The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Uhhh. My head. My aching freaking head—

Awwwww fuck!! Not again!

So... for the second fucking Halloween in a row, I wake up after an encounter to find myself stripped of my clothes and chained in a strange unknown room. At least this time I wasn’t COMPLETELY naked, the bastard had left me in my underwear for some reason, but it was still a small concession. This was really starting to become a very bad trend that I needed to nip in the bud. Next year, on Halloween night, I don’t care if the entire fucking BUILDING was on fire, I was not leaving my bedroom!

The room itself was very high-tech, somewhere between a medieval torture chamber and a Star Trek medical sickbay. The walls were shining and metallic and sphere-shaped for some reason. There were also large computer banks along the walls, with thick cables all leading into the center of the room, where we were all held hostage on cold metallic slabs.

Another concession... at least I wasn’t alone in my embarrassment. A glance around the room showed four other occupants in various stages of undress, likewise tied and bound like me. I kind of smirked at noting Madam Lupa was bound and chained across from me, rendered completely naked, her so-called modesty completely stripped away. I also recognized a pair of other familiar faces, Ravenheart, who I knew fairly well, and had been aided by in last Halloween’s little fiasco with that wanna-be witch... and Darklight, Luminaire’s older brother, though I’d heard that he had moved to Portland a while back. The fifth person, a fuckin’ hot beauty with long silver hair, was an unknown, no one I’d ever met before. And like myself, she’d been stripped to her underwear.

It then occurred to me that those who were still fully clothed were in costume, their Neuroweave costumes, specifically, which I knew from experience were pretty much bonded to the wearer, and impossible to remove or destroy if the wearer didn’t wish it so. Meaning I’d have been a bit more modestly covered had I gone out in costume instead of dressing in ‘civvies’ tonight.

“Ugghhh... damn... where am I?”

I glanced over to see Ravenheart waking up, shaking her head blearily as she took in her situation. “Yo, Raven. Good to see you again,” I said, waving at her. “Wish it were under better circumstances, though. I see that crazy hunter guy nabbed you too, huh?”

“Hunter?” she asked, frowning, testing her bonds before sighing. Yeah, I don’t know how my vampire strength matched up to her goddess-magic, but if I wasn’t able to break free, I doubted that she could. Frankly, of the five of us, I was waiting specifically for Darklight to wake up. If Omega Girl’s son couldn’t break free, then no one could. And that meant we were all royally screwed.

“Yeah,” I answered her back, sighing. “Some crazy guy with his own personal swat team attacked Lupa and me,” I said, gesturing towards her with my foot. “Whoever the guy is, he does his homework. Went after her with a silver bullet, and took me down with some weird mixture of herbs and spices—and I don’t mean KFC.” I grunted, scowling in memory. The experience was still better than that fucking Vampire Mace shit I’d inhaled that time. “I can’t imagine why he went after you, though. Maybe he’s just some nutcase, collecting Supers—”

“I assure you my reasons are nothing so... plebian.”

We glanced up as the nutcase in question stepped forward, dressed now in a simple white lab coat, with a pair of goggles atop his head. Ten of his armed thugs entered behind him, moving to take position along the walls, and gathered around us in a wide circle. If nothing else, this guy had an apparent flair for the dramatic. Stepping forward, he smirked.

“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Doctor Alexander van Ormand,” he said, bowing slightly. “I really must thank you and your friends. I have been working for many years towards the advancement of my singular goal, and tonight, with all of your help, I shall succeed beyond my wildest dreams.”

“Hmph. You sure have a strange way of asking for help,” Tawnya remarked, scowling. “If you were looking for someone to serve as a temp worker, there are lots of agencies that do that kind of thing, yanno.”

Alex merely smirked. “Humor. So often the refuge of the defeated,” he remarked. “Perhaps your colleagues have a different view of things, hmm?” he asked, glancing towards Jimmy and Lana. “No need to feign unconsciousness,” he chided them. “My computers are monitoring all five of you and your vitals, and I am quite aware that all of you are quite awake and aware.”

“Grrrrrrr! Treacherous vermin!” Ambey Reyes shouted suddenly, struggling with her chains. “When I get free I will take great pleasure in ripping you limb from limb, and feasting upon your innards while you are still alive!”

“Charming,” Alex replied, shaking his head. “Frankly, Madam Lupa, you should be happy that I had my medic remove that bullet from your chest, otherwise you would be the one suffering a slow and painful demise.” He smirked, peering down at her naked chest. “It is quite amazing, however... your powers of recuperation. Looking at your flawless body, one would never even suspect that you had even been shot, let alone that you’d undergone surgery to have the bullet removed and then stitched up afterward.” He glanced at each person one by one. “Indeed... all of you have quite a remarkable set of abilities. That is why you were all chosen and brought here... to aid me in my great endeavor.”

“And just what ‘great endeavor’ would this happen to be, exactly?” Jimmy Frasier asked. Honestly, he was a bit curious himself. River City boasted quite a large assortment of Supers all with varying powers of their own. He’d assumed at first that he and Lana had been taken simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but not it appeared they had been picked up for more than simple random chance. That, and the fact that they were all being held in some strange high-tech facility, and strapped to metallic slabs hooked up to a bunch of wires and sensors. Worse yet, whatever other equipment was in place here, one that he immediately recognized was the familiar feeling of his Dad’s power-dampening field in play. He was effectively powerless, helpless, unable to tap into his strength or shadow magic in the slightest.

The best strategy for now—damn you, Lana, you impatient wench for getting us into this—is to keep this guy talking, he reasoned. The longer we can keep him from doing whatever it is he plans to do, the better our chances for one of us to find a way to get free. Plus, well, the more we know about what we’re in store for, the better chance we have of countering it down the road if we get the chance...

Fortunately, it seemed Alexander was the talkative type. “I’m very glad you asked, Darklight,” he replied, smirking again. “I am a man of science,” he stated proudly. “Unlike my younger sister, Yvette, who chose to devote her time and effort to the study of the mystical arts, I focused my considerable intellect on discerning the mysteries of the universe through scientific study and research.”

“Right. Got it. You’re a mad scientist,” Jimmy stated, nodding. “It’s Halloween, and we have a whole theme going. Okay… you can proceed.”

“Wait a minute!” I blurted out suddenly, as his words knocked loose something from my past. “Yvette van Ormand!” I realized with dread. “That psycho witch wanna-be that abducted me last year trying to use my ‘vampire essence’ to give herself magical powers! You’re her brother, aren’t you?”

The arrogant smirk faded from his face at the mention of his sister, causing his mask to slip, a scowl twisting his lips. “Yvette IS my sister, yes,” he murmured, before schooling his expression once more. “She is NOT a ‘psycho’ as you termed her, however, and I do not appreciate her being called such. She was merely... misguided,” he clarified. “However, it is thanks to her efforts that my own have come to fruition. After all, if she had not encountered you, Miss Sanguine, then I might have never known of your existence.” His smirk returned. “A true living ‘vampire’” he mused aloud, shaking his head. “Disregarding the irony of such a statement... such a thing I had long ago discarded as pure fiction turning out to be true helped open my eyes to bringing my long sought-after goal into the realm of possibility—”

“Yes, yes, all very fascinating,” Lana chimed in, sounding bored and annoyed all at once. “But you still have yet to explain what this goal of yours actually is... and how it pertains to all of us. Spit it out, will you? Some of us are getting bored.”

Rather than be put out, Alex simply laughed, good-naturedly. “Ah yes... the benchmark of any true villain, isn’t it? The tendency to ‘monologue’,” he mused. “Very well. This might go over most of your heads, but I will try and dumb it down a bit,” he stated smugly. “The world we live in is composed of various kinds of energy. Light, hear, radio, microwaves—most parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, which you’re all likely somewhat familiar with. Ah... but there are OTHER sources of energy in the world as well,” he said, looking directly at Lana. “Such as magic, the ethereal power that mages such as you wield, allowing you to shape and control the world around you to a certain degree.”

Alex, in full teacher mode, began to slowly pace as he spoke. “Long ago I came upon the works of a noted scientist and scholar, a man known as Professor James Donald Gilbertson, who was of the firm belief that the universe consisted of a much broader power spectrum than what was currently believed to be true.” A soft gasp sounded, and he turned to the male hero chained down, noting the rather pale look on the man’s face. Shrugging, he continued his explanation. “Basically, magic, and other exotic, esoteric energies, also exist on the same electromagnetic spectrum, just in a different registry or frequency. If you look at the spectrum as a two-dimensional model, it’s fairly straightforward, but make it a three-dimensional model, give it a Z axis, and those same waveforms now take on a completely different form, similar to the normal energy structures, but behaving in a vastly different way.”

“Okay, yeah, I suppose that makes a weird kind of sense,” Tawnya remarked, still frowning. She was honestly starting to get a bit nervous. Since waking up, she’d tried reaching out repeatedly psychically to her partner, Sioban, and then to her goddess, Skuld, but to no avail. “But, well, what does any of that have to do with us?”

Alex grinned. “Ah yes, yes, I am getting to that. The answer, however, is obvious if you consider it. Professor Frasier believed that beyond the electromagnetic spectrum, there existed five primal esoteric energies that composed all of existence—life, death, sacred, demonic, and creation.” He pointed to Amber. “You, werewolf, represent Life, with your endless ability to regenerate and heal, your ability to stay so vital and vivacious despite your advanced age, and your ability to infect others as well, granting them your endless power and vitality as well.”

He turned then and pointed at me. “You, vampire, have the opposite power. You represent Death... the unlife, the inevitable entropy of all existence. You drain and devour life, feed on it, to power yourself, and are, to an extent, largely unaffected by most things in this world.” I grunted at that, a bit put off by his words, even though he’d summed me up to a T.

“You, mage, round out the main three,” he stated, pointing at Lana. “As a mage, you have the power of Creation... to conjure and create things with your magic, to summon, or transmute, to change and alter the world around you to a certain degree at will.” She likewise said nothing, merely content to glare at him with an annoyed expression.

“You, angel, are obviously the embodiment of Sacred energy,” he continued, turning to Tawnya. “In truth, you were the first target I chose, the one I was seeking out when my sister informed me about her encounter with the vampire.” He shook his head ruefully. “I do not believe in god, personally,” he stated matter-of-factly, “but the idea of a pair of winged protectors flying around and protecting the innocent struck me as too iconic to not have SOME basis in fact. Regardless of the source of your powers, my scanners do find you possess an abundance of Sacred energy, hence your capture and place in my collection.”

Finally, he turned to Jimmy. “And you, Darklight... you represent Demonic energy,” he stated firmly.

“Oh, hell, no,” Jimmy replied, scowling. “Me? A demon? Fuck that. Just because of the black costume and eyes, everyone just naturally thinks I’m some evil hobgoblin or something!” He huffed, shaking his head. “I am SO sick of that damn stereotype!”

“Call it what you want,” Alex replied, nonplussed, “but your body gives off the same frequency as what is described to be ‘Demonic’ energy. Not that I believe in devils or demons any more than I do gods or goddesses,” he stated out of hand. “Frankly, I would classify your energy more akin to ‘Chaos energy’. Your power is wild, shifting, and disorderly, as opposed to the others, more uniform and controlled powers. Nevertheless, it is one of the five esoteric energies needed, hence your presence here.”

Jimmy sighed heavily. It was more than a little disturbing, to say the least. As a doctor, and a man of science himself, he understood the theory of what Alex was talking about only too well. The fact that it was his own GRANDFATHER that had first posed that theory gave it even more weight. James Gilbertson had posed his theories at a rather young age, first starting out, and had been largely ridiculed by his peer, until he managed to prove their plausibility with the discovery of the Key stone he had uncovered. The same Key stone that experimenting with caused his young daughter, Lacie, to develop her superhuman powers and later become Omega Girl. And the same powers that came to be transferred to her son and daughter when they were born decades later.

Suddenly, Jimmy stiffened, an icy chill prickling down his back. No... no, no, no. It can’t be, he thought desperately. Please... please tell me he’s not planning to do what I THINK he’s planning to do...

Alex, meanwhile, moved to stand before his computer control panel tapping idly. “And this,” he proclaimed proudly, “is the embodiment of all of my research, all of my hard work and labor. This machine will allow me to extract those five esoteric energies from your five subjects... and with your five powers extracted, combined, they will create—”

“Captain Planet?” I quipped, cutting him off. “He’s a hero? Gonna take pollution down to zero?” I couldn’t help but smirk. “Hey guys, nothing to worry about after all. He’s not some crackpot after all, he’s actually an environmentalist. A good guy!” I paused considering. “Actually, he’s a crackpot environmentalist, and definitely fringe, so maybe we should be a bit worried after all.”

“Very droll, Sanguine,” Alex retorted, shaking his head. “But no, I will combine your powers together to create... a Key. An artifact believed to be the embodiment of proto-matter from before the Big Bang! And thus, possessing the ability to control and shape reality itself!”

“NO!” Jimmy shouted, only to be cut off by Lana.

“You fool! You can’t be serious!” she yelled, shock and fear evident on her face. “That kind of power is not meant for any mortal being! Attempting to use such power is akin to handing a baby an armed nuclear warhead! You could end up destroying the world and yourself before you even come close to understanding how to properly wield it!”

“Hah! Typical for your kind!” Alex replied in disdain. “All of you... beings with powers, talents, and abilities. Able to do as you please, having others praise you or fear you... looking down on those of us with no powers of our own!” He grunted, tapping at the controls, powering up his machine. “But I am no one to be ignored! I do not fear this power. I will create the Key and make its power my own.”

“Grrrraahhh! Dammit!” Amber growled, pulling hard at her chains. “I do not understand even half of what this fool has said, but the witch’s words were clear enough! We have to stop this madman somehow!”

“Ughh... ughhh... we’re... trying!” Tawnya grunted, struggling as well. “I’ve been trying to break free all this time... and trying to reach out to my partners as well. But it is no use! This stinking place... my powers are being blocked!”

“Mine as well,” Lana grunted in frustration. “I can feel my magic, I can sense it still within me, but try as I might, I can’t get it to manifest! It’s like it’s sitting just below my skin, but it can’t... quite... break free...” She glanced over at her student. “Darklight? Any luck on your end?”

Jimmy winced, sighing heavily. “Maybe... maybe not,” he stated, ruefully. “I have a few cards left to play... an ace up my sleeve, and if all else fails, a joker. But I’d really rather not play ’em unless things were absolutely dire.”

I gasped as the metal plating beneath me began to buzz, and the wires and cables connected to me sprang to life. “Um, DL, I’d say this definitely qualifies,” I said, trying to fight back my panic. I had no idea exactly what having my vampire essence ‘extracted’ would entail, but something told me it would be MUCH more unpleasant this time with Alexander than it had been with his sister Yvette. “Seriously, man, if you have something planned now would be the time to use it!”

“Okay, okay, fuck,” Jimmy grunted, closing his eyes, focusing. “I hope you guys are ready for this... ’cause this is a VERY... very bad idea...”

Alex however, merely chuckled. “Oh, ho, this is rich. Do you actually think you can somehow escape and stop me?” he asked, amused. “Take a look around. This chamber was built especially for this sole purpose. It is perfectly shielded against any and all energy sources, interior or exterior. Your powers have all been negated. And your chains are all molecularly bonded and reinforced iron-nickel alloy. No one short of Omega Girl could even dent it, let alone break them.”

“Yeah... well... there’s more than one way... to crack an egg,” Jimmy grunted, his body beginning to darken, a soft eerie black glow enveloping his body.

“Hmm? Ah! Trying to summon your chaos energy, are you?” Alex noted, staring at his monitor. “A valiant effort... but completely wasted. My machines simply absorb and channel that energy, for use in creating my Key. All you are doing is weakening yourself, and giving me exactly what I want!”

Lana sighed heavily, shaking her head. “Jimmy... it’s not working. He’s right. You’re just tiring yourself out faster.”

But the dark-haired hero shook his head. “No... not just that. I’m just getting started,” he stated, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “That was just the opening volley.” He suddenly opened his eyes, a pair of pale white orbs. “Now for the main attraction. Time to toss in the Joker card...”

And with that... Jimmy simply... let go.

I, of course, had no idea at the time what Jimmy was up to. I mean, I knew a bit about the guy from his sister, Katie. And pretty much most people knew the obvious—superhuman strength, superhuman durability, incredibly smart, and weird shadow powers. Most people did NOT know about his bad luck, however, something that he and his sister rarely shared. Katie Frasier was blessed with incredibly potent good luck, the ability to lead a charmed life, where nothing could truly hurt her, and things would randomly happen to protect her and ensure her happiness.

Jimmy Frasier, however, was the complete opposite. His luck was bad luck. Not to him, but to those around him, usually those who earned his ire or anger. It was something he apparently worked tirelessly to keep in check, to repress all the time, less it run amuck. Like his sister, his luck was always ‘on’, always active, and completely out of his control. It was like a powerful blast of pure unbridled chaos—he couldn’t really control it, he could only aim it in a specific direction and hope for the best.

In this particular case, however, Jimmy had apparently just released the safety valve, so to speak. He’d unleashed his gift, his curse, letting his bad luck talent run freely without restraint. Alex seemed ecstatic, at least at first. “Yes! Incredible! The machine has just started, and already I am getting an abundance of your chaos energy,” he reported. “Indeed... the output is more than five times that of the others combined!” He chuckled. “It seems you truly were the most powerful of the group, Darklight. With your power, I shall create a truly powerful Key, and make myself unstoppable!”

His delight quickly turned to alarm, however, as alarms began to sound, and several warning lights began flashing. “Eh? Wha... wait! No! NO! That... that can’t be right,” he said, staring at his monitors in shock. “Chaos energy... it’s too much! My machine is reaching maximum capacity, and it’s still continuing to pour in!” He turned to glare down at Jimmy. “How are you doing this? No one has this much power? You should be drained dry... unconscious, hell, a withered dry husk at this point!”

Jimmy merely chuckled weakly, coughing slightly. “Heh... shows what you know... I’m the... goddamn... Energizer... fucking... Bunny...” he managed, before gasping, and going still.

At the same time, Alex’s control panel exploded. Literally. With a loud cry, the canny villain was blown back into the far wall, a shower of black sparks and strange black-colored arcs of energy surging forth from the panel. Groaning, moaning in pain, he clutched his arm, a singed, blacked mass of flesh, matching easily the scorch marks on his upper chest and the left side of his face.

“Whoa... Darklight did it! We’re free!” Tawnya cheered, sitting up, as the control panel blowing had apparently released the restraint controls, loosening their chains. Me and the others all followed suit, slipping out bonds, just as a series of Klaxon alarms began screeching out. In response, the soldiers in the room all sprang into action, drawing their weapons, and advancing down towards us.

“Hey, guys, soldiers incoming!” I called out as the witch and Ravenheart moved around to check on Jimmy, who was still apparently down for the count.

“Sangine, DL’s down. You and Lupa run interference,” Ravenheart called out, placing a glowing hand on his chest, pumping him full of her healing energy, “while Lana and I try and get him back on his feet.”

“Roger that,” I said, smirking, feeling my strength slowly returning. One by one, the computers along the walls continued to short out, as more and more of the room’s defenses died. Whatever had been restricting our powers was definitely fading fast, and I grinned as the soldiers advancing toward us slowed, faltering slightly in alarm. I glanced over at Amber, grinning a sharp-fanged grin. “What do ya say, Lupa? Feel like dishing out some payback?”

“Oh yes, Sanguine,” she replied in a low husky voice, her form slowly shifting, as fur began to cover her naked body, and her hands and bare feet transformed into large clawed appendages. “Payback is a real bitch... just like me!”

To give the men credit, they did put up a good fight. They were hopelessly outmatched and utterly outclassed, but knowing that you were facing a possibly gruesome and agonizing death at the hands of two obvious monsters, on Halloween night of all nights... I guess you could say that they were all very motivated. And, to be fair, I wasn’t fighting to KILL, unlike my furry partner. Break bones, yes. Break necks, not so much. But I didn’t begrudge Amber her fun. Normally, I’d have taken the high road and insisted that she leave them alive... but frankly, after everything that had happened tonight, I was totally beyond caring! I wanted this over and done with!

“Look out!” I heard the witch girl, Lana, cry out a warning. Moving instinctively, I leaped back... just as a bolt of black lightning struck the ground before me, charring and scorching the floor. I blinked at that, glancing up to see a large ball of pure blackness just hovering above the exploded control panel. Arcs of black energy continued to flash around, lashing out in random places, causing me and the soldiers to back off a bit in alarm. I wasn’t sure what this was, exactly, but I sure didn’t like the looks of it—

“GWWAAAAHHHHHH!” the soldier at my left cried out as he was suddenly struck.... the black energy surging through him as his body... his body...

Ugh. Excuse me. I vomited just then, turning away from the sight of the man before me being twisted inside-out, seeing his skeleton and organs exposed while he screamed and gurgled helplessly, somehow still alive! At least for several more seconds, before the shock to his system finally forced him to collapse. Mental note: do NOT get struck with that black energy stuff!

“Guys, we got serious trouble here!” I yelled out, drawing back even further. Another blast struck the wall to my right... and the metal plating changed... into glass! Simple glass, transparent enough to see outside to the streets below. Which I think freaked me out just as much as the inside-out display had. Was this black ball of energy that unfinished Key thing that Alex had been attempting to make? Or was it somehow something even worse?

“Sphaera tutelae, tenebrosa potentia deflectunt!” Lana chanted, and a soothing energy enveloped me. Glancing over, I saw the same glow envelop Amber as well. “That should protect you both from the effects of Darklight’s power let loose,” she stated grimly. “At least for the moment.”

“What do you mean ‘For the moment’?” Madam Lupa said with a scowl. “Why do you not simply disperse it and be done with it, witchling?”

“Because I can’t,” Lana replied with a scowl of her own. “That is the manifestation of his energy, his... ‘chaos power’. I can contain it—barely—in its current form, but the longer it is loose, the stronger the effect will become. Darklight himself is the only one who can truly contain it. We need to rouse him quickly before it gets too powerful.” She grimaced, ducking as a pair of soldiers fired their guns in their direction. “In the meantime, you need to finish taking out those gunmen and give us the chance to help him!”

Snarling, Lupa charged, leaping high to pounce on one of the shooters... while I tackled the second one, beating both morons to a pulp. As if things here weren’t chaotic enough, pun intended, without them making things worse. And just to make sure there were no further shows of rampant idiocy, we turned on the last four members of Alexander’s security detail—

BZZZZZZTTT!

Or... rather three remaining members, and one rather strange green-furred, rabbit-like winged creature that used to be a soldier. Fuck. I was definitely having some real goddamn freaky nightmares tonight...

“Darkligh! Hey, Darklight!” Tawnya said, slapping the boy’s face lightly. “Come on, Jimmy, wake up! We need you here!” Groaning, he shifted, then sat up, opening his eyes.

“Okay... okay... I’m up, I’m up,” he grunted, shaking his head. He glanced upwards, then winced, sighing. “Oh. Yeah. Kinda figured something like that would happen,” he muttered softly.

“You THOUGHT something like this might occur?” Lana snapped, irritation laced in every syllable, “and you did it anyway?!?”

“Hey, I didn’t see YOU or anyone ELSE doing anything to stop that Alex guy?” he retorted back. “And I DID warn you all that this was a bad idea.” Groaning, he managed to get back to his feet. “Still, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.”

“Not as bad?!? Compare to WHAT exactly?” I yelled out, wincing as a bolt of energy struck me, only to bounce off Lana’s magical shield, striking another soldier instead. The man gaped wide-eyed, shaking slightly as his body, clothes, and gear all turned into sand... and collapsed in on itself. “Did you SEE that? This guy just transformed into dirt! DIRT!” I yelled. “And don’t even get me started on the guy that got turned inside out!”

“Okay, so maybe it was a LITTLE bad,” Jimmy admitted, cracking his knuckles. “But on the good side, at least it didn’t try and destroy the entire world... this time.”

“This time?” Madam Lupa asked, wide-eyed. “Dios mio... I get the feeling I should have stayed in retirement...”

Well, things progressed quickly after that. Jimmy, now back awake again, was able to reign in his outer darkness and push it back inside once again. Once the remaining soldiers and their leader were properly subdued and secured, we unlocked the room and walked outside to find our friends and companions all gathered around, waiting anxiously. As it turned out, all of us turning up missing had attracted their attention, and after comparing notes, they had moved to the rescue, tracking us down to this location, just about the time Jimmy had made his all-or-nothing gambit.

At which point Devon, Jimmy’s lover, and future-seeing goddess, warned everyone to stay back and not enter the sphere. Several of the rescue party, including my girls, Tina and Janika, as well as Tawnya’s team of Sioban and Katie, all protested, only for Lacie Frasier to silence them all, imparting the warning that opening the dome at that moment would release a danger too big for ANY of them to stop. And that, coming from Omega Girl, was enough to inspire the others to be patient.

Alexander van Ormand was taken to River City Memorial, under armed guard, to have his wounds tended to. Lacie cautioned the policemen to treat him warily, saying that the man was more dangerous than he appeared, and Devon advised them to restrain him with a power-dampening collar during his arrest. I’d been a bit confused about that, seeing as how the man had admitted to having no powers whatsoever. Lana, however, had picked up on the obvious.

“Those scorch marks,” she pointed out. “On his face, arms, and chest. He was blasted by that explosion of chaos energy at the very beginning... the same energy that changed and altered those other men. He didn’t change inside out, or turn to sand... but it did apparently give him what he sought after all this time... it granted him powers.”

Jimmy chuckled darkly at that. “Yeah, well, it was my bad luck demons running amuck that ‘gifted him’,” he pointed out. “And seeing as how anything they cause is always bad news for someone, I can guarantee that by the time he realizes what has happened, he’ll be wishing he’d remained a normal powerless human.”

I sighed softly. He had a point. That was one thing Alex had failed to understand from the beginning. It was trite and overly cliche, but the saying was true. With great power came great responsibility. Having special powers was not all fun and games. Yeah, there were usually benefits, but every single person in that room, all of us strapped to those altars agreed on the fact that having special powers and abilities was often more trouble than they were worth.

Still, I had a feeling that after all was said and done, Alexander wouldn’t attempt to create a Key again. Seeing all the damage an unfinished crudely formed version was capable of, I doubted that he would be stupid enough to try and unleash such a devastating and destructive force like that a second time. Personally, I was also glad of that fact. I still had the mental scars from that incident with the Akert Stone. Having dealt with one artifact of death and destruction was more than enough for one lifetime...

sigh You know what I meant.

“So, Gwen,” Tina asked me, once everyone else had cleared out, and we were all alone again. “What was up with ditching us and leaving us all alone at IHOP all night?”

I winced slightly. “Um, yeah... about that...” I began sheepishly.

“Yeah, Gwen,” Janika added, arms crossed. “You know you only had this much trouble because you kept us out of the loop. If we’d been with you this whole time, things might have turned out differently!”

“Um... yeah, okay, you have a valid point,” I conceded. “But... I didn’t want you two getting hurt, okay? Madam Lupa was a pretty dangerous customer, you know? She’s a brutal, heartless, and vicious woman... the kind of person that would as soon as rip out your throat as say ‘Hi’ to you.”

“Okay... y-yeah, she sounds pretty bad,” Tina replied. “But still... we’re not a couple of mundanes, you know. We’re heroes, Gwen. We fight bad guys on the regular. We face off against people bigger and badder than us all the time! But we still fight the good fight.”

Janika nodded. “It’s sweet that you wanted to protect us from what you felt was an obvious threat. I get that. But... you have to STOP that shit!” she admonished. “Stop treating us like we’re made of glass! Just because you’re an undead vampire, doesn’t make YOU invincible, you know? You can be hurt just as easily as we can...” At my raised eyebrow, she sighed. “Okay, maybe not QUITE as easily, but you get my point!”

I sighed softly, nodding. “You’re right. And... I am sorry. From now on, I promise to stop trying to protect you guys.”

“Well, I mean, you can STILL protect us,” Janika remarked with a smirk. “I kinda like being held in those... strong powerful arms of yours.”

“Same here,” Tina added, leaning up against me, grinning. “We just want you to trust us enough to be straightforward, and not try and hide things for us. We’re partners, okay? Like the Three Musketeers. All for one, and one for all.”

“And three for the price of one,” I quipped, an old joke that always got laughs from the both of them. I laughed as well. It was nice to be able to release some of the tension. Things had definitely gotten a little bit tense inside that sphere for a while. But if nothing else, it made me appreciate what I had with Tina and Jan all the more. Speaking of which... I blushed deeply as my stomach picked that moment to gurgle loudly, causing them both to laugh again.

“See? That’s what happens when you skip meals at IHOP to go do your own thing,” Tina chided, playfully. “Wanna stop by someplace and grab a burger on the way back home?”

I shook my head, smirking, giving her a sharp-toothed grin. “Actually, I’m hungry for something a bit more... satisfying,” I stated, wiggling my eyebrows suggestively. Both girls gasped, blushing deeply, realizing my intentions. “I promise not to drain you both TOO much tonight,” I added playfully, knowing how much my going full vamp on them turned them on. “But I did work up a bit of an appetite duking it out with Alexander and his goons. So I’m afraid you’ll both have to put up with Mistress Gwen feasting on her... weak... helpless.. vulnerable and tasty prey for a bit as soon as we get back home...”

Tina and Jan both swallowed, eyes wide, momentarily stunned. Then...

“Race you back to the truck!” Tina announced as she and her partner took off in a full sprint. Laughing, shaking my head, I followed along behind them.