“Christopher Ward, it’s been too long, how are you? How is Mr. Denton?”

“Sylvia Quinn,” he put on the same warm tone to meet hers, but this was bad, this was very bad. They hugged like old friends. They were old something, but it sure as shit wasn’t friendly and that was why he dropped his voice to a whisper, “what the fuck are you doing here, and how the fuck do you know who I am?”

“I love the tux, it’s a good look for you,” her voice was a little too loud, then dropped to meet his whisper, “because you two have the worst kept secret identities in the business, and if I knew you were here you little shit, I wouldn’t be. An you’re swearing like a big boy now, how mature.”

Around them the gala crackled on, the air full of affluence, expensive wine, and upturned noses. It was a fundraiser for Metro Central University, and it just made sense for Chris to be there since he was both attending the school, and because events like this were ripe targets for super crime.

“Sure, and blonde isn’t your color. So what’s the plan here,” he kept his voice low and the two of them put on their best fake smiles, “subliminal subsonic messages, mind control poison in the wine, gas attack? Tell me now and I’ll walk you outside, don’t tell me know and I’ll walk you outside and then make you tell me.”

Sylvia also played her part, putting her hand on his, “Oh god no, I can’t afford anything fancy anymore, mainly thanks to your boss. And don’t make that face, yes I know you think you’re on your own, but he’s still your boss and he always will be. And if we’re talking about bosses honey,” her whisper were as pointed as her heels, “the work you had been doing for me when I’d activated you had barely kept me in anything like an acceptable lifestyle, it’s why I cut you loose.”

“Bullshit,” he felt a muscle in his eye twitch. “Save the mind games, tell me why you’re really here.”

“That would be so much easier wouldn’t it,” she made a little distance between him and brushed a long platinum lock out of her face. Sylvia Quinn, also known as The Hypnotrix, was a lovely woman in her mid 30s, curvaceous in the right places, athletic in all the rest, classically beautiful, and irresistible to most anyone she met. Now, in a blue sleeveless gown, doing her best impression of someone near the upper crust, she looked a long way away from the con woman and super criminal she was.

“I’m not here to play games, but you know what they say about doubt Power Lad, once the seed is planted,” she let it hang and then winked at him. “I’m honestly surprised that Detective Night hasn’t figured out what you had been doing for me, well at my command, so not really ‘for’ me. He’s losing a step isn’t he?”

Chris took her by the elbow and started walking her to the exit. It wasn’t hard, she didn’t actually have any real powers, unlike him, “It’s Redeemer now, and it’s time for you to go.”

‘Oh,” she turned into him and put a hand on his chest, “does my grown up teen nemesis want another blow job out under the stars?”

“You are un-fucking-believable Sylvia, I really wish Lord Python had killed you.” Her bright green eyes sparkled with that same shit eating mischievous look they always had. It was the same when he would chase her, or when she’d goad on his old partner, Sylvia seemed to cherish every moment of being a degenerate and a bitch.

“You don’t mean that, you’d miss me too much. You’ve always been sweet on me Chris, I bet you don’t want to admit it, but I was your first bad girl crush wasn’t I? And here you are, all grown up, just like you were on our first night together.”

“Sylvia, shut up and come quietly, we’re not making a scene in here.”

“Cum quietly? You didn’t. You practically howled at the moon when I had your cock in my mouth. You needed it so badly too. What felt better, a B.J. from me, or Heartsink’s kiss?” She might have talked back, but she didn’t fight back, and by the time he responded they were already outside

Chris sighed, “Master hypnotist, master time waster, master gossip, come on, I’ll call ORDER and get this over with, you’re caught.”

“You forgot master thief.” His cell phone was in her hand, and then it was on the sidewalk getting impaled by her stiletto heel, “Oops. If my triggers hadn’t obviously worn off, I wouldn’t have had to do that, it’s all your subconscious mind’s fault, and it’s going to need a reminder why it wants to obey me. And I always forget to ask you when you’re under, was I the first woman you masturbated too?”

They were outside, away from the affluence and the noise, away from the bystanders, and mostly from any witnesses if need be, but he didn’t raise his voice, he just picked up his ruined phone, then kept guiding her down the street.

“I’ve never obeyed you, I’ve never had a kind thought about you, I hate you, and now,” his hand dropped to her wrist to catch her before she could pick his pocket again, “tell me what your plan is.”

“Tell me why you think I’ve never hypnotized you before. We’ve had so many run-ins, and I remember the look on your face the last time you saw me, it was just after when I debuted my black and white spiral costume. It was pretty obvious you loved what you saw. What makes you think you’re not presupposed to sinking into deep trance for me, and even blacking out certain memories that work against your identity.”

“I know how hypnosis works, you’ve been pissing off…”

“The great Michael Denton?”

It was not great hearing her say his mentor and old partner’s name, “God damn it Sylvia, yes. You’ve been a pain in his ass forever, and you’re a pain in mine too, of course I know how hypnosis works.”

“You’ve been legal for a while now, if you want me to be a different kind of pain in your ass, you can just beg for it. I never had you pegged for that, but if you want to get pegged…”

He gave her a look that she’d only seen on Bloody Flag’s face when she’d stolen the Declaration of Independence. 

“Well,” it was a look that made her blood run cold for a second, bus she smiled through it, “you may know how hypnosis works, but so does your boss, and how many times did you interrupt me when I had him right on the edge of deep trance? How many times did you see him standing there, eyes glassy, shoulders slumped, hanging on my every word? Can you remember how many times, and how it felt, watching him getting sleepy, so very sleepy, staring deep into my eyes?”

Her voice had taken on a theatrical tone and she’d even batted her eyelashes at him, before dramatically opening them to make exaggerated eye contact while waving her fingers in his face.

It wasn’t amusing.

“Mind control devices, drugs, gas, magic, pheromones, did you ever actually hypnotize him? No you didn’t.” And as not amused as he was, Chris had in fact found himself staring into those bright green eyes, but it was with the intensity of a laser, and she ended up looking away first.

“Didn’t I though?” Sylvia brushed her hand through her hair with a melodramatic flourish, “All, of those things only lowered his resolve, except for that time with the spell book, but I think if you think about it, part of you always wondered what it felt like didn’t you? Didn’t you always watch him just a second too long, wondering how it must feel to be so enthralled by me? You always saw that smile on his face as he started to fade, you know he liked it too, you can admit it, you can tell me.”

Chris stopped, “We’re not friends, we’re not reminiscing about old times and you’re still evading my question.”

“Is that why you fell so fully under Heartsink’s sway? When you looked into her eyes, and got lost in the Gaze of Secrets? It’s because you’ve always wanted to lose control isn’t it? That’s what she calls it by the way, the Gaze of Secrets. She’s so goth all the time, it’s amazing.”

Chris had been walking her further away from the party, but he didn’t really know where, he just kept moving with purpose, but Sylvia’s question tripped him up.

“That’s what you told me that night on the rooftop. I’m happy you don’t remember confiding in me, and I’m also happy you remember getting what you always wanted, even if it was from her first.”

“It wasn’t what I wanted, she…” the memory was coming back to him.

“I know what she does, and I’ve even felt it. She even pulled a secret out of me too, but she didn’t give me the kiss. You remember the kiss don’t you? Your first mission all grown up and by yourself, and you lost to Heartsink. It must stick in the back of your mind, but try not to think about it too much now Chris.”

Prominent members of a church had started disappearing, and then showing up all over town, confused, disoriented, and physically drained. Their fingerprints had also ended up all over evidence in connection with a rash of extortion and blackmail cases, but the missing people had no memories of what had happened or what it seemed like they had done.

As the Redeemer, no longer the teen sidekick Power Lad, Chris has started to investigate the cause. Unlike the Night Detective, who had taught him how to investigate, and how to fight, Chris had physical powers. They weren’t that strong, but he could glide and leap, was knife and fist proof, and a lot stronger than he looked. What he didn’t have was any idea about what he was facing.

It didn’t take long for him to find the source of the problem, but when he found his foe, it was over before it started.

She was standing there in the crypt beneath the church, clad in black silk, satin, and lace as dark as her hair, skin as pale as the moon, and when he looked into her eyes all the strength left his body, taking every thought with it.

She stood there in her eerie beauty, eyes glowing red, burning into him, devilish smile across her ruby red lips, and he couldn’t forget what she said…

“You have no secrets anymore, only the pleasure of being mine,” Chris felt a chill run down his spine. 

Sylvia’s voice felt like it was coming from further away, but then her bitchy laugh closed the distance, “That’s what she says to everyone. It’s her psychic vampire catchphrase, and I think I do a reasonably good impression of her too.”

“But it felt so special to hear it didn’t it? You felt so close to her, knowing you could and would tell her anything, remember how it felt Chris, to know that you could just be what you were, you didn’t have to hide your secrets from her, you didn’t have to protect your secrets, because she told you she already had them. It’s what you, more than anyone, always wanted wasn’t it?”

It was true, but the fuck if he would admit it.

When it happened, Heartsink stood there like a dark angel, and he felt absolved in her glowing red eyes. But he still hadn’t been able to just surrender to her. It had taken the kiss; the soft press of her lips on his had opened his body to her and his life drained out.

Chris remembered how his body had reacted in more ways than one, and she had stood there, eyes piercing deeper as the after effects of the kiss left him numb and blank.

“She kissed you, and you needed to give her whatever she wanted didn’t you? I remember the feeling. The pull, it was like she pulled away a piece of you and you felt stretched out with her, you told me, and I’ve felt it before, I understand that need, I understand your needs, no one else does. Feel what you’re feeling now, remember her, how it felt to be lost in Heartsink’s thrall.”

He had stayed in that crypt for two days as she fed off him, every kiss compelling him to share more, opening him up like a book, confessing…

“She fucking told you didn’t she. Queen of the fucking goth prom told you our secret identities. And what was all that remember and feel shit, you really thought you were going to slip me under didn’t you?”

He laughed, and then realized he wasn’t quire sure where they were. Not that he was lost, but that he didn’t remember why they’d walked in this direction. They were still on campus property, but not the campus proper.

Sylvia laughed. “Honey, everyone knows. Lord Python, Dead of Knight, the Black Blood, Wolfbeast, everyone. But no one really wants to be the guy that assassinates the great Mr. Denton and calls down the righteous thunder of ORDER. Of course, if he dies in costume though, that’s on him, you understand. Anyway, where are we going, your ex-girlfriend’s sorority?” 

“Give me your phone.” He felt like an idiot.

“You didn’t really want to be saved did you? You wish the Light Crusade had left you there, just being with her, enchanted by her darkness. You wanted her to strip you naked inside out, you wanted her to be your dark mistress.”

“I want,” he took a breath, slowed down and looked her dead in the eye, “you to shut the fuck up and give me your fucking phone. And if you say another goddamned word, I’m going to call Imperianna Rex to slap your head off your shoulders.”

Sylvia dead eye’d him as she reached into her purse to pull out her phone.

“Fu….” He unlocked her screen but a pink on pink spiral started to swirl and for a moment he completely blacked out.

But it ended when he blinked.

She just smirked at him, lips pursed shut.

“Ha ha,” he handed it back to her.

“I had you, right there I had you, I could have started whispering right into your open mind and you would have melted like Heartsink in direct sunlight.”

“Wait, is she actually a…” he trailed off and despite his anger and the endless stupidity of the evening, he couldn’t help but laugh.

“No. She’s like you, but with, I don’t know, special non-shitty generic powers? Anyway, I’ll unlock my phone and cooperate, but you have to admit it, you have to tell me you didn’t want to be rescued. You’ve said it before, you’ve confided in me before, I just want you to do it again.”

“I,” he wasn’t going to play her game, not on her terms, “her power feels good on purpose. It wasn’t me, her psychohypnotic gaze creates a mental chain reaction that overcomes the senses, and I was under the effects of her power.”

“Some people just feel bone chilling terror when they look into her terrifying glowing red eyes, and her kiss feels like ripping out part of their souls, so it’s not all her Chris. It’s you, you wanted it, and despite being a good guy, and I mean that in both ways, you really wanted to stay under her sway. It’s why the whole Love Spell thing happened to you, and you know it, you told me.”

He was about ready to sling her over his shoulder and sprint to the nearest police station.

“But I can’t blame you, not really. I am a master hypnotist, and while I don’t have augmented powers, you do know how good it feels to be in one of my trances, and don’t tell anyone I said this, Heartsink’s hot in her own way, and so is Love Spell, even if her idea of a costume is something from a bad porno shoot.”

Heartsink had been a confusing and humbling experience, but Love Spell felt like an embarrassment. An embarrassment that had happened in the boarded up sorority house they had somehow ended up in front of.

“You got your answer, unlock your phone.”

She didn’t move.

“You know, literally anyone can resist her powers, unless they don’t want to.” 

“I know I’m tired of this whole night.”

She still didn’t move.

“You had fun a second ago. We have history, and no matter what you believe, we do have a lot in common, and not just your crush on me and that subconscious fetish for being dominated by super-villainesses with mind control powers you’ve been carrying around, which I’m absolutely the reason you have by the way.”

“Not everyone can resist Heartsink, you know that.” No powers, no costume, Sylvia wasn’t really posing a threat, so he couldn’t under any version of the Capes Act hit her, and in the past when he’d fought her, it was all kind of haphazard and careful anyway. Most of it was throwing stuff, and tackling, and sometimes she would try and mix it up with his partner, but she usually had minions, or the occasional brainwashed power helping her out.

“Oh god, you train with the great detective and you turn out slow. He must be real proud of you, I’m talking about your giiiiiiiiiiiirlfriend Love Spell. Literally anyone can resist her powers, most of what she does is bad hypnosis when you’re in her aura. She’s lazy and sloppy, and I guess that’s a good thing for you hero types. I tried to help her and giver her some pointers, but she really lives up to her reputation. You know that Power Lad, you two were going steady.”

“It was, no, I’m tired of playing friends here. Are you stalling for time? Is something happening back at the event? Is a swarm of mind controlled fancy donors going to start zombie rampaging out of the building?”

Her smirky, confidence melted away. 

“Look, I told you I’m basically broke. You were e a shitty brainwashed super criminal by the way. I don’t have anything left. I’m a master thief. I was going to pickpocket, seduces, and work my way into robbing a bunch of those people, but there you were, now I’m out here trying to convince you that we had a hookup on a rooftop that I thought actually meant something because afterwards you really did let yourself get hypnotized into doing whatever I told you, and then one day you were just gone. And now, now you won’t even admit to being a soft touch for female mind control, and I can’t tell if you’re trying to spare my feelings, or if you have brain damage, or anything. I’m at a low point Chris, and I thought you’d give me some professional, you had your cock in my mouth, courtesy. But here we are.”

“It never happened.”

He felt kind of bad for her, just because she’d been a fixture in his life, and because he’d never tell her this, but yes she had been a prominent part of his puberty.

“Right, and you didn’t just melt at the chance to be some bimbo bitch’s fuck slave.”

“It wasn’t like… is this… Sylvia are you freaking out because you’re getting older?”

“Oh fuuuuuuuuuuck you,” she laughed, and not in a mean way, “I’m over 30 and I still look fucking great in a cat suit and a corny domino mask, and if I didn’t, evil super science makes civilian plastic surgery look like rubbing dirt on a bruise. But thank you for assuming I’m that shallow, I’m sure it’s the kind of girl you’re clearly used to dating.”

“Unlock your phone Hypnotrix, party’s over.”

She shook her head, “Tell me what happened with Love Spell, and maybe this time I will Redeemer.”

Chris stood there and looked at her. He really looked at her for the first time that evening and shook his head, “How’d your phone do that to me?”

“The last little bit of tech I have, now don’t make me use it on you to share your feelings.” She had it in her hand and leaned on her charming smile as hard as she could. “But it’s not like it would be the first time.”

“You already know what happened, and nothing’s stopping me from grabbing it and using it on you.” He was ready to move, he was always ready.

“Right, you could do that,” she blew a loose strand of hair out of her face,  “or you could just reconfirm what I’ve heard, which you already told me before. Just tell me Chris, you know you want to. You know that the more you think about it, the more time you spend here, trying to keep these thoughts and memories inside, the more you’ll need to tell me, so why not just admit it to yourself and tell me. It felt good to get it off your chest last time, it’ll feel even better this time.”

He felt the shift in her tone and knew what she was doing, but every passing moment was making her game even more exhausting, “I went to a party at her sorority house, this one right here, and I fell under her sway, like just about everyone else she meets.”

Chris watched her as he spoke, and watched her as he realized his shame about the whole Love Spell incident was right there on the surface, and decidedly not dealt with.

Sylvia took a step closer. 

“I heard she had a sex cult.”

She was looking at her phone, not him.
“Were you in her sex cult?” Did she make you kneel and masturbate in front

of her?”

She was touching the screen, but her tone was direct.

“I heard she does that, that she fingers herself to people jerking off to her.” 

Sylvia’s eyes darted up to his like she was waiting for him to answer.

“I heard that if she makes physical contact the effects of her power

increases.”

She was still looking at him, and her tone had become more curious than 

before.

“Did she kiss you and pull you in that way? Does that always happen to you?” 

She was too close to him now, and something worse than that was 

happening.

“I heard if she fucks you, it makes her aura even more powerful.”

Every question was triggering a little explosion of memory.

“What was it like fucking her?” 

And the last few questions had come faster and faster.

“Did you know it was happening?” 

There was a physical response to his memories too. He could remember her touch, the intoxicating energy of her presence, and the way her body seemed to merge into his, her will moving through him everywhere their skin met, and the better she made him feel, the better it felt to just let her lead him.

“Did you tell anyone what it was like?”

No.

“No.” He felt off balance and lost in time as he answered her, that feeling of her aura, that pull was so strong in his memory it felt like he was in it again. “It was, it was worse than Heartsink. At least I knew what she was doing to me, I knew what she was taking from me, this was worse. It was weeks of not being… no, it was like being drunk constantly, but just on her.”

Chris shut his mouth, cutting off what he was about to say next, that he didn’t want it to end, not until it ended, and what made it worse was how badly he had wanted to stay like that, especially because Love Spell never knew who or what he really was, and never cared enough to ask.

She had made him into a think, a loving, adoring, sentient sex toy, and it had filled something in Chris’s psyche that he didn’t know was missing. 

But that was the trap.

Not Love Spell’s trap, it was Hypnotrix’s manipulations, Sylvia’s mastery of emotional warfare.

“Here,” she handed him her phone, “you win. You’ve been through enough, you’re really vulnerable right now, and it’s not like last time, this time you’re just… raw, and I feel bad for you.”

The phone screen swirled in an endless pulse of rainbow colors, a spiral changing with every rotation, spinning faster and faster, flashing with every shift.

Chris stood there, a deer in the headlights, unable to finishing a thought, or an action, unable to communicate with his body, eyes burning, unable to even blink…

Until the phone’s screen exploded in a blinding pulse of white light, like a  flash-bang grenade.

“Fuck,” he was rubbing his eyes and kicking himself for being so stupid, and through the phantom blotches dancing in his vision he looked up and saw Sylvia climbing the fire escape of the condemned sorority.

She was mostly up the ladder when he reached the bottom, and he thought about ripping it, and her, off the side of the building. But he didn’t want to risk it.

She was standing in the middle of the roof, waiting for him to make the climb up, smiling as he landed with an easy thud, having leapt from the ground, skipping the ladder entirely.

“You’re officially resisting, and using outlawed tech on a registered hero, regardless of your power status, by the Capes Act I’m allowed to subdue you now Sylvia, and you know what, I think I’m going to.”

He started walking towards her, pulling off his tuxedo jacket as he went. He’d use it to tie her up, and… find something to gag her, but Chris was done, it was time for the Redeemer to act.

“Or,” she moved towards him, and waved a hand across his vision, “you will look deep into my eyes now instead. You will look deep into my eyes, because I am a master hypnotist, and hearing the sound of my voice, you remember, just like you remember Heartsink, and Love Spell now, remembering and feeling now, you remember looking deep into my eyes before, on a rooftop just like this, and feeling yourself becoming fascinated, fascinated and enthralled now, unable to look away now, stare and remember in my eyes.”

It was stupid, it was so stupid that she was trying this desperate shot now, but she didn’t sound panicked, she sounded confident, supremely confident as she rattled off her entire shill as he closed in, ready to grab her and… look deep into her eyes.

“That’s it Chris, deeper and deeper into my eyes, deeper and deeper into memory and my voice, remembering now that one night on the rooftop, my black and white costume catching the light, the white swirl and tight black, captivating your imagination just like my eyes captivated you then, and now. Remember how it felt, remember that this feels stronger than Heartsink, and better than Love Spell, remember.”

Her hand waved across his eyes again and as it did, all of the memories she’d been forcing to the surface all night flittered by, as well as images of her in her spiral suit on her knees, his…

“You don’t want to resist, me, you’ve never wanted to resist me, now watch,” with a flick of her wrist a pocket watch was dangling in front of his face, “the watch as it swings for me, calling out to your dreams, pulling you in.”

He felt his shoulders slump and his eyes blink as they followed the bright gold pocket watch, and it sent a thrill through his eyes and down between his legs, “I am a master hypnotist, I’ve opened your mind just like I did before, and I’m dropping you deeper than the last time you sank down for me, remember.”

She was a brunette then, hair back in a tight ponytail, her mask was black with spiral accents around her sparkling green eyes, looking up into his as her lips closed…

“You’re…”

She snapped her fingers, “Sleep.”

His body started to waver, eyes closing, like gravity was working against his eyelids, and a thousand years of being awake were finally coming to an end.

She snapped again, “Sleep with your eyes open, watching the watch, seeing the image you’ve always desired, always fantasized about, watch it swing between my eyes, follow it now.”

She brought it closer to her face, and as it swung back and forth he found himself staring into one eye at a time, mind quiet, or at least quieting down, his body dull and numb, teetering on the edge of deciding to get out of bed are stay under the covers five minutes longer.

“It was a night like this, a rooftop like this, watch as time passes by, back and forth, out of thought and into memory, watch the watch and remember why you wanted to be hypnotized.”

There was a cascade of hormonal images blurring into a stream of fantasies, her different costumes, the shape of her body, the sound of her voice when she would us hypnosis, or use all of that other tech and gloat as it always almost worked the way she had planned.

There was an image of her in one of his last missions as Power Lad, in the spiral suit, smiling at him, her fingers wiggling back and forth, distracting him without a word, before she threw a smoke bomb in his face and disappeared into the night.

Then there was Heartsink, then there was Love Spell and, and he could almost remember the last time he saw Hypnotrix, the last time he saw Sylvia.

“Who else could know what you truly crave but me? Who else has the mastery of the mind that I do? I can make you do whatever I want, because I can make you into a willing subject who wants to obey. I can, and I have, made you so suggestible that all you could do was accept and obey. It’s so easy with you, because you want to be taken, to be made to surrender, to lose the responsibility of choice in the softness of trance. Just watch and sink while standing, sleep with your eyes open and dream your memories of me…”

She stepped forward, lifting the pocket watch up higher, pulling his gaze up as she did, “and my eyes.”

She snapped again, “Look into my eyes, and remember our night on the roof.”

The watch was gone, there was only the soft light green of her sparkling eyes staring into his.

“Remember what you told me, what you always dreamed of asking me, remember what I gave you, it’s just what I told you.”

Chris was confused, and behind the knee jerk response to her, following her lead before he knew what he was doing, there was a disconnect, a hurdle in between his mind’s eye and his recollection.

“You think it’s not real, because I let you forget. I let you put it all away, and I didn’t go in deep enough to make sure I could instantly bring it all back. I’m proud of how weak you can be for me, and how strong your mind strives to be. But here you are now, lost in my eyes, lose yourself in the memory, remember what’s real, remember what I tell you to.”

She was stroking his face now, rubbing his neck and his shoulders, fingers brushing down in front of his eyes, “Be still, standing still, just remember.”

Sylvia was bad, but her evil was almost harmless by comparison to other villains. Her plans were always selfish, not malicious, and he’d been tied up by her and monologued at enough times to know she actually understood her devious charm, and her incredible skill with trance.

“You had me beat, just like tonight, don’t fight the pride of knowing you’ve always been able to beat me, remember that you can always fight back, you can always stop me, that makes me safe now, safer in my eyes than in your own thoughts. That’s why you told me, that’s why you asked me, that’s why you let me…”

No one else had ever understood him like she did on that roof the last time they crossed paths. No one would understand how he needed to let go, needed someone else to take control, and how it had to be hypnosis, it had to be mind powers, something from a woman, something intimate where he could be vulnerable, where he could be…

Chris was looking down at those eyes looking up, and he couldn’t think, couldn’t process the sight of his cock slipping between her lips. 

“See,” she gave it another sucking kiss, not breaking eye contact, “it feels good to remember, it feels good to surrender.”

“Please,” he sighed out the word, “please.”

Her eyes held his mind, just like she held his cock, “My hypnosis is pure pleasure, my hypnosis is real control, because you have to give it to me. And you just gave it when you asked.”

She was stroking him as she spoke, “Look into my eyes, and as you cum, you’ll finally sink deeper down than you could ever imagine.”

It was easy, and steady, and slow, and it didn’t take long.

The closer her got to cumming the less he thought, the less the past was the past, and the less he needed to remember of even trust those memories. As her lips slid up and down his length and her eyes sparkled, he could see her on her knees like this, mask on, listening to the sounds of the city as he sunk into her sway. All he wanted, from deep down inside of himself, was to let go just like this.

He tensed, then shuddered, and she swallowed, all without breaking eye contact.

“You’ve always needed to be weak, because you’re always so strong. You’ve always needed me to make you weak, because you always have to be strong. You tried to let the others give you this, but you always knew it could only be me, because only I’m good enough, only I’m truly skilled enough to bring this out of you.”

Chris’s mind had fallen in on itself, collapsing on itself layer by layer, free falling without his own resolve to hold the weight of identity. He was in a dreamy post coital haze, lost in hypnotic relaxation, mind shuddering with the same release as his cock.

“You have a weakling inside of you, just like you have your other identities Chris. You have a deeper self, a hidden self that comes to the surface when you look into my eyes.”

He was lying on his back with her on top of him, staring down, stroking his face. “Be my Weakling, feel my eyes triggering your inner self, hypnotized into being what you always hide, a weakling, The Weakling.”

It felt right, through the cloudy, passive pleasure of the last few moments it just felt right. He really was a weakling, and it had always been so hard to be so strong, and right now he could feel of the mental weight, all of the burdens of his life in and out of costume slipping away.

“You want to be weak, and you can fight my hypnosis if you want to be strong, but you have my permission to be weak, let me take your strength.”

He was inside her now, in her eyes, between her legs, surrounded in her words, and as she started to ride him, she didn’t break eye contact. Those green eyes were so alive, comforting him with their familiarity, welcoming him to be open, to let all of himself open up.

She knew.

She understood.

No one else ever could.

“Look into my eyes Chris, look deep into my eyes and feel my words inside your mind. When you’re with me, you can finally surrender, when you’re in my eyes, you know my words are the truth.”

He could feel his awareness flowing down between his legs, his world was getting smaller and her eyes were getting larger. It felt right, it felt natural, and he needed this feeling, he needed her.

“I told you that you forgot our first tryst and that means you did, didn’t you. Admit that you forgot, and you remember now. Remember and remember weakling. Remember what we did together, remember how you’ve always wanted me.”

As the present slid away from him, humming and throbbing in time with her hips, there were endless images of her over the years exploding in his mind. 

Years of complicated feelings and complex fantasies, years of desires that flew in the face of his personal narrative, and what other believed about him.

All of it swirled together into her. Sylvia Quinn, Hypnotrix, wasn’t just an enemy, she wasn’t even really a person, she was an idea, and a manifestation of everything he’d ever denied himself of wanting.

“That’s it my weaklings, that’s it,” she was still stroking his face as his hips reflexively bucked up into her. She was so gentle and certain, and it felt like she really was pulling all of him into her. 

“I,” the pleasure was growing, throbbing, pulsing, “I….”

“Remember the truth, remember my truth and my voice, remember when you came for me the first time, remember the rooftop, it’s what you’ve always wanted.”

He had been chasing her from rooftop to rooftop, staying far enough back in case she did something, and just like every time, he was impressed by the way she moved. Fast, lithe, agile, able to make leaps most people wouldn’t even try. But his heart just wasn’t into it.

Eventually, like what usually happened, she ran out of rooftops, stopped, and turned on him. He cuffed her, and they sat and waited for the ORDER team to come and pick them up, but it was a busy night, and they’d started to talk.

Banter was part of the job, and they DID have a history. She was needling him, teasing him with rumors, telling him that as much as she hated him, she felt sorry for him too. She could lock all those memories away, memories of being used, memories of being manipulated, and as she did…

He remembered her smile as her hand slid between his legs, feeling the erection that the simple language of traditional hypnosis was inspiring in him, and she needled him about what he needed, how all he needed was to let go.

Sylvia’s green eyes bore into him as she kept her slow pace, “That’s it, remember. Remember being my Weakling, hypnotizing into serving me, a sleeper agent waiting to be activated, waiting for the excuse to not be in control.”

She’d talked herself out of her cuffs before the trance had begun, and by the end, he knew he was under her influence, willingly weak, desperate to feel everything she was giving him, knowing he would do anything for more, and over the next few months, he remember, that was what he did.

He was an accomplice to her hypnotic control, and an accomplice to the crimes she used him for.

“That’s it, that’s my Weakling, it’s all coming back now, cumming, now.” 

Instinctively he saw the pleasure in her eyes, her dress hiked up, her hips 

rolling slow, but he was lost in his own mind. Images of petty crimes and minor fights against low grade villains, flashes of using his strength to break and enter, all while Hypnotrix stood near him, whispering in his ear, giving him pleasure and purpose, unlocking his inner Weakling.

“I,” he gushed into her, “I remember.”

He didn’t, not really, because it was all a lie, but he thought he did and that was all Hypnotrix needed to hear.

“Good boy, that’s my good little Weakling.” She climbed off him and started to pull down her dress. “I need my Weakling again, I need my Weakling to listen and obey. Stand up, and take your clothes off.”

As he did, she walked to the corner of the roof and pulled a duffle bag out from its hiding place.

“Put this on. My Weakling needs his costume. This time we’re doing it right.”

It was something in between his hero attire and a gimp suit, color-coded shades of black and gray for obvious evil, with a full mask and spiked gauntlets.

Chris felt a compulsive automatic pull to do what she said, and he loved it. It was easy, it was almost instinctual to do that, it was a feeling he’d been looking for his entire life, more pure, more simple, and more honest than the forces the other two had used to dominate him.

“Weakling, come here.”

Sylvia stood there fixing her hair, adjusting her makeup and not bothering to look at him.

“Will you do anything for me?”

Her tone had lost its soft, hypnotic lilt, she sounded like a board woman talking to a stranger, and her tone cut deep into his psyche.

He was a weakling, he was her thing.

“Yes.” His voice was muffled coming through the leather mask, despite its metal grill and air holes.

“Will you kills for me my Weakling?”

The question hung there for a long second.

“Yes.”

She smiled into her compact before she snapped it shut, “Good. Lord Python’s at his old hideout, go there and kill him for me my Weakling. Bring me his head and earn the privilege of staying weak for me.”

“Where can I find you?”

She closed her compact and smiled to herself, her back still to him, “Oh, just bring it back here, I’ll be waiting.”

He started to move towards the edge of the roof, “Oh and Weakling?”

He stopped.

“If you fail, or get captured, or if anyone asks, you will not mention me, you will not think of me, instead, you’ll tell anyone that asks that it was Love Spell that made you do it. It was Love Spell that took control and programmed you. You understand this lie is for my protection and that’s why you’ll tell it, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

And then he was gone into the night.

She wouldn’t be on the rood when he got back, but the Night Detective would, and so would Love Spell. Sylvia had planned for that.

Oh, poor dumb Love Spell, her mind was as soft and bouncy as her tits, and she was even easier to play than the actual submissive fetishist Sylvia had just mind fucked, and also fucked fucked into becoming her assassin.

Getting into Love Spell’s head while they were locked up together had been easy, and then using her to help in the escape had worked perfectly. Even now, she was waiting inside the sorority house, after waiting out front, hidden by an invisibility suit, her aura washing over a completely oblivious Redeemer.

Chris, who had been dipping in and out of a light trance since Sylvia had tricked him into remembering Heartsink, had no idea what had really been happening to him. 

Now, Lord Python would pay for his betrayal, and more so, for trying to kill her.

The Night Detective would have to face the fact his old sidekick had been turned into a murdered, and that he’d failed Chris entirely. But, Denton was a bit of a sadist, at least that’s what everyone always thought, and he got some kind of kick from shaming and embarrassing everyone he’d ever beaten. Being one of his archenemies, Sylvia had been subjected to that a lot.  

Love Spell would take the blame, and Chris would… well it wasn’t that she didn’t like him, it was more that she enjoyed her power over him. He’d get the help he needed eventually deprogrammed, and maybe they’d even find out what she had really done to him, but that was a tomorrow problem.

Sylvia made her way back down the fire escape, she had a room full of people to charm, beguile, and rob blind, hopefully before Chris made it back.