Twisting through space, the two entities intertwined and coiled around one another. One of them was badly wounded, having exchanged shards with a distant cousin and come away the worse for wear
DESTINATION
The Warrior enquired of its companion.
DESTINATION
No response.
DESTINATION
DESTINATION
DESTI-
APOLOGY
Finally, a response. What in a lesser being would be called "a feeling of relief" flooded the Warrior's limited mental landscape.
STATUS
DAMAGED
This was worrying.
DESTINATION
AGREEMENT
CAPABLE
UNKNOWN
At least the Thinker was being honest, not sugar-coating its situation.
ASSISTANCE
UNNECESSARY
ASSISTANCE
UNNECESSARY
ASSISTANCE
No response.
ASSISTANCE
STATUS
ADJUSTING
EVALUATING
The Thinker was busy. It didn't have time to waste blathering with the Warrior, not if their destination was set. Despite the damage taken, these new shards gained were worth it.
ARRIVAL
ARRIVAL
ARRIVAL
Annoyed at the repeated whining of the Warrior, and certain what it was talking about wasn't very important anyway, the Thinker decided to use one of its new abilities to rectify this situation.
SILENCE
The Warrior was rendered mute. Amazing! A shard of command, of dominance! The Thinker viewed it as dispassionately as it could, trying to catalogue its effect clinically, but something, a rush of some kind of positive feeling, echoed through its entire colossal being - the Warriors new subservience made the Thinker feel good. More testing was required.
SPEAK
URGENT
ARRIVAL
URGENT
SILENCE
Once more, the Warrior was rendered mute. The Thinker revelled in the new power it possessed - if all of the shards it had received from "Abaddon" were like this, then their power had just massively increased. Perhaps, like this, they could finally-
WARNING
The Warrior managed to overcome the silence placed upon it, but too late. The Thinker, caught up in its own ability and the heady feeling generated, crashed headlong into their destination. The shard it had been studying, which it had only just begun to modify for usage, was sent spiralling through time and space to its recipient well ahead of schedule. The Thinker, even as the rest of its coiled body crashed into itself and collapsed, even as it lay dying, could only stare longingly after the shard - ignoring its fatal mistake, the Thinker let out one last communication, summing up its entire feeling on the matter.
SHIT
xoxo
Taylor awoke to the muted sound of beeping. She stirred restlessly, opening her eyes to take in the ceiling of what was unmistakably a hospital ward. Off to her side, the heart rate monitor steadily measured her pulse.
How did she get here? Her mind felt like sodden cotton wool, struggling to dredge up thoughts from the depths. There was school, the first day back from winter break, and she had thought things would be OK because the bullying was letting up - but then there was a smell. Her locker. Her locker smelled, and she opened it and it was horrible, and then someone shoved her in and-
The heart rate monitor was beeping more insistently as panic overtook her. The memories welled up, threatening to swallow her, and the beeping grew faster and faster, fuelling her fear. She was losing control, her eyes wide and searching frantically, her nose wrinkled from the phantom stench that clung to it. Her arms, wrapped in thick bandages, began to claw at the sheets - she felt trapped, uneasy, unable to move or flee or live.
A nurse burst into the room, accompanied by a smaller figure. Taylor lurched to a sitting position in response to the movement, moaning unintelligibly, but the nurse forced her back down gently, hushing and shushing her to get her to calm. The smaller figure, dressed all in white with a red cross theme, grasped her hand and Taylor instantly felt calmer, a cool feeling flooding her mind. The person let go and the feeling receded, but Taylor was no longer panicking. Her mind still felt like a bowl of fog, however.
The nurse was talking, saying something to her, but Taylor was non-responsive. Her episode, even behind her, was affecting her; her previous frantic panic had given way to a listlessness, and her eyelids drooped. She drifted off.
Awakening again, Taylor looked around peacefully this time. Her mind hadn't recovered yet - moving her head felt like dragging a cloud through the air with a net, fluffy and insubstantial. The small figure from before was there again, surprised to see her awake it seemed. It was saying something. Perhaps it wanted to be her friend? Taylor opened her mouth and told it she would love to be friends.
xoxo
Amy (also known as the healer, Panacea) was doing her rounds, practically dead on her feet as she looked in on patient after patient she'd already seen to. Canberra was still fresh in her memory - she'd only got back the day before - but here she was again, volunteering at the hospital. Deep within her there burned a need to help, especially after seeing the wanton destruction wrought by the Endbringers again. It was the same after every attack; spending so long just constantly patching up whatever capes had managed to survive their first sortie only to send them back into the fray, having less and less casualties to deal with as the battle progressed due to those she'd already healed not surviving another encounter - it took its toll on her, and made her restless.
Tasks like this didn't help, though. When she healed someone, she knew the first time around that she'd succeeded. Despite that and despite her track record, however, she was always required to do follow-up checks on patients she'd seen to. That was actually incorrect; she personally wasn't required to perform the follow-up, but she did so anyway to prove that she had got it right.
Poking her head in on the next patient, a poor girl who'd been locked in a locker full of hazardous waste (used tampons festering over the winter!), Amy was shocked to see the patient awake. She still had that slightly glazed look on her face, which worried Amy - she didn't do brains. If something was wrong upstairs, Amy couldn't help the girl.
"Hello," she tried. "I'm Panacea. I healed you before. Um, I need to check on you, and maybe heal you some more." The girl was focusing vaguely on her, so Amy took the chance to get it over with. "Now you're awake, I need your permission to heal you. Can I heal you," she checked the name on the file "Miss Hebert?"
The girl opened her mouth, about to say something, then closed it.
"It's OK, you can just nod or shake your head," Amy tried, losing confidence in the girl's mental faculties. The girl tried speaking again, and Amy leaned in this time to hear her clearly.
"Worship me."
Amy's knees hit the floor so fast she thought she might have cracked her kneecaps, but that didn't matter. Not in the face of her new Goddess.
xoxo
Huh, Taylor thought, I ask her to be my friend and she falls over. Maybe she slipped?
Thinking slowly through the now-diminishing veil of fog, Taylor asked if the girl was alright.
xoxo
"You may rise in my presence,"the Goddess acquiesced, seemingly hesitant to allow her that modicum of respect. That was OK, Amy thought. Compared to someone so beautiful and powerful and perfect, as this Goddess was, Amy was nothing. She was a flawed, filthy monster, unloved by her foster mother and with a sick obsession with her foster sister, secretly uncaring and even hateful of the thousands she healed monthly. But if the Goddess could find even a dirty girl like her worthy of the gift of standing, then Amy would love her all the more for it. She scrambled to her feet, looking downwards deferentially.
"Your will is my life, Goddess," she breathed.
xoxo
Glad that the girl was alright, Taylor heard her say something. Oddly enough, Taylor felt a bit warmer than before, a bit brighter. The clouds in her head were being pierced by the radiant sunlight of reason, but it was still overcast enough for her to mangle her next words.
"My name is Taylor. What's yours, friend?"
xoxo
"You may address me as Mistress. What are you known by, slave?" Mistress asked.
"I'm Amy Dallon, Mistress. My cape name is Panacea. I'm a Striker 9 with complete control over the biology of any living being I touch." Amy left nothing out. A lie of omission was still a lie, and her Mistress deserved nothing but the absolute truth.
xoxo
By this time, Taylor had begun to realize that something was wrong. This girl, Amy, was beginning to creep her out - she seemed more interested in being Taylor's slave than her friend. And that weird feeling had grown; Taylor was beginning to feel uncomfortable beneath the bedsheets and pushed them down to feel the cool air on her body. Amy was still looking down, so Taylor tried getting her to make eye contact.
"Gaze upon my form, slave, and know its beauty." Amy immediately snapped her eyes up, drinking in the features of Taylor's face, her eyes, her neck and her thin body hidden beneath the hospital robe.
However, now Taylor's mind was clear enough to recognize that that was not what she had intended to say. She went to apologize.
"I accept your unspoken apology, slave." That didn't work out either! Immediately, Amy's eyes shot back downwards, her face beginning to light up in a blush.
"Yes Mistress, sorry Mistress. This lowly slave apologizes for speaking before being spoken to, for touching you without permission when you were unconscious, for daring to gaze on your form unbidden, for-"
"Stop." Amy's mouth shut with an audible snap. Taylor took a deep breath, realizing now that something had gone completely awry here.
"I think," she ground out, fighting against some unknown urge to push a strange inflection into her voice. "I think," she repeated, "that something has gone wrong here. I don't want a slave. Act normally around me, as you would with a dear friend."
"Oh, Mistress- I mean, Taylor, thank you!" Amy gushed, making eye contact with Taylor again. Her face flushed brighter. "That is, if I can call you Taylor, I mean, I would do that if we were close friends despite my lowliness, Mistress Taylor."
"Address me as," Taylor began, before closing her eyes and gritting her teeth. "Taylor." She ground out, before reopening her eyes and making eye contact again. Amy held her gaze, entranced. "Call me Taylor," she ordered, and Amy nodded once, sharply, in understanding.
That feeling suddenly returned, full force. Taylor recognized it now - her nipples had stood up, rubbing uncomfortably against the hospital gown, and there was a growing wetness between her legs. Her stomach felt warm and floaty, but her mind was full of ice.
'What's happening to me?' she went to ask, but her fragile control failed her and it came out as a command.
"Tell me what is happening to my body, slave."
"Yes, Taylor," Amy responded quickly, before reaching out and resting her hand lightly on Taylor's forearm. Her face went nuclear with a luminescent blush, but she did her best to remain professional and informative for her Mistress. "It would, ah, it would seem that you've triggered and become a parahuman. You have a developed Corona Gemma, the part of the brain that controls powers - and without a doubt, you're a powerful Master, a cape that can control other living beings. Your power also has, um, a feedback." Amy's blush grew, and she began to stutter.
"Tell me plainly what is affecting me, slave."
"Yes, Mistress!" Amy squealed, and Taylor's body grew even hotter. "It seems that whenever you successfully order someone to do something your power rewards you with a good feeling. Dopamine and, and endorphins - that is, the 'happy feeling' chemicals - flood your body. You begin to feel happy, content and, it would seem, aroused." No longer under the compulsion of Taylor's order, Amy began breather heavily herself. To have the (artificially created but nonetheless genuine) object of her utter adoration so close to her, so interested in what she had to say despite her faults and flaws and dirty, shameful perversion - it made Amy feel all tingly inside. That her new Mistress was a girl around her age, a group that Amy's only other previous object of affection had also fallen into, didn't hurt at all.
Taylor, on the other hand, was beginning to realize that her life had gotten a whole lot more complicated. If she couldn't speak without dominating everyone around her, and getting off on it, what did that say for her prospects in life? Not to mention the public opinion on Masters - she'd be in the Birdcage faster than she could say 'I'm not a villain'. Heartbreaker was still out there, doing this kind of stuff all the time, and look at how much people hated him!
"You will help me learn to control this power. I will not let it control me," Taylor commanded, before yawning loudly. Blushing slightly herself and glaring at Amy, she added to her orders. "Later. Some other time. For now, leave me a way to contact you and go about your life as you normally would. Tell no one of my awakening or my power."
"Yes, Mistress Taylor," Amy responded, before writing out her mobile number on the pad next to Taylor's bed, getting up and leaving to continue her rounds. As Panacea left the room, Taylor's power kicked in again, and she quietly reached orgasm.
'This is going to be a weird kind of problem' she thought, trying to settle back down for some sleep.