know if her powers of persuasion could travel through radio waves, but it was worth a shot.

“Robbie Hewitt… fuck… what…”

She chuckled softly into the receiver, “Calm down Robbie. Be calm for me and tell me, how many of you are there?”

“If Burke’s down then…” She heard a shot, then a different voice. “I don’t know who you are bitch but I’m going to kill you.” The line went dead.

Ted had watched it all unfold.

The guy who had been talking to him had stopped suddenly when his radio clicked to life.

Ted had heard the strange female voice that floated out of the radio, and he saw the panic in the guy’s eyes when he answered her questions. Ted watched as the gunman physically went slack when the voice addressed him by his name and told him to calm down.

But, so had the other guy.

Ted knew that this might be his moment, but he also knew it really wasn’t. 

Yes, Ted thought, he might be able to make it to the gun, might be able to get the drop on this other guy, but it was still too risky. 

Maybe if it was just him, but it wasn’t.

“Okay cop, who the fuck is it out there?” 

“I have no idea. But it looks like every minute there’s less and less of your guys. You might want to think about just bugging out. Cut your losses, hope whoever this is doesn’t get her hooks in you too.”

Ted was doing everything to sound calm and cool and collected, but it was starting to sink in that if this Enhanced out there could mind control people over the radio, these guys were probably the least of his problems.

There’d been Enhanced since the Great War, probably longer, but there were more and more lately, and their powers were growing too.

“That’s a no go. Get up cop.”

Hannah was learning that she couldn’t just attracted the eye, she could distract it and mislead it too. She watched as two more armed men walked down the hall and conveniently looked away as they passed the doorway she was standing in.

She moved faster, faster than a mortal could.

Her hand snaked out over the mouth of the one closest to her, and she wrapped her other arm around his chest as she pulled him into the room. She was stronger than she looked, stronger than a lot of strong people looked.

“Do not struggle, do not resist. Listen and obey me, listen and obey me. Listen. And. Obey. Me.” Her voice was a chant, repeating these words over and over to him as she kept his mouth clamped shut. 

As he started to fade, she kept the hand over his mouth, but slid her gloved fingers down his arm. 

“Do not struggle, you want to obey me. Do not struggle, you want to obey me. Do not struggle, serve and submit. Submit. Submit. Submit.”

She guided his hand between his legs, and like a horny teenager he started to rub himself over his pants.

“That’s it. That’s it. Show me how happy you are to be mine, Show me how aroused you are to serve me. Show me what you desire. Show me what you need. Pull it out and get on your knees. Pull it out and don’t stop.”

Hannah felt the deep primal thrill of the power she was wielding, and as soon as her target’s hand made contact with his cock, she felt a jolt she hadn’t expected. 

She was feeding off his sexual energy more directly than she had ever done before. 

In fairness, she’d only been Lady Splendor a handful of times, but this rush of elation and satisfaction was otherworldly. The Splendid Princess was telling her the secret of worship, that if she could lead, coerce, or tempt someone into dedicated their sexual energy to her, she would grow stronger.

Other times it had been just a hint of this raw carnal power, now it was a long steady drink.

Of course, it would weaken the worshiper, but that didn’t really matter now. This one would be out like a light soon enough.

She left him in the room furiously pumping, and stepped right out into the sights of the other one.

She put her hands up and arched her back before he could say anything.

“I surrender, take me to your leader.”

As he stood there staring, captivated by her, she slid her hands down her chest and repeated the words to him again, “I surrender, Take. Me. To. Your. Leader.”

She had discovered in all of the day’s events that if she punctuated her commands, if she put more emphasis on her orders like an overbearing boss would, the weaker willed would respond much faster and much more completely.

She watched him move in a jerky sort of impression of what he thought was his idea. He said the things he thought he was supposed to say in a situation like this, and she played along to reinforce the emotional illusion he had fallen into.

The power she had drained from the other one was having a noticeable effect. With just a sentence she had re-framed his thoughts completely. It had helped that she’d said the perfect thing to him, something he desperately needed to hear, but the power she felt as her words worked their way through him was divine.

Then, everything went sideways very very fast.

Ted waited until they were in the corridor.

He spun, struck hard, and grabbed the gunman by the collar of his ballistic vest. The masked criminal had gotten just a little too close and now that they were all alone Officer Stephens didn’t hesitate.

The gunman struggled and tried to hit Ted with the butt of his rifle, but they were too close. Ted pulled the criminal’s sidearm and put three rounds into his chest. That was the end of that. The vest had stopped the first two, but the third one punched right into the guy’s heart.

Ted was on the radio in no time, calling in everything that had happened, giving every detail, requesting as much support as possible. Then he was clicking through frequencies trying to pick up possible intel. 

There was nothing on the frequency the gunmen had been using. Maybe they were all afraid she would hear them and get them too. Maybe she already had.

He’d taken the dead man’s rifle and returned to the other hostages. All of them had been zip-tied together before the gunman decided to use him as a human shield and maybe a bargaining chip. 

One of the bodies in the room had a knife and Ted used it to cut the scientists free. ON his instructions, the hostages fled down the hall into a secure room. He just hoped there weren’t more hostages out there.

The lab had been closed for the day, the demonstration was supposed to have been a secret.

He went out to try and straighten out what was happening, to get to the bottom of this bullshit.

When he saw his shot, he took it.

The rifle kicked hard but he was squared up when he fired. Half  of the gunman’s head was decorating the wall, and the strange looking woman that had seemingly been taken captive let out a surprised shriek as hot crimson splattered on the wall and the floor.

Neither the woman… the gorgeous masked woman… or the gunman had seen him, but it had clearly been a hostage situation. Ted couldn’t believe how fast he had acted either, and he couldn’t believe the sight in front of him.

She felt her thrall’s life blink out at the same time she heard the shot. Lady Splendor cried out in utter shock as she turned to see her possible attacker.

“Officer Ted Stevens PCPD, put your hands up nice and slow, no sudden moves.” He was cute. He looked like a handsome cop should look. He had a square jaw, a proud nose, sharp eyes, nice short brown hair, and a good build. 

He also hadn’t seemed to be affected by her appearance yet.

“Hello officer,” she ran her hands through her hair and let it down like she was in a shampoo commercial, then she languidly stretched and arched her back as she put her hands back up, “thank you for saving me.”

“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” He moved a few steps closer, he wasn’t going to get as carless as the bad guys had.

“I heard there was trouble”, she sighed a coy sort of exhausted sigh, “and I came to help. Aren’t you glad to see me?”

She let her voice melt into the stickiest and most seductive and charming of tones, feeling the last of her recently acquired power flow into every word.

“I’d be happier to see you if I knew you were really on my side.”

Nothing.

Her voice, her aura, her spellbinding appearance, nothing was affecting him.

“I don’t suppose it would help if I promised I was one of the good guys.”

He’d stopped a good five paces away from her, he was calm, his hand was steady and he was looking her dead in the eyes.

“Not really. Who are you?”

Still nothing. Hey eyes could beguile anyone who stared into them the way he did. This, all things considered, seemed impossible.

She smiled, not because she thought it would help but because she realized she didn’t know what to do, “You can call me Lady Splendor.”

“Alright Lady, you’re the one who’s been turning these guys against each other aren’t you?” He wasn’t an idiot, she liked that.

“Guilty as charged Officer Stephens. Am I in trouble?” She was pouting, playing a sort of Marilyn Monroe charm now that she realized her powers weren’t having any effect.

Hannah was doing everything she could to conjure up ideas of seduction and sexual manipulation that they could use. She didn’t want to have to risk hurting him, or being hurt herself.

“I don’t know yet, but you’re going to have to answer some questions.” 

The essence of the Splendid Princess, the force insider her that Hanna lost most of herself in, knew that this couldn’t happen.

“I wouldn’t mind telling you anything you wanted to know. Like, did you know my powers aren’t working on you?”

She watched as a puzzled look crossed his face.

“I bewitch the people that see me if I want to. Anyone that sees me falls under my influence, or at least becomes a little more manageable. Then, if they hear my voice I can entrance them and influence them to at least be much more suggestible. Some people, weak people, I can dominate fairly easily. But you, nothing seems to be working on you.”

As she spoke she had lowered her hands and started to weave them about. It was her only chance, it wasn’t her powers, it was one of many techniques that Lady Splendor knew. She was going to hypnotize him… well, she was going to try.

It was the only tool Hannah had access to that she knew how to use, the only tool that wasn’t dependent on her core magical essense.

“Don’t take another step closer Lady Splendor. How many more of them are there?” Despite his certainty, she saw that his eyes were following her motions.

“I think they’ve all been dealt with. Some of them are doing some embarrassing things that will give your boys a laugh, but between you and me, and themselves, they’re all done. Everything is all taken care of.”

She let her voice become softer and sweeter, sympathetic.

“Everything is all taken care of Officer Stephens, just relax.”

She saw him blink for a second and before he could respond she started talking a little bit faster. “You don’t need to worry about anything Officer, everything is fine, I’m on your side, I can’t do anything to you. If I could you’d already be under my spell wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t have to worry about anything at all, I can’t do anything to you.”

He blinked again.

“You know it’s true, if I didn’t want to have this conversation with you, if my powers worked on you, we wouldn’t be having it would we? Isn’t that right? Isn’t that true? Why don’t you say it?”

She watched him nod in a detached way, “That is true.”

“I know it is, I’m glad you agree with me, just relax.”

Her hands were moving in slow captivating patterns that the Princess had first learned in Antiquity, and she saw his resolve starting to flag more and more. The stress of the moment had made him more susceptible to this attack than anyone would have guessed.

 Just as she had charmed the first of the gunmen, she began to move her left arm in a snakelike fashion, and he began to sway with her as she was walking closer and closer to him.

She gently pushed the barrel of his gun down, and took his head in her hands. He was captivated, at least momentarily, and she knew this was her only chance. She told him to sleep and kissed him softly on the lips.

Something flashed in her mind and all of a sudden Hanna was Hanna again.

His body went slack in her arms, and she struggled to hold him up. Slowly she lowered him down to the ground, and now it was the Princess’ turn to be the lesser voice. A whispered voice, “He is the one, he is our one and only.”

Then, Hanna watched his eyes flutter open, and she was kneeling down over him. “Oh my god, are you okay? I thought you were dead.”

Everything else that day was a blur. Paperwork, statements, dealing with the masturbating guy and the giving-a-gun-a-blow-job guy, it was a hell of a lot of work.

There were also the bodies, six dead mercenaries was a lot of paperwork, a lot of calls to the feds, and a lot of blood.

But that wasn’t what stuck with Officer Stephens.

No, it was the hair scrunchie around Hannah Price’s wrist.

He’d seen the exact same item around Lady Splendor’s wrist when she took her hair down.

As much as he doubted his memory, he was a good cop and he didn’t doubt his hunches. Hanna Price was going to be getting a visit first thing in the morning.

Yet, as he closed his eyes to try and sleep he couldn’t get Her out of his mind. Not the librarian, but Lady Splendor. Something about the way she’d overwhelmed him, something about the closeness to her he’d felt right as she kissed him.

In his mind, in a dream, she was naked except for her mask. Her large full breasts jiggled slightly as her body swayed in a snake-like rhythm as she walked closer and closer. Soft purple light was shimmering in her eyes and he stared, lost in her.

She was twisting around him like there were no bone sin her body, wrapping around him… her lips pressed to his ear, “Tell me you want me.”

He wanted to say it.

She was stroking him, her fingers were delighting his cock in the most delicate and perfect way he could ever imagine.

“Tell me you need me.” He was throbbing, his mouth was numb, the same way he couldn’t call for help in a nightmare, but now it was an ecstatic sensation not a dreadful one.

H needed to say it.

“Tell me you love me.” 

Oh god, he would love to tell her everything in his heart.

He was inside of her, under her, thrusting up, mute groans forming on his lips. Her left hand was raised, waving before his eyes again, his cock was trembling in her warmth, in her perfect tight wetness, her right hand was on his forehead.

“Cum for me.”

He did.

“Now forget for me.”

When he woke, the previous day had become a mess, a smeared oil painting of events. Still, he knew there was something he knew… something important that he was going to do. 

He didn’t trust that he didn’t his memory, but he did trust his hunches.

It would just take some time to put the pieces back together.

On the other side of town Hannah woke up naked on her floor, surrounded by spent candles and a circle of strange symbols. Lady Splendor’s powers were useless on him, but a little bit of arcane science could still work its way in if his mind was willing.

She’d bought herself some time… 

To be Continued…

(That was the idea... it still might happen...)