The second of the Falconer’s cyberhawks was chasing Darque through the night sky above San Diego, the first one having already been sliced apart on constructs of solidified shadow. Her attention now was just on outrunning and outflying it; the hawks were extremely manoeuvrable, and had remarkable top speeds if allowed to just accelerate, but their robotic nature meant they had a lot of momentum, and could be shaken in a cramped-quarters pursuit.

However, Darque didn’t want to shake it, she just wanted to take up enough of its focus. When she shot back out of the alleyway and across the parking lot where the Falconer had been trying to move stolen weaponry, the cyberhawk followed right into a white hot lance of searing flame from the ground. The heat was enough that even moving at that speed, the cyberhawk’s undercarriage melted open, allowing the flames to torch the delicate circuitry within.

Darque pulled up in the air, going into a steep loop, and the cyberhawk, now unsteered, crashed into a Cybertruck in the parking lot. Neither Darque nor her partner was sure whether the resulting explosion was the combat drone or the vehicle.

The Falconer himself was already under wraps by this time, Fyreheart having found him easy enough to subdue once the cyberhawks were tracking her partner; a wall of flame to prevent escape, a swift kick to the jaw when it became clear he intended to resist arrest, and she’d been able to turn her attention to the weaponry. Most of the buyers had already fled; Darque had sent one of them running headlong into a wall with a well-timed veiling in shadow, and they were still there, if out of it.

“The police can take it from here,” Darque said as she landed, her shadow-wings melting away as she did. “Good night’s work, I’d say.”

“I’ve already called them,” Fyreheart said, “so we shouldn’t have to wait around too long.” She looked down at the Falconer. “You’ve gotta get out of this business, old man,” she said. “If you don’t hit it big in the first fifteen years, you weren’t cut out for villainy.” It was said sympathetically enough, but it was probably a heavy blow.

Darque joined in. “If you’d taken those designs and gone to work in SFX instead, you’d be naming your own price by now.”

The Falconer glowered up at them. “Young kids like you, telling me how to live my life? As if.” He snorted bitterly. “You know what they say about you two?”

The heroines exchanged glances. “This better not be what I think it’s going to be,” Darque said.

“The pair of you are so indecisive you haven’t worked out if you’re a team or lovers,” the Falconer said. “Alleycat told everyone about that time the two of you nearly kissed.”

“We were trying to distract the guard!” Fyreheart exclaimed hotly. Darque was rolling her eyes.

It turned out that when enough people paid attention to you, and when your costumes were skintight, people could read body language pretty well. She might deny to anyone else (including her partner) that she was attracted to her partner, but she couldn’t deny it to herself, and she had to assume that came through.

She was pretty sure the feeling was mutual; not quite sure enough to act on it. And that meant the fact the San Diego press had spent the two years that the pair had been active speculating about it all the more annoying; every headline was not just an invasion of her privacy but a tantalising tease of something she wanted but wasn’t sure she could ever have.

“Whatever you say, doll,” the Falconer said exhaustedly, and lapsed into quiet. The trio fell into an awkward silence that was broken minutes later by the sound of sirens.

*

When they launched into the air again, their information handed over to the police, Fyreheart waited a beat before saying “One of us should grab some more milk on the way home.”

The face Darque pulled, she knew from experience, would not be visible beyond the shadow she had wrapped around her face. “We’re out already?”

“I bought the last one,” Fyreheart said, which didn’t answer the question except that it did; part of the parry and thrust they’d engaged in for three years, since they first found themselves roommates in what was then temporary accommodation provided by their employers, a year before the incident which gave them their powers/

“I’ll dip and get it when we’re nearer the neighbourhood,” she said. “You know, that’s the third time we’ve fought Falconer.”

She distinctly heard her partner mutter “Christ, don’t start this again,” but carried on cheerfully as if she hadn’t, knowing they’d be laughing about it once they dissipated their powers and relaxed for the evening.

“Seems like a pretty good qualification to be our first nemesis!”

“Do you really want that guy as a nemesis?”

“He’s easy to beat,” Darque said cheerfully.

“People think of your nemesis when they hear your name,” Fyreheart said, “and vice versa, too. I don’t want that tainting us.”

“Well, we’ve fought hardly anyone else more than once. Except that dealer near the training pitch. Cravin.”

“Klavin,” Fyreheart corrected. “I don’t want him for a nemesis either.”

“Sometimes I wonder if you even want a nemesis at all,” Darque said, but they were close to the convenience store nearest the condo they now shared, so she dipped out before Fyreheart’s comeback. In an alley nearby she let the darkness around her go, the shadows dissipating in the harsh glare of an overhead streetlamp, and walked into the store to buy.

When she pushed open the condo door she picked up the conversation as if it had never stopped. “You don’t mind that everyone calls Angel City our nemeses,” Devin Drake said.

Abigail Hartswood, who as well as being Darque’s partner in heroics as Fyreheart was Devin Drake’s teammate on the San Diego Wave and roommate, just sighed audibly. “They’re our rivals,” she said. “Not our nemeses. And besides, sports and heroics are different.”

“I just think you could stand to have a little more fun with both.” Devin scraped her long hair back, tying it into a ponytail which exposed the undercut beneath. Aside from her shadow manipulation, it was probably the biggest way she kept her heroic and secret identities separate. She flashed the toothy grin that many of the team’s fans cited as a big part of her sex appeal.

“Tonight was fun,” Abi retorted, almost sounding stung. She opened the fridge and took out two sodas, setting one of them on the counter for her friend. “I don’t know why you don’t think I have fun.”

“You could stand to show it a bit more. I always feel like I’ve got to be Ms Goth Grumpytits.”

It got a laugh from her friend, as Devin had hoped. She collected her own can and opened it.

“You don’t have to be.”

“Well, people expect it. And you’re not holding up your end by being a cheerful happy type.”

“Don’t put that on me just because I’m blonde,” Abi retorted, but she was grinning as she said it. “You know happy go lucky isn’t great for my PR. How many times have we heard Marketing complain if I even celebrate a goal? Look, I’m sure we’ll end up with a nemesis eventually. I’m just in no rush.”

*

They were on hand a week later when Kuge decided to rob a local bank.

His face hidden behind an elaborate Noh theatre mask, his form shrouded in loose-flowing silken robes, Kuge was a technologist who delighted in creating supernatural-styled effects as part of his crimes, based out of the West Coast and particularly active in high-tech towns. His identity was unknown but was assumed to be Japanese-American. He’d been active on the costumed criminal scene now for a little over a year and had yet to be arrested; one of the theories on his identity suggested he had been behind some dramatic heists before concocting a villain persona to hide behind. That theory also suggested there might be an ideology behind his crimes, which otherwise were random enough in nature to leave people guessing.

They became aware there was a problem when they heard the sound. It wasn’t a gunshot, but it was easily as loud and somehow sounded as threatening. Making eye contact, Abi and Devin dived for the nearest doorway. It was a cliche, but it was a cliche for a reason.

Abi wore her costume under her clothes, throwing them into the shadow that Devin controlled so they could be safely collected later. It meant no more short sleeves and she had to be okay with that; she also tied her blonde hair back into a ponytail, drawing the half-cowl of her costume up underneath. It encased her head up to just over her eyebrows, revealing her eyes and her smile in two different cutaways, and with gloves on to prevent any risk of fingerprints she was ready to go.

Beside her, Devin had woven shadow over herself to augment her costume as she shed her clothes into the same dark pocket of unreality. Some of her body was cloaked in darkness black as night, others were gloaming-grey with twilight. Her hair let down loose and shadows around her eyes hid her identity effectively and efficiently. In moments, the soccer players were gone and the mystic heroines stood in their place.

“Let’s do it,” Darque said.

They found a roof access to get in through and started to work their way down. At that point they still didn’t know who was inside, or how many assistants they might have brought with them. They were on the second floor before they found out, crouched against the glass corridor fence and rail which looked down into the bank foyer.

There they saw Kuge, standing at the centre of the foyer, giving instructions to the tellers behind the security partition. The tellers were doing just as he said, but then, Darque thought, he had a room full of hostages.

“If I surprise him,” she whispered, “we’ll have a pretty good start, won’t we?”

“You do that, and I’ll try and move the hostages to one side,” she said. “Minimise any risk to them. I’d rather the place get successfully robbed than they get shot.”

“That makes two of us.” Darque straightened up, planting one hand on the rail, and jumped casually, lifting her legs over the rail and letting herself fall - and shadow rushed down past her to splash over the foyer, washing out everything around it in darkness.

Her own senses had no problem in darkness. She was moving toward him the whole time, the shadow under her carrying her to him. His body language showed just how tense he was. Blinded and surprised, she thought, of course he’s tense.

She was a pace away from him, reaching out, when light blazed out of his eyes.

It was probably lost to everyone else in the room, still buried in her darkness, but her senses bypassed all that. The eyes of the Noh mask looked like the traditional painted wood carving, right up until they lit up, shining with a violet glow that seemed to flicker strangely, tickling at the back of her own eyes.

Devin’s jaw dropped, her eyes widening. She found herself freezing into place. Her concentration wavered, dwindled. She saw only the light, the oh-so-pretty light. Her concentration snuffed out, and with it, the darkness she had brought with her abruptly disappeared.

“Ah, fuck,” Fyreheart said, almost immediately. Her attention had been on the hostages, a pair of glowing little sparks on her shoulders giving her just enough illumination for a foot or so around her that she could operate. The cover of shadow disappearing was enough for her to know something was wrong, and she spun on the spot.

But having heard her instinctive cursing, Kuge was turning too, and their eyes met. His were still glowing, and from the moment they met, Abi felt a tingling across her scalp, a strange response that was almost out-of-body in how helpless she suddenly felt.

All at once, she was still, frozen into place. She had been raising her arms as she turned, had been kindling flames in the palm of each hand ready to use them as a weapon if she needed to; now the flames went out, her arms locking motionless into position.

There was silence, suddenly. “I know you,” Kuge said slowly. The glow of his eyes went away as he turned his head to face Darque instead. He chuckled, a low, almost predatory sound from the back of his throat. “I know both of you. You, shadow-girl. Stand to attention.”

Immediately Devin’s posture straightened, her arms locking to her sides, her heels coming together. All unseeing, she held her head high.

Kuge looked away from her again. “Fire girl,” he said. “Go stand by your friend.”

Abi turned and walked stiffly to where Devin waited helplessly. Her arms were still in her ready-to-fight position, but her back was straight, her head held high, her legs moving as a single piece, the knee never bending. As she reached the right spot, she turned to face Kuge, her arms finally settling to her side.

Kuge chuckled. “This could be a lot worse,” he said, facing them. Had they still had any conscious awareness of their surroundings, they might have noticed that the bank tellers they’d seen collecting and packing money were moving without much more grace than Fyreheart just had. “I can use you.”

They stood, mute. Inside her impassive, empty face, Abi was dedicating serious effort to completing a thought, but everything was so slow and jammed that it didn’t seem to be happening for her.

“You two,” Kuge said, his hypnotic mask flickering back into life, “repeat after me. You are hypnotised.”

“I am hypnotised,” they both said, their voices synchronised monotone.

“You can’t help being hypnotised.”

“I cannot help being hypnotised.”

“You are hypnotised to obey.”

“I am hypnotised to obey.”

“You will do as I command.”

“I will do as you command.”

“Very good.” He smirked. “That should hold you long enough.” He turned to face the tellers. “Have you finished?”

“Yes, Master,” they answered in monotonous unison. In front of each teller was a tidy stack of banknotes, wrapped up in crisp bands.

“Shadow girl,” he said, “go find the manager. The vault should be open. Figure out how to carry the contents away. Bring them back to me.” Silently and obediently, Darque departed. She had not been told to acknowledge commands or to give Kuge an honorific. Not yet.

“Fire girl,” he continued, “Fly over the barricade and collect that money for me. Then come lay it at my feet.”

Fyreheart launched into the air immediately and obediently, soaring easily over the security screen that separated the tellers from the lobby. She gathered up all the bundles of money in her arms and launched back into the air, clutching it all tightly to her chest. When she landed, she landed two paces before Kuge and settled smoothly to one knee, her arms opening to spill the money over the carpet in front of him.

“Rise,” he said. Fyreheart stood again, as did all the tellers and every kneeling hostage. Everyone but Fyreheart chimed “Yes, Master,” as they did.

Kuge reached out to caress Fyreheart’s cheek. He opened his mouth, and the part of her which had only given up on trying to think reluctantly braced for another command.

“YOU IN THERE! THIS IS THE POLICE!”

The amplified voice carried more than well enough to fill the lobby. It disrupted many things, but the shock was not enough to jolt Fyreheart back into thinking. Which made sense. She couldn’t help being hypnotised.

“WE HAVE THE BUILDING SURROUNDED. LAY DOWN ANY WEAPONS AND COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP.”

His hypnotic eyes lit up again, boring into her. She felt herself soften internally, the way soft soil receives seeds well. “Repeat,” he said. “You will obey me.”

“I will obey you.”

“I am your Master, and should be addressed as such.”

“You are my Master, and should be addressed as such.”

“You are my slave.”

“I am your slave, Master.”

“Very good. Now, slave. There are police outside. You will leave through whatever means you entered by. You will look for police anywhere nearby. And you will set fire to their cars and burn out their observation posts. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Obey.”

“Yes, Master.”

Fyreheart lifted back into the air, soaring and accelerating through the corridors and stairwells of the bank until she could emerge out onto the roof, where she swiftly looked around, channelling fire as she did so, her hands wreathed in it.

There, she saw, a marksman and a spotter were settling in on the roof of a building across the street. There was a squadcar. There, an armoured van. Three targets. Three bolts of flame hurled from her hands with almost supernatural accuracy. The sniper rifle melted to slag. The squad car exploded. The armoured van, its windscreen cracking and melting from the heat, dropped several inches closer to the ground in audible cacophony as each of its tires exploded in the sudden rush of heat.

Fyreheart saw SWAT members and uniformed officers alike running from the flames. Her orders were fulfilled. She hung in the air, feet together, hands by her side, perfectly upright as if at attention, and descended obediently into the bank again.

When she arrived in front of Kuge, Darque was already stood nearby. Beside her, a heavy pallet formed of shadow-stuff contained box after box of what had been in the vault, but she was paying it no attention. Kuge had taken her by the chin and was holding her head to stare into those flickering, hypnotic mask eyes.

“I will obey you,” she was saying, her voice a blank, emotionless monotone, the cadence of her syllables unwavering.

“I am your Master, and should be addressed as such,” Kuge told her.

“You are my Master, and should be addressed as such.”

“You are my slave.”

“I am your slave, Master.”

“Excellent.” He let go of her jaw, the lights in his mask blinking back out. “Now, as soon as - Ah. Fire girl, you’re back. Report.”

She had not been told what should be in reports, and her mind was barely active, his commands and the hypnotic state itself feeling more important to her than her own thoughts. But she had been given an order, and she would obey. “Yes, Master,” she said. “The police were dug in outside. SWAT had been brought up. Their vehicles cannot be used. Their sniper nest is destroyed. They had begun to flee, Master.”

“Excellent. Can you hover?”

The question had nothing to do with her report, but she lacked the capacity to question that. “Yes, Master.” He had said excellent. She must be obeying well.

“Hover face down,” he said, “At waist height.”

“Yes, Master. “ She did not understand what he wanted, but she obeyed immediately and without question. Her feet lifted from the ground and she tilted forwards until she was lying parallel to the ground, facing forward. Kuge swung a leg over her, using the swell of her buttocks as a seat.

“Shadow girl,” he said. “Make me a bridle and reins for your friend. I want it to wrap around her tits, so I can steer her by the way I tug it.”

“Yes, Master,” Darque answered. Abi felt the cold of solid shadow materialise; a loop around each shoulder, a second loop from the top of the slope of each breast to wrap underneath, and an X of straps linking them together across her back.

“You’re bringing the money,” he told her. “And you, fire girl, you’re going to let me steer you. We have more to do, understand?”

“Yes, Master,” they answered, and their monotone voices spoke in chorus, the same flat lack of awareness in their tones, the same steady, unchanging cadences. Kuge pulled back on the reins, and Abi began to fly forward and up obediently.

*

His secret base - it was too comfortable to be called a hideout - included a large room with a throne, a low Japanese-style table, and a large bed. Once they had landed there Kuge turned back to them. “Undress,” he ordered, “except for your masks and your boots.”

“Yes, Master,” they said, speaking again in unthinking unison, and they obeyed. Once their bodies were bare, they fell back into the posture of attention he had commanded them into many instructions ago.

“Face each other,” he commanded.

“Yes, Master.” They turned to do so, still standing to attention.

“Now, Fyreheart,” he said, and the amusement in his tone confirmed he’d known their real identities the whole time, but hadn’t considered it necessary to address them that way, “look into Darque’s eyes.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Darque, you do likewise with Fyreheart.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Neither of you are to look away until I give permission. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master.”

”Both of you, reach out with one hand. Find your partner’s pussy.”

“Yes, Master.” There was still no hesitation in their obedience; of course, by that stage they’d been responding to each order with obedience for some time. Questioning fingers took a little time to find where they needed to be, pausing with fingertips just outside pussy lips.

“You will both begin to tease your partner,” he said. “Neither of you are permitted to cum, but you must keep your partner as wet and needy as you can. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Obey.”

“Yes, Master.”

Their fingers began to stroke, slowly and gently across one anothers’ lips at first, as arousal kindled, as their insides made ready to be investigated. As droplets of excitement started to bead their fingertips, they quested inside, still holding one another’s gaze.

“Darque,” Kuge said. “Does Fyreheart look hypnotised to you?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Does she look obedient?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Does she look like a slave?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Tell her what she is.”

“Yes, Master. You are hypnotised. You are obedient. You are a slave.”

“Keep telling her.”

“Yes, Master. You are hypnotised. You are obedient. You…”

As Devin helplessly continued to recite the words she had been given to repeat, Kuge spoke over her. “Fyreheart,” he said. “Does Darque look hypnotised to you?”

Her partner’s recitation continued as Abi said “Yes, Master.”

“Does she look like a slave?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Tell her what she is.”

“Yes, Master. You are hypnotised. You are obedient. You are a slave.”

“Both of you,” Kuge continued, “Share what you are with one another.”

“We are hypnotised,” they chorused in a blank, helpless monotone, only the slightest tremolo affecting their voices as they fingered one another. “We are obedient. We are slaves. We are hypnotised. We are obedient. We are slaves. We are…”

They lost track of how long they had been talking, how long they had been fingering each other, before Kuge spoke again to interrupt them. “Silence.”

Both of them fell silent, their fingers still working eagerly, their eyes still locked on one another. Their thighs were slick with conditioning and their own obedience.

“Put your heads together and kiss.”

“Yes, Master,” they answered and obeyed. Their lips parted slowly as they leaned forward. The kiss was, at first, mechanical, automated.

“Kiss each other with all the arousal you both feel,” he instructed. Their affirmation to his instruction escaped their mingled lips only muffled, the eagerness to obey suddenly filling them. Their bodies remained otherwise stationary, but the kisses now held so much more heat.

They heard the sound of a phone camera recording an image.

“One at a time, I am going to call you to me. When called, you will know nothing except that you are my slave and I your Master. You will obey, and you will not question. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master,” they answered.

“Fyreheart,” he said. “Crawl to me.”

“Yes, Master,” she said alone. Her flight lifted her an inch and a half, then carried her three inches back for setting her back down on her feet, a graceful movement that carried her from her partner’s obedient fingers easily. Her dry lips parted, her eyes remained locked on Darque’s as she settled to her knees. Only as she turned, leaning forward to place her hands on the ground too, did she break eye contact.

She crawled toward Kuge obediently, leaving Darque standing behind her, still in the same position she had been, two fingers frozen half-curled, stopped in the act of fingering her friend. Unheeded, Darque’s own arousal drip-drip-dripped from her pussy to the smooth, polished wooden floorboards below.

Kuge was settled into his throne. His mask had been removed and sat on a low table at his right hand; at a table on his left was a bottle of wine and a glass, neither of which had been present when they had arrived. His robe had been parted; she could see, in his confidently sprawled posture, exactly where his cock tented the fabric beneath.

“Lower your head,” he instructed. “Ass high, head low, to show your deference.”

“Yes, Master,” she answered. Her back arched to that her head was closer to the ground, her bare breasts brushing against the cold, polished wood, her forearms flat against the ground from elbow to finger. As a consequence, her body swayed more and more noticeably as well; she could see him stiffen within the loose cloth of his robes, and it seemed to her that this was a reward.

“Both of you,” he said, when her hands were either side of his feet, “Repeat. Oral is how you worship.”

“Oral is how we worship, Master.”

“Oral is a way to show your submission.”

“Oral is a way to show our submission, Master.”

“Oral hypnotises you deeper.”

“Oral hypnotises us deeper, Master.”

“You can’t help being hypnotised.”

“We cannot help being hypnotised, Master.”

“You are my obedient slaves.”

“We are your obedient slaves, Master.”

“Very good,” he said again. “Fyreheart, you will now worship me with oral.”

“Yes, Master,” she said.

“Darque,” he continued, “the kitchen door is to your right. Prepare me a snack.”

“Yes, Master.” There were no other instructions. Something in both women understood that this openness to Darque was a test. Fyreheart’s command might instead be simply for his pleasure.

She took his cock in her hand, her tongue flicking over the tip.

*

“You will not remember where you were.”

“We will not remember where we were, Master.”

“You will not remember what we have done.”

“We will not remember what we have done, Master.”

They stood on the threshold of his headquarters, the door open, facing away from him. The sun was high; it was coming up on noon not the day after the robbery but the day after that. Their bodies ached pleasantly, though their minds considered that irrelevant at the time.

“You will seek me out again.”

“We will seek you out again, Master.”

“You can’t help being hypnotised.”

“We cannot help being hypnotised, Master.”

Their costumes were back in place. Their masks had never left their faces.

“You will not remember my face.”

“We will not remember your face, Master.”

“You will go directly to your homes and sleep, and only when you wake up will you be yourselves again.”

“We will go directly to our homes and sleep, Master. Only when we wake up will we be ourselves again.” Their voices remained a flat, blank monotone.

“Very good. Go now.”

“Yes, Master.” Darque launched into the air and started flying away. Fyreheart also lifted a few inches into the air, but didn’t travel further than that.

“Something on your mind, Fyreheart?” Kuge asked, sounding amused.

“Have we disappointed you, Master?”

He laughed. “No.”

“But you’re sending us away.”

“You will be missed,” he said. “I have no interest in bringing down more attention on me.” He was close behind her; she felt his hand rest on one buttock, pat her reassuringly. “You will be back,” he said, “and you will kneel at my feet again. I know it. You don’t need to remember it.”

“Yes, Master.”

He withdrew his hand, then brought it down with a loud spank. “Now obey me and go.”

“Yes, Master.”

And she was gone.

*

Abi emerged sleepily from her bedroom after dark, very late that night, yawning. Devin was already in the living room; she was collapsed into an armchair, scrolling through her phone.

“You checked the team app yet?” she asked.

“No. What’s happening?” Yawning, she made her past Devin, into the open-plan kitchen, and started the coffee machine going.

“We missed training two days in a row. Apparently someone showed up here this morning. So now they’re wondering where we are.”

Abi looked over her shoulder at the note of uncertainty in Devin’s voice. “What have you told them?”

“I didn’t want to answer until I could talk to you,” Devin said. “Either way, they’re going to assume we’re in it together.”

Abi sighed. “I’ll call my agent,” she said. “Theo will come up with something. Have you looked up the bank robbery? It must have gone wrong.”

“Witnesses said it was Kuge. Apparently he flew away on your back.”

“Shit.”

“It gets worse. I was towing the money.”

“Have you said anything about that?”

“Yeah, I went live on socials yesterday. I just framed it as a warning that he’s built some sort of mind control device, but it also does explain what happened. You blew up a cop car, too, apparently.”

“Did I hurt anyone?”

“Doesn’t seem like it. Precision shooting, one tweet said.”

Abi sighed in relief. A police car didn’t worry her nearly so much. “Well, so long as people know we were hypnotised.”

“We can’t help being hypnotised,” Devin agreed.

Abi’s eyelids flickered. “We can’t help being hypnotised,” she echoed, her voice flat. Then, as if she hadn’t said anything, she added, “We will seek him out.”

“We will seek him out again,” Devin said, her voice the same soft monotone. Then she brightened. “Hey, maybe he can be our nemesis!”