New Rival Chapter 1
Ashley arches her back, letting out a happy sigh as she exits the classroom. It’s nice to be done with her classes for the day. She was expecting to see Zoe again later today. They’d been talking over the past few weeks. Mostly it was her helping Zoe improve at hypnosis, and Ashley was proud of the progress she’d made. And it would be nice to experience how much she’d improved in person. As she’s heading out to meet Zoe, Ashley spotted Lily and waved her over.
“Hey, Zoe should be getting here soon. Want to go meet her with me?” Ashley asks as Lily makes her way over.
Lily nods. “Sure. It’ll be good to see her again. Can’t wait to see how she’s improved.”
“I’ve been helping her out quite a bit, and I know she’s spent a good amount of her free time practicing, but she hasn’t had anyone to practice on yet. So it could be a fun time.” Ashley responds as she and Lily make their way outside to wait for Zoe.
They only have to wait for a few minutes before spotting her. Ashley and Lily both wave her over with smiles on their faces.
“Ashey! Lily! It’s so good to see you again!” Zoe exclaims happily as she goes to them and hugs them both.
Ashley hugs her back tightly. “Good to see you too! How’s your hypnosis coming along?”
“I’m feeling pretty good about it, but I haven’t had any subjects to practice on yet,” Zoe responds blushing slightly.
Lily giggles at this. “Well, what are friends for if not that? Come on, let’s go.” She turns around, and Ashley and Zoe follow her, heading back to their room.
However, on their way up to their room, Ashley’s ears flick as they pick up a faint voice. It sounds like someone’s having fun in a hypnosis session. Well, it’s not like that’s uncommon at a hypnosis school, but it could be fun to listen in. “You guys keep going, I’ll catch up in a little bit.” She says. Zoe and Lily give her a weird look but shrug and continue heading to their room. Meanwhile, Ashley follows the voice. She’s not planning on barging into anyone’s room or anything, but there’s no harm in listening in. She’s able to make out the voice more clearly now.
“Following the pretty spiral for Mistress now. It’s so easy, feels so good. To drop deeper and deeper, doesn’t it?” the first voice goes on.
“yes… deeper for Mistress” a second voice, clearly deeply hypnotized, drones out.
Ashley reaches the door of the room the voices are coming from. Normally, they’re pretty well soundproofed (don’t want random voices from the hallways messing with people’s hypnosis) but this door was left slightly ajar, which is what let Ashley hear it.
“Such a good slave. Mistress’ plan is coming along quite well.” The first voice said.
Hmmm, that sounded like something interesting. Might be good to have Lily and Zoe here though. Ashley pulls out her phone and texts Lily. “I need help with something” and gives her the room number that she’s standing outside of. And then she fails her stealth check because as she tries to move away slightly from the door, she kicks a trash can she hadn’t noticed before. This normally wouldn’t alert anyone in their rooms, but the lack of soundproofing works both ways. The door swings wide open, revealing an elf holding an orb.
“How much did you hear?” She asks. Ashley opens her mouth to deny hearing anything, but the elf cuts her off. “It doesn’t matter, just look here.” She holds up the orb, and Ashley’s eyes are instinctively drawn to it. It flashes brightly and Ashley is left feeling… weird. She wanted to do something. To say something… But she couldn’t remember what…
“Uh…” Ashley says as she tries to collect her thoughts, but the orb flashes again, scattering them again.
“Just watch the pretty light. Let the flash fill your mind. Don’t think, just watch. Just obey my words.” The orb flashes again as a blank smile forms on Ashley’s face. She just needs to watch. Watch the pretty light.
“Ashley, what’s wrong?” Lily’s voice is heard just as she and Zoe come around the corner. Both of them see Ashley staring blankly at the elf and the orb in her hand. “What the—!”
The elf holds up the orb towards both of them. “Don’t worry about her, just watch.” But only a dim flare comes from the orb this time, nowhere near the blinding, mind-blanking flash from before. “Damn, out of mana.” The elf can tell she can’t win here. “Come now girl, into my room.” She retreats towards her room, pulling Ashley by the arm.
Ashley lets out a soft “yessss…” as she’s led towards the elf’s room.
“Ashley, wait, don’t go with her.” But Zoe’s words fall on deaf ears. Those words didn’t come from the elf, so they didn’t matter to Ashley. Lily and Zoe rush towards her, but the door closes, and the lock clicks. Zoe pulls on the knob, but the door doesn’t budge.
“It’s no use. Once it’s locked, you can’t pull it open. I know there’s a spell that can open it, but I’ll have to look up the specifics. You get in trouble if you bypass the locks like that, but I don’t think we have a choice.” Lily grimaces, not liking the idea of leaving Ashley in the hands of that elf, but she knows there’s nothing they can do. Zoe shares these feelings but agrees that they need to regroup and prepare to be able to get Ashley back. The two of them reluctantly head back to their room.
Meanwhile, inside the elf’s room, Ashley is still happily blank and mindless. “Now girl, tell me your name and who your two friends are.”
“I’m Ashley… Friends are Lily and Zoe… They’re good friends” Ashley drones out.
The elf puts her hand on her chin. “Will your friends try to save you? Can you stop them if they do?”
Ashley nods sleepily. “They’ll probably try to save me…I have triggers… to drop both of them.”
The elf nods, apparently satisfied. “Well Ashley, if you ever see either of your friends, Lily and Zoe again, you will drop them into trance and bring them to me, your Mistress. Do you understand slave?”
Ashley gives another nod. “Slave understands… Drop Lily and Zoe… bring them to Mistress.”
“Good slave. Now wait there while I make a call.” The elf pulls out a phone and holds it up to her ear. “Yes, I have something to report.” She listens, and her posture slumps for a moment before straightening out again. “Yes Mistress,” The elf says in a mindless tone now. “A girl heard me talking about your plans. I had to enslave her. Her friends saw. Will probably come to save her. It should be taken care of.” She listens again. “Yes Mistress, slave will bring the three of them to you when they’re all under control.” Awareness returns to her as she puts her phone away. “Well, slave. Mistress is letting me have some fun with you while we wait for your friends.”
Ashley’s sleepy, blank smile grows wider. “Yes, Mistress.”