“All right, all right! Enough! I give up! You win!”
The raven-haired, mocha-complexioned, black-clad superheroine known as Vine fumed as she spoke the words. The fact was, the villainous thugs she fought hadn’t won–not against her anyway. Her martial arts expertise combined with a creative use of her sense-surroundings-through-plantlife power made her a formidable combatant, even when outnumbered or facing powered foes. Thus, she had thrashed the adversarial goons and assured her personal victory over them.
However, her three junior heroine teammates had not fared as well in the battle.
Psylvia had started off strong, upending several thugs and tossing around several more with her telekinetic powers. But she peaked early and tired quickly, soon finding herself overwhelmed by the sheer number of bad guys.
Ms. Muscle had lived up to her name and proven impossible to injure or topple, even when attacked by several enemies at once. But when three thugs in powered exoskeletons entered the fray, she found even her vaunted strength outmatched.
And then there was the unpowered, gadget wielding Goggles, who fumbled right out of the gate. Though she possessed the perfect handheld device to end the fight before it started, it snagged on her utility belt when she tried to retrieve it, rendering it and her utterly useless.
Now, Psylvia and Ms. Muscle lay unconscious on the floor, while poor Goggles fought futilely against a goon’s choke hold. Holding a pistol to her temple, her assailant had demanded Vine’s surrender, or else.
Knowing that Goggles would die before she could dispatch the thug, Vine had done the appropriately heroic thing and given up to save her teammate’s life.
“Hands up,” another one of the thugs said, leveling a long-barreled pistol at her.
Glaring at him, Vine raised her hands. She immediately regretted doing so when she saw his finger squeeze the trigger of his weapon. But she heard no deafening bang! and no felt no pain, aside from a mild sting in her stomach.
Looking down, she saw a needle embedded in her bodysuit. A warm, soothing sensation quickly spread out from that spot to all parts of her body. Her vision blurred. She swayed dizzily. Then she whirlpooled into an enveloping darkness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Vine woke suddenly. Without yet opening her eyes, she made note of the following sensations: no pain, minor disorientation, and full memory of the battle her team had lost. Aside from bristling at her defeat, she understood that awakening from a drug-induced stupor in that state was about as good as she could hope for. So, that meant it was time to open her eyes and assess her current situation. She did so.
Her immediate and very snarky assessment was that she should close her eyes and go back to blissfully ignorant oblivion. But, of course, no self-respecting superheroine would do that. Instead, she handled the visual information she had received as best she could.
She sat in an industrial-styled, contoured chaise. Restraints pinned her neck, arms, torso, and legs to the chair. Her boots had been removed, leaving her feet bare and soles facing outward.
Across the small, dimly lit room she occupied, her three teammates sat side by side in chairs identical to her own. Like her, they were locked into their seats and their footwear had been removed, along with all other gear and accessories they normally carried. Unlike her, their bonds included gags over their mouths. They squirmed within and struggled against their restraints. But even Ms. Muscle didn’t seem able to break free.
“Hey!” Vine called out to them, thankful for not being gagged herself. “Calm down. Physical strength isn’t going to get us out of this. I’m talking to you, Ms. Muscle. But wit and wile may. So, let’s think about what we need to do.”
The junior heroines calmed themselves and gave Vine their full attention (though Ms. Muscle kept flexing and pushing against her restraints).
“First of all, does anyone recognize anything about our surroundings? The room we’re in, the make of these chairs, the type of restraints, a noise, a smell, anything at all?”
At first, all three of her teammates shook their heads no. But then, they grew physically agitated again, and they tried desperately if futile to communicate verbally with Vine. For her part, she tried to interpret what was causing their renewed distress.
She quickly noticed that all of their gazes focused not on her but on something above her. The band around her neck severely limited the motion of her head mobility, so she could only barely glance up. She could tell that something resided up there, in close proximity to her scalp. But she couldn’t make out any details.
With a sigh, she made ready to play Twenty Questions to learn what mystery threat was poised up there. Then she heard the whisper-quiet sliding of a panel or door behind her, followed by the tap-tap-tap-tap of approaching heeled footsteps.
A coldly attractive, tall, slender, commanding woman of early middle years entered her peripheral vision.
“Severna Strickland,” Vine said, with enough venom in her voice to fell a cobra.
“My good and dear friend, Vine the Superheroine,” Severna said with the faux warmth and friendliness of a trapdoor spider beckoning unsuspecting prey into its web. “How lovely to see you again after so long.”
Vine’s retort was not fit for publication in any respectable medium. But Severna simply shrugged it off, having heard its ilk and worse numerous times before.
The villainness eyed all four of her captives desirously. Wearing a crocodilian grin, she strode slowly and confidently in front of each one, starting with Vine. With her meticulously manicured nails, she lightly scratched the naked soles of each heroine in turn, eliciting various trembles, winces, foot shakes, and vocal outbursts. Every reaction aroused a larger and more malicious smile, along with a louder and longer peal of laughter.
When she had finished her clinically torturous rounds, she moved to stand again beside Vine.
“I need your help, Vine.”
Another unpublishable response met Severna’s ears.
“You see, I don’t know these new heroines. What are their strengths? Their weaknesses? Their fears? Desires? Or, to sum it all up nicely, what is the best way to efficiently and effectively brainwash them into my mindlessly devoted slaves?”
Vine glared jaggedly-barbed, poisoned-soaked daggers at her captor.
“With your timely assistance, I will learn all I need to about them and then, to a resounding chorus of ‘Yes, Mistress,’ I will enjoy being served, doted on, and pleasured to my heart’s content.”
The three junior heroines protested in a jumbled and muted cacophony, as they fought valiantly if ineffectually against the restraints that held him fast. Vine, however, didn’t react. Through a steely gaze, she took in this information–as revolting as it was–and worked to glean something that could be used to gain the upper hand from it.
“Let’s begin with this one. Psylvia, yes? What does she have to offer me? Tell me, my dear Vine, won’t you?”
In punctuation to her questions, Severna pressed a hidden button on a small, otherwise innocuous ring that she wore.
With the entrance of her enemy several minutes ago, Vine had all but forgotten the frantic stares and mutterings of her teammates aimed at something above her head. But now, whatever it was that they had tried to warn her about sprang to life.
The quiet whir of servos sounded as the thing lowered down until it fitted loosely around the top of Vine’s head. Then, a rhythmically droning buzz began, in time with a soft pulsing light that emanated from inside it.
Something about the combined aural and visual stimuli made Vine twitch. She felt a strange tickling sensation. But unlike what Severna had subjected her feet to moments ago, this one was inside her head and oddly pleasurable, if still unnerving.
“Tell me about Psylvia,” Severna said again. “All about her. Strengths. Weaknesses. Everything useful to me.”
In her mind, Vine told the villainness in no uncertain terms what wholly perverse acts she could self-perform. But what she said aloud shocked herself.
“Psylivia is a telekinetic,” Vine said, hardly able to believe and completely unable to stop the words that she spoke. “She has normal levels of strength, speed, and endurance, maximized by continued training and exercise. The main weakness of her power is that it takes enormous concentration to make it work and mental fortitude to keep it going. When she tires or suffers injury, or even gets flustered as she is now, her ability to use it falters. This has caused her problems during battles, and it definitely contributed to our defeat against your goons today.”
“Good to know. Now, let’s move onto to our powerhouse here. Tell me about Ms. Muscle. Oh, and don’t bother trying to fight against the machine that is making you divulge these delectable secrets. It is much stronger than your willpower. And, the more it makes you tell the truth, the more you will want to. As you’ll see. Anyway, please espouse upon Ms. Muscle.”
“Ms. Muscle is about a dozen times stronger than an Olympic weightlifter,” Vine said, continuing to feel that weird tickle inside her mind and somehow enjoying it despite herself. “And while she isn’t immune to injury, she possesses an extraordinary resistance to it. She doesn’t any weaknesses per se, just upper limits to her strength and hardiness. What she does have, though, is a complex about not being as strong as other superheroines like Suprawoman, Hyperia, and Pacifica. That neurosis is, unfortunately, quite exploitable by someone like you.”
“Wonderful. Just wonderful. And how are you feeling, my dear? Oh, you don’t have to tell me. I know that you’re feeling better and better by the moment. But no, do tell me. I’d very much like to hear it coming from you.”
“I feel good. No, not good, great. I feel great. I wish I didn’t. Because I know it’s your damn machine making me feel this way as I spill my guts. But I do. Mmmmm.”
“Excellent. Now, spill your guts, as you say, about Goggles.”
“Goggles has no powers at all. But she is a genius level inventor. She can make a gadget to handle any and all situations. In fact, I thought she had something to end our earlier battle before it started. But either it didn’t work, or she never got to use it. Her only weakness is, like any person, normal human frailty. I’d almost say that brainwashing her wouldn’t be worth your effort, except that she could probably design a hypnosis device or mind control machine to rival one of your own. In your hands, that would be useful to a degree that I don’t even want to think about it.”
“Indeed, indeed. She will come in very handy as an enslaved thrall. And now, having saved the best–or at least my favorite–for last, tell me about yourself, Vine. Refresh my memory. What do I need and want to know about you?”
Under the machine’s irresistible power, Vine now wore a dopey grin on her face and had absolutely no desire to not keep anything from Severna.
“I have the power to ‘see’ the world through living plants that I touch. It’s a decent enough ability when it comes to recon. But I’ve also learned to use it effectively, if conditionally, in battle. When it comes to fighting, though, I mainly rely on the intensive martial arts training I’ve received from Lady Jade and other combat masters. I also have an advanced Psych degree, which comes in handy for both helping my teammates and hindering my foes. And, I’m a cybersecurity expert and skilled coder.”
“Ah, yes,” Severna said. “I do remember your psychological expertise and technical prowess standing out from your other impressive abilities. And what of your weaknesses?”
“Having to maintain physical contact with a plant is the main one for my power. But in general, my biggest Achilles heel is, well…”
Vine blew out an exasperated raspberry, though she remained grinning goofily.
“I have an affinity for, that is to a say, a liking of, or no, to be perfectly honest–”
“Which you have no choice but to be,” Severna said, with a predatory lick of her lips.
“--I have a fetish for mind control. I get off on the thought of mind controlling others and being mind controlled myself. I sometimes safely indulge my desire with other superheroines, hypnotizing them or having them hypnotize me in the privacy of our homes, and then engaging in all sorts of roleplay and domme-sub scenarios. I don’t know if I’ve always had this fetish, or if you or Wellington or some other mind-bending asshat instilled it in me. But wherever it came from, I do have it, I do indulge it, and now I know you’re sure as hell going to exploit it.”
“That is too amazing! You and I will have such fun together, along with your little friends here. To that end, let’s get things started, shall we?”
Severna pressed the button on her ring again. In response, the sounds and lights coming from the machine over Vine’s head intensified. The effect on the beset superheroine were immediate:
Her eyes opened wide. Her jaw slackened. Her fingers spasmed. Her toes scrunched and splayed. And she shook all over.
“Do you know what’s happening to you, my dear?” Severna asked with unabashedly malevolent glee.
“...Induction,” Vine stammered through her shakes, still under the truth-telling affects of the machine.
“That’s right. And then?”
“...Brainwashing…into your…obedient slave.”
“And given what you’ve just confessed to me, how is it making you feel?”
“...Aroused…horny.”
“And the knowledge that I will use you to brainwash your helpless teammates?”
“...Horny…so…fucking…horny!”
“That’s my good girl.”
As Severna watched the once competent, capable superheroine devolve into a state of submissive subservience, she grew flushed with desire. But Vine wasn’t her only plaything. She had others to break, remold, and toy with to her vile heart’s content.
Turning back to the three junior heroines, she observed that they were all red with anger and anguish, and wet with their sweaty, useless efforts to escape. She approached them again and, starting in the reverse order as before, paid insidiously unwanted attention to their bare soles. This time, she lingered for a horrifically long time at each woman’s feet, until she thought they would absolutely burst if not given a reprieve.
She finally stopped then, not out of any sense of kindness, but so that she could see how her primary subject was faring.
Vine had sank back into the chair. She had stopped shaking. Her eyes had rolled back in their sockets. Drool dribbled from the corner of her open mouth. She muttered barely audible phrases over and over again.
Severna knew what those phrases were but wanted to hear them anyway. She walked over to Vine and leaned in close to the broken heroine’s face.
“...I am Serverna Strickland’s barefoot, brainwashed slave. She is my mistress. I will obey her. I will do whatever she says. I am Serverna Strickland’s barefoot, brainwashed slave. She is my mistress. I will obey her. I will do whatever she says. I am Serverna Strickland’s barefoot, brainwashed slave. She is my mistress. I will obey her. I will do whatever she says….”
“Yes, you will my dear. Yes, you most certainly will.”
Severna pressed the button on her ring again. The machine slowly powered down, its buzzing and flashing diminishing until they stopped altogether. Then, it slowly raised up to its original position above Vine’s head.
With the machine no longer compelling her into a hypnotic trance, Vine quickly roused from her stupor but continued intoning her mantras several more times. Finally, as the machine went dark, she awoke fully. Her gaze found Severna, and she smiled adoringly at her mistress.
“What were you just saying?” Severna asked.
“I am your barefoot, brainwashed slave. You are my mistress. I will obey you. I will do whatever you say,” Vine said as reverently as if reciting from holy scriptures.
Severna nodded approving. She pressed the button again, and Vine’s restraints sprung open.
“I have a task for you, my dear slave. You will enjoy it thoroughly. Get up and move over to your friends.”
Vine did as she was told.
“You will brainwash all three of them into my obedient slaves, one at a time. You will use your psychological knowledge and computer skills to program my machine with parameters tailored specifically to each of them. It will then use those parameters to brainwash them far more deeply and lastingly than it otherwise could. Once they inevitably succumb to the process, they will stay enslaved to me for as long as I want. It will be phenomenal!”
“Yes, Mistress,” Vine said, her eyes agleam with arousal. “I can’t wait to brainwash them for you!”
“I will say that I appreciate your enthusiasm, especially knowing that some small part of it actually comes from you and not my dominance over your mind. Thus I grant you a small boon: You may choose which of your companions to brainwash first.”
“Oh, thank you, Mistress!”
Vine ogled each heroine long and hard, as they squirmed in horror beneath her lascivious stare.
“Sometime before I’m too old to enjoy them,” Severna said impatiently, after an eternally long minute.
“Apologies, Mistress.”
After a submissive nod to punctuate her apology, Vine stepped forward to stand in front of a pair of naked feet. She then reached down and gently scratched with her nails along the desperately shaking soles, in mimicry of Severna’s earlier actions.
“This one, Mistress.”
And though no choice would have been a bad one, Severna smiled wolfishly at the one her barefoot, brainwashed slave had made.