Severna’s Strugglers

“Normally, I would encourage you not to struggle,” Severna Strickland said. “Struggling, I would normally say, is a waste of time. You are too securely bound, the door is bolted, there is nowhere to run, etc., etc. I’ve said it all before. You’ve heard it all before.”

Severna was a tall, elegantly pretty woman dressed in a skirted business suit and high heels. She walked back and forth across the small room she occupied, her path taking her between four chairs placed two each against opposite walls. In each chair sat a young woman.

“But in this case,” Severna went on, “I do encourage you to struggle. These are new chairs, you see, and while they have been through extensive testing, they have yet to see any field action. You ladies will be their first field test. I’m very excited about this opportunity, although, of course, I don’t expect you to be.”

She paused to observe the actions of the four women. While she had no illusions that her speech had prompted them, all of them did indeed struggle to get out of their chairs. This made Severna happy.

It also made her happy to see that none of the women could free themselves. The molded steel bands that encircled each of their wrists and ankles--along with a larger band around their midriffs, a small brace that cradled their heads, and a taut fabric gag attached to both ends of the brace--held firm.

Thusly immobilized, each woman sat upright against the seat back, with her arms secured to rests at her sides and her legs sticking straight out before her on a recliner styled appendage. Each one was dressed differently from the others, excepting that none of them wore anything on their feet.

Severna walked over to stand before each of them in turn, taking an unhurried moment to enjoy the helplessness of each bound and barefoot woman who tugged, twisted, and wrenched to no avail against her personal prison.

First, Severna stopped in front of Leigh Ling, junior photographer for The Daily Comet and close friend of the legendary superheroine, Suprawoman. Leigh wore a flannel shirt and tight-fitting jeans. Fear and pleading showed in her eyes, as she shook her head back and forth the small amount that the restraining brace allowed. Severna smiled at her distress and then moved on.

Beside Leigh sat Sergeant Farrah Bulloch of the City Police Department, supporter and ally of the nocturnal crime fighter, Black Owl. She was dressed in a blouse, blazer, and slacks, with her strawberry blonde hair tied back in a professional bun. Her eyes burned with loathing when they met Severna’s gaze, and she tried her best to kick her captor. But the bonds would not yield, and the motion produced little more than a twitch of her bare foot.

Across from Farrah sat her crime fighting ally, Black Owl--whose real identity was known by no one in the room or anywhere--a tall, perfectly toned woman in a reinforced black unitard. Her close-cropped brown hair stuck up messily, as it had been confined by a cowl until the head covering had been torn off upon her capture. She ignored Severna completely, focusing entirely (if thus far futilely) on breaking free of her bonds.

Lastly, seated next to Black Owl, was the youngest and most exotic of the women: Hyperia, the Polynesian demi-goddess known first and foremost as the junior partner of Suprawoman, and secondly as a powerhouse of superheroine justice in her own right. Severna took the greatest interest in her, as well as the greatest delight at her inability to break free of her bonds.

The chair’s design team had accounted for superhuman strength levels approaching those of Suprawoman herself, which it was widely believed that Hyperia did not possess. The young woman’s fruitless struggles now proved that theory correct.

Severna almost sighed aloud at the sight of the dark young beauty, clad in her crimson leotard and violet cape and skirt, her bare soles jutting out before her, smooth and round at the end of leanly muscled legs. Hyperia tensed and untensed those mighty muscles, as she fought to win her unwinnable fight against the restraints.

Finally, Severna did sigh, although soundlessly to herself. She stepped away from Hyperia and began walking back and forth between all four captive women again.

“Thank you, ladies. Thank you for your struggles,” Severna said. “Yes, I know that you don’t struggle for my benefit. Still, in your desire to be free, you provide me with the best field test imaginable. You try and try, and yet you can’t break loose from your chairs. You will never be able to. And when I deem it time to release you from your bonds, you will have no desire to--”

She gestured to each woman in turn, as she spoke the next words.

“--report on my wrong-doings, arrest me, pummel me into submission, or fly me off to prison. No, when I at last release you, you will have no desires or thoughts of any kind, save those that I plant in your minds.”

She interrupted herself to smile. These circumstances, and especially what came next, made her exceptionally happy, and she couldn’t help but express it.

“For you see,” she continued. “The purpose of those chairs is not simply to restrain you. Oh, no. The restraints are there simply as a means to keep you from escaping. Those wonderfully designed, engineered, and constructed chairs will allow me to brainwash you into submissive, subservient, obedient slaves, who lack any sense of will or self worth other than what I give them.”

It was hard for Severna to gauge a reaction to her statement, as the women had already been vigorously struggling, and their mouths remained covered and unable to utter anything beyond a muffled groan. Still, it made her happy to imagine how upset they must be at the prospect of being brainwashed into blindly serving a villain such as herself.

“The process will cause you no pain,” she said. “Although the initial phase, which acts much like a hypnotic induction, may cause you dizziness and disorientation if you fight against it. After the induction, the process will move onto a conditioning phase that applies liberal stimulation to the pleasure center of your brain. You’ll enjoy that very much, despite yourselves. In the third phase, you will be imprinted to serve and obey me wholly and completely. And then, in the final phase, your memories will be readjusted so that you forget being brainwashed and the unpleasantness you felt leading up to it. I will then release you back into the world, feeling obliviously content and unaware of what transpired. Then, when I need you, I will call upon you. And you will heed my call without the slightest hesitation or possibility of failure.”

She took one final walk up and back among them. On the first pass, she moved close to the edge of Leigh and Farrah’s chairs and purposefully brushed first her skirt, then her fingertips along their bare soles. Leigh shivered. Farrah tried, but failed, to jerk away.

On the second pass, she did the same to Black Owl and Hyperia. Black Owl made no move, but Severna saw the heroine’s eyes moisten and deduced that her touch had, as intended, caused ticklish discomfort. Hyperia scrunched her foot into as small a shape as possible in a vain attempt to avoid the contact.

Now satisfied, Severna moved to the door.

“I’m finished with them for now,” she said aloud to no one visible. “Unlock the door and let me out. Begin countdown to the process. I’ll watch their progress from the control room, where I can see each one of them close up on the monitors.”

The door buzzed open, and she exited. It closed shut behind her.

Silently, the four women continued to struggle in their chairs. They made eye contact with one another but could not communicate anything of value without the use of their voices or bodies.

Then, a soft hum sounded throughout the room. A moment later, shallow, translucent domes rose up on thin, jointed arms from a behind each chair. They swung out over the tops of the chairs and then eased slowly downwards toward each woman’s head.

The women could not move their heads enough to see the domes that descended upon themselves, but they could clearly see those that moved down upon the woman across from them. All but Black Owl increased their struggling, which amounted to absolutely nothing. Black Owl instead regulated her breathing and relaxed her muscles in attempt to enter a defensively meditative state.

Within a few seconds, the domes rested over their heads. Then, a glow appeared inside each one. The reaction from the women was immediate: They stopped their squirming and began trembling involuntarily from covered head to bare toes--at least, all of them but Black Owl did.

Black Owl maintained her composure, initially resisting the forced induction through sheer strength of will. But soon the relentless machine overcame even her daunting willpower, and she began to tremble uncontrollably along with her compatriots.

The induction lasted a different amount of time for each woman, depending on how long it took to pacify and sedate her. For Leigh, it ended in less than half a minute. For Farrah and Hyperia, it went on another 10 or so seconds after that. While for Black Owl, it continued on for almost twice that long.

Finally, all four women sat still, their eyes closed and their breathing normalized. With a snap, their gags retracted back into the braces that held their heads, and their exposed mouths displayed blissful smiles under the influence of the second phase.

From the control room, Severna watched it all happen. Like her captives, she too smiled. But hers was a wolfish grin.

“Excellent, most excellent,” she said to the technicians within the room. “For now, I have other matters to attend to. But let me know when they are brainwashed. Let me know when I should return to command my slaves.”