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LAST TIME ON THE SERIALISED ADVENTURES OF VINE

Our intrepid heroine got herself into Trouble after arranging a meeting with a representative of the Sinister Megacorproation, Stamford Inc. While trying to work out information sharing, she was maliciously hypnotised by the Evil henchman. BUT, just in the nick of time, a plucky vigilante named Fungus saved her with some Mushroomy Antics! Now, the pair run through the streets of London, hoping to escape the inevitable pursuit of the Stamford thugs!

Central London - 19:06

It was probably for the best that she wasn't actually running, Vine thought. She was dressed for charm, not for practicality, and her heels were just a bit too high to be comfy to move at any pace faster than a brisk walk. But their escape was more a matter of weaving through the crowds of a weekend in Tower Hill then speed.

Even so, she should have known better than to not bring her retractable combat stilettos.

It was also a bit vexing that she was being literally led by the hand by her saviour. On its own, that would be kind of romantic, and Vine was not so above it all that she wouldn't swoon for that. But her saviour wasn't a knight in shining armour. He was a scruffy kid in an Adidas hoodie, trackies, and worn-out trainers.

As a bisected red circle sign passed over the heads of the crowd and through Vine's peripheral vision, she blurted out, "Hey why did we just pass the station?"

"District line's bare slow. Nonces could catch us at the platform." The kid didn't even turn around to answer her. His eyes were always forward.

Vine decided it wasn't worth questioning whether the goons were actually also sex criminals as she ducked out of the way of another three-abreast line of people. At least both she and the kid were small enough to do this sort of thing, she thought. "They wouldn't attack us in front of all these people, we'd be fine."

"And if they do anyway? Not many plants 'round the tube, are they? And they clean 'em up in Zone 1, too. No decaying stuff for me to get my 'shroom on. We'd be going pure mano-e-mano. Allow that." He ended the discussion with an aggressive shrug, and yanked her forward.

"Alright, fine. Where are we going, then?"

"Only place no-one right in the head would follow." That time he did turn around, his dreads bouncing happily as he gave a gleeful smile which hid years of Londoner pain behind it.

Vine thought through the city map. She thought of things more in terms of the parks, but she had a general idea where the tube lines were. They were heading away from the river and into the centre, up from the Tower... Towards Bank. And Monument.

"Oh fuck."

They were going somewhere that no person with a choice should ever go.

Central Line. On a Friday night.

It was just way too hot. The churning masses of human flesh, normally dispersed safely throughout Greater London, all squashed like livestock into carriages built before the advent of such civilised advancements as air conditioning.

But, despite the uncomfortably close quarters, the Central Line did have one benefit. It was also incredibly loud. Like, even the people right next to Vine and her new 'friend' wouldn't be able to hear them over the roar of the train being echoed off the reinforced walls of the underground railway. She didn't need to lean in, their bodies were already pushed up against each other. If the kid was flustered, he didn't show it.

Vine wasn't sure if she was relieved or insulted by that.

"So who actually are you?"

"I'm Fungus."

"And why were you there in the restaurant?"

"One of your mates told Kinesis you were finna do something stupid. Man was busy, so he sent me. What the 'ell were you playin' at anyway?"

Needless to say, being chewed out by a scruffy teen on the Central line was not how she was expecting her infiltration plan to go. "Look, I had it under control-"

"Allow the lies, bruv. You were eyefuckin' the Stamford lad."

"Yeah, I expected them to send a hypnotist for a known superheroine who tried to negotiate with them. And yes, I was going into trance when you stopped him."

"Being mind-controlled is peak for a superheroine, innit?"

"Yes, but less so for me. I have had..." Vine hoped the blush which always came to her face when this topic came up didn't show up in the artificial light of the carriage. "Many experiences with that sort of thing. It's to the point that my brain is significantly more malleable than most. I slip very easily into trance-"

"Mate! Why are you still out on the streets then? Retire innit?"

"Not so fast - because I also come out of it a lot easier than anyone else I know in the business. They would get me to tell them stuff, but faster than they would ever realise I'd be snapped back to normal, feeding them misinformation and learning stuff. I'm sure the big evil corporations have a lot looser lips around people they think they control." Vine nodded. "The mask always slips, Fungus."

There were other reasons that Vine had settled on a plan which involved her getting temporarily mind-controlled. But Vine had been steadfast in avoiding any consideration that they had been the deciding factor in her going with this course of action. Plus, they weren't exactly going to be convincing to the kid, so she tactically avoided bringing them up at all.

Fungus, for his part, did not seem interested in engaging with Vine's completely reasonable position. He just shook his head in slightly-affected exasperation. As much as he was trying to make it look like he didn't care, she could tell this was a good kid at heart, especially if he was part of Kinesis' crew. He was probably just worried about her.

"Fuckin' 'ell, lady. That's bare risky. And you're still spilling stuff to the corpo-pigs, aren't you?"

"I would have, though you stopped me before the plan could progress." He did not look the least bit perturbed by that. Kids are always so sure they're right, though, Vine knew. "But while Stamford are nasty, they don't have much presence in London, and frankly I don't have much intel about operations further north that they could act on. MI6 would be able to clean up after anything I did let slip, and I'd still have a lot of stuff to pass on which they can act on."

Fungus threw his head back in a sigh, almost headbutting the commuter behind him and whacking another with a stray dread. "Great, so you're relying on the pig-pigs to take care of the corpo-pigs..."

A West London Suburb - 19:40

Isla could hear footsteps. Not the steps of her bare feet as she paced around the small, empty room out of pure boredom. Hurried footsteps. Booted footsteps. Many footsteps.

"Fucking Brits!" She swore in Spanish as the rushed to slip on shoes. They wouldn't do a lot, but any protection was better than nothing. If this was a raid, she'd have to fight her way out.

Isla had been hired, in her capacity as the superheroine Congregation, by the British government to help root out a major new cartel in Glasgow. The idea was that she was going to be the forward scout, which did put her at risk. But the money had been good, and she'd even had a stay in a safehouse tonight before heading up to Scotland the next day.

She already had her doubts when she saw the safehouse. It was literally just a terraced house on a long line of red brick buildings in a long line of identical streets. Hidden in plain sight, she supposed. And it was serious once she was inside. Double reinforced doors, bulletproof windows with purely cosmetic hinges (though now that meant she couldn't slip out through the window).

So now she was trapped in this concrete and brick cage, waiting for whoever it was who was sweeping the lower floor to find her.

Alone, she couldn't fight what sounded like at least seven people. All of whom were probably armed. Congregation had nothing, even on government payroll she wasn't allowed to bring weapons into the UK, and she'd pick up the La Profesora gadgets in Scotland.

So, yeah, she was cornered.

Or she would have been.

The bad guys probably had a tip about a lone superheroine. But they must not have got the full intel, because Congregation was never alone.

She closed her eyes, focusing on the two heroines who were going to meet up with her at Heathrow in the morning for the mission. This was the manoeuvre she was going to do once she'd scouted out the cartel anyway. They knew exactly what to expect.

And what they were expecting, though not this soon, was a sonorous tone at the back of their heads. Like the bell of a cathedral and the whisper of a friend sounding as one.

Congregation opened her eyes, shining golden light on the bare wall of her room. With an ethereal chime, the air shifted as it was displaced by the arrival of two new bodies.

Both were more muscular than Isla - MI6's main combat team, it would appear. Hansoo didn't wear the dobok which was her superheroine outfit, but the tank top she had been wearing at home still showed off her biceps (and her ample chest), and Congregation was aware that beneath her sweatpants her legs were even more powerful. To her side, the blonde, ponytailed Viper was more lithe, and also already wearing pyjamas - but she didn't need any combat gear, one slash of her venomous nails could take down any goon.

Neither of them said anything. Congregation was very used to snarky comments about being too early, angry reprisals for dragging people away from dinner, or even just gruff, professional acknowledgements. But now, in this empty room, there was nothing.

She waved a hand in front of Viper's face. No response.

"Oh... fuck!" She cursed again. She stood on tiptoes to check Hansoo's eyes.

They were dull, slightly crossed, and the irises were marked by a faint, ever swirling spiral. Congregation, of course, immediately tore her gaze away with an effort of angry will. As she moved her eyes, she did notice a faint, docile smile on the lips of the martial arts heroine. To the side, Viper teetered slightly, a far dopier grin on her face. A little drool was already falling on to the grey carpet.

"Fuck... shit... motherfuckers..." Congregation always found swearing helped her focus her mind. And she needed focus right now.

Footsteps were still coming, but she was a superheroine. She couldn't leave these two, compromised as they were, open to the crossfire.

She slowly brought Viper to lie down on the floor. It wasn't hard, since the blonde heroine simply didn't have any resistance in her body and allowed herself to be moved to lie flat on the carpet. Hansoo, too, while not as visibly out of it was still basically a living doll, and was perfectly compliant with being lowered to the floor.

But with her hand on the floor, she felt the house vibrate with heavy steps. Coming upstairs. The home invaders must have heard the chiming sound of her power, and sent someone upstairs to look.

She moved across the floor, sliding her limbs to minimise noise and putting herself, back against the wall, right beside the doorframe.

The wall shook as a man made his way to her position.

She waited until she heard a "Huh?" and saw a foot move across the threshold.

Her leg kicked out, just under where she expected the man's knee to be, and threw an arm through the doorway, hoping to hook around his head for leverage.

She did get a hold, but he was shorter than she thought. Instead of toppling over, his knees just bent at her push.

She got a good look at him, he was wearing light body armour, possibly kevlar, with a mask shaded like sunglasses and something like a pistol from a sci-fi film on his belt. That was good, she was still definitely not going to be as strong as him, but people with a weapon would focus on the weapon, so she could still get the upper hand.

Before he got over his shock at walking in on two 'sleeping' women and another woman trying to trip him, Congregation stepped back.

The man's head tilted slightly. She couldn't see his eyes, but she saw enough to know she was being sized up. She raised a protective hand in the direction of Viper and Hansoo, slightly involuntarily, but it gave the impression of a damsel in distress well enough.

The invader raised his pistol-contraption. He flicked something on its main body, and electric blue lights started to ignite, going from the back of the muzzle to the front. He put his other arm on his gun arm, steadying his aim.

Congregation rushed forwards, eyes off the gun. Looking straight at him.

She called to him.

He wouldn't answer, but he would hear it.

And the ringing of a supernatural bell would be enough to disorient anyone, even if he had been expecting it (Congregation hadn't the time to think that question through).

She gripped his wrist, she twisted. She turned the fully charged weapon on him.

Electricity arced from the barrel. She placed his prone form beside the entranced heroines.

There were at least five more downstairs. And she didn't know how much charge these stun pistols had.

Central London - 19:31

"Lemme get this straight. You actually trust the piggies?" Fungus' hushed tone did little to hide the derision only a young person could produce. They were once again ducking between the crowds to change lines - once they'd done it enough they would almost certainly lose their pursuers, unless they were being followed unrealistically closely.

"Well, no, I don't trust the police at all, obviously. But I do trust the MI6 Metahumans Division."

"Riiight so the bacon is bad, but the spooks are sound?"

"I mean, yeah. They're the only force co-ordinating superheroic activity in Britain. You probably weren't active when we were organising stuff through the Council, were you?" Vine waited until Fungus had given a noncommittal shrug. "It was basically chaos, we never got anything done when we had to decide stuff amongst ourselves. The government provides threat assessment, and the pure resources we need to maintain secret identities, and just to make a living."

"Sounds ace, but it ain't what's happening. Cops are always gonna protect the state and capital. Tying yourselves up with those wankers just means you're not gonna protect the right peeps. Thanks to 'threat assessment'." Fungus punctuated the last words with aggressive air quotes before he hopped onto the next train.

"You're not seriously saying that the supers working with MI6 aren't protecting people, are you?" Vine scoffed, slightly louder than she needed to be on the tube. But at this point anyone rude enough to actually listen (and who didn't have headphones on the tube anyway?) would assume it was a spirited debate about, rather than by superheroes. She hoped.

"Oh yeah, you protect bare people from scary brown criminals. But the corpos? The mobs that have the state as their bitch? You're doing nothing about those."

An uncomfortable image shot through Vine's mind. A single woman, failed by the system and driven to lashing out pyrokinetically against the rich and powerful. Three metahumans brought in to take her down, watching as she was bundled into a police van. Kinesis had said they didn't let him see her again before he went off the grid.

But it wasn't like they had any choice.

"And little vigilantes like you are going to take down the evil megacorporations?" Vine's voice was more barbed than it needed to be, but she was honestly quite proud of herself she managed to keep it quiet. "Sure, I would've liked to hit out more at the big leagues, but I don't honestly believe that people like Agent Birch are avoiding those confrontations because they're scared of upsetting capital. It's a matter of preparation, not control."

Two dark eyes rolled with the exaggerated sarcasm of British youth. "Sure, sure. Just gotta wait until the spooks are ready to bang 'em. Totally gonna happen."

"Look, I don't like waiting either. Why do you think I took action unilaterally tonight? But this whole shambles proves a point. We need a co-ordinating force to take on the big leagues. If we act alone, we get in each other's way and we end up just giving up intel with no gain."

"'Get in each other's way' is a weird way to say 'I got saved from my barmy plan by Fungus here', love."

Vine just made an ugh sound of frustration and turned around to focus intently on the map of the Victoria line above her.

A West London Suburb - 19:42

Congregation was up against armed force, in far greater number than her. It was also probably not a coincidence that the two closest superheroines were in a clearly hypnotised daze.

She wasn't going to get another ambush, and she didn't want to be surrounded. If she was going to get out of this alive, she would need some way to stop their force multiplier. Some way to take them down one by one, and reload her stun-gun if needed.

She pulled a cord hanging from the ceiling and jumped back as the ladder made a loud thunk against the floor.

Well, they were going to come after her anyway.

She climbed up to the attic, and pulled the ladder up behind her.

The only light in the wood-paneled space came from a small window. Just like every other one in the house, it wasn't a viable escape route, but at least it meant she wouldn't bang her head on some beams while she prepared her last stand. It was simple: the second the trapdoor opened, she would get into firing stance, and stun whoever came up, take their sidearm if possible, and keep doing that until all her pursuers were down or she messed up and got erased.

Or the third option, she could last long enough to get a link to someone else. She was already reaching out, visualising the other superheroes and heroines she knew were active in the UK. Superia, Smite, the Gentleman. She wasn't an expert on North European geography, so she hedged her bets that maybe Denmark was closer than wherever those Brits were and also started to reach towards Vulksdottr.

She was cornered, but the adrenaline stopped her thinking about it. Her superpower only took a fraction of her consciousness to use, so the rest of her mind cast about for any stimulus.

In the sunset light of the street below, she saw two lorries marked with a bear-head logo. Stamford Inc. The name rung a bell, but she was more concerned with the quartet of people drawing some weird shapes in chalk on the tarmac. They were wearing some strange combination of lab coats and monk robes.

"Miss Lewis, send medical support up for Jancowski. The cub has teeth."

The voice from the landing below prevented any further thought. The adrenaline sharpened her senses. Congregation stood, her body full of tense energy, her eyes locked on to the trapdoor.

Light came up from below. Congregation took a deep breath. Am arm pulled a tall, but not especially strong-looking, man up into the attic.

Her finger squeezed, the room shined with blue light.

The man was still stood there. He didn't wear body armour, instead only a perfectly fitted suit. Perfect except for one arm which seemed to have been ripped apart.

She pulled the trigger again. This time she saw. His right arm, in an instant, bulged. Muscles erupted from beneath the skin, and as they did the skin became covered in a dark brown fur. Claws shone in the electric light. The huge arm completely blocked the lance of stunning electricity, and then returned to normal. One more squeeze, and nothing happened, she was out of ammo.

"Did you honestly think I would give my minions weapons that could hurt me, Congregation. Still, I'll have to take the suit repair out of your wages, you caught me by surprise. Good reactions." He winked and his handsome face came into focus.

She recognised him . He didn't give her any chance to acknowledge that.

"Tell me, Isla." She stepped back involuntarily as he said her real name, but he closed the distance with a stride forwards. "Have you heard of the battle of Stamford Bridge?"

She shook her head wordlessly. The only thought in her head was: "Is he really monologuing? I'll have chance to call in the cavalry..."

"Of course, I doubt it's relevant to you Iberians. In any case, Harald, the last Viking king of Norway had sailed to England to claim the crown. But the Saxon king had forced his peasant army to march across the country to head him off. Harald was stuck between Saxon spears and the unforgiving sea."

The blonde, suited villain paced. Congregation sounded the bells of her power in her mind.

"They made their stand at Stamford Bridge. The chronicles say a single berserker stood on the bridge and cut down tens of Saxons. Gave his comrades chance to don their armour. Do you know what the Saxons did, though, against this brave, cornered warrior?"

Congregation's eyes glowed golden, illuminating the man in an ironic halo. She had sent out her message. Soon four superheroes would be here to take him down.

"They cheated, Isla. A single Saxon warrior swam under the bridge and, to hear the monks tell it, skewered the berserker right up the arse. The lesson here, my dear, is that no matter how brave you are. No matter how powerful you are, once you're cornered, your enemies will always find a way to defeat you. Once you're cornered, you've already lost."

She took no notice of the man. Her eyes, back to their normal colour, cast about the room. Four showers of golden dust should have appeared by now. Or at least one or two. The reinforcements should have arrived.

The villain raised his left hand to his ear and spoke into his phone. "The grid appears to have been a success, Lewis. This is the third heroine it's worked on today. If I remember my high school science, three times is all the proof we need that it's working perfectly, correct?"

"That's not quite how replicability works, Mast-" The female voice on the other end of the phone was cut off as he ended the call and started to swipe at the screen.

"Enough from my old minions, Isla. Let's talk about you."

He smiled. Congregation stepped back. She didn't have words. She could barely breathe.

"Just so you know, I'm going to let Viper and Hansoo go. You're the one I'm interested in today, I only have so many resources to cover up kidnappings, you know. And I have to say, I'm so glad I finally got inside information about superheroine movements. You're going to be so helpful for my company."

He turned the phone to face her. The screen was filled with scintillating, shifting lights. A mosaic of constantly changing colour which seemed brighter than anything else in the room.

She couldn't look away.

Central London - 19:45

After a mostly circular trip on the tube, the two heroes now walked at a brisk pace through quieter London streets. Now that there was no crowd they were fairly sure they weren't being followed.

"Anyway, the other issue with the old democratic Council model was that it was really easy for mind controlling villains to infiltrate it. There were a lot of times where there only needed to be one hypnotised heroine who would get a couple more, and then that was a villain completely deprioritised. Or worse, puppeteering the council against their rival villains. We don't get that with MI6, the decision making is so so diffused through the command structure, and dispersonal, that even if an Agent did get brainwashed, they couldn't actually change any plans." Now there was no-one to listen in, Vine was on a slightly more typical fast-talking, animated screed. Fungus was enduring it. Actually, by his smile, Vine thought that he was enjoying getting to debate stuff with a real superheroine.

"Bare cool. Impersonal decision making. Hope that doesn't lead to any bad shit. Like, I dunno, fuckin' spycops? Your spook friends are totally trustworthy though, innit?"

"Okay yeah I don't trust a lot of the state apparatus but the Metahumans Division has never done anything like that in my experience. If they had, I would have got the hell out. I don't think they're going to be turning me to undercover union-busting any time soon, mate." Sure, if you started from bad faith it looked bad, but Vine was really tiring of the kid's cynicism.

"Sure, they haven't done anything bad that you're aware of. How's Sobia, by the way?"

Fungus was friends with Kinesis, of course he'd know about her. And about how none of them knew what had happened to her. Vine stopped walking for a second. "Okay, yeah, I don't know what's happened to her, but I'm sure there is a good explanation. Or, at worst, there has been some serious incompetence on the Agents' end. They've given me no reason to believe that they're malicious."

"No reason apart from over a century of bacon history?"

"The spooks are not the pigs, Fungus. I trust these ones. These very specific ones."

He spat into the pavement. Vine shrugged. There was no point arguing more about this. Besides, she had other concerns now.

"Where exactly are we doing, anyway? We're in Westminster, right? Don't tell me you want to attack New Scotland Yard directly or some nonsense."

"Nah, allow that. I'm taking you to our ends. We're meeting the mandem."

"You guys hang around in Westminster?"

He flashed her a cheeky grin. "Aldwych station. We're running a vigilante operation right under the pigs' noses. Sound, innit?"

"Aldwych...?" Vine was London-born, but her tube expertise had atrophied since gaining powers which really required her head to stay above the ground. She couldn't think why a specific tube station would be a good base for a group of renegade superhumans.

"It's an abandoned station. Closed it down years ago 'cause no-one used it. They do tours of it, but they never find us."

"Oh, that's pretty clever actually. You can use the abandoned tunnels to get pretty far, I imagine?"

"Yeah, right up to Green Park or into the City. Great for catching the people your porky friends don't wanna mess with." He ducked under an iron railing and beckoned for Vine to follow to a brick wall. Then he pushed at a few bricks in a well-rehearsed pattern. A low grinding sound heralded the opening of a secret door, and beyond the threshold there was only darkness.

"Okay so why am I meeting the gang, exactly? You know I work for the spooks, right?"

"Sure, but you're our mate. Well, Kinesis' mate anyway. And you're not gonna snitch on a brother, are you?"

He was annoying, but being annoying wasn't a crime. Vigilante justice was a crime, but not the sort Vine was particularly willing to call in. "I owe you one."

"I was expectin' a bit more solidarity, love."

He walked forward, and bioluminescent mushrooms started to grow out of the stinking material on the walls of the disused passage. His thin silhouette looked creepy enough to even be a bit intimidating.

"Anyway, you're on the run now, you need digs. You're a bit useless, but we still look after people in need. Even if they're not one of us."

"Hey I told you I had a pla-"

He cut her off with a patronising 'shh' gesture as they climbed down an old service staircase.

The teen gestured to an archway at the bottom, where artificial light spilled out into the cylindrical stairway.

"Welcome to the London Underground, Vine."

A West London Suburb - 19:45

"Think of it as a noble sacrifice, if you like. The death of your free will buys freedom for your incapacitated colleagues downstairs." The villain's voice was calm and measured. It had a standard posh British cadence, but Isla could also hear some sort of accent there. Not one she could place, though.

She knew she was trapped. Her eyes were locked open, completely fixated on a barrage of colourful, curved lines on the man's phone screen. She could still move her body, but in slow, stopping motions. She couldn't fight her way out.

Even if she could, she probably wouldn't. The man was dangerous, and the threat he posed to Viper and Hansoo was clear as day. She didn't trust that he would let the two prone heroines downstairs go free if she submitted, but if she fought they would definitely be in trouble.

Congregation would not risk getting people she summoned into her fight in trouble. That was her one rule. The one thing that she always anchored her will by.

But now she could feel her will slipping away. Like an anchor being pulled out to sea by the tide, she felt her grip on her own thoughts loosen.

He had a point, this was a sacrifice. She was letting go of her will on purpose. She was willingly submitting to him. She could probably just let go now, pull up the anchor herself and fall into the deep ocean of the colours.

She forced that thought away, it was surely brought on by the spiral.

The facts were that she was trapped, and was currently entranced and being slowly broken by a hypnotic device. She was well and truly cornered, but she knew as a heroine she could not give up. Even with her power unbelievably not working, her stolen weapon useless, and her own eyes uncooperative, she knew there would be some way to think of a way out.

The first option was to use her powers to call out to herself. That would cause her to dematerialise then rematerialise immediately in a golden glow. The glow would counteract the photons of the spiralling video, and forcing her eyes to teleport should have been able to break the lock it had on her gaze. But it didn't work, her powers simply refused to co-operate now.

She thought more deeply, ignoring the villain's voice.

He had definitely appeared on the intel file she'd read on the plane from Barcelona...

That was it, he was Hardrade. A supervillain who could turn himself into a huge, basically prehistoric bear. That would explain the resistance to the electricity, his ursine form would have simply insulated against it. He was also the head of a fairly standard villainous megacorporation. Activies, according to the file, were pretty standard - land expropriation, weapons manufacturing, drug trade and human trafficking.

Apparently he was also in the superheroine brainwashing business, which had not been on the file.

He was also, apparently, very good at it.

She felt a small smile come to her open lips. There was comfort in that. A company that large, which could find out about a single superheroine entering the country and ambush her, knew what it was doing. It would be able to take care of her, at least.

And Hardrade was clearly an impressive man. He came to take her personally. After one of his men went down, he didn't throw any more at her, he simply fought her himself because he was powerful enough to easily neutralise her.

Sure, he was a bit rude to that minion on the phone, but that just showed he was authoritative. He didn't have time for excess information and did not tolerate any talk that he didn't need to hear. He would keep a strict control over her, but that just meant she wouldn't need to put as much effort into thinking.

That was good, thinking was getting hard. Even if it was good things about her new Master.

She nodded blankly to herself. She had admitted it. Her new Master. She had been outmatched, outplanned and outgunned. He had claimed total victory over her. Now her final resistance was being wiped away by his beautiful technology, and she would be ready to do as she was told.

Congregation would serve this supervillain. She would obey his orders.

She didn't like that too much. She appreciated his confidence and submitted to his power, but it wasn't a nice feeling to know she would be used as a pawn in the schemes of an evil man.

But she couldn't help but think he wasn't that bad.

His superpower was to turn into a bear. There could be a lot worse things. He didn't shoot energy beams that leveled buildings. He didn't emit deadly pheromone gas. He couldn't reshape the earth to destroy entire cities. He could just protect himself and his servants in a powerful physical form.

Actually, it was kind of cute. He was a handsome, intimidating presence now. But he could turn into a bear. All furry and round and actually quite soft on the surface of all that powerful muscle.

She could imagine herself cuddling into his fur as she fell down into sleep.

She was actually, right now, falling down into sleep.

Her eyes were heavy. She could almost feel the tufts of soft hair under her arms as she squeezed it closer to her skin. She couldn't see the spiral any more. She couldn't see. Because her eyes were closed.

She had given up.

He had won.

She obeyed.

-----

Once again experimenting with the form of the Vine stories, this time trying to emulate what you might see on a superhero tv show, with an A and B plot linked only vaguely thematically. So, this time, while Vine argues with a child about the police state, a new character (who you might have seen cameo in a previous meme story ;D) gets brainwashed by the villain. Do you only care about the second part? Too bad, we have plot to do!

After 5.5k words I thought I would have more to say but I don't really. Hope the experiment works out!

FWIW, Fungus is meant to be cast as Lil Nas X, but I haven't put in the effort to find a pic where he looks more 'roadman' than 'fruity', so there's no reference pic for him.

Finally, thanks again to Dormiria for tireless effort on proofreading and other work spreading the word of Kpop Hypno. He tried to convince me to put in a Fungus Glossary, by the way, but I've decided that if you don't grok the Roadman Speak then that's a you problem

Description

LAST TIME ON THE SERIALISED ADVENTURES OF VINE

Our intrepid heroine got herself into Trouble after arranging a meeting with a representative of the Sinister Megacorproation, Stamford Inc. While trying to work out information sharing, she was maliciously hypnotised by the Evil henchman. BUT, just in the nick of time, a plucky vigilante named Fungus saved her with some Mushroomy Antics! Now, the pair run through the streets of London, hoping to escape the inevitable pursuit of the Stamford thugs!

Central London - 19:06

It was probably for the best that she wasn't actually running, Vine thought. She was dressed for charm, not for practicality, and her heels were just a bit too high to be comfy to move at any pace faster than a brisk walk. But their escape was more a matter of weaving through the crowds of a weekend in Tower Hill then speed.

Even so, she should have known better than to not bring her retractable combat stilettos.

It was also a bit vexing that she was being literally led by the hand by her saviour. On its own, that would be kind of romantic, and Vine was not so above it all that she wouldn't swoon for that. But her saviour wasn't a knight in shining armour. He was a scruffy kid in an Adidas hoodie, trackies, and worn-out trainers.

As a bisected red circle sign passed over the heads of the crowd and through Vine's peripheral vision, she blurted out, "Hey why did we just pass the station?"

"District line's bare slow. Nonces could catch us at the platform." The kid didn't even turn around to answer her. His eyes were always forward.

Vine decided it wasn't worth questioning whether the goons were actually also sex criminals as she ducked out of the way of another three-abreast line of people. At least both she and the kid were small enough to do this sort of thing, she thought. "They wouldn't attack us in front of all these people, we'd be fine."

"And if they do anyway? Not many plants 'round the tube, are they? And they clean 'em up in Zone 1, too. No decaying stuff for me to get my 'shroom on. We'd be going pure mano-e-mano. Allow that." He ended the discussion with an aggressive shrug, and yanked her forward.

"Alright, fine. Where are we going, then?"

"Only place no-one right in the head would follow." That time he did turn around, his dreads bouncing happily as he gave a gleeful smile which hid years of Londoner pain behind it.

Vine thought through the city map. She thought of things more in terms of the parks, but she had a general idea where the tube lines were. They were heading away from the river and into the centre, up from the Tower... Towards Bank. And Monument.

"Oh fuck."

They were going somewhere that no person with a choice should ever go.

Central Line. On a Friday night.

It was just way too hot. The churning masses of human flesh, normally dispersed safely throughout Greater London, all squashed like livestock into carriages built before the advent of such civilised advancements as air conditioning.

But, despite the uncomfortably close quarters, the Central Line did have one benefit. It was also incredibly loud. Like, even the people right next to Vine and her new 'friend' wouldn't be able to hear them over the roar of the train being echoed off the reinforced walls of the underground railway. She didn't need to lean in, their bodies were already pushed up against each other. If the kid was flustered, he didn't show it.

Vine wasn't sure if she was relieved or insulted by that.

"So who actually are you?"

"I'm Fungus."

"And why were you there in the restaurant?"

"One of your mates told Kinesis you were finna do something stupid. Man was busy, so he sent me. What the 'ell were you playin' at anyway?"

Needless to say, being chewed out by a scruffy teen on the Central line was not how she was expecting her infiltration plan to go. "Look, I had it under control-"

"Allow the lies, bruv. You were eyefuckin' the Stamford lad."

"Yeah, I expected them to send a hypnotist for a known superheroine who tried to negotiate with them. And yes, I was going into trance when you stopped him."

"Being mind-controlled is peak for a superheroine, innit?"

"Yes, but less so for me. I have had..." Vine hoped the blush which always came to her face when this topic came up didn't show up in the artificial light of the carriage. "Many experiences with that sort of thing. It's to the point that my brain is significantly more malleable than most. I slip very easily into trance-"

"Mate! Why are you still out on the streets then? Retire innit?"

"Not so fast - because I also come out of it a lot easier than anyone else I know in the business. They would get me to tell them stuff, but faster than they would ever realise I'd be snapped back to normal, feeding them misinformation and learning stuff. I'm sure the big evil corporations have a lot looser lips around people they think they control." Vine nodded. "The mask always slips, Fungus."

There were other reasons that Vine had settled on a plan which involved her getting temporarily mind-controlled. But Vine had been steadfast in avoiding any consideration that they had been the deciding factor in her going with this course of action. Plus, they weren't exactly going to be convincing to the kid, so she tactically avoided bringing them up at all.

Fungus, for his part, did not seem interested in engaging with Vine's completely reasonable position. He just shook his head in slightly-affected exasperation. As much as he was trying to make it look like he didn't care, she could tell this was a good kid at heart, especially if he was part of Kinesis' crew. He was probably just worried about her.

"Fuckin' 'ell, lady. That's bare risky. And you're still spilling stuff to the corpo-pigs, aren't you?"

"I would have, though you stopped me before the plan could progress." He did not look the least bit perturbed by that. Kids are always so sure they're right, though, Vine knew. "But while Stamford are nasty, they don't have much presence in London, and frankly I don't have much intel about operations further north that they could act on. MI6 would be able to clean up after anything I did let slip, and I'd still have a lot of stuff to pass on which they can act on."

Fungus threw his head back in a sigh, almost headbutting the commuter behind him and whacking another with a stray dread. "Great, so you're relying on the pig-pigs to take care of the corpo-pigs..."

A West London Suburb - 19:40

Isla could hear footsteps. Not the steps of her bare feet as she paced around the small, empty room out of pure boredom. Hurried footsteps. Booted footsteps. Many footsteps.

"Fucking Brits!" She swore in Spanish as the rushed to slip on shoes. They wouldn't do a lot, but any protection was better than nothing. If this was a raid, she'd have to fight her way out.

Isla had been hired, in her capacity as the superheroine Congregation, by the British government to help root out a major new cartel in Glasgow. The idea was that she was going to be the forward scout, which did put her at risk. But the money had been good, and she'd even had a stay in a safehouse tonight before heading up to Scotland the next day.

She already had her doubts when she saw the safehouse. It was literally just a terraced house on a long line of red brick buildings in a long line of identical streets. Hidden in plain sight, she supposed. And it was serious once she was inside. Double reinforced doors, bulletproof windows with purely cosmetic hinges (though now that meant she couldn't slip out through the window).

So now she was trapped in this concrete and brick cage, waiting for whoever it was who was sweeping the lower floor to find her.

Alone, she couldn't fight what sounded like at least seven people. All of whom were probably armed. Congregation had nothing, even on government payroll she wasn't allowed to bring weapons into the UK, and she'd pick up the La Profesora gadgets in Scotland.

So, yeah, she was cornered.

Or she would have been.

The bad guys probably had a tip about a lone superheroine. But they must not have got the full intel, because Congregation was never alone.

She closed her eyes, focusing on the two heroines who were going to meet up with her at Heathrow in the morning for the mission. This was the manoeuvre she was going to do once she'd scouted out the cartel anyway. They knew exactly what to expect.

And what they were expecting, though not this soon, was a sonorous tone at the back of their heads. Like the bell of a cathedral and the whisper of a friend sounding as one.

Congregation opened her eyes, shining golden light on the bare wall of her room. With an ethereal chime, the air shifted as it was displaced by the arrival of two new bodies.

Both were more muscular than Isla - MI6's main combat team, it would appear. Hansoo didn't wear the dobok which was her superheroine outfit, but the tank top she had been wearing at home still showed off her biceps (and her ample chest), and Congregation was aware that beneath her sweatpants her legs were even more powerful. To her side, the blonde, ponytailed Viper was more lithe, and also already wearing pyjamas - but she didn't need any combat gear, one slash of her venomous nails could take down any goon.

Neither of them said anything. Congregation was very used to snarky comments about being too early, angry reprisals for dragging people away from dinner, or even just gruff, professional acknowledgements. But now, in this empty room, there was nothing.

She waved a hand in front of Viper's face. No response.

"Oh... fuck!" She cursed again. She stood on tiptoes to check Hansoo's eyes.

They were dull, slightly crossed, and the irises were marked by a faint, ever swirling spiral. Congregation, of course, immediately tore her gaze away with an effort of angry will. As she moved her eyes, she did notice a faint, docile smile on the lips of the martial arts heroine. To the side, Viper teetered slightly, a far dopier grin on her face. A little drool was already falling on to the grey carpet.

"Fuck... shit... motherfuckers..." Congregation always found swearing helped her focus her mind. And she needed focus right now.

Footsteps were still coming, but she was a superheroine. She couldn't leave these two, compromised as they were, open to the crossfire.

She slowly brought Viper to lie down on the floor. It wasn't hard, since the blonde heroine simply didn't have any resistance in her body and allowed herself to be moved to lie flat on the carpet. Hansoo, too, while not as visibly out of it was still basically a living doll, and was perfectly compliant with being lowered to the floor.

But with her hand on the floor, she felt the house vibrate with heavy steps. Coming upstairs. The home invaders must have heard the chiming sound of her power, and sent someone upstairs to look.

She moved across the floor, sliding her limbs to minimise noise and putting herself, back against the wall, right beside the doorframe.

The wall shook as a man made his way to her position.

She waited until she heard a "Huh?" and saw a foot move across the threshold.

Her leg kicked out, just under where she expected the man's knee to be, and threw an arm through the doorway, hoping to hook around his head for leverage.

She did get a hold, but he was shorter than she thought. Instead of toppling over, his knees just bent at her push.

She got a good look at him, he was wearing light body armour, possibly kevlar, with a mask shaded like sunglasses and something like a pistol from a sci-fi film on his belt. That was good, she was still definitely not going to be as strong as him, but people with a weapon would focus on the weapon, so she could still get the upper hand.

Before he got over his shock at walking in on two 'sleeping' women and another woman trying to trip him, Congregation stepped back.

The man's head tilted slightly. She couldn't see his eyes, but she saw enough to know she was being sized up. She raised a protective hand in the direction of Viper and Hansoo, slightly involuntarily, but it gave the impression of a damsel in distress well enough.

The invader raised his pistol-contraption. He flicked something on its main body, and electric blue lights started to ignite, going from the back of the muzzle to the front. He put his other arm on his gun arm, steadying his aim.

Congregation rushed forwards, eyes off the gun. Looking straight at him.

She called to him.

He wouldn't answer, but he would hear it.

And the ringing of a supernatural bell would be enough to disorient anyone, even if he had been expecting it (Congregation hadn't the time to think that question through).

She gripped his wrist, she twisted. She turned the fully charged weapon on him.

Electricity arced from the barrel. She placed his prone form beside the entranced heroines.

There were at least five more downstairs. And she didn't know how much charge these stun pistols had.

Central London - 19:31

"Lemme get this straight. You actually trust the piggies?" Fungus' hushed tone did little to hide the derision only a young person could produce. They were once again ducking between the crowds to change lines - once they'd done it enough they would almost certainly lose their pursuers, unless they were being followed unrealistically closely.

"Well, no, I don't trust the police at all, obviously. But I do trust the MI6 Metahumans Division."

"Riiight so the bacon is bad, but the spooks are sound?"

"I mean, yeah. They're the only force co-ordinating superheroic activity in Britain. You probably weren't active when we were organising stuff through the Council, were you?" Vine waited until Fungus had given a noncommittal shrug. "It was basically chaos, we never got anything done when we had to decide stuff amongst ourselves. The government provides threat assessment, and the pure resources we need to maintain secret identities, and just to make a living."

"Sounds ace, but it ain't what's happening. Cops are always gonna protect the state and capital. Tying yourselves up with those wankers just means you're not gonna protect the right peeps. Thanks to 'threat assessment'." Fungus punctuated the last words with aggressive air quotes before he hopped onto the next train.

"You're not seriously saying that the supers working with MI6 aren't protecting people, are you?" Vine scoffed, slightly louder than she needed to be on the tube. But at this point anyone rude enough to actually listen (and who didn't have headphones on the tube anyway?) would assume it was a spirited debate about, rather than by superheroes. She hoped.

"Oh yeah, you protect bare people from scary brown criminals. But the corpos? The mobs that have the state as their bitch? You're doing nothing about those."

An uncomfortable image shot through Vine's mind. A single woman, failed by the system and driven to lashing out pyrokinetically against the rich and powerful. Three metahumans brought in to take her down, watching as she was bundled into a police van. Kinesis had said they didn't let him see her again before he went off the grid.

But it wasn't like they had any choice.

"And little vigilantes like you are going to take down the evil megacorporations?" Vine's voice was more barbed than it needed to be, but she was honestly quite proud of herself she managed to keep it quiet. "Sure, I would've liked to hit out more at the big leagues, but I don't honestly believe that people like Agent Birch are avoiding those confrontations because they're scared of upsetting capital. It's a matter of preparation, not control."

Two dark eyes rolled with the exaggerated sarcasm of British youth. "Sure, sure. Just gotta wait until the spooks are ready to bang 'em. Totally gonna happen."

"Look, I don't like waiting either. Why do you think I took action unilaterally tonight? But this whole shambles proves a point. We need a co-ordinating force to take on the big leagues. If we act alone, we get in each other's way and we end up just giving up intel with no gain."

"'Get in each other's way' is a weird way to say 'I got saved from my barmy plan by Fungus here', love."

Vine just made an ugh sound of frustration and turned around to focus intently on the map of the Victoria line above her.

A West London Suburb - 19:42

Congregation was up against armed force, in far greater number than her. It was also probably not a coincidence that the two closest superheroines were in a clearly hypnotised daze.

She wasn't going to get another ambush, and she didn't want to be surrounded. If she was going to get out of this alive, she would need some way to stop their force multiplier. Some way to take them down one by one, and reload her stun-gun if needed.

She pulled a cord hanging from the ceiling and jumped back as the ladder made a loud thunk against the floor.

Well, they were going to come after her anyway.

She climbed up to the attic, and pulled the ladder up behind her.

The only light in the wood-paneled space came from a small window. Just like every other one in the house, it wasn't a viable escape route, but at least it meant she wouldn't bang her head on some beams while she prepared her last stand. It was simple: the second the trapdoor opened, she would get into firing stance, and stun whoever came up, take their sidearm if possible, and keep doing that until all her pursuers were down or she messed up and got erased.

Or the third option, she could last long enough to get a link to someone else. She was already reaching out, visualising the other superheroes and heroines she knew were active in the UK. Superia, Smite, the Gentleman. She wasn't an expert on North European geography, so she hedged her bets that maybe Denmark was closer than wherever those Brits were and also started to reach towards Vulksdottr.

She was cornered, but the adrenaline stopped her thinking about it. Her superpower only took a fraction of her consciousness to use, so the rest of her mind cast about for any stimulus.

In the sunset light of the street below, she saw two lorries marked with a bear-head logo. Stamford Inc. The name rung a bell, but she was more concerned with the quartet of people drawing some weird shapes in chalk on the tarmac. They were wearing some strange combination of lab coats and monk robes.

"Miss Lewis, send medical support up for Jancowski. The cub has teeth."

The voice from the landing below prevented any further thought. The adrenaline sharpened her senses. Congregation stood, her body full of tense energy, her eyes locked on to the trapdoor.

Light came up from below. Congregation took a deep breath. Am arm pulled a tall, but not especially strong-looking, man up into the attic.

Her finger squeezed, the room shined with blue light.

The man was still stood there. He didn't wear body armour, instead only a perfectly fitted suit. Perfect except for one arm which seemed to have been ripped apart.

She pulled the trigger again. This time she saw. His right arm, in an instant, bulged. Muscles erupted from beneath the skin, and as they did the skin became covered in a dark brown fur. Claws shone in the electric light. The huge arm completely blocked the lance of stunning electricity, and then returned to normal. One more squeeze, and nothing happened, she was out of ammo.

"Did you honestly think I would give my minions weapons that could hurt me, Congregation. Still, I'll have to take the suit repair out of your wages, you caught me by surprise. Good reactions." He winked and his handsome face came into focus.

She recognised him . He didn't give her any chance to acknowledge that.

"Tell me, Isla." She stepped back involuntarily as he said her real name, but he closed the distance with a stride forwards. "Have you heard of the battle of Stamford Bridge?"

She shook her head wordlessly. The only thought in her head was: "Is he really monologuing? I'll have chance to call in the cavalry..."

"Of course, I doubt it's relevant to you Iberians. In any case, Harald, the last Viking king of Norway had sailed to England to claim the crown. But the Saxon king had forced his peasant army to march across the country to head him off. Harald was stuck between Saxon spears and the unforgiving sea."

The blonde, suited villain paced. Congregation sounded the bells of her power in her mind.

"They made their stand at Stamford Bridge. The chronicles say a single berserker stood on the bridge and cut down tens of Saxons. Gave his comrades chance to don their armour. Do you know what the Saxons did, though, against this brave, cornered warrior?"

Congregation's eyes glowed golden, illuminating the man in an ironic halo. She had sent out her message. Soon four superheroes would be here to take him down.

"They cheated, Isla. A single Saxon warrior swam under the bridge and, to hear the monks tell it, skewered the berserker right up the arse. The lesson here, my dear, is that no matter how brave you are. No matter how powerful you are, once you're cornered, your enemies will always find a way to defeat you. Once you're cornered, you've already lost."

She took no notice of the man. Her eyes, back to their normal colour, cast about the room. Four showers of golden dust should have appeared by now. Or at least one or two. The reinforcements should have arrived.

The villain raised his left hand to his ear and spoke into his phone. "The grid appears to have been a success, Lewis. This is the third heroine it's worked on today. If I remember my high school science, three times is all the proof we need that it's working perfectly, correct?"

"That's not quite how replicability works, Mast-" The female voice on the other end of the phone was cut off as he ended the call and started to swipe at the screen.

"Enough from my old minions, Isla. Let's talk about you."

He smiled. Congregation stepped back. She didn't have words. She could barely breathe.

"Just so you know, I'm going to let Viper and Hansoo go. You're the one I'm interested in today, I only have so many resources to cover up kidnappings, you know. And I have to say, I'm so glad I finally got inside information about superheroine movements. You're going to be so helpful for my company."

He turned the phone to face her. The screen was filled with scintillating, shifting lights. A mosaic of constantly changing colour which seemed brighter than anything else in the room.

She couldn't look away.

Central London - 19:45

After a mostly circular trip on the tube, the two heroes now walked at a brisk pace through quieter London streets. Now that there was no crowd they were fairly sure they weren't being followed.

"Anyway, the other issue with the old democratic Council model was that it was really easy for mind controlling villains to infiltrate it. There were a lot of times where there only needed to be one hypnotised heroine who would get a couple more, and then that was a villain completely deprioritised. Or worse, puppeteering the council against their rival villains. We don't get that with MI6, the decision making is so so diffused through the command structure, and dispersonal, that even if an Agent did get brainwashed, they couldn't actually change any plans." Now there was no-one to listen in, Vine was on a slightly more typical fast-talking, animated screed. Fungus was enduring it. Actually, by his smile, Vine thought that he was enjoying getting to debate stuff with a real superheroine.

"Bare cool. Impersonal decision making. Hope that doesn't lead to any bad shit. Like, I dunno, fuckin' spycops? Your spook friends are totally trustworthy though, innit?"

"Okay yeah I don't trust a lot of the state apparatus but the Metahumans Division has never done anything like that in my experience. If they had, I would have got the hell out. I don't think they're going to be turning me to undercover union-busting any time soon, mate." Sure, if you started from bad faith it looked bad, but Vine was really tiring of the kid's cynicism.

"Sure, they haven't done anything bad that you're aware of. How's Sobia, by the way?"

Fungus was friends with Kinesis, of course he'd know about her. And about how none of them knew what had happened to her. Vine stopped walking for a second. "Okay, yeah, I don't know what's happened to her, but I'm sure there is a good explanation. Or, at worst, there has been some serious incompetence on the Agents' end. They've given me no reason to believe that they're malicious."

"No reason apart from over a century of bacon history?"

"The spooks are not the pigs, Fungus. I trust these ones. These very specific ones."

He spat into the pavement. Vine shrugged. There was no point arguing more about this. Besides, she had other concerns now.

"Where exactly are we doing, anyway? We're in Westminster, right? Don't tell me you want to attack New Scotland Yard directly or some nonsense."

"Nah, allow that. I'm taking you to our ends. We're meeting the mandem."

"You guys hang around in Westminster?"

He flashed her a cheeky grin. "Aldwych station. We're running a vigilante operation right under the pigs' noses. Sound, innit?"

"Aldwych...?" Vine was London-born, but her tube expertise had atrophied since gaining powers which really required her head to stay above the ground. She couldn't think why a specific tube station would be a good base for a group of renegade superhumans.

"It's an abandoned station. Closed it down years ago 'cause no-one used it. They do tours of it, but they never find us."

"Oh, that's pretty clever actually. You can use the abandoned tunnels to get pretty far, I imagine?"

"Yeah, right up to Green Park or into the City. Great for catching the people your porky friends don't wanna mess with." He ducked under an iron railing and beckoned for Vine to follow to a brick wall. Then he pushed at a few bricks in a well-rehearsed pattern. A low grinding sound heralded the opening of a secret door, and beyond the threshold there was only darkness.

"Okay so why am I meeting the gang, exactly? You know I work for the spooks, right?"

"Sure, but you're our mate. Well, Kinesis' mate anyway. And you're not gonna snitch on a brother, are you?"

He was annoying, but being annoying wasn't a crime. Vigilante justice was a crime, but not the sort Vine was particularly willing to call in. "I owe you one."

"I was expectin' a bit more solidarity, love."

He walked forward, and bioluminescent mushrooms started to grow out of the stinking material on the walls of the disused passage. His thin silhouette looked creepy enough to even be a bit intimidating.

"Anyway, you're on the run now, you need digs. You're a bit useless, but we still look after people in need. Even if they're not one of us."

"Hey I told you I had a pla-"

He cut her off with a patronising 'shh' gesture as they climbed down an old service staircase.

The teen gestured to an archway at the bottom, where artificial light spilled out into the cylindrical stairway.

"Welcome to the London Underground, Vine."

A West London Suburb - 19:45

"Think of it as a noble sacrifice, if you like. The death of your free will buys freedom for your incapacitated colleagues downstairs." The villain's voice was calm and measured. It had a standard posh British cadence, but Isla could also hear some sort of accent there. Not one she could place, though.

She knew she was trapped. Her eyes were locked open, completely fixated on a barrage of colourful, curved lines on the man's phone screen. She could still move her body, but in slow, stopping motions. She couldn't fight her way out.

Even if she could, she probably wouldn't. The man was dangerous, and the threat he posed to Viper and Hansoo was clear as day. She didn't trust that he would let the two prone heroines downstairs go free if she submitted, but if she fought they would definitely be in trouble.

Congregation would not risk getting people she summoned into her fight in trouble. That was her one rule. The one thing that she always anchored her will by.

But now she could feel her will slipping away. Like an anchor being pulled out to sea by the tide, she felt her grip on her own thoughts loosen.

He had a point, this was a sacrifice. She was letting go of her will on purpose. She was willingly submitting to him. She could probably just let go now, pull up the anchor herself and fall into the deep ocean of the colours.

She forced that thought away, it was surely brought on by the spiral.

The facts were that she was trapped, and was currently entranced and being slowly broken by a hypnotic device. She was well and truly cornered, but she knew as a heroine she could not give up. Even with her power unbelievably not working, her stolen weapon useless, and her own eyes uncooperative, she knew there would be some way to think of a way out.

The first option was to use her powers to call out to herself. That would cause her to dematerialise then rematerialise immediately in a golden glow. The glow would counteract the photons of the spiralling video, and forcing her eyes to teleport should have been able to break the lock it had on her gaze. But it didn't work, her powers simply refused to co-operate now.

She thought more deeply, ignoring the villain's voice.

He had definitely appeared on the intel file she'd read on the plane from Barcelona...

That was it, he was Hardrade. A supervillain who could turn himself into a huge, basically prehistoric bear. That would explain the resistance to the electricity, his ursine form would have simply insulated against it. He was also the head of a fairly standard villainous megacorporation. Activies, according to the file, were pretty standard - land expropriation, weapons manufacturing, drug trade and human trafficking.

Apparently he was also in the superheroine brainwashing business, which had not been on the file.

He was also, apparently, very good at it.

She felt a small smile come to her open lips. There was comfort in that. A company that large, which could find out about a single superheroine entering the country and ambush her, knew what it was doing. It would be able to take care of her, at least.

And Hardrade was clearly an impressive man. He came to take her personally. After one of his men went down, he didn't throw any more at her, he simply fought her himself because he was powerful enough to easily neutralise her.

Sure, he was a bit rude to that minion on the phone, but that just showed he was authoritative. He didn't have time for excess information and did not tolerate any talk that he didn't need to hear. He would keep a strict control over her, but that just meant she wouldn't need to put as much effort into thinking.

That was good, thinking was getting hard. Even if it was good things about her new Master.

She nodded blankly to herself. She had admitted it. Her new Master. She had been outmatched, outplanned and outgunned. He had claimed total victory over her. Now her final resistance was being wiped away by his beautiful technology, and she would be ready to do as she was told.

Congregation would serve this supervillain. She would obey his orders.

She didn't like that too much. She appreciated his confidence and submitted to his power, but it wasn't a nice feeling to know she would be used as a pawn in the schemes of an evil man.

But she couldn't help but think he wasn't that bad.

His superpower was to turn into a bear. There could be a lot worse things. He didn't shoot energy beams that leveled buildings. He didn't emit deadly pheromone gas. He couldn't reshape the earth to destroy entire cities. He could just protect himself and his servants in a powerful physical form.

Actually, it was kind of cute. He was a handsome, intimidating presence now. But he could turn into a bear. All furry and round and actually quite soft on the surface of all that powerful muscle.

She could imagine herself cuddling into his fur as she fell down into sleep.

She was actually, right now, falling down into sleep.

Her eyes were heavy. She could almost feel the tufts of soft hair under her arms as she squeezed it closer to her skin. She couldn't see the spiral any more. She couldn't see. Because her eyes were closed.

She had given up.

He had won.

She obeyed.

-----

Once again experimenting with the form of the Vine stories, this time trying to emulate what you might see on a superhero tv show, with an A and B plot linked only vaguely thematically. So, this time, while Vine argues with a child about the police state, a new character (who you might have seen cameo in a previous meme story ;D) gets brainwashed by the villain. Do you only care about the second part? Too bad, we have plot to do!

After 5.5k words I thought I would have more to say but I don't really. Hope the experiment works out!

FWIW, Fungus is meant to be cast as Lil Nas X, but I haven't put in the effort to find a pic where he looks more 'roadman' than 'fruity', so there's no reference pic for him.

Finally, thanks again to Dormiria for tireless effort on proofreading and other work spreading the word of Kpop Hypno. He tried to convince me to put in a Fungus Glossary, by the way, but I've decided that if you don't grok the Roadman Speak then that's a you problem