The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Glory Girl settled to the ground by the side of the road and let her connection to the cosmic forces that granted her powers fade, her iridescent aura dimming away to nothing as she did so, becoming just Stephanie once again. It was a pleasant evening, unusually so for summer, and as she walked the rest of the way to her grandparents’ house in the sleepy little town of Farmington, she reflected on how much had changed since that day she saw the meteor streak across the sky and crash down in Hallek’s field and, gripped by teen curiosity, followed it.

But it wasn’t a meteor at all, but a crashed space probe, one of the first scouts sent out in advance of the Christmas Invasion, and the radiation leaking from it changed her, gave her powers and abilities she could barely comprehend at first. Fortunately, Gloriana drew her powers from the same cosmic energies and sensed what was happening to Stephanie, sought her out and took her in.

Now she was Glory Girl, hero of Cape City, leader of the Girls Power, and at the same time Stephanie Holtzmann, ward and protege of Teknos Industries founder and CEO Amanita Tekar... but she was also still a Farmington girl, and she was looking forward to seeing her grandparents.

And even more, she was looking forward to the simplicity of life in a town where she could be just Stephanie, a girl visiting her grandparents and her old high school friends for the couple of weeks between the end of the spring semester and the start of summer classes. After all, this was Farmington. Nothing ever happened here.

About a half hour later, she knocked on the door of her grandparents’ farmhouse. She’d been here so many time as a little girl, and then lived here for most of high school. Every step up to the porch was familiar. The shape of the knocker, the old mezuzah by the door, the familiar smell of the garden—herbs and tomatoes, recalling the amazing pizza Grandma would make from what she grew there.

The door opened and her tough, tiny little Grandma smiled up at her. “Steffie!”

They hugged, and soon Stephanie was seated at the familiar kitchen table, a mug of tea pressed into her hand while her grandparents asked her about school. “I did fine,” she said. “Dean’s List again.”

“That’s our girl,” said Pop-Pop, beaming.

“What about a boy?” asked Grandma. “If you ever want to bring a nice young man home to meet us—”

Stephanie suppressed an eyeroll. “I know, Grandma. I’m focusing on my studies right now.” Well, that and the superheroics...

“Or a girl,” said Pop-Pop. “We’re not picky.”

“Pop-Pop!” Stephanie objected. “I told you before, I’m not gay!” Mostly.

Grandma nodded. “We just want you to be happy, honey.”

“I know, Grandma. But I have time for that kind of thing later, when I’ve finished my degree.“

“Speaking of happy...” said Pop-Pop. He and Grandma looked at each other.

“What is it?” asked Stephanie.

Grandma smiled. “Nothing, we’ll tell you about it later. We have a town hall to get to.”

“My first night?” Stephanie asked, suprised.

They stood. “Why don’t you call some of your old friends?” Pop-Pop asked. “You’re young, it’s a summer night, go have some fun.”

“That does sound good,” Stephanie admitted. “Are you sure?”

“Positive,” said Grandma.

An hour later, Stephanie was lounging on the floor of her old high school friend Julie’s bedroom. Julie’s cousin Tina sat across from Stephanie and Hope, while their friend Todd sat crosslegged on the bed behind them. They were deep in catching up. Julie was working at Hope’s dad’s gas station, Hope just finished her sophomore year at State, and Todd was working the same fast food job he had in high school and taking classes at the community college in the county seat.

He was also rubbing Stephanie’s shoulders, which was different. But nice. Catching up with her friends was nice. Peaceful, safe, comforting. A refuge...

Stephanie blinked. Julie was snuggled against her, holding her hand and gently rubbing the palm with her thumb, and that was weird but nice, too. There was a sleepiness to the room, to the town, a comforting familiarity. Nothing bad happened here. Nothing happened here at all. She could relax...

Stephanie blinked. Her shoes were off, somehow, and Hope was rubbing her feet. “Wha..?” she asked, thickly.

“Shh,” Julie whispered into her ear. “Let this happen.”

“We’re all friends,” Todd whispered in her other ear. “You’re safe here. You can relax.”

“Rela...” Stephanie slurred in response, her eyes drooping.

“We’re all together again,” said Hope. “Back where we belong. United...”

“United,” the others agreed in unison.

Stephanie’s limbs felt so heavy, like they were weighed down. She struggled to open her eyes again, battling waves of sleepiness on instinct, and saw them, the weird gray traceries wrapped around them, the shape and color of dead vines. She tracked them back to where they were coming from, barely able to muster the effort to move her eyes even that much, and saw where they were emerging from Julie’s pants and under Hope’s skirt.

While that was registering in her sluggish brain, she felt Todd lick her ear. There was something odd about his tongue, something wrong—it was long, thin, smooth, slipping inside...

With a start, she snapped out of her trance and unleashed a reflexive burst of her aura. The others were flung back against the walls of the room, and Stephanie staggered to her feet, panting, her fists clenched. She looked around. Her old friends were breath, thank God, but tentacles—severed and smoking where her aura had vaporized the parts in direct contact with her—emerged from between their legs, and one protruded from Todd’s mouth.

I have to get out of here, she thought, and it was her first clear thought in a while. She squeezed out through the open window, let her aura cover her, and flew off toward Town Hall. She had to warn people, and if there was a meeting there, that was the perfect place.

The parking lot was packed as she flew over it; the whole town must be here for the meeting. She wondered briefly what it was about; she’d only been to a couple, but they tended to be where the town’s peaceful image of unchanging harmony broke down, where people came to relitigate old feuds or have bitter new ones about the library giving children fantasy novels or the county cops harassing one of the Wilfords.

She was going to have to go in as Glory Girl. Nobody would listen to Stephanie Holtzmann ranting about tentacle monsters or pod people or whatever was happening. Fortunately, with her aura up, nobody would be able to recognize her, even in street clothes.

There were two entrances to town hall, the back one used by the people who actually worked there, that led to the offices, and the front one that opened straight into the big meeting room. She opened the latter, walked in, and was immediately struck by a wave of peace and belonging that nearly dropped her into a trance then and there.

It wasn’t a meeting. It was an orgy. The entire town writhed around each other in pleasure, tentacles connecting everyone to everyone else like a network, all converging at the podium, where a writhing, pulsing gray mass squirmed. “Welcome,” everyone said in unison, without the slightest pause in their gentle fucking, their cuddling and caressing. “You are welcome. You are loved. We are united. Join us.”

Glory Girl reeled. Her 10th grade teacher took one arm, and the boy she took to Prom took the other. Her aura flickered as they led her deeper into the room, deeper into that wonderful, relaxing embrace, that chance to be together in peace and pleasure, with no conflict ever again, and all she had to do was let go...

“No!” she shouted. Her aura flared, and again the people holding her were pushed away, though not as violently as in Julie’s bedroom.

“Shhhh,” they said. “It’s all right. We love you. Relax and accept us, and we can be united together...” Tentacles reached for her from the mass on the podium, thicker, stronger-looking ones than the ones the people around her were sprouting. One grabbed her arm as she pulled away, smoking as her aura burned it but not breaking.

“No,” she repeated firmly. She grabbed the tentacle holding her arm and tore it off, ripping off the tip of it in the process. Then she fled into the night.

High above the town, Glory Girl hovered against the moon and looked down, panting. The whole town, she thought. How long? It can’t be that long, or it would have spread past the town. Someone outside would have heard of it. But whatever they’re doing to people works fast—Hope can’t have gotten here more than a couple days ago and she’s already... united. She looked down at the thing in her hand—a severed bit of tentacle, about three inches long, still smoking where she held it, and very dead as near as she could tell. But tough enough that it wasn’t shriveling away yet.

A nasty thought struck her. If they can turn people that fast, and they’ve already got the whole town... how long before they spread? A day? A few hours? I have to hurry.

She pulled her cell phone—a custom version of Teknos’ latest model, altered to add security features and make it resistant to her aura—from her pocket and checked. There was a Teknos research lab forty miles northwest. As she flew, she alerted Gloriana to meet her.

A few minutes later, she alighted on the roof of the research campus’ main building. A moment later, an iridescent glow like her own streaked across the sky—like her own, but more complex and controlled. It landed in front of her and then resolved into Gloriana—a tall, slender woman in her early forties, her cream uniform contrasting brilliantly with her dark skin and the fountain of thick, straight, jet-black hair that hung to her waist. As always, Glory Girl felt a twinge of envy both for her mentor’s control of her powers and effortless beauty; for her part, Gloriana always assured Glory Girl that she’d master both in time.

“Is that it?” Gloriana asked as she nodded at the bit of tentacle in Glory Girl’s aura-guarded hand.

Glory Girl nodded.

“OK. Let’s get it downstairs and let the scientists look at it. Panacea’s on her way too, but it’ll take her a while to get here—the Protectorjet needed to be prepped before it could launch.”

A half-hour later, the two stood in the lab watching while a researcher carefully sliced the tentacle into thin segments. These tucked-away Teknos research campuses all had on-site staff dormitories and the scientists were used to being woken up every now and then to assist Gloriana with a project—everyone knew she was a close personal friend of the CEO, after all.

Glory Girl walked over the door to the hallway, planning to pace a bit, and ran almost directly into Panacea, a short, curvy woman in a white leotard with red stripes down the sides and a matching red domino mask. It stood out boldly against her dark skin, and not for the first time Glory Girl wondered if the Protectors had a minimum attractiveness requirement for members.

“Hello, everyone,” Panacea said as she entered the room, nodding to Glory Girl, Gloriana, and the four researchers clustered around the tentacle.

“Panacea,” Gloriana said. “Glad you could make it, we could use your help.”

“What’s the situation?”

At an encouraging nod from Gloriana, Glory Girl launched into an explanation. Panacea’s expression shifted rapidly from surprise, to horror, to grim determination. “I’ll see if I can help the research team out,” she said.

Glory Girl watched while Panacea and one of the researchers took a couple of tentacle segments through a door into another lab. The remaining three fanned out to the equipment in the lab they were already in, carrying their own tentacle bits.

She shifted uncomfortably. This was boring! Her grandparents, her old friends—her whole town!—was in the grip of some kind of mutant monster or alien menace, but all she could do was stand and watched while scientists scienced at their science machines. She wandered out into the hallway, and soon found herself in what looked like a cafeteria.

She got a can of diet cola from the vending machine and slumped into a chair to sip at it irritably while she poked at her phone.

Two cans later, the door opened and the three researchers walked in. “Something up?” she asked as she stood.

“Just a break,” said the one woman of the group.

“A break!?” Glory Girl demanded. “There are lives on the line, and you’re taking a—”

The woman held up her hands. “Relax! We know speed’s important. But there’s literally nothing we can do while the computer crunches the data, so for the next ten minutes or so we might as well recharge.”

“Hrm,” said Glory Girl. “I guess so.”

“Mind if we join you?” one of the men asked.

Glory Girl shrugged and sat back down. The table was small and round, so one of the men sat across from her while the woman and the other man sat on either side.

“You look tired,” commented the woman. She laughed when Glory Girl instinctively raised a hand to her face. “Don’t worry! That shimmer’s still there, I can’t see what you look like. It’s just your posture.”

“Oh.” Glory Girl sighed and let herself slump further. “Yeah. Long day.”

“I can imagine,” said the man next to her. He had kind eyes, she noticed. A sort of cloudy blue. Was that what stories meant when they said someone had “gray” eyes?

“It’s good we have this chance to rest,” said the other man. He had a mustache, which as far as Glory Girl was concerned no one ever should, but this one was particularly bad—just sort of a thin line above his upper lip.

The woman nodded in agreement, her dark red ponytail bobbing. Glory Girl decided to name them Gray, Stache, and Red until she found out their real names. “Rest is so important,” Red added.

Glory Girl nodded. She was exhausted, and it really was nice to be able to relax here. Especially with her new friends, together, united—

She stood up and back so fast her chair fell over. “Wait,” she said. The three all turned toward her as she backed away. “That’s not—you can’t have—how can it be here already!”

“Oh, Glory Girl.” Red smirked as she stood. “You’re the one who brought it here.”

“We all thought it was dead,” said Gray. “But enough survived.”

“It waited for its chance,” said Stache. “Once it was safe, it united us.”

Glory Girl shook her head. She could feel that tiredness, that invitation to peace, pulling at her, but as she backed away, it weakened. Unfortunately, they followed, tentacles emerging from under their lab coats.

“Let us show you,” the three said in unison, and then the tentacles shot out to grab her.

She tried to flare her aura as she had in moments of panic earlier that day, but she didn’t have Gloriana’s control. She could use the aura to protect herself, amplify strength, even fly, but she couldn’t shape it into a weapon like Gloriana did. Not at will, anyway. And yes, the tentacles were burning where they touched her aura, but she had it at low strength, just enough to hide her features—it wasn’t enough to seriously damage them as they wrapped around her limbs and pulled her toward the waiting scientists.

So make it stronger, she thought, but that was so hard to do when she was feeling so tired, so peaceful. The memories of before were rising up, of how good it had felt to be caught, and she wondered how much better it might feel to just give in. No more worry, no more problems, none of the effort of being Stephanie, of being Glory Girl, of keeping those lives separate from each other and everyone else.

Just let it fall, she thought, unsure if that was her own thought or something they said. Give in. Be united, together, simple, instead of conflicting, separated, complex. The tentacle wrapping its way around her bare right leg reached the leg opening of her shorts and slipped in. It was clear where it was headed, and she managed a weak “No...” in response.

“Shh,” said Gray, and kissed her. That felt wonderful, much too good to resist. She felt his tongue slip into her mouth, and when he pulled back it was still there, a tentacle extended from his mouth to hers. Some instinct told her to suck it, and she was rewarded with a trickle of liquid that left her head spinning and her pussy wet.

The tentacle at her panties moved higher, and she didn’t fight as it slipped inside of her. She moaned in pleasure instead, her aura flickering out completely as her body surrendered. It was fucking her, fucking images into her brain, and she watched as they tumbled past: servitude and oblivion, a happy existence united with all the people of her town, spreading togetherness and simplicity to others, unifying her friends at school, fucking these same ideas into her gorgeous mentor and all the beautiful, sexy, enviable women in the Protectors—

She spasmed. Something hurt. Something about the Protectors, the way she felt about them, how pretty they all were—

“Ow!” There it was again. Her mind clearing as she focused on them, her friends, her loved ones, her family, peacefully united and together, so blissfully happy as one...

No! No, she envied the Protectors. Especially Gloriana! And the Girls Power... she lived with them, yes, but there were arguments all the time. Petty ones about hair in drains and people eating food that other people had been saving. More important ones about thoughtless comments and hurt feelings, clashing personalities and beliefs.

With a burst of aura-enhanced strength, Glory Girl tore free of the tentacles holding her. She grasped the one pushing down her throat and pulled it out, then did the same with the one in her vagina, while the three United researchers backed away.

“We are united,” they said. “It is peace and wonder. Why fight? You will join us in the end.”

Glory Girl felt that psychic pressure, that yearning to belong. It was stronger than ever now that she had tasted the pleasure, and she was still dizzy from whatever chemical it had released into her. But she knew how to fight it now. She just had to focus on feelings like envy and anger, feelings that kept her apart.

She just had to hold on long enough to defeat them. But could she? She didn’t want to hurt them, not if it was possible to save them—and she had to believe it was possible, or else her family, her friends, her entire home... no. It had to be possible, and that meant she had to knock them out. If only she’d mastered using her aura better, she could—

The door to the cafeteria burst inwards as Gloriana blasted through, her aura a brilliant, dazzling array of rainbow colors. “Glory Girl! Are you okay?”

“Oh thank God you’re here!” she said. “The researchers are possessed! We need to stun them.”

“Easy,” said Gloriana. She focused her aura and made a punching motion at each of the researchers. Three precisely calibrated blasts of rainbow light flashed out from her aura, knocking each of the researchers to the ground, unconscious. “That should hold them for a few hours. What happened?”

“I should ask you!” said Glory Girl. “Weren’t they with you?”

“I had to step out for a call,” Gloriana explained. “I was checking in on Technopath, I’d asked them to see if they could get any satellite imagery or access any networked cameras in Farmington. When I came back to the lab, the researchers and samples were all gone, so I came to find you. Come on, we need to see if Panacea and the other researcher are okay!”

“We are,” said Panacea, stepping gingerly through the wreckage as she entered the room. “In fact, we came to see if you’re okay.” Behind her, the last researcher stood in the doorway and stared at the unconscious researchers sprawled on the floor, tentacles and all.

“We heard a commotion in the other lab, and I realized what was happening and sealed the door,” she explained a moment later, after Gloriana and Glory Girl caught her up on their stories. “By that time, our samples activated and attacked Lynn.” She nodded back at the last conscious researcher. “But that’s how I figured out how to stop them. They function something like a fungal infection, forming a network that spreads through the host’s endocrine and nervous systems. However, until that network is fully established and able to grow fruiting bodies—the tentacles—it’s vulnerable to attack by the host’s immune system, and requires continual support from an external fruiting body. By severing Lynn from the tentacles early in the process, she was able to quickly recover, and we put what was left of the samples through the autoclave, they’re extremely dead now.”

“What about...” Glory Girl hesitated. “What about after they grow tentacles of their own?”

“Worried about your people?” Panacea asked gently. “We can save them. Even after fruiting bodies develop, a single human body isn’t enough to sustain them long term. If they don’t regularly reconnect with a central, external entity, the host’s immune system will eventually reassert itself against the infection.”

“The thing at Town Hall,” Glory Girl said. “That’s the center.”

“Exactly,” said Panacea.

“When it... when they had me,” Glory Girl said hesitantly. “I almost fell. But I started feeling... it triggered some memories of envy and anger, and that let me fight back.”

“That makes sense,” said Panacea. “As it invades the body, it releases oxytocin, dopamine, seratonin, and endorphins. That creates a blissed-out feeling of love, happiness, and euphoria that reduces the host’s struggles and encourages the host to relax and join together. It seems to have some kind of psychic effect related to those emotions, too. Maybe it doesn’t like adrenaline—anger, panic, and so on. Or maybe feelings associated with individuation, seeing yourself as separate from others and unique, disrupt the psychic effect.”

Lynn shook her head. “I still can’t believe you figured it out so fast, fast enough to save me. You’re not just a superhero, you’re one of the best doctors I’ve ever seen. Who are you, Panacea?“

Panacea smiled enigmatically. But Glory Girl knew the answer. Panacea’s healing powers required vast knowledge of biochemistry, microbiology, anatomy, and medicine to properly apply, knowledge which she put to good use as Dr. Janelle Johnson, senior research fellow at Cape City Central Hospital, most well-known for creating the drugs that suppressed Pheromona’s powers and cured her victims. Amanita had tried to hire her to head a Teknos research team many times, but Janelle insisted on staying in the public sector, even if it meant a far lower salary than she could have commanded in private industry.

“Then we know what we have to do,” said Gloriana. “We go to Farmington and we kill that thing.”

Glory Girl nodded.

“Let’s get these three into isolation first,” said Panacea. “If we sever the fruiting bodies and keep them sedated, their own natural defenses should be able to take it from there.”

Gloriana nodded and reached out with her aura, levitating the three.

Half an hour later, Glory Girl and Gloriana were flying toward Farmington, Panacea floating along beside them in Gloriana’s aura.

“Do you think they’ve spread to other towns?” Glory Girl asked.

“Probably not,” said Panacea. “The need to reconnect with each other and the central mass frequently would make that difficult and increase risk of discovery. We’d have found them before this. It’s probably still isolated to this town, possibly sending out agents to bring people back but not maintaining a continual presence anywhere else. For now, at least.”

Glory Girl nodded. That tracked with what she’d seen when it tried to take her.

The three landed in the town hall parking lot at around three in the morning. It was deserted at this hour, the building dark. “Looks like no one’s home,” said Panacea.

“I don’t think that thing would fit through the doors,” said Glory Girl. “It’s in there.”

“Let’s go,” said Gloriana. “Remember, we’re a team. Stick together, help each other, and there’s nothing that we can’t do.”

They burst through the doors into the dark, quiet meeting room. “Is it here?” Glory Girl whispered, stepping forward as she tried to make out whether that darker patch on the stage was the creature or just a trick of the lack of light.

“Oh, it’s here,” said Gloriana. There was a loud click as the lights came up, revealing the seats around them were full of quietly sitting towns folk, looking expectantly at the superheroines or the mass of squirming tentacles on the stage. Gloriana grabbed Glory Girl, pinning her arms. A moment later tentacles emerged from her uniform while the townsfolk converged on Panacea.

“How..?” Glory Girl asked, struggling in her mentor’s grip. “When!?”

“They got me from behind just as I was finishing my call to Panacea,” Gloriana whispered in her ear, tentacles winding slowly up the younger woman’s thighs. “I didn’t even have time to get my aura up. I’m so glad. You’ve had the tiniest taste of how good it feels to be united, how easy it is. No more differences or distinctions. No need to envy me or desire me... we all belong to each other. All the same, all one.”

“Why... why did you save me then?” Glory Girl struggled to get her aura up to burn off the tentacles, but Gloriana was suppressing it with her own—another trick Glory Girl had yet to master. And now I probably never will... not as me, anyway.

“When you managed to fight them off, it was no longer certain that you would fall to them, even with my help. Better to bring you here, to the heart, where we are all united. Here we are so much stronger... can’t you feel it?”

And she could. The soothing siren song of belonging, of home, of a place where everyone wanted what she wanted because she wanted what everyone wanted. A place with no strife, no disagreement, no change, no conflict... just peace. Peace and pleasure, safe and gentle and relaxing...

“That’s right,” Gloriana murmured in her ear, tweaking Glory Girl’s nipples through the thin fabric of her top. “You know me. You trust me. Let me teach you pleasure and belonging. Be united with us...”

She wanted this, Glory Girl realized. Wanted to give in, to let go, to embrace the simplicity of it. I’ll never have to make another choice again, she thought, and that was a relief. And her mentor’s hands felt so good on her body. Even the tentacles felt good against the skin of her legs, working their way up into her shorts. “Please,” she whimpered.

“Good girl,” said Gloriana.

Glory Girl opened eyes she hadn’t realized were closed as her mentor released her into the embrace of thicker, stronger tentacles, belonging to the central body. These were her people, her home, her kindred and kind... she couldn’t fight this. Shouldn’t fight this. They should all be united, including her.

She let her eyes drift closed again and her mouth droop open. A moment later she was rewarded as a tentacle slipped in and released that wonderful dizzying trickle down her throat, making her so relaxed and ready and wet. A moment later a tentacle penetrated her, and she gasped in pleasure at how good it felt to be filled, fucked, hollowed out and used as a vessel for her united people. To slip peacefully into oblivion and be just a body, a part of a greater whole, a puppet for a collective will.

Behind her, Panacea struggled in the grip of a dozens of tentacles. She’d had a good showing at first, for someone who’s superpowers had no direct combat application. The first couple of townspeople to approach her had gotten a dose of healing power to pump up their immune systems and adrenal glands. It wasn’t enough to kill the infection or free them from control, but it definitely hurt the thing and confused the host. But she was massively outnumbered, wrapped in a physical grip by the tentacles while the insidious psychic force of the united wormed its way into her brain, offering her the peace of being a part of this united town, of being one with them, the same as them, joined with them. Peace and safety and pleasure, no more worry or fear or anger.

“Hell no,” she snapped and tore off one of the tentacles gripping her. “No! You think I want to be part of this, this—this inbred,” she tore off another tentacle. “Whitebread.” “Redline,” tear, “blue line,” tear, tear, a tear to punctuate every word, “gay-bashing Klan-country hick village? Fuck you!” A wave of pure rage, rage accumulated over lifetimes and passed down, erupted outward from her. She didn’t have an aura like Gloriana or Glory Girl, so it didn’t affect the tentacles grasping at her physically—but it tore its way outward through the psychic field of peace and pleasure, pushing it back. It rippled through the whole creature, which shrieked in distress and confusion—and through its growing connection to Glory Girl, it rippled into her.

Her eyes snapped open and her aura flared as she tore free, rolling over in midair. She swooped down on Panacea and began tearing the tentacles off her, flinging the townspeople away. “Come on!” she shouted. “Let’s get out of here.”

“No!” Panacea snapped, riding her fury. “No, fuck that thing. We’re killing it now and setting these people free whether they like it or not.“

Glory Girl hesitated, but only for a moment. “You’re right.”

Then Gloriana barreled into her, sending them both crashing outwards through the exterior wall. Struggling, Glory Girl tore free and rose into the sky, but Gloriana was in close pursuit.

“You cannot defeat me,” said the older woman as she hovered in front of Glory Girl. “We have the same power, but I have far more skill and experience in using it. Give in and accept that we must be united. It is better for us all.”

Glory Girl clenched her fist. She could feel the anger heating in her, anger for and from Panacea, anger for her family and friends below, for all the people threatened by the united. And anger for herself, anger at being manipulated, at being told that she was weak and doomed and that there was no other way. Her eyes flared with rainbow light as she responded, “No. You’re right that we have the same power. The difference is, you haven’t taught me to hold back yet!” Her fist flared so bright she dazzled herself as she punched Gloriana with the full force of all that anger, so hard she launched her clear over the horizon.

Then she hurtled down into the middle of the town hall like a rainbow comet, right into the heart of the thing on the podium. It shrieked, tentacles wrapping around her, grabbing at her, trying to pull her off. The momentary surge over, she could feel it getting back into her, gripping her limbs as she struggled, spread-eagling her. Some of it was still inside her from before, and that was active now, pushing against her, slowing her down, and soon it would give her more and more, make her want it like the others. She could see the inevitability of it, the foolishness of her struggle, and, defeated, she sagged in its arms and waited for the end.

A hand fell on her shoulder, and then Panacea revved up her immune system and flooded her with adrenaline. “Kill the son of a bitch,” Panacea snarled, and with one last flare from her aura, burning through it just like she had early that night in Julie’s bedroom, she did.

A wail went up from all the townspeople as its death rippled through their psychic connection, and then they collapsed, puppets with their strings cut. About a mile outside of town, Gloriana impacted with the ground, rather harder but otherwise the same. Just a few hours later Protectors medics and state health officials arrived on the scene to clean up and help, and by noon people were starting to wake up.

It was over, and Stephanie could finally relax in her quiet little not-quite-united hometown, where things happened every single day whether she noticed or not, and everything was always changing all of the time, just like everywhere else.

Two counties away, on a bus headed west, Hope sat alone absent-mindedly patting what looked from the outside like the swell of a pregnant woman’s belly. Underneath, the child of the united slept, its tentacles stretching down under Hope’s wasteband and then up inside of her.

She smiled. Only one child born before those hateful fools slew humanity’s only chance to be united. But that was enough. One child to carry on the legacy, and one host to carry it somewhere safe to begin growing anew, to bring people together once more.

The people of Farmington might not be United. Humanity might not think they would ever be. But as long as there was Hope, she swore, someday they would be.