Rave of a Time (Superheroines Mind Control)

Hey folks.

Got another superhero story for you this week! Maybe I should start rolling all of these together into a consistent setting. I've been meaning to complete those old Unity stories, would make for a good excuse for that...

Hm, how much do unified, consistent settings matter, do you think? Lemme know in the comments! Like and Subscribe while you're at it, too!

... Is that not how it works around here? Youtube lied to me.

Enjoy!

-----

“Ohohohoho~”

The laugh rang out through the night, and the thugs on the rooftop spun towards its source – a figure standing on a railing at the edge of the building, outlined against the moon.

“It’s the Lion!”

“Getter!”

United in purpose, the overly muscled men all charged towards the laughing woman – only to all trip and crash to the floor in a heap, their ankles hooked out from under them by a bo-staff jabbed out from the shadows. And before they could recover, a slender female figure wrapped in a golden cat suit, face obscured by a domino mask and a golden scarf, dropped on them in a flurry of violence.

Wham!

Pow!

“Man, goons like these never learn. They always go straight for the shining hero in silver – then never think to check the shadows for Gold Kat!” The blonde sidekick muttered, shaking her head and straightening her costume’s tail as she walked away from the unconscious pile of goons.

“Not another step, you feline fools!” From the shadows, a figure emerged – a sharply dressed woman in a purple suit, patterned in check marks and crosses. In one hand, she held a cane shaped like a red tipped pen, while in the other, a detonator, her thumb already on the button. “If either of you move, the dam is getting blown all the way back to kindergarten! ... Though I do admit, you’re right, it’s getting harder to find good staff these days. The thug union rates are getting out of hand.”

There was a groan from the thug pile. Gold Kat shook her head. Non-Union? That’d explain it.

“Quiz Queen!” The silhouette dropped down onto the roof, revealing herself to be the silver cat suited heroine with a furry mane, the Silver Lioness. Much like her sidekick, her eyes were hidden by a domino mask, though her face was otherwise bare, her long silver hair sweeping in the wind. “Threatening the city’s water supply is a new low, even for you.”

“Yeah, well, when the city’s GPA drops by five whole points, it’s pretty clear a lesson needs to be taught!” The quiz-themed villainess shrugged her shoulders. “Sometimes you need to show these people a little tough love – and there’s nothing tougher than a hundred metric tons of water!” Laughing, she raised the detonator, showing it off for the heroes.

Which was, unfortunately for her, exactly the wrong move, as the Cat-ram, a sharp silver disk that Silver Lion had thrown just before she jumped down to the roof, took this moment to return – slamming straight into the detonator, and embedding itself in the device, rendering it utterly useless.

Quiz Queen took a moment to stare at the ruins of her now impotent scheme, then looked up to see a silver fist flying at her face.

“Oh darn.”

Whammo!

The villain collapsed to the floor, unconscious, and was soon tied up in the pile with the rest of her goons.

“That should handle things here until the police arrive,” Silver Lioness nodded, dusting her hands. “I’m afraid it’s detention for you, Quiz Queen.”

Gold Kat was buzzing with energy as the two swung away from the rooftop.

“That was one hell of a shot, Lion!”

“All in a night’s work, Kat.” The silver haired heroine raised a hand to her mouth. “Ohohohoho!”

-

“Guuuuh.” The next morning, a decisively less energetic silver haired woman was sat at her kitchen counter, groaning into her palms.

“Imagine if your villains could see you now.” Kay Coast, the young adult ward of the richest woman in the city, set a mug of steaming hot coffee down in front of her mentor. “They wouldn’t recognise you!”

“Ngh, ‘s a shame. I’d probably let them kill me.” Selene Ravel, the silver haired heiress of Ravel Incorporated, snatched the mug up like it held a life saving cure – and she’d probably argue that it did, judging by the way she gulped the contents down.

“Now now…” Her blonde adopted daughter scolded her cheerfully, wagging her finger as she circled around the kitchen island. “No need to be so dramatic. You’re just feeling your age a bit. You’ll be better before you know it.”

“Hmph. I’m only 32,” Selene grumbled into her mug. “And that doesn’t mean this part doesn’t suck.”

Her sidekick/daughter/best friend rolled her eyes, well used to this routine by now. “You know, you’d be fine if you just let yourself relax from time to time. How long’s it been since you last slept properly?”

“Eh.” The heiress waved a hand towards a calendar on the wall. “I marked it on there somewhere. Five years ago, maybe? I’m far too busy to allow my brain to shut off for eight hours a night, come on now.”

“Mm. I know you have meditations and secret potions and the occasional magic spell from your friends that mean you only have to spend five minutes of every day feeling as tired as you should, but you can still take a break from time to time. You wouldn’t be leaving the city unprotected, either. I’m not a kid anymore – I can handle a solo nightshift or two if it let you get some shuteye.”

“Mmm.” Selene nodded, focusing entirely on her coffee mug instead of the conversation at hand. “Yeah we’ll look into that some time.”

Kay sighed, rolling her eyes. Her mentor was the best thing that had ever happened to her, but lord knew she could be a pain in the ass when she wanted to be stubborn. Well, you probably couldn’t qualify as a superhero if you weren’t like that to some degree – especially when you had no powers.

Oh well. It wasn’t a big deal. Despite her worries, she’d long gotten used to Selene’s habits. She’d be like this for ten minutes, half an hour tops, and then she’d be back to her normal self – the famous billionaire philanthropist of Quicklime City by day, and the infamous hero Silver Lioness by night!

So, with a shrug, the blonde went off to sort out her own affairs. Unlike her adopted mother, she spent much less of her life in the limelight, preferring to either spend her time training – both for her secret life as Gold Kat, Silver Lioness’s dazzling sidekick, and for the inevitable day when her mentor finally trusted her to fly solo – or learning the ropes of business at Ravel Incorporated. She liked to think she had a knack for the business that Selene lacked.

Thus, she wasn’t there when the sleepy silver haired heiress began leafing through her mail, left in a stack on the kitchen island by one of her mansion’s diligent servants. “Nn. What’ve they sent me today, anyways…?”

She leafed through the papers. “Bill… Bill…. Bill… Don’t I have people to deal with bills for me? Oh, yes, here’s the bill for their services…” The silver haired woman groaned. “Useless waste of- Hm? Ah, what’s this?”

A flash of silver caught her eye, and Selene quickly pulled a strange piece of mail from the stack. It looked more like a thin sheaf of metal than a letter, though it did have words printed into it. An unusual advertisement, then? That kind of thing was definitely supposed to get filtered out of her inbox before the pile made its way to her. Ah, though, this piece was addressed directly to her…

‘Miss Selene Ravel,’ it read. ‘You are cordially invited to the Ravemistress’s debut Rave. Come to ‘The Deep’ Club on Astral Avenue at 9pm tonight, and prepare for a truly mind-blowing experience.’

She almost rolled her eyes. Invitations like this weren’t uncommon. Sometimes it was a burden, being this rich. As a well-known wealthy bachelorette, she was a celebrity in the city. There was no shortage of people looking to work their way into her good graces, or just directly into her purse. People were always inviting her to this or that event, and she tended to be very selective about which invites she accepted.

But… Almost. She almost rolled her eyes. Something about this invitation, engraved into a silver sheet, held her attention. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on…

… Though, speaking of fingers, hers were feeling quite tingly where they were holding the invite. Probably not important, that…

… And nor was the way some of the words of the invite seemed to shine in a different way to the others. Come to The Deep Club at 9pm…

A dazed smile grew on her face. What had Kay just been saying? That she needed to find some time to relax, once in a while? Suddenly that sounded like a wonderful idea! And, you know, she knew just how she wanted to do it…

-

“You’re not seriously going, are you?” The blonde stared at her mentor with wary confusion, as if she was expecting the other half a joke to come barrelling at her face any second. The woman had just burst into her sidekick’s office to tell her she planned to head out and enjoy a Rave this evening, and… And she seemed to be serious?

“Why not?” The silver haired heroine shrugged, completely confident. “It sounds fun.”

“Fun? Really?” Kay stared. “Miss ‘Opera is where the real culture is at’ wants to go play down and dirty with the Ravers now?”

“Sure!” Selene didn’t even sound like she knew what a Rave was, nor did she sound like she cared. “I bet I’ll have a truly mind-blowing experience~ Ah, I’d better get started putting an outfit together. Catch you later!”

With that, the older woman practically skipped out of the room, eager to prepare for the party, and leaving her sidekick staring after her in shock.

Hmmm.

-

Yeah, no. Kay didn’t believe her mentor’s sudden change of heart for even a moment. Nope, there was no way on earth Selene Revel was ever going to be anything but a snob when it came to music. This was a woman who had nearly lost fights with supervillains because she was distracted by turning off ‘that racket’ whenever there was modern pop playing on a nearby radio.

So why was she suddenly interested in ‘RaveMistress’ and ‘The Deep’? Welp, Kay didn’t want to say ‘mind control’, but it was definitely mind control. Someone had managed to worm their way into her mentor’s brain and planted a ridiculous idea in there, and now there she went acting like it was her own. There was no two ways about it.

Now, there were a few options for how to deal with this. Like, she could absolutely nag the older hero until she submitted to a mental checkup… But, well, you had to be careful about these things. Implanted suggestions often came with programming that made people reluctant to submit to such obvious measures. Selene would just make excuses and run off if she suspected she was going to get her head inspected.

Naturally, Kay could call on a couple of the duo’s many super-powered allies to help her restrain and treat her mentor – but that’d be a pretty ugly and embarrassing scene for everyone involved. Especially if Silver Lioness started breaking out the contingency plans – she had a lot of those for the heroes out there. Ironically, she said she had them just in case they got mind controlled. There was irony in there, somewhere.

So no, none of that was appealing, and since the next rave – the one that Selene was preparing for even now – was tonight, well, there wasn’t much time to think of something else. Which meant that Kay was going to have to go with option three: Deal with the villain herself. Preferably before Selene even met the man/woman. Simple, elegant, and delightful for the ego – Kay may have been waiting for the chance to prove herself her mentor’s equal for some time. This was the one.

And she knew just where to start. Examining her mentor’s mail had quickly uncovered the invitation – which the sidekick had been careful to only handle with gloves. She hadn’t been able to find anything conclusively hypnotic in the limited time she had – chemical analysis took far too long – but she had found the main thing she wanted: An address.

Astral Avenue was a street just on the right side of the wrong side of town. Reachable from the town centre, without having to delve too deeply into the nastier neighbourhoods of the city. In many ways, it was the perfect place for a club looking to cash in on some punk cred, and by all appearances it looked like that was what The Deep was here to do.

The club was new, though the building wasn’t. It had been here for years, and most of them had been spent as a venue for one party scene or another. It was more accurate to say that the club was old, and that only the name had changed. A quick check of its history told Kay that it had been purchased by new owners only two weeks ago, and the time since had been spent on hasty renovations, preparing for the grand opening tonight.

All in all, it sounded exactly like what she would expect from a new hypnotic villain trying to get a foothold in town. And this one was ambitious, if their first move was to try to snare Selene Ravel. But there was a price to pay for ambition in this city, and it came with a free knuckle sandwich, delivered by the cat-themed superhero of your preference, and Kay was going to make sure the new arrival learned that lesson well.

Though right this second there was nothing cat-themed about her. She’d left her costume at home and opted to handle this situation with a stealthier plan. A new villain with a new club setting up a new scheme meant one thing, more than anything else: New minions. There had to be new faces going in and out of that building all of the time – they’d never notice one extra.

So, donning a neat work uniform of a blouse and skirt, and doing her blonde hair up in a ponytail as opposed to her normal, free flowing style, for a disguise, Kay Coast had marched in through the employee’s only entrance, and immediately gotten to work blending in.

“Hey! What are you doing dressed like that?” Someone had immediately called her out. “Your new uniform is in your locker! Go get changed before RaveMistress sees you!”

… Okay, even she hadn’t been expecting it to be that easy. But lo and behold, as she found an unattended locker and picked it open, there was a uniform waiting for her, fresh and clean – and even in her size! It looked like the staff here were expected to wear black, with ‘Staff’ written on the shirts in bright white letters. To offset the professional look, they were also given a rainbow’s worth of armbands, and a similarly diverse range of hair products to spice things up. And, to her amusement, there was also a pair of digital ‘smart’ glasses, with a note that all employees were expected to wear them at all times.

Well, if they wanted to be that obvious about their little hypno scheme…

She gave the clothes a quick inspection but couldn’t find any signs of any other mind control-y devices woven into the stitching, so she figured they were probably safe. A sniff of the chemicals in the hair dye made her head spin a little, but only in the normal way. It looked like the glasses were going to be the main problem here – and that problem was solved with a few quick hacks with her phone. There, glasses deactivated! Easy.

The heroine hid her giggle to herself as she modelled the glasses in the bathroom mirror, smirking as the club’s music played in the background, almost like it was celebrating her achievement for her. Her heart swelled with confidence. She could do this.

Thus, a few splashes of dye and a little work in front of the mirror, and honestly, the woman looking back at her in the mirror would never be recognised as Kat Coast. Sliding her harmless new glasses on, she stared at the reflection of Jennifer Bast - just a woman looking for a quick buck and a fun time.

Grinning at her red and blue and green hairdo, the secret sidekick slid out of the locker room and into the club proper, moving about to ‘help out’ wherever she saw people working, and to take a good look around for anything suspicious.

As she explored, she soon noticed that despite the warning, there was no sign of this ‘RaveMistress’, who Kay felt fairly safe in assuming was the villain she was hunting. That was both good and bad. Good, because the woman was the most likely party to notice the extra member of staff – and bad, because if she didn’t know where she was, she couldn’t put a stop to her nonsense.

At least it meant she had time to take a proper look around. The Club itself – the parts that guests would get to see, at least – wasn’t too bad looking. It was clean, it was sleek, it was ready to party. Black floors and flashing screens on the walls around the DJ booth – yeah, this felt like a Rave club.

It also felt like a hypno-lair in the making, but that was really to be expected by this point. How was this woman going to operate? Hypno spirals? Commands flashing on the screens? Maybe entrancing strobe lights from the ceiling? Subliminals in the music, perhaps? Mn, no, rave music was way too loud to use that kind of technique with, in her experience. But the other ideas had promise.

Those were what she expected to find, so she made sure to spend as much time as she could working behind the scenes on the electronics, inspecting them for any ‘custom wiring’ or added software. There would be something, she was sure. There was always something.

But to her surprise, she wasn’t finding it. Everything seemed normal. There were no hidden traps in any of these screens, or in the lighting, or anything. What was she missing here? There was no way this setup was completely normal, was there?

It didn’t help her focus that they were still testing out the music systems in preparation for the grand opening. Every few minutes, loud, base pounding music would blare out of every speaker in the building, play for thirty seconds, and then stop dead, leaving her ears ringing. The sound was pretty crisp, she could give them that much. And the tracks she was getting small samples of seemed pretty fun. She kind of wished she could hear more of it, honestly – though maybe a little quieter…

Ugh, what was going on? Hypno-villains were not subtle, their entire thing was making you notice them so they could control your mind. But there was nothing here! No hidden programs, no lurking spirals… She felt as though she was overlooking something obvious, yet nothing came to mind. Had she been wrong about this entire thing?

That would be the most embarrassing thing ever. How could she go back to her mentor, the woman she looked up to, the woman who’d rescued her from a listless life of obscurity, and say, “I’m sorry RaveMistress, I completely overreacted…”

… Hm. Kay’s brow furrowed. Something felt wrong, all of a sudden. What had she-

Gah! There went the music again, playing right in her ears. It was a really catchy beat, though. What had she just been thinking about? Tch, she’d completely lost her train of thought. Now she just felt dizzy. Better get back to work and figure it out later.

The rainbow haired sidekick shook her head, grumbling. She couldn’t afford to zone out right now. She had a mission. She had to finish inspecting all of this equipment for RaveMistress to make sure it was ready for the grand- Wait…

Nnn… She put a hand to her head. Something felt… wrong… Wasn’t she… Wasn’t she supposed to be…

Wasn’t she supposed to be dancing?!

Kay looked down at herself, stunned as she realised just how still she was. This was a rave, so why wasn’t she raving? Grinning, she dropped her current task – moving a few toolboxes between a few speakers – and began to shimmy, shaking her body with the music, closing her eyes and letting it wash over her…

“Hm? You, girl. What are you doing?”

Suddenly, the music shut down, and the heroine came back to herself. She blinked. How… long had she been dancing? She’d completely zoned out, her head empty of everything but the music…

Ah.

It occurred to her – yes, late, way too late – that subliminal music could be the cause of her confusion. And that that would make way, way too much sense with how she’d been behaving. She hadn’t factored that in because of how loud rave music was – it was practically impossible to thread subliminals into it without them being noticeable. But what if this new villain had found a way…?

A new villain who, if Kay was any judge of villainous fashion, was now standing right in front of her.

Uh oh.

RaveMistress looked exactly like the name implied. Long black hair, a dark t-shirt and torn leggings, spiked cuffs and a collar, and a glowing neon visor over her eyes, all wrapped up in a long black coat that trailed behind her like a vampire’s cloak. It was a striking look, at the rainbow haired hero found her heart skip a beat as she saw her. Though, that might also have been because of the music still swirling between her thoughts…

“Hmm…” The woman cupped Kay’s chin, tilting her head. The undercover hero grinned giddily at the touch. “Are your glasses malfunctioning? They should have been potent enough to override the subliminals…”

“Uh…” The hero wasn’t sure how to respond. But that was fine, as it turned out – the other woman wasn’t listening to her anyway. Instead, she just lifted the digital glasses off of her face, turning them over to inspect them herself.

“Of course I’m having tech issues on opening night. Just my luck. I’ll have to take a look at these,” the villain sighed with a shrug. “Here, you can use this pair instead.”

Kay’s eyes widened slightly. Wait, that-

Too late. Once again the RaveMistress acted without any care for permission. The glasses slid onto her face, the lenses over her eyes, and instantly lit up with-

Ooooohhh…

Spirals swirled, filling Kay’s vision. With her brain already softened up by the music, there was little resistance she could bring to offer. Commands and designations flowed into her brain smoothly, easily overwriting anything that might get in their way. In moments, the heroine was gone – replaced completely by a loyal minion of the RaveMistress.

“So… pretty…” She managed to mumble, her shoulders slumping as her jaw dropped slack, a thin trail of saliva starting to drizzle down her chin.

“That’s more like it.” RaveMistress patted the drooling girl on the cheek. “Can’t have the staff getting lost in the grove as well as the audience. Now get back to work, dear. We’ve got a lot left to do before we’re ready for opening night.”

“Yes RaveMistress!” Kay saluted, then sauntered off to work, following every instruction her new glasses gave her. And as she went, her booty continued merrily bopping to the beat playing through her mind.

-

Selene stepped into the club and immediately felt out of place. Not because of her outfit, of course, heavens no. She was a master of disguise, and it wasn’t hard to figure out what kind of dress would be appropriate for her evening sojourn. Bright colours were the main thing, so she’d chosen a nice skin-tight silver tank top, paired with a pair of hot-pink hot-pants that hugged her rear nicely. She might have been risking showing off a bit too much of how muscular her frame really was, but sometimes it was nice to cut loose, you know?

Still, she still had that vague sense of unease, the feeling that she didn’t belong here, all the same. There was something off about tonight, and she couldn’t put her finger on what…

In fact, she’d almost been about to turn and leave when a member of staff greeted her.

“Good evening, Miss Ravel!” A woman with rainbow-dyed hair greeted her with a bright smile. “We’re so glad you could make it! Do you like the look of The Deep?”

“I, ah… Well, it’s a bit different from what I’m used to…” Selene squinted at the woman. There was something familiar about her… Though it was hard to make out in the darkness, with the flashing lights only making it harder to study them. And that pounding music kept… distracting her…

Still, for whatever reason, she had the feeling that she could trust this woman implicitly. Yes, she was absolutely sure of that much.

The staff member smiled. “Not to worry, Miss Ravel. Here.” The server handed her a wine glass with a smile. “We know how to treat our important guests here.”

Well, she did like wine when she was off duty. And when was she more off duty than now? With a shrug, the silver haired beauty took a sip… And suddenly, everything felt much more… agreeable. Or perhaps that was just her.

The tenson in the heroine’s shoulders melted away, as did most of her doubts and inhibitions, replaced by a lovely warm bubbly feeling in her gut. She didn’t even try to resist as the staff member slid her arm around her waist, guiding her deeper into the club.

“Right this way, Selene,” the woman with rainbow hair said. “The RaveMistress has a special presentation, just for you.”

She couldn’t wait~

-

The VIP lounge was a name that probably gave the wrong impression. People expected that it was the nicest part of the club, where the rich and famous spent time enjoying themselves above the rabble. That was certainly how it worked in an ordinary club.

Here in The Deep, though, it worked a little differently. Sure, it still served the same purpose – a special area for the rich and well connected – but it wasn’t really any nicer than the rest of the Club. In fact, it was pretty bare bones. Kay had mistaken it for a collection of storage rooms on her first inspection – before her glasses had told her better.

The ‘lounge’ was actually a set of small private ‘booths’, with bare concrete walls and floors, each containing one (1) sturdy bench, three (3) TV screens, all showing blazing, bright, colourful spirals, and came complete with one (1) set of headphones, playing a constant stream of pounding, mind melting music.

One such room was where her glasses instructed her to take Selene Ravel, and that was where she was now helping her adopted mother settle. Sitting her down. Pointing her face at the screens. Sliding the headphones on over her ears. Watching her eyes glaze. Watching her expression turn happy and stupid. Watching the drool trickling down her chin.

Perfect! Her glasses ticked every box as she descended down the list. She’d done a great job for her Mistress. That thought made her smile like nothing else.

Then she turned and closed the door, locking it in her wake. Selene could stay in there for a few hours – long enough to get her mind properly remoulded to the RaveMistress’ desires. Ah, Kay was so happy to know she could share this experience with her!

Though, the sidekick considered, for a moment, if her Mistress was going to want to use her new thrall’s secret identity as the Silver Lioness for anything… But no, probably not. Her glasses hadn’t mentioned anything about that. And if her glasses didn’t bring it up, then it definitely wasn’t worth wasting time thinking about!

So, whistling a familiar, pounding beat, Kay left her beloved mentor in the hypno-tank, getting her brain thoroughly washed. She’d make for a lovely wealthy groupie for the RaveMistress! But right now, Kay was headed back out to the Club floor. She had more drinks to serve. After all – she had a new owner to prove herself to~