The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

Brushes with death have a funny way of changing things.

Changing people, I mean. When you come face to face with death, even if for just an instant, it always leaves a mark. With some people, the change is negative, and with others, the change is positive. In my particular case, I’d like to think that my change was for the better.

“Ughhn!” I grunted, taking a knee-lift to the face. Well, better IS a relative term.

“C’mon, kid, show me what ya got!” Parker Albinn taunted me, hopping lightly on the balls of his feet, smirking at me as I picked myself up off the ground. “I know you can do better than this!”

“Yeah, well, you have the advantage of going all out,” I muttered softly, resuming a fighting stance, shifting my weight to the balls of my feet as well. “It’s not as if I can do that in a sparring session.”

“Oh, feel free to crank it up a notch,” Parker replied, rushing at me suddenly. I blocked a strike to my head with my forearm, but missed the follow-up to the gut. “I’m a lot tougher than I look. Besides, you have to actually connect,” he said, dodging deftly to the side at my clumsy counter, “to do any damage, anyway!”

I sighed softly. “You know, I don’t so much mind getting constantly knocked around the room. It’s the insults that are really hurting.” He laughed.

“Hmmm. Not bad. A little punny, but at least you’re TRYING to banter.” He pivoted sharply on his back leg and kicked, aiming for my face. I ducked, spinning as well, catching my foot around his ankle, sending him to his back. For half a second, that is, as he rolled, and kick-flipped back to his feet. He grinned.

“Now that’s more like it. We might just make a decent fighter out of you yet.”

And so it went, sparring with Echo for hours on end, working on my technique, relearning the martial arts I’d been neglecting since my early childhood. When I was six, judo was fun. Lean, scrawny, but still abnormally strong for my age, I could dip and duck, and twist easily enough. Now, several years, and a few hundred pounds later, my body wasn’t nearly so flexible. Not only did I look ridiculous, I felt ridiculous, like Zangief trying to perform a shouryuken. My body had changed, and while I still remembered how to do most of the moves, I was simply too slow and bulky to comfortably move that way anymore.

“Okay, okay, let’s call it a day,” Parker said, finally, and I nodded, collapsing onto the mats in a pool of my own sweat. “Ah, come on, now,” he chided me, tossing me a clean towel. “You can’t be worn out already! A big strong, strapping young man like yourself... with your whole life ahead of you?”

“Not... if we keep... training like this,” I managed to gasp, which made him burst out into laughter. I would have taken a swing at him... but I doubt I could have connected. If I’d had the energy to even try.

Since the run in with The Kat and her hired hitman... the, um, Hitman... I’d decided to stop fighting fate. I kept running into these situations where I was forced to act the hero, so I figured I might as well embrace it. I’d started training with the sadistic Mr. and Mrs. Albinn. I’d started working out in my parents’ gym again. I’d even started going on patrols again with my sister at night. Part of it was a feeling of guilt, in not having spent a lot of time with her lately, and not being there when she needed me recently. And, well... part of it was that, frankly, I missed hanging out with her.

And I learned a lot from her. Katie may have been the younger sibling, but I was definitely her junior when it came to the whole crime fighting gig. She’s normally a bit ditzy... and sometimes kind of scatterbrained, but once she dons her costume and puts on her mask, she is all business. It was a pleasure watching her in action, kicking bad guy butt alongside her.

If only she could get the hang of the bantering thing. I’m a novice at it myself, but at least MY puns make sense.

“So, is it my turn then?” Veronica Albinn asked, politely, sticking her head into the room. I smirked, despite myself. Aunt Roni is old enough to be my mother... but, damn! In her early forties now, with a six year old daughter, she has the body of a twenty year old. Of course, considering her training regimen, it’s not surprising that she’s in such good shape. She is one seriously hot MILF... but the fact that she knows more than a hundred and fifty ways to kill a person unarmed is just a little bit if a turn off.

Parker walked over to his wife and kissed her lightly. “Give him a minute or two to catch his breath,” he chuckled. “The poor baby’s whining again.”

Roni rolled her eyes. “It’s because he’s still too out of shape. If he’d kept up with the workout routines like his sister, he could handle these little sessions with ease.”

I resisted the urge to grunt at her comment, and her husband wisely kept his own mouth shut. The former ninja assassin was notoriously known for her killer ‘workout sessions’ that would have made even the Marquis de Sade squeamish. Though he hardly looked it now, Parker had started off as a scrawny little bean pole, capable of holding his own in a fair fight, but nothing spectacular. After he’d temporarily lost his powers, he’d been forced to rely solely on his physical fighting prowess and strength to tackle criminals, or else hang up his costume for good. Veronica had trained him, and trained him well. For a while, he hadn’t thought he’d live through it, but he’d persevered. Now, he had a chest like Lex Lugor, arms like Hulk Hogan, and thighs like Suzanne Sommers.

You know, from the old Thighmaster ads.

Getting back to my feet, I rolled my neck to the left and right, popping my vertebrae. “Alright. I’m ready.” Or at least as ready as I can ever be for one of these sessions.

Which was, not at all. No sooner had I uttered the words than she sprang into action, leaping several feet into the air while simultaneously tossing a barrage of shuriken at my chest. I yelped, rolling to the side as several sharp blades thunked into the mat where I’d been lying seconds before. I slid to my feet, glancing in the direction of the attack, but, of course, Shinobi was already moving, sprinting quickly towards my left side. Her arm was bent to the side, and back, as if she was preparing to throw again, so I shifted to the balls of my feet, ready to spring away as needed, while I began drawing on my inner darkness, gathering it to me.

Where sessions with Parker focused primarily on the fundamentals of the different styles of fighting, sessions with Veronica focused on learning the limits of my powers. There was a lot I still didn’t know about my shadow tendrils, but I’d learned more than I had known before. They are a kind of dark energy, drawn from my life force. My essence. They are a part of me. Being intangible, other-dimensional energy, they lacks physical substance, so I can’t use them to deflect physical objects, like knives, or bullets... or in this case, expertly thrown shuriken. They did, however, interact in interesting ways with other types of energy.

Like true darkness, my tendrils absorbed and swallowed light. For years I’d believed that bright lights neutralized my darkness, but now I believed that it was simply my reaction to their brightness that dispersed my shadows, not the light itself. Indeed, the more I experimented with it, I found that with enough focus, concentration, and will, I could extend my darkness over an area of several meters, completely absorbing all light—with one small exception—within the area, rendering it pitch black. I called it my ‘blackout’ effect.

As I ran and ducked and dodged the seemingly nonstop barrage of blades and knives, I continued gathering my energy, even as I struck out at Shinobi with a pair of tendrils. She dodged them easily, sending a pair of small spikes at my chest in response. Coming at me center mass, I was out of position to avoid them, so I fell back, letting my knees go limp, pulling a Matrix-style back flip to avoid them. I grunted in pain as one of the blades clipped my cheek in passing, etching a thin line of blood with its wake. I gasped in shock, losing my concentration, and the dark energy I’d been gathering faded away.

“Shit!” I hissed, rolling over, glaring at my ‘instructor’. “When did we start using sharp implements? I thought we were using the blunt-edged round-tipped blades for this!”

“I changed the rules,” she answered with a smirk, drawing three very sharp throwing daggers from her sleeve. “You’re at a level now where you should be able to adapt and respond to this new threat. If this was a real fight, I’d have been using them from the beginning.” A flick of her wrist, and I barely managed to shift position enough to avoid being impaled. Fuck... my shirt was thrashed, cut and ripped in three places now. She merely smiled. “You need to stop taking these sessions so lightly, James. Attack and defend as if this were life and death... because you never know when you might find yourself in such a situation!”

Sighing, I drew in a bit of inner darkness and struck out at her again, this time splitting my focus equally, sending each tendril in a different direction. A look of surprise appeared on her face as she dodged, not so easily this time, and followed up with another barrage of bladed steel. I dodged and created two more tendrils, lashing out at her from the opposite direction. I thought for a moment that I had her... but she dropped flat at the last second, letting my attack sail over her head. Frustrating, yes, but I was merely gathering momentum. Deciding to play to my own strengths, I swooped down, grabbing the largest of her throwing knives, and reversing the grip, used it to block the next barrage of blades.

I was starting to find my rhythm now. I sent six tendrils at her, ducked, fired eight at her, blocked her counter attack, and followed up with ten more tendrils. All the while, my energy was gathering, bubbling up inside me, just under my skin, ready to be unleashed at just the right moment. If there was one thing I’d learned and taken to heart from my very first lesson, it was the value of strategy. I sent a rapid fire stream of tendrils after my attacker, directing her slowly, but surely towards the spot I wanted. My hands were beginning to sting from blocking so many projectiles—how the hell many throwing knives and shuriken could she possibly have hidden in her costume anyway?!?—but at long last I her backed into a literal corner.

“I think...” I said, breathing hard, “that I have you... right where I want you...”

She merely smiled, gesturing to the floor at my feet. “I could also say the same thing about you, James.” She made a show of withdrawing her katana from her sheath. I frowned slightly, noticing for the first time the forest of blades surrounding my position. The only clear spot of ground ran about two inches in any direction from where I was currently standing. If I moved, I’d trip, fall, and likely impale myself. Crap. Oh well, guess we’ll get to see who’s strategy was the winning one.

“Do you surrender, James?” she asked me, taunting, holding her blade at the ready. “You lasted much longer than the last few times... though I can’t quite call this a victory, however. A loss is still a loss.”

Giving her my best devil may cry grin, I gestured, forming about a dozen shadow tendrils around me. “I’m not the one who’s going to lose this time. Life and death, you said, remember? Besides,” I replied, gesturing to my ragged apparel, “you owe me a new shirt.”

Shinobi leaped, an impressive standing jump or more than five feet without a running start. I’d half expected it, and sent a barrage of tendrils straight at her. She saw it coming, floating helplessly in midair, and did what I would have believed impossible—changed direction in mid-jump. Twisting, thrusting her sword down into the ground, she kicked out with her foot, catching the hilt, and spring boarded off of it, leaping over the wall of tendrils I’d sent at her, and heading straight towards me with a flying kick.

NOW! I thought to myself, letting my built up energy explode outwards. The shadow tendrils I’d sent toward Shinobi split into hundreds, thousands, spreading out in all directions. The overhead lights flickered, their luminance being swallowed up in the sea of darkness spewing forth from me. In an instant the entire room was covered in darkness, black as pitch, and at that moment, I struck.

“Gotcha!” I yelled triumphantly, holding Shinobi’s limp form in shadow covered hands, fingers tingling slightly as the contact continued to drain her inner light. “Now, be a good little shadow puppet and say the words, ‘I surrender’ so we can end this session, and you can begin making it up to me for my torn shirt.”

“Uhgghnn... yyyeess,” she hissed softly, shuddering in my arms, as my darkness continued to leech her strength and her will. “I... ssurrrenderrr...”

“Good girl,” I said with a smirk, placing her gently back on her feet next to me as I withdrew my darkness, from her and the room. I winced slightly at the return of the light. Shinobi staggered back, momentarily dizzy, and her husband swooped in to keep her from falling. I grinned as the two ninja glanced at one another in surprise. “Now then... about my t-shirt...”

“No way!” Katie giggled. “You did NOT say that!”

“I did, I swear!” I replied, chuckling as well. “I tell you, sis... it was almost worth all those weeks of getting beaten up and thrashed just to see the looks on their faces.”

“Yeah, well, you still haven’t beaten Mr. Albinn yet,” she pointed out. “In an even fight, he’s pretty damn tough.”

“Yeah, well, that’s the thing. It will never be an ‘even fight’,” I said, making quotation marks with my fingers. “If I actually went all out and managed to connect, I’d snap him in half. So... I hold back, and he uses his speed to make up the difference in our strengths.” I grinned again. “Still, one good thing has come of my little upset the other day. They’ve both figured out what I’ve been thinking all along—that we need to come up with a new approach to my ‘training’. Starting tomorrow, we’re gonna start working on developing an entirely new style of fighting that best utilizes my strengths and minimizes my weaknesses.” I assumed a sumo wrestler pose, and stomped the ground with one foot, making Katie burst out into laughter again.

This was nice. It’s been years since Katie and I just sat around, joking with each other, talking about whatever was on our minds without feeling like we dancing around in a minefield. It helped things that she and Jessica were having an... estranged period at the moment. Not that I had anything against the girl myself. She’d always seemed to have a problem with me. Add to it that fact that she was causing my little sister emotional distress... well, since option ‘A’ of tossing her into the next county was out, I chose option ‘B’—acting as a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to cry on for Katie.

“God... stop making me laugh so hard,” she said after a moment, catching her breath. “You’re gonna make me fall off the building.”

“Yeah, as if that could even happen,” I retorted with a smirk. “You’re the one that can fly, remember? Besides.. it wasn’t that funny. You’re just an easy audience.”

“No, bro, you’re just that damned funny.” She smirked. “Or... was it funny LOOKING...”

“Alright! You asked for it!” I announced, grabbing her by the waist, digging in my fingers, tickling her silly. Katie yelled and screamed bloody murder, and I stopped instantly, clamping a hand over her mouth. “Geez, Katie Ann... try and reign it in a bit! We’re supposed to be on patrol, remember?” Her eyes widened, then narrowed as I laughed myself at her expression. I let her go, and she continued to glare at me for a moment or two more before she too started to laugh.

“Bastard,” she grumbled, punching me lightly in the arm.

“If I’m a bastard, that makes you a bitch,” I said cheekily, ducking as she swung again. “Besides, we both have the same dad. You know, the grumpy old guy with the salt and pepper beard that lives in our house?” She opened her mouth to make a comment, but stopped, turning to the side, peering down the edge of the building we were standing on. I went silent myself, dropping down to one knee, moving slowly and silently to the edge myself to have a look.

«What is it?» I asked silently, scanning the darkness, trying to see what had caught her attention.

«Not sure,» she answered back, gesturing with her chin towards the building diagonally across from our position. :Thought I saw something moving inside Mr. Brown’s liquor store just now...:

I frowned, focusing my attention on the front window of the store. My night vision was much better than Katie’s, and now that I had a target to focus my gaze on, I could clearly make out a single... no, two shadowy figures roaming around inside the locked building. I nodded slightly.

«Two of them. Wearing masks and dark clothing... and I think one of them has a gun.»

Katie grinned. «Looks like eating all those carrots as a kid paid off. C’mon,» she said silently, dropping over the edge of the building to the street far below. «Let’s go to work, big brother.»

“Show off,” I said softly, moving to the side of the building, grabbing the fire escape, and sliding smoothly down, landing next to her. “Alright, Luminaire... how do you want to handle this? Should we surround them, one in the front, one at the back? Or do you want to stick together?”

“Splitting up sounds good. We can cover both sides in case they try to rabbit.” She winced slightly at the term, but continued on. “I don’t think we should have any problems, but if something unexpected happens, just call out for me, okay... um...” She frowned. “So, um, what do I call you, anyway, bro? Calling you ‘Jimmy’ would defeat the whole purpose of you wearing a mask.”

I grunted, rolling my eyes. “’Bro’ will work for now. It’s taken me this long to get used to wearing a mask and this... ugh... costume you convinced me to put on.” I pulled lightly at the shiny black and silver spandex she’d talked me into wearing. I didn’t see a problem with the black shirt, black jeans, and black leather jacket I always wore... but when she’d pointed out, patiently, that because, I always wore it there was little to keep anyone from seeing me dressed that way during daylight hours from connecting me to my night time heroic self, I’d given in.

I just wasn’t quite ready to give myself a dorky name.

“I’ll head to the back,” Katie said, slipping past me to the alleyway between the buildings. “That big window gives them a good view of anyone moving towards the front, but your darkness powers will help conceal you far better than anything I could manage.”

I nodded, somewhat impressed. I was about to suggest the same thing, and the fact that she’d grasped the situation and made the same assessment only proved that she was born to the role of a super heroine. I... wasn’t so sure this was what I was meant to do, but I was certainly ready to give it the ol’ college try. Covering myself in darkness, I made my way towards the front of the store, sending a tendril up into the street light outside the store. My darkness neutralized the electrical current running through the lamp, shutting it down, temporarily. As the ambient darkness in the area increased, I made my way along the side of the building, cloaking myself in darkness. My clothes, already black, went raven, blending in perfectly with my skin, until the only things showing were my eyes, which were a ghostly white.

A quick glance through the window showed the robbers’ positions. One of them was loading money from the register and safe into a small sack, while the other guy played sentry. The guy with the money was no problem; even from outside the building, I could strike him with a few dozen shadow tendrils before he even had time to blink. The second guy worried me, however. He was carrying some kind of weapon, and I couldn’t see it from the way he was turned, but the brief glimpse I’d caught, it didn’t seem to be a normal hand gun. A number of Dad’s biggest contracts were for the government, from local law enforcement to big military contracts, and while he’d changed Frasier Industries’ focus from weaponry to defense, a large number of high power energy weapons based on his designs still occasionally turned up.

And I wasn’t very keen on finding out just how resistant I was to, say, a hi-energy plasma discharge.

I moved to the door, frowning to find it locked. Huh. Guess they must have come in through the back entrance. Grabbing the doorknob, I gave it a slow but steady twist, gritting my teeth slightly with the effort to snap the lock quietly. I let out a soft sigh as I felt the metal give way underneath my hand. Moving slowly again, ever so slowly, I opened the door, just a hair, and thankfully the hinges didn’t squeak. I was ready, in position to move in a moment’s notice once Luminaire made her move. The setup was perfect.

Okay... almost perfect.

A black cat let out a loud yowl from behind the garbage cans across from me as he leapt free, scattering several empty cans in the process. I groaned inwardly at the noise—the only way the robbers hadn’t heard the commotion would be if they were both stone deaf. And sure enough, seconds later, the man carrying the sack of cash ran to the door where I was standing, and peered out the window. His eyes scanned the alleyway, frowning... then her turned and stared right at me. “What the—” he uttered, taking a step back.

Oh well, no time like the present.

“Freeze, dirt bags!” I yelled out, kicking the door in. The first robber stumbled back and fell, barely dodging as the door tumbled in after him. Dropping the bag, he fumbled for his weapon, but I was already moving into the store by then. A simple fist to the face took out the first guy, and a pair of tendrils across the room stopped the second robber before he could bring his weapon up to bear. His eyes crossed, and a soft sigh escaped his lips as the gun tumbled to the floor from limp fingers. Heh. Not too shabby. Two birds with one stone. Now...as to what happened to my sister...

A blinding flash lit up the room, and I grunted, shielding my eyes from the glare. “Hold it right there, evil doers! I... oh,” Luminaire said, stepping in through the back entrance, dimming her glow back to tolerable levels. “Nice job, Jimmy... but you could have at least left one of them for me.”

“Well, where the heck where you, Luminaire?” I groused, crossing my arms. “You were supposed to lead the charge, and I was supposed to cover you. I was at my spot on time, waiting for you, when one of them spotted me.” I shrugged. “It was either let him use me for target practice, or head in. I even yelled out when I charged in, expecting you to be right on my tail.”

“Oh, yeah, about that,” she said with a sheepish grin. “Turns out this pair was actually a trio. They had a third guy in the back waiting in a car with the motor running. He spotted me soon as I entered the alley.” She grinned. “He put up a fight, just not much of one. So, when I heard a loud crash coming from the store, I rushed in to help. Not that you needed any, though.”

“Not with these guys. But, it could have been pretty bad,” I replied, moving over to my fallen friend. “Check out the hardware these guys were packing.” I picked up the gun and tossed it to Katie, who frowned. “I know. Hand held pulse gun, just like we’ve been finding all over the streets lately. Back in the day, it would be some maniacal mad scientist facing you down with something like this as part of some plot to hold the city for ransom. Now, we’ve got penny-ante thugs using them to rob liquor stores.”

“Yeah. Dad must be having a cow. It’s been months now and he still has no idea who hijacked that shipment, or how these things are ending up in the hands of low level crooks.” She gestured with her hands, and a stream of dazzling light shot forth, wrapping the would-be robbers in a tight cocoon of light.

“Must be nice to have your own built in restraints,” I commented, grabbing the trussed up criminals, and hauling them to the back entrance. “I ruined one of my favorite jackets using it to tie some guy up because I didn’t have any rope handy.”

“Yep, it comes in handy,” she said with a smirk, “and has... all sorts of uses.” She pointed a hand straight up and sent a pulse of light energy into the air, reforming into a glowing flashing arrow pointing straight down. “Okay. Cops should be here to pick up these guys in a few minutes. Wanna head over to Parkcenter and see if anything is going on?” I shrugged.

“Sure, sis,” I replied, heading out of the alleyway, back to the main road. “Why not? The night is young, and so are we.”