Five Card Stud

Jake loses a card game to Jessica and is determined to defeat her. But before that, he's sent to recover an alien pod and subject to Dawn urging him to not let his morals get in the way of his fun.

This story is based on the world of NGMEZ's "Bishoujo Land" series. With only five exceptions, none of the characters in this story were created by me. This story contains descriptions of violence, adult situations, abuse of fictitious superpowers, and unethical science. Fairly warned be thee, says I.

"I'll put one card face-down, switch my Shieldmaiden of Amazonia into defense position, and end my turn." Jessica said.

"It took you five whole minutes to think of that move?" Jake asked.

"You may be the mind-controller at this table, Jake, but I'm more cerebral than you." Jessica replied. Jake stuck his tongue out at her. "More mature, too."

"Maybe, but I'm the one who's going to win." Jake responded. "First, I cast Mesmerism to control your Shieldmaiden."

"I hate when you do that."

"You're going to hate this even more." Jake replied. "I switch her to attack position and cast The Best Defense Is A Good Offense to take her 2000 defense points and add it to her 1300 attack points until the end of the turn. Next, I activate Berzerker Rage to double her current attack strength until the end of the turn." Jessica rolled her eyes. "Which means, if my math is right, when I attack, this game will be over."

"That's right."

"You can give up now, if you want."

"You know me better than that." Jessica replied.

Something wrong, don't attack! said a tiny voice in the back of Jake's mind. I have to, or I'll lose all the attack points I just gave the Shieldmaiden. Jake thought. "Shieldmaiden of Amazonia, attack her Health Points directly!"

"In that case, I'll just activate this..." Jessica said. Warning bells went off like crazy in Jake's mind, but it was too late. Jessica flipped over her remaining card. "Vaporization Field!"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"This card destroys the monster that just attacked and subtracts its offensive power from its controller's Health Points." Jessica declared. "You lose."

"Yes!" Dawn exclaimed, leaping high into the air with a victorious squeal. "IN YOUR FACE, SARAH!"

"Aw, man!" Sarah groaned.

"Pay, up, doll." Dawn chimed. Sarah grumbled as she went to a nearby terminal and transferred a week's salary into Dawn's account.

"I don't see what you need money for anyway, everything you have that isn't provided by the Professor is stolen."

"Come on, honey, you know better than that." Dawn said. "It's not about me gaining, it's about you losing."

"Should have known better than to make a bet with Dawn." Fawn said.

"She's so utterly predictable, 'anything to get Dawn locked up.'" Dawn chided. She patted Sarah on the head. "That's what I love about you, Sarah, you're the one person I can really count on to stay the same no matter what." She flew away laughing.

"I thought you knew how to play this game." Sarah said angrily, glaring at Jake.

"Don't be mad at him, Sarah." Jessica interceded. "Strategy games are kind of an obsession in my unit. Jake's more of an action-game kind of guy. Burst in with guns blazing and all that. Okay, I'll admit that's kind of fun sometimes, but it's not how you win in Deck Monsters."

"He wins against me all the time." Lucia chimed.

"Because your cards are all chosen by how pretty they are." Jessica retorted.

"I like pretty cards." Lucia said.

"Pretty wins even fewer games than...'Blam Blam Thank You Ma'am.'"

Jake glared up at Jessica. She was picking up her cards to leave. "Anyway, I'm going out for ice cream, who wants to come with?"

"Oo! Me! Me! Me!" Lucia chimed.

"Sarah?" Jessica asked. Sarah shook her head and went upstairs to sulk. "How about you, Jake?"

"Nah, I need to re-evaluate my battle plan." Jake replied.

"Suit yourself, but you're never going to beat me." Jessica chimed as she and Lucia headed out the door.

"Good afternoon, husband-to-be!" Katia enthused as she skipped in, accompanied by two Royal Bearers loaded down with boxes. "What a glorious day! The temperature is a perfect 73 degrees, Mato's genetically-engineered garbage-eating algae are making the breeze from the harbor smell good again, even if it won't be safe to swim there for a couple of months, and my father's just sent some wonderful new electronics! Look at my new laptop!" She set a gold-plated laptop computer on the table and opened it up. It booted, and then a Photoshopped image of Jake (or rather, Jake's head on a Chippendale dancer's body) appeared.

"Hello. Katia. You really. Know. How. To turn. Me. On." said the digital Jake, using snippets from recordings of his voice. Jake groaned and covered his face with his hands as the pixelated character began to make his pecs dance to the music of some MIDI file or other.

"What's wrong, my love?" Katia asked.

"I'm really not in the mood for this kind of thing, Katia, seriously."

"Did you lose another card game to Jessica?" Katia asked. She took his sigh to mean an affirmative, and matched it with one of her own. "Take heart, beloved! The situation shall be rectified! Using my Royal connections, I shall purchase for you every card in the entire game!"

"Katia, I don't need a room full of cards, I just need forty good ones."

"If my destined husband desires good cards, than he shall have the best." Katia replied. She opened the browser of her new computer (Jake tried not to run away every time he heard his voice say "You. Always. Push. Just. The. Right. Buttons.") and found some websites with listings of cards from the Deck Monsters game. "Here we are. You just choose what you want and it will be here by the morrow." She kissed Jake on the forehead and skipped away, humming some Elven martial theme or other. Or maybe it was a marital theme. Jake wasn't that well-versed with the Elvish traditions--which, he figured, was unfortunate, since he kept forgetting to hypnotize Katia out of this whole marriage idea. At any rate, the Bearers went with her, leaving Jake alone. Looking at the card database Katia had pulled up for him, he found a number of powerful monsters, some interesting incantations, and so on...then he saw it, the card that clicked in Jake's mind and brought an entire deck-theme screaming to the forefront of his consciousness. There were enough cards to support it.

"Jessica, your ass is grass." he said with a chuckle as he began to add cards to his shopping cart. Katia came back down just as he was finishing up.

"How's it coming, darling?" she asked.

"Just about ready, just let me go get a credit card..."

"No need, dearest, I'll use mine." Katia said, typing her credit card number into the site and clicking "send." "All done." she chimed, turning back to send the Bearers off and then heading back up to her room.

"I really hate it when she does that." Jake grumbled.

"Is that computer made of gold?" asked Professor Mato as he emerged from the lab.

"Nah, it's just gold-plated." Jake responded. "Katia's up in her room playing with some new toys the king sent her, and she forgot to take this one upstairs with her."

"It's just as well." Mato said. "Solid gold has such a low melting point it would make a horrible computer casing. Now, why did I come upstairs? I know there's a reason...AH! Yes, of course! Come, come!"

"Here we go." Jake muttered as he rose from the chair, pocketing his relatively poor assortment of cards.

"Oh, is that the latest fad?" Mato asked as they made their way slowly (due to Mato's geriatric gait) down the stairs.

"Sort of. It's called Deck Monsters."

"Monsters in your pocket?"

"Nah, just cards with pictures of monsters on them. Kind of a strategy game, but Jessica's way better at it than I am."

"But of course, she's military, strategy to them is like the ABC's." Mato said. "Come see here!" He tapped a few commands into his keypad, and a map of the galaxy appeared over their heads in holographic display. "Okay, we are here." he said, pointing to a little blue planet that the computer zoomed in on, then a little red arrow pointed to the planet as the text "YOU ARE HERE" materialized in the air. "Some of the military satellites I have access to have picked up a small alien space craft here." He pointed to a little red, flashing dot with another arrow pointing to it, with the legend "ALIEN IS HERE." "No sign of any kind of weapons or defensive grid. In fact, it's not much more than a glorified flying freezer, but I'd like to collect some data on the occupant of the vehicle, and maybe its computer will have something I can use as well."

"Is it going to crash here?"

"Oh, my, no, but it will pass nearby our moon, but if I use my Graviton Cannon Mark I (patent pending), I can collapse the moon, causing a gravity wave to alter the pod's course and bring it right to our doorstep."

"Well, that's convenient in the short run, Professor..." Jake said, rolling his eyes.

"Of course! I'm a genius!"

"...but I was kind of hoping to do some surfing this summer," he continued, almost without interruption, "but if the moon's not up there to work the tides, that could be a problem."

"Ah, you see, that's not really a problem with my patented graviton generator! I can put that up in the moon's place as quickly as two years after the operation's complete..."

"You know, I was thinking, if you just built a, oh, I dunno, a space ship, and went up there to GET the alien, you could use the time you would have spent on that graviton generator to build that atomic toaster you've always wanted." Jake said. "That way, you get the alien, guys can still write poems to their girlfriends comparing their eyes to the moon for years to come, I can go surfing, and you can butter the world's first unmanned orbiting English muffin."

"By George, that's brilliant!" Mato cheered. "My genius must be rubbing off on you!"

"And if this alien turns out to be the first wave of a hostile invasion force, we can shoot his friends down with nuclear bagels."

"Egad, nuclear bagels! I never would have thought of that! I've got to write these down! This is nothing short of ripening genius!"

"You do that, I'll be upstairs if you need me again." Jake responded, heading for the exit, while Mato muttered incoherently. He heard the strains of a violin coming from above his head and looked up to find Dawn hanging from the ceiling by her tail with a stolen Stradivarius (or the Anime Dimension equivalent, anyway) under her chin. It was a pleasant sound, and that made Jake suspicious. "New induction technique?" he asked.

"Nah." she responded, her eyes glittering with mischief.

"I didn't know you could play the violin."

"I didn't know you could play Mato." she replied. Her tail uncurled, and she floated down behind him. "You've got a manipulative streak hidden under that nice-guy facade, Jake." she said. The sounds of the violin stopped, and she advanced on him. "I like that." Her eyes filled his vision. "I like that a lot."

"Uh, thanks, I think." Jake stammered, backing up.

"Don't be scared, I'm not here to turn you into my puppet." Dawn said in the soothing voice she sometimes used when her victims were fighting hard for their will. "I just want to help."

"And what do you get out of it?"

"I just hate to see so much potential being squandered." Dawn responded. "Let me give you just a little advice, hmm? You know that little princess who's been giving you so much trouble?"

"This is a hypothetical question, I presume." Jake responded.

"If you want to keep your social life in some semblance of control, you need to let out that guy she met when this whole 'destiny' business started. Remember? The guy who stood up to the spoiled little brat and kicked her ivory tower right out from under her. That's the only kind of guy she'll ever respect. The Alpha Male. You need to set aside Mr. Nice Guy and let The Leader of the Pack out to play. You can do it. You don't have to wait for a friend to be in trouble, you can...ohhh" she sighed as Jake touched her shoulder with one glowing hand.

"I've had just about enough of your 'advice' for one afternoon, Dawn." Jake said. "Now, where'd you get the violin?"

"Museum." Dawn sighed.

"Well, here's what you're going to do: You're going to take that thing back, with an apology letter." Jake told her.

"Yes, Jake, anything for you, my love."

"Second, I've got a couple of ideas on how you can make things up to Sarah for taking advantage of her today."

"Of course, Jake." Dawn replied. "I'll make it up to her, Jake. I'll do anything you want me to, Jake. I love you so much. I'd die for you, Jake."

I'm sure Sarah would love that. Jake thought. Still, like she said, I'm too nice to tell her to die for me, even if she is a demon.

On an undeviating course through the cosmos, a tiny spacecraft hardly big enough for its occupant cruised through the vaccuum. Its computer flashed status messages across the canopy, just as if its occupant were awake.

"SIGNAL DETECTED. ORIGIN: 3RD PLANET OF NEARBY CLASS 3 STAR SYSTEM." it said. "RETRACING SIGNAL. INTERFACING WITH LOCAL COMPUTER. PLANETARY POPULATION: 2.4 BILLION LOW-LEVEL SENTIENT CREATURES WITH SCATTERED INTERMEDIATE-LEVEL SENTIENT CREATURES. SOCIETY: HIERARCHAL, MALE-DOMINANT PRE-LIGHTSPEED.

"RECOMMENDED ACTION: ACTION NOT REQUIRED AT THIS TIME. 75% PROBABILITY EXPLORATORY VESSEL WILL INTERCEPT. CONQUEST PROCEDURE EPSILON TO FOLLOW."

The readouts winked out, without the occupant even realizing they had appeared. It didn't matter.

"*YAWN!* That quiz was really easy, don't you think, Jake?" Yuta asked as she and Jake were walking home from school.

"Easy for you to say, you have a computer for a brain." Jake responded.

"But Grandfather's always saying the human brain is the most advanced computer ever conceived."

"Yeah, well..." Jake paused, his attention diverted. "There's something familiar about those two..." he muttered, spying a pair of gorgeous elves approaching from the opposite direction. "Can't put my finger on...OH!" Suddenly it clicked. This was the same pair of elves he'd met on his first day in Yoto. He recalled that one of them had thrown him hard into a dumpster. "I remember them, now." he said.

"Friends of yours?" Yuta asked.

"You could say that." Jake responded. "Come on, let's have some fun." he said with a Beware My Evil Vengeance look on his face. "Hi!" he said pleasantly as the elves came within earshot.

"Do I know you?" asked the one on the right. Despite himself, Jake had a knee-jerk reaction...

"ACK! Don't throw me in the trash!" he yelped.

"Oh, you!" the elf-girl said. "Listen, I'm really sorry about that. Really."

"You are?" Jake asked, his urge for revenge fading.

"Yeah, I was in kind of a bad mood, even for, well, me." she said. "I've been taking anger-management classes."

"Oh." Jake said, visibly relieved. "Sounds like a perfect excuse for a fresh start. I'm Jake, by the way, and this is Yuta."

"Pretty." Yuta enthused, looking at the two elves, who blushed.

"Uh, thanks." said the elf on the left *sweatdrop*. "Uh, I'm Sandy and this is Carrie."

"Cool." Jake said. "Wanna stop at Jim's for a chocolate malt?"

"Yummy, I love Jim's malts!" Yuta chimed.

"Sounds great." Sandy said.

"I'll buy, it's the least I can do to apologize."

And it's only the beginning of what you'll be doing to apologize. said a vindictive little voice in the back of Jake's mind. He fought to cram the voice back into its box. He didn't want to get himself into too much trouble. The walk to Jim's was fairly pleasant, if you didn't count the jerking reflex Jake had every time Carrie made a move that looked like it could be led into a throw.

"Thank you, come again!" chimed the girl behind the counter as Carrie paid for the malts.

She's new, must come back and introduce myself some time... Jake thought, admiring the girl's frame as they went to the tables outside, where it was warmer.

"I guess I really shook you up when I threw you." Carrie said guiltily.

"It's alright, really." Jake said, looking at her with just as much guilt written on his own face. "I probably should have given you a little more info about that particular experiment first. But it got done, and the Professor got his data, so it all worked out fine."

"The Professor?"

"Yeah, Professor Mato."

"You work with the professor? That's so cool!"

"Ah, he's just like any other perverted grandfatherly type, only with more expensive hobbies."

"Considering all the things that have come of those expensive hobbies, it's worth the Federal sales tax. He's made all kinds of wonderful advances."

"Yeah, you're right. I mean, look at Yuta."

"Huh?"

"Things were a little awkward at first, but Yuta's learning to get along with humans better."

"You mean she's...? THAT IS SO COOL!!" Carrie practically screeched.

"Shh, it's kind of a secret that she's a mechanoid." Jake whispered. "I'd hate to have to erase your memories, after all, we're becoming such good friends."

"So, what kind of powers does she have?" Sandy asked.

"Yuta, why don't you sing Sandy your pretty song?" Jake asked.

"Yay!" Yuta chimed. She opened her mouth.

"I don't hear anything." Carrie said.

"She can focus the sound waves on a single audience member if she wants." Jake said, watching with satisfaction as Sandy's eyes glazed over and turned dreamy.

"Sandy?" Carrie asked.

"So priddy." Sandy said in a little-girl voice.

"Everything's fine, Carrie, Yuta's not going to hurt Sandy, I promise." Jake said sincerely. Carrie looked to Jake, her lips parting to question what was going on, when she noticed his eyes. They were glowing. She found she couldn't look away from his golden gaze. Then she found she didn't want to. They were so gorgeous. All she wanted to do was stare forever. She felt her body relaxing as her mind sought less and less to operate on its own and more and more to seek guidance from Jake. "How does that feel, Carrie?"

"Feels...nice...Jake..." Carrie intoned.

"What would you like to do, Carrie?"

"I just wanna obey." Carrie responded. "I'll do anything for you."

"Yuta, you play nice with Sandy, while I get to know Carrie a little better."

"Okay." Yuta chimed, scooting her chair closer to Sandy's. The elf's gaze never left Yuta's eyes, which had become swirling spirals. She gasped as her mind buckled under the dual assault. "We're going to play a really fun game now, Sandy." Yuta told her hypnotized subject. Jake led Carrie back into the store.

"Anything else I can get you?" asked the girl who'd served them the malts.

"When's your break?" Jake asked.

"Uh, I'm really not supposed to..."

"When's your break?" Jake repeated, his eyes glowing.

"I was just about to take my break when you walked in."

"Go ahead and take it. Where's the bathroom?"

"Back there." the girl droned, pointing to an unmarked door on the other side of the dining area.

"Does it have a lock?"

"Yes."

"Good, after your break starts, count to twenty and then meet us in the bathroom."

Jake led Carrie into the bathroom area. Both of the restrooms were separated from the dining room by a wooden door. After checking to make sure the women's restroom was unoccupied, he pulled Carrie in. He made out with Carrie while mentally counting to twenty. Soon after he finished with that, the other girl walked in and stood awaiting further instructions.

"What's your name?" he whispered to the girl.

"Gail, sir." she responded.

"The word you're looking for is Master."

"Yes, Master." Gail replied.

"Gail, Carrie, look at each other." he said. The girls complied. "You find each other extremely attractive. Show me how much you desire one another." They began to make out passionately. Jake locked the door and smiled. This was going to be fun.

Jen looked like she was about to have a conniption when Jake and Yuta walked in the door with three hot girls in tow.

"Chill, Jen, they're not moving in." Jake told the genie. "They don't even live in the area. I just promised them I'd introduce them to a couple of people before they have to head home." Whatever Jen was about to say deflated, and she relaxed visibly. Jake gazed into her eyes, and his own eyes glowed. Soon Jen's eyes were glowing as well. "You really need to relax more often." he said to her. "I think you need to come see me tonight after dinner so we can get some things off your chest." Like that top. Jake's thoughts finished for him.

"Yes, Jake." Jen said softly.

"Now, I'm going to snap my fingers and you're going to wake up with no memory of being hypnotized." Jake said, and snapped. Jen blinked, and her eyes ceased to glow. "Uh, Jen, in case I haven't said it lately, I really, really appreciate all the trouble you go through to fix dinner for us." he said, putting an unglowing hand on her shoulder. She beamed at him.

"Thanks, Jake." she said with a genuine smile. "I'm so glad someone appreciates me!" He smiled back. He was beginning to notice how rarely he saw her smile. Of course, he rarely saw her anymore anyway. Where was she getting off to? Some pocket dimension? Well, there'd be time for that later, when she came to see him.

"Your Highness!" the elves gasped, flopping face-down to the floor in a position of abject grovelling. They said something Jake couldn't make out.

"What's that, darlings? I couldn't hear." Katia said, using her Royal Voice.

"It...It's an honor to be in your presence, Your Highness." said Sandy, her face rising ever so slightly from the floor before returning.

"Come, now, dears, this isn't the Palace, a full formal peasantly bow is hardly required here. A simple one-kneed position will suffice."

"Yes, Your Highness." the elf-girls said.

"Wow, the elf princess." Gail muttered, impressed, but not quite as awed as the two elves. "Must make life around here interesting."

"You have no idea." Jake replied.

"Carrie, darling, you've got something of a nosebleed. Here, clean yourself up."

"Thank you, Your Highness." Carrie said, accepting a handkerchief from Katia, who bestowed some more pleasantries before heading up to her room with another pair of Bearers in tow.

"Wow, you live with the Princess?" Sandy asked.

"And you're still alive?" Carrie finished. Jake chuckled softly at this.

"A dead husband's no use to her." he said. "She's taken it into her head to marry me."

"I thought she was going to have our heads for not bowing down immediately when we noticed she was in the same room with us." Carrie whispered.

"Marry you?" Sandy asked.

"Seems she and I have some things to discuss once you're safely away from here."

"Will she actually listen to you?"

"If I really have to, I can be quite persuasive." Jake replied with a smile. "Now, I was going to introduce you three to Professor Mato."

"At least the bowing's over with for now." Carrie said, daubing some more blood from her nose.

"I'll ask the professor if he's got something for that nose of yours." Jake offered, leading the girls down the stairs.

"Wow, Professor Mato's lab!" Gail whispered, much more impressed now. Katia would be rather miffed to learn that certain people held the Professor in higher regard than a Princess. Jake got another little bit of satisfaction from that.

"Oh, hello!" called the professor from a catwalk above them. "I'll just be a moment!" With that, he stepped into a little tube and pressed a button. In a flash of light, he was suddenly inside another tube on the ground. "My, such lovely guests you've brought, Jake! Will they be staying?"

"If you mean 'moving in,' no." Jake replied. The Prof looked disappointed. "But I'm sure they'll be happy to go on the tour."

"Goodie, I was going to show you the new spaceship anyway!"

"Spaceship?" Gail asked, excited. They boarded a hover-glider, and the Professor drove them to a huge pit overlooking a half-finished hulk.

"Whoa." said all four young people simultaneously.

"You built this much since I talked to you yesterday?"

"Don't be silly." the Professor said. "I designed the ship, yes, I fed the schematics into the computer, yes, but the drones did all the back-breaking labor." He dropped the glider a little more suddenly than any of the passengers would have liked, and pulled up just before they all would have gone ker-splat against the hull. Floating to a section that was still under construction, the professor pointed out a number of six-foot spiderlike machines that scurried across the ship. "Simply marvelous, aren't they?" the Professor asked. "Thanks to the new impervium alloy I used for their load-bearing parts, they can lift thousands of times their own weight, and yet still make the delicate solders needed to assemble a circuitboard. The government's really happy with all the money that having these machines has already saved them."

"What's the ship for, Professor?" Carrie asked. "Stopping alien armadas? Evacuating the planet? Hauling neutron ore?"

"All that and more, my dear." the Professor said. "Specialization is for insects, I always say, and building a different space ship for every purpose would cost more than the government is willing to fund no matter how many times I save the world."

"I?" To hear him talk you'd think he was the one who flew to the Yoto museum, devised a brilliant plan to extract the good egg, cracked it open and released the gorgeous angel-bishie inside! Jake's mind growled.

"It's a really cool ship, Professor." Carrie said. "How fast will it go?"

"I'm designing a prototype drive core as we speak." the Professor said. "Every schoolboy knows that it's impossible to go faster than light, so I designed a drive core that distorts space-time in such a way that light-years can be traversed in minutes. Unfortunately, I let that fact slip out while I was making a report about the mission for which the ship was being built in the first place, and the government's already assembling a crack-team of interstellar traffic cops to cut down on reckless flying. Apparently they want to set a speed limit of a hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second inside any star system, with faster-than-light travel only in interstellar space."

"How can they cut down on a problem that doesn't even exist yet?"

"Exactly!" Mato enthused. "Jake, you attract such wonderful guests! These new friends of yours are so delightfully intelligent!"

*sweatdrop on Jake* "No prob, Professor."

"Anyway, the government apparently wants to prevent the problem from arising in the first place." Mato continued. "But my FTL drive isn't the best part! This space ship will have an espresso machine in every room! No more wasted energy climbing endless stairs to get to the kitchen when I need a pick-me-up."

Jake almost fell off the glider.

Much later, as Yuta was seeing the girls home (after Jake had implanted a post-hypnotic command for them to meet him after school the next day), Jake decided to head upstairs. When he passed Sarah's room, he received a shock. Turning back to look in again, he saw Dawn dangling from some strings. She was all made up and dressed like a puppet, and Sarah high up near the ceiling, depending from a SWAT rapelling harness, with the controls that manipulated Dawn's strings held tightly in her hands.

"Hi, Jake, would you like to watch my puppet show?" Sarah asked pleasantly.

"Uh, sure." Jake replied. Sarah began to manipulate Dawn into a dance. Jake noticed her puppet outfit was barely legal, and left nothing to the imagination. Her thin, white mittens gave the impression of doll hands, and her empty, glassy eyes completed the look.

"Sing, Puppet!" Sarah chimed.

"I'm a little puppet,

Eyes of glass,

Here are my titties,

Here is my ass!" Dawn sang as Sarah had her indicate the appropriate (or inappropriate, depending on your point of view) body parts with her hands.

"If I'm being naughty,

Or a tease,

Bend me over and spank me please!" This caused Jake to laugh. Sarah had Dawn execute a pirouette.

"I'm a mindless puppet,

Yes it's true.

I'll do anything for you.

If you want my body,

Please don't pout,

Throw me down and ream me out!" This last was accompanied by a lewd full-body spread, as if Dawn had fallen and lay sprawled on the floor, only she was dangling four feet above it.

"I know, it sounds a little forced, but I've never claimed to be a songwriter."

"Maybe you should have asked Fawn." Jake said.

"She's visiting her uncle this week." Sarah replied. "Thanks for this, by the way."

"Figured you should at least get your money's worth." Jake chuckled. He sniffed the air, detecting the scent of food. "Mmm, smells like Jen made something delicious. We'd better let her down. She has to do the dishes after supper, don't forget." This brought a smile to Sarah's face. Reluctantly, she untied Dawn from the harness, and Jake woke her from her trance. "One more thing." he reminded her before letting her walk out the door.

"Sorry, Sarah." Dawn muttered, almost inaudibly.

"What was that?" Jake asked, cupping his hand behind his ear.

"I'm sorry I took advantage of you, Sarah." Dawn said, louder this time, and hating every syllable of it. "Please forgive this worthless little demon her transgressions."

"I'll forgive the bet, this time." Sarah said. "I still want to see you behind bars."

"Then I'll just apply for a liquor license." Dawn said as she departed.

"You smartass little...!" Sarah shouted, but Jake put his hand on her shoulder.

"One more little surprise..." he whispered conspirationally in her earblade. There was a sparkle in her eyes when she looked at him, curious, yet with a hint of vindictive glee.

Dawn was uncharacteristically quiet at dinner. In fact, it was as close to normal as this particular assemblage got. Jake was almost sad to ruin it. He plugged his mini macro-speakers into his portable CD player and turned on a bump-and-grind club tune.

"Your choice of dinner music is a little strange this evening..." Katia began, before noticing Dawn's reaction. It started in the demon's shoulders, which had begun to move to the beat, thwarting her attempt to get some mashed potatoes into her mouth. The dance began to spread to other parts of her body, her arms, hips, neck, and finally her legs. She scooted back her chair, stood up, and mounted the table. Her body swayed and ground to the music, yet miraculously she didn't step in anything edible.

"Yay! Party music!" Lucia cried gleefully, joining Dawn on the table and mimicking the demon's slutty movements as best she could.

"Stop this at once!" Katia exclaimed in shock.

"You can't stop the music." Dawn said in a throaty, horny voice. "You don't want to." She gazed hypnotically into the elf's eyes.

"I don't want to." Katia intoned.

"You want to join me." Dawn suggested.

"Yes, join you." Katia said, rising from her chair and accepting Dawn's assistance to ascend the table.

"They're going to step in my roast!" Jen cried in despair.

"Dawn needs her punishment, Jen, just make the table bigger so they have room to party." Jake told her.

"Oh, why didn't I think of that?" Jen wondered, and the table expanded. The remaining diners were almost pushed against the walls by its growth, but the dancers didn't care. Lucia was having a ball, and Katia was being drawn deeper and deeper into trance by Dawn's gaze. By the time Yuta joined in, Dawn had begun to wave her breasts and buttocks in front of the Professor.

"Oh my." he commented. "I really must find out what went wrong with that fountain of youth." He took a bite of roast. "Yes, I should make that top priority, right after the starship and alien pod."

"What do you want, old fart?"

"Are you completely allergic to my name?" Stenson's voice asked over the cell phone.

"No fair, I asked first." Vice responded, sing-song.

"We've intercepted some satellite telemetry." Stenson said. "Someone's got spy satellites watching your every move."

"'Someone?'" Vice asked. "You mean you don't know who they are? You're supposed to know everything."

"Sarcasm will get you nowhere." Stenson replied. "You're being watched by unblinking spies whom you can't hypnotize. I highly recommend you disappear for a while."

"Actually, I have a better idea." Vice said, turning off the phone and slipping it back into his pocket. He slipped into an alley and began to focus on drawing up as much energy from within as he could. Within moments he was glowing. He raised his hands above his head, focussing all the energy upwards, towards the space of air between his palms. A small sphere of black light, about the size of a snow pea, appeared. Vice continued to concentrate. The sphere attained the size of a marble after a few minutes. Then, a golf ball. This is harder than I thought! he thought to himself. He was beginning to pant with effort. Panting became grunting, grunting became groaning, until it sounded to anyone passing by outside the alley as if he were trying to pass a boulder. He looked up and was disappointed to find that he'd only made a softball-sized sphere when his energy ran out. "Aw, come on, you gotta be kidding!" he grunted. "It'll have to do, I guess." He closed his eyes and let go. The energy burst free in the form of a mind-erasing flash of black light that would turn anyone who saw it, even on tape, into a blank slate to be rewritten. He fell to his knees, quivering with exhaustion. He was hungry. He'd never used so much power before, never overextended himself so much. He wanted to take a nap, but that would mean leaving himself vulnerable. He struggled to his feet, and it was then he noticed the five bee-girls at the end of the alley, slack-jawed and drooling.

"Don't just stand there, your master commands you to help him." he said. The five mindless bee-girls shambled forward and accepted his weight on their shoulders, carrying him out of the alley like a football hero.

"You know, I'm awfully surprised anybody got any eating done with your antics." Jen said as Jake gave her a scalp massage. "Mmm, that's nice."

"I'm glad you're enjoying it, Jen." Jake said, continuing his ministrations on Jen's head. "I learned it from the lady at the cosmetology school who cuts my hair."

"You could have warned me you were going to make Dawn do a table dance."

"Where would the fun be in that?" Jake asked. "Besides, there's a big chance she would have found out about it and fried my boombox before I could turn it on. Oh, Katia, close your mouth please, you're starting to drool."

"Yes, Master." Katia responded, and her mouth, which had been hanging open, closed tightly. Jake reached across with a handkerchief and wiped the saliva off Katia's chin. The elf never paused, continuing to massage Jen's feet with her gentle, nimble fingers.

"Never realized how good elves were at foot massages, we must do this more often." Jen sighed happily. Her body was as relaxed as steamed spinach.

"Maybe we will." Jake said, leaning over Jen's head to look into her eyes. She was so relaxed she didn't have time to close them even when she noticed they were glowing. Even upside-down, she slipped easily from mere relaxation into deep trance. "Very good, Jen. Just relax and let my eyes take you even deeper into relaxation." he told her. "Deeper, deeper, deeper..."

"Deeper." Jen replied, her eyes glowing to match.

"I know it must be hard for you, Jen, so hard to find privacy in a house full of people."

"Yes, so hard." Jen said with a pout.

"But you've been going somewhere, haven't you?" he asked. "Somewhere even more private than your room. Tell me where it is, Jen." She muttered something, but someone knocked and Jake didn't hear. Damn! he thought, waking Jen up with an instruction not to remember being hypnotized. He opened the door.

"Ah, there she is." the Professor said. "Jake, could you wake Katia, she needs to sign for a package."

"Oh, right." Jake replied, instructing Katia to awaken from her trance. Jen snuck out while he was distracted. While Katia went to go sign for her package, Jake was left feeling robbed. He closed his door and flopped onto the bed. He turned on the TV and found a nature documentary on the Avalon gliding lemur, which he vaguely remembered Katia mentioning having four or five of at home. As long as she doesn't bring any of them here. he thought.

"The female of the species can be quite demanding." said the narrator. "Especially with her mate. The indulgent treatment she received from the troupe as an infant carries over into adulthood. In the first months after she chooses a mate, she makes constant demands for his attention."

Reminds me of someone I know. Jake thought wryly.

"Only when the male has had enough and asserts his dominance does he get any peace." the narrator continued.

"Your cards are here!" Katia chimed. Jake turned off the TV. The princess barged in without knocking, as was her habit. She dumped the contents of a book-sized brown box onto Jake's bed, and brushed the packing peanuts to the floor. Each card was in mint condition, protected by a card sleeve. He stopped Katia from simply tearing open the plastic sleeves.

"I got it, you just pick up the peanuts and put them in the trash where they belong." he said, slipping each card out of its sleeve with care.

"What?" Katia gasped.

"I really don't think it's an unreasonable request, after all, you were the one who knocked them to the floor." Jake responded. "I may not be Elvish royalty yet, but even I have standards for how I want to live, and styrofoam packing peanuts all over the floor is not acceptible." She stood, frozen, her spoiled mind grasping to comprehend the situation. "Please." Jake concluded.

"You're asking me to perform manual tasks?" she asked, finding her voice.

"What kind of king, prince, whatever, will I make if I have to hypnotize the whole damn court whenever I need something done?" Jake asked. "It's not going to kill you to pick up a little freaking styrofoam."

"I...I suppose not." she said, bending down to pick up her mess.

"There, that wasn't so bad, was it?" he asked once all the peanuts were in the trash can. He got up and gave her a hug. "Thank you very much. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a shower." He left her somewhat confused at the door before closing it.

Katia listened to Jake turn on the shower, still wondering what had just happened. Jake had asked her to do maid-work! But...it had felt so good afterward, when he'd given her that hug, and the thank-you certainly helped. He'd made a valid point, if he couldn't get the court to follow his instructions, he'd be useless as King. But why did she have to let him practice on her? She was reminded of when she had first met him, and he had stood up to her. For the first time in her life, someone had the spine to face her down. Even her father catered to her whims. Jake...

Jake was stronger. The thought sent a shiver through her, profound yet not unpleasant. She went downstairs for some tea. Aside from Professor Mato, who was typing furiously at a heavily-modified laptop computer, there was only Dawn, who would not be disturbed while she was washing the dishes. This much Katia knew from experience. Sighing, she got down the kettle and started making the tea herself.

"Success!" Mato exclaimed, startling Katia. Dawn just kept working. He looked around, but, finding no appreciative audience, took his computer upstairs with him.

"AAAA!" Jake shrieked as Professor Mato threw open the shower curtain.

"Excellent news, Jake!" the professor enthused.

"Couldn't it have waited until after I was finished with my shower?" Jake asked, grabbing the curtain and wrapping it around his middle.

"Not only is my prototype drive core nearly complete, but I've also digitized every card, rule and ruling for your Deck Monsters game. I can use this to facilitate fair play in the holographic stadium I'm going to be building, but for now, I merely plugged it into a card-game simulator you can run on your computer if you want to practice."

"That's great, Prof, really, just leave it on my desk and I'll install it when I'm finished with my shower." Jake said, closing the curtain.

"Oh, there's no time for showers, I'm afraid." the Professor said, throwing the curtain open again. "You and Yuta will be leaving on your intercept mission at 0400 hours tomorrow. You need to rest before then."

"Are you kidding me? I'm not...OW!" Jake said as he felt something prick in his leg. Looking down, he saw a feather-tipped dart stuck in his thigh. "I'm gunna kill you..." he said as his legs turned to rubber and he fell. He never felt the tiles.

Jake awoke on his bed feeling miserable. His head hurt, his bed was soaked, he was still naked and wet, and shivering. He looked at the clock and found that it was two in the morning.

"Morning, honey." Dawn's voice chimed from the darkness. "Did we have a nice little siesta? Oh, happy to see me, are we?" Jake frantically grabbed his pillow and covered up. Dawn laughed. "Come on, it's not like I didn't get an eyeful already. Confidentially, I've seen bigger."

"No, you haven't." Jake said as his eyes started to glow. Dawn, caught off guard by his comment, fell right into his trap, and deep into his trance.

"No, I haven't." she confirmed.

"It's the biggest you've ever seen."

"It's the biggest I've ever seen."

"You want to kiss it good-morning."

"I want to kiss it good-morning."

Jake was in decidedly better spirits as he headed down to the lab. He stopped and stared when he saw the Professor inserting a jack in Yuta's ear. A pie chart began to slowly fill from black to green.

"Matrix upgrade?" Jake asked.

"No, just updating Yuta's personality backup." the Professor replied. "I used to do this every week, but while she was gone I didn't have the opportunity, and in all the excitement when she got back I kind of forgot until now."

"So if we blow up in orbit, you can bring her back but not me." Jake said dryly.

"Don't be such a downer, Jake." Mato said. "An up-and-coming genius like yourself should put depressing thoughts like that behind him."

Tell me he's not still going on about the nuclear bagels! That was just a joke! Mato's machine emitted a "ding" sound, and Yuta unjacked herself.

"All done!" she chimed in her usual, cheerful manner.

"Is there a particular reason your computer sounds like a microwave when it finishes?" Jake asked.

"No time for that now, it's nearly time to launch!" Mato said, pushing Jake and Yuta toward the starship. "Now, I've idiot-proofed the controls, so even someone with a brainwash chip on their forehead could operate it. Just keep in touch via the jam-proof communicator so I can keep track of what's going on and offer hints if you need it."

"Aren't you coming, Professor?" Jake asked.

"Oh, my, no." the Professor replied. "Zero-gravity does things to my bowels that even fiber won't fix, it makes my underwear ride up, and the things it does to my wrinkles--that's something I wouldn't subject young eyes to."

"Thank heaven for small favors." Jake muttered as the hatch closed.

"Computer?" Yuta asked.

"On line." said a pleasant female voice. The lights began to come on, two by two, each new light incrimentally further away from Jake and Yuta. When the Professor had said there was an espresso machine in every room, that was an understatement. The way Mato had set things up, as long as he was on this ship, he'd never have to be more than two minutes away from a steaming cup of joe.

"You have a really pretty voice, computer." Yuta said happily.

"Thank you, Yuta." the computer replied.

"Computer, can you lead us to the bridge?" Jake asked.

"Of course, Jake." the computer replied. Glowing arrows appeared on all the computer screens. Jake and Yuta followed the arrows until they came to an elevator. The doors closed behind them, and the elevator began to move down. It stopped, and started moving sideways.

"What?" Jake muttered as the elevator stopped a little too quickly, then began to rise again. When the doors opened, they were on a bridge that looked like it had been stolen from the Enterprise D.

"Control to Starlight Express, come in, Express, over!" Mato's voice said over the speakers.

Oh, God, he called the ship Starlight Express? Jake groaned mentally. Could he possibly come up with a worse name? Well, maybe Rainbow Avenger...

"Express here, we're on the bridge, Professor." Yuta said.

"I got green lights all over the board." Jake said.

"Excellent. Opening launch bay doors." Mato's voice said. The opening of the doors could be heard throughout the ship, and probably all over Yoto County.

"Sounds like those servos could use some grease, Prof." Jake commented.

"Sorry, fresh out. I ordered some more, but the grease truck doesn't arrive until 8am."

"Why couldn't we wait until eight then?"

"Because the planet won't be pointed toward the intercept point at eight." Mato replied. "The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and the price of control rods has gone up."

Help! I'm trapped in a nuclear timebomb!

"T-minus two minutes and counting."

"Professor, have you seen my fiancee?" Katia's voice asked.

On the other hand, she can't get me here. Jake thought with a smile.

"WHAT? You're sending my future husband into orbit?!?! ARE YOU COMPLETELY INSANE?"

"Were perfectly safe here, Katia." Yuta chimed cheerfully.

"Perfectly safe." Jake agreed. No psycho bishie-revenge is gonna get me on this ship. At least if it blows up, I won't have to suffer.

"Are you sure, beloved? You're not afraid at all?"

"I feel safer here than on the ground." Jake commented.

"See, Jake has total confidence in my genius!" Mato said. "Now you just sit down there and you can watch. Now, where was I? Oh, yes, T-minus one minute and counting..." Jake looked over the controls, all labeled for his convenience, and found the ignition button. He poised his finger over the button as the Professor began the final countdown... "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one..."

"Ignition." Jake said. He deliberately paused.

"Jake, what's going..." Mato said, and Jake hit the button. The rockets shoved him back against the seat, and Katia and Mato fell down, having stood halfway to see what the problem was. Yuta was laughing as the ship accellerated.

"What's so funny?" Jake asked.

"Your face is all smooshed." Yuta giggled. Jake executed a spin and let out a whoop as the Starlight Express burst out of the upper atmosphere.

"I'm patching the intercept coordinates into the ship's computer, you can turn on the autopilot and it will take you where you need to go." the Professor said. Jake searched for and found the autopilot button. He then unfastened his seatbelt and amused himself by floating around the bridge.

Dawn watched Jessica leave her room and head downstairs. Chuckling to herself, she eased Jessica's door open and floated inside. Just as she had expected, she found Jessica's deck lying on her desk. Dawn grabbed the deck and floated into Jake's room. Logging onto Jake's computer, she opened Mato's Deck Monsters program. She clicked on Setup, then Customize Opponent's Deck and began to replace the default opponent's deck with Jessica's cards. She saved the changes and slunk out as stealthily as she had entered. She returned Jessica's deck to the precise location it had occupied when she'd grabbed it, and then disappeared.

"What are you doing in my room?" Jessica asked.

"I wasn't in your room." Dawn said, fixing Jessica with her hypnotic gaze.

"You weren't in my room." Jessica confirmed.

"Now that we've cleared that up, I'm making a trip to town, and I think you can help me."

"Help you." Jessica intoned.

"And if you're a good girl, I'll let you forget your role in this little escapade so your conscience will be clear."

"Forget...good girl...forget..."

"...So, my dad and I were repaving this lady's driveway, and she asked if it was going to stink." Jake said as they floated idly above the captain's chair.

"Uh-huh." Yuta responded.

"So I said to her, 'If you smell something funky, it's not my asphalt.'" Yuta laughed.

"Artificial gravity drive online." said the computer.

"Huh?" Jake and Yuta asked together. Abruptly, weightlessness disappeared, and the two tumbled to the floor.

"Ow." Jake groaned. Yuta helped him get up.

"Starlight Express, come in Express! Good news! The drones have just reported that the artificial gravity drive is completed, and should be coming online any moment now." Professor Mato's voice said.

"A little warning would have been nice." Jake groaned.

"Oh, I should have guessed you'd be enjoying yourselves in zero-G and defaulted the switch to the 'off' position."

"You didn't even tell me the ship had a gravity drive!"

"How do you expect me to operate an espresso machine in zero-G, my young friend? Of course I had to install a gravity drive! Anyway, you should be approaching the alien pod within the hour, so I want you both to prepare for a spacewalk."

"You realize I haven't had any practice at this..."

"Oh, pshaw! Just use the magnetic boots and walk on the hull!"

"Oh."

"VESSEL APPROACHING, CLASS UNKNOWN." the ship's readout flashed over the frozen alien's face. "INTERFACING WITH COMPUTER. REFORMATTING STATUS READOUTS TO BE LEGIBLE BY VESSEL'S CREATORS. REFORMAT COMPLETE."

Katia returned to the control room after dinner. Mato was napping in one of the chairs. She turned on the communicator to check on her fiance...

"Jake...Jake, it won't fit." Yuta's voice said.

"I'll fit, okay, just relax." Jake responded.

"No, you're too big! It's way too tight!"

"No, no, tight is good, I can do this! You just gotta stretch it out a little..."

"Jake!"

"Here I go! There, I'm in! Man, am I hot!"

"Wow, yeah, you're in! Woo!"

"See? I fit perfectly. And you were worried."

"This is great, Jake!"

"And you said the Professor made the space suit a size too small for me."

Katia fell out of her chair. A sound and feeling Katia knew could only be made by the footfalls of a giant robot brought her up off the floor. She left the control room and went to where Jessica usually parked her robot, and there she found that Jessica was just now putting it back. The cockpit opened, and gold bars spilled out onto the floor.

"Such a good girl, Jessica." Dawn cooed, floating in through the open robot bay doors, a laden sack slung over her shoulder. She dropped the sack and reached into the robot, drawing the soldier out of her shell. "Now, as I promised, it's time to forget this whole day ever happened."

"Yes, Mistress." Jessica sighed.

"Now, I think I'll have a little snack before I put my toy soldier down for her nap." Dawn continued, putting a finger on Jessica's forehead. Katia watched with horror as the demon fed from Jessica's energy. The soldier flopped to the floor, and Dawn picked her up, cradling her like a sleepy child. "Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep pretty senshi, la la la la, la la la la, and forget the fun we've had..." she sang as she floated up the stairs towards the bedrooms. Katia took off her sweater and wrapped one of the gold bars in it, then disappeared through the outside entrance. She threw a pebble at Sarah's window, then another, then another. Finally the policewoman opened the window, asking what the problem was. Katia climbed the nearby tree and slipped inside.

"Dawn made Jessica steal for her...or help her steal." Katia said. "Look!" She unveiled the gold bar she'd picked up off the floor. "Lucky Lady's full of these!"

"Yes, yes she is." Dawn's voice said from the door.

"You're not going to get away with this, Dawn!" Sarah snarled.

"Sarah cliché #103." Dawn remarked. "Look me in the eye when I'm speaking to you, Sarah." Sarah forced her eyes closed and turned her head to the side. Dawn grabbed the policewoman, turning her head to face her and prying her eyes open. "That's right, stare helplessly into my eyes. You've done it before, you'll do it again, and again, and again. Let yourself become my pet again." Katia had backed herself into a corner, staring in horror as Dawn mesmerized Sarah. "Don't think I've forgotten you, my little tattletale." Dawn said, advancing on the elf. Katia couldn't look away. Dawn's eyes transfixed her, then entranced her. Her body went limp, and her mind went with it. "Such a naughty girl, telling stories about little ol' me." She touched Katia's forehead, and began to draw out the girl's energy. "Nighty-night, sweet princess." she said as Katia's head slumped onto Sarah's pillow.

Jake slid his magnetic boots along the outside of the ship. The lube he'd smeared on the soles would prevent the heat shields from getting scratched while allowing him to move without running the risk of yanking himself free of the hull by pulling too hard. Mato had programmed the Express to match the alien pod's course and speed. He fired the magnetic grappling cable at the front of the pod. Yuta used her wireless systems to interface with the pod and get it to cooperate with them as the two, clad in their respective space suits (Yuta had painted hers pink), guided it gently into the docking bay. Jake felt all tingly as he passed through the force field that held the atmosphere in the airlock (so precious oxygen wouldn't be wasted every time somebody had to open the damn door). Soon, the pod was secure. Jake wiped years of space dust and ice crystals off the canopy (which the scans said was made of a super polymer that was stronger than diamond, much to the Professor's delight). The occupant appeared to be female (Space-bishie, excellent! Jake thought), just under five feet in height, slender, with four nimble fingers, a pair of elf-like ears and a tail. Her hair appeared to be dark red or black, it was hard to tell through the frost inside, and her skin was pale and contrasted with both the hair and her black one-piece swimsuit (or at least Jake thought of it that way). Her slender, four-digited feet were bare, and her legs were nice, slender and smooth. Sure hope she's as nice as she looks. Jake thought. He found what appeared to be a console on one side.

"Everything looks okay here." he said. "Hey, the readouts are in English!"

"The ship's computer reported an interface attempt by the pod." Mato's voice said over his spacesuit speakers. "It scanned our linguistic files and altered its output so we could understand it."

"When in Rome, learn to speak Roman, eh, Prof?" Jake joked.

"Nice one, Jake." Yuta chimed.

"I'll double-check to make sure the pod's secure before we head back, Professor."

"Oh, there's no time for that, I'm afraid." Professor Mato said.

"Why is it whenever you say there's no time, it means bad news for me?" Jake asked.

"It seems the pod's energy wake disturbed the orbit of a few asteroids, and now they're on a collision course with your position." Mato said. "The bad part is, if you get out of the way, they'll collide with the moon and send mountain-sized pieces heading straight for earth."

"It's always something." Jake grumbled, turning off his magnet boots and heading out of the airlock and into the main part of the ship. He took off his helmet and dashed into the nearest elevator. "Bridge! On the double!" he said once Yuta was inside. The two fell to the floor as the car rocketed up, then thrown against the back wall as it changed direction. The ceiling was next, then a hard slam to the floor before the doors opened. "Ow." he groaned.

"Whee! That was fun!" Yuta enthused.

"...Said the adorable robo-girl with a built-in self-repair system." Jake grunted. He shuffled to the helm, while Yuta took ops, and they pointed the ship in the direction of the asteroids. "I've got the big one in my sights." he declared, slamming his hand on a red button marked "G. Ray."

"Whoopsie." Yuta said as the ship emitted a green beam that caused the lead asteroid to increase exponentially in size.

"I thought that was the Graviton Ray." Jake groaned.

"No, that was the Growth Ray." Professor Mato responded. "The one you were looking for is the Graviton Cannon. Now the asteroid's too big for the ship's arsenal to destroy! We're all doomed!"

"Not if I have anything to say about it!" Jake said.

"Hey, look!" Yuta said. "The babies are hugging their mommy!" Jake looked at the viewscreen and saw that the gravity of the giant asteroid was drawing the smaller ones closer to it.

"Help me find the shrink ray!" he called.

"I never installed a shrink ray." Mato's voice said. "How is it possible that the one thing I forget would be so important?"

"Never mind! Yuta, reverse polarity on the growth ray, we'll improvise a shrinker!"

"'Kay." Yuta replied, opening up the console and crossing the two wires connected to the shrink ray. "Now!"

"Sometimes I envy your calm." Jake said, slapping his hand down on the button again. Dutifully, the ship bathed the giant asteroid in red light. "It's working!" he reported joyfully.

"YAY!" Yuta cheered. Jake increased power to the beam, increasing the speed of the asteroids' shrinkage, and cutting the beam off only after the largest became the size of a pebble.

"You know, Prof, maybe you ARE rubbing off on me." Jake said, slumping into his chair. He had a sudden vision of himself as the Professor, and then an involuntary full-body shiver. "How can a pod that tiny disturb asteroids that big anyway?"

"You can't move an object faster than the speed of light, so the pod's engines warp space instead." Mato explained. "The pod would have to be larger than it is to support two kinds of engines, so it runs its warp engines at very low power when it's passing through a solar system. These engines aren't very strong anyway, its top speed is only .02 past light speed. The ones on Starlight Express will do .5 past light speed, or to put it in layman's terms, one and a half times the speed of light."

Next he'll be telling me it made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. Jake thought, rolling his eyes.

Where the hell is that angel? Dawn thought, impatiently. She's not in her room, she's not in Mato's lab, she's not in the living room or the kitchen, or anybody else's bedroom... She paced back and forth in front of the four girls she'd already captured, Katia, Sarah, Jessica and Jen, who were staring helplessly at a hovering orb she'd made, chanting "We belong to Mistress Dawn" over and over again, the pulsing of their eyes matching that of the orb.

She noticed someone coming. Ah, Diana and Mina, two more lovelies for my collection! Dawn thought happily. I'll get Lucia later. "Come in, come in!" she chimed, throwing open the door and pulling the two schoolgirls inside. "You're just in time! We were about to play my favorite party game...Mistress Says." They struggled not to look at the orb, but Dawn had them by the necks, and was much stronger than she looked. Mina caved first, her mouth hanging open as she gazed into the pulsing orb. Dawn held Diana still and pried her eyes open until she couldn't look away. Soon the catgirl ceased to struggle as well. Within minutes, they had joined the other girls in their chant.

"We belong to Mistress Dawn. We belong to Mistress Dawn. We belong to Mistress Dawn..." they chanted.

"I never get tired of hearing that." Dawn chuckled.

Reentry was much smoother than Jake had anticipated. He saw a red shimmer in the front, but it was several feet in advance of the craft. "Smooth ride coming in." he reported.

"Of course!" Professor Mato gushed enthusiastically. "Force fields mean never having to clean scorch marks off the hull!"

"Coming in on final approach, Professor." Jake said. "Cargo secure...is that Lucia on the roof?"

"Oh, is that where she's been hiding?" the Professor asked. "I'll inform Dawn at once...she's been looking for her all morning."

"No!" Jake exclaimed. "I mean, you'll want to get the pod to the lab as soon as possible to start with your data-gathering, right?"

"Oh, thank you for reminding me. I'd almost forgotten what the cargo was...hmm, now where did I put my pants?"

I have a real bad feeling about this... Jake thought. He cast a glance back down at Lucia, sunning herself on the roof of the house, without a stitch of clothing on, her wings spread out to catch as much sun as possible... He could only think of one reason why Dawn might be looking for Lucia. The launch-bay doors opened slowly, but smoothly, which meant Mato had greased the servos. The landing was just as smooth as the reentry. Yuta skipped upstairs while Jake got wrangled into helping Mato move the pod.

The distinctive sound of Yuta skipping out of the lab brought a smile to Dawn's face. "Hi, everybody! What are you all looking at?"

Oh, yeah, she is TOO easy! Dawn thought with glee as Yuta allowed herself to be mesmerized by her orb. One more to go, unless Fawn comes home to join the party.

"Dawn!" Jake exclaimed.

"Hi, honey, how was your day?" Dawn quipped.

"Jake, you're home!" Lucia cheered, flying into the room.

"Ah, Lucia, I've been looking all over for you!"

"Oh? Is something the ma...ohhhhh." she said as Dawn produced another orb. With the angel's will quickly ensnared, Dawn felt a soaring sense of accomplishment--until she felt Jake's building energy level.

"What the..." she stammered, glancing at Jake, who was building to critical mass. His body glowed white-hot, the air rippled and shimmered around him, and energy crackled electrically around his torso. "Uh...Jake?"

"I think I've been more than patient with you." he said in a stern voice. "You take advantage of everybody, you try manipulating me with your 'advice' and now you start hypnotizing the other house guests behind my back while I'm up in space..."

"Hi, everybody, I'm home!" Fawn chimed as she entered. "Uh-oh." she said, noticing the state of affairs in the room. She started to slink toward the kitchen.

"...Well I, for one, have had ENOUGH!" As his anger reached a crescendo, his built-up energy burst outward like the gravity wave from an exploding planet. Dawn's orbs were dissipated, as were the wills of every female in the room.

"I belong to Master Jake." Dawn intoned softly.

"I belong to Master Jake." agreed Fawn.

"I belong to Master Jake." sighed Sarah.

"I belong to Master Jake." spake Jessica.

"I belong to Master Jake." chanted Diana.

"I belong to Master Jake." muttered Mina.

"I belong to Master Jake." declared Lucia.

"I belong to Master Jake." bespoke Jen.

"I belong to Master Jake." voiced Katia

"I belong to Master Jake." uttered Yuta.

*sweatdrop on Jake.* "Um, oops."

"I belong to Master Jake." said a female postwoman, shambling into the house.

"Jake, what's happened?" Professor Mato asked, shuffling up from the lab. "My instruments registered some kind of mental EMP originating from the living room and extending for twenty feet in every direction.

"My bad." Jake responded. He was up on the balls of his feet, ready to take off if the girls started to crowd him. To his surprise, even the postal worker only stood there once she was in the same room with him.

"What is your desire, Master Jake?" the women asked all at once.

"Oh, I'll leave you lot alone, then." Mato said, returning to the lab.

"Professor! Uh...well..." He sighed. "Might as well have some fun. Follow me, ladies." he said, heading up the stairs. The girls shambled up after him, empty minds echoing with the need to obey.

"Get ready, Jessica, because you're going down." Jake taunted.

"Not likely." Jessica replied. "You can't match my strategy! Never could!"

"This is going to be a whole new ball game." Jake said.

"It's a card game, idiot!"

"It's a figure of speech, army brat."

"Oh, now you're in for it!"

"Let's duel!" they said together.

Jake rushed to one side of the holographic Deck Monsters arena Professor Mato had prepared for them, and rode the elevator to the top. Jessica was already waiting for him.

"Ladies first." Jessica said. "I'll play Voodoo Queen in attack position!"

"I remember her." Jake said. "Pain in the butt if she gets out first turn, because she can destroy a monster without battling if you skip your Battle Step."

"Well, nothing wrong with your memory." Jessica said. "Now I place this one card face down and end my turn."

"I'll play Premature Trigger to activate your face-down card." Jake said.

"Oh, no! My Vaporization Field can only be properly activated by an attack!"

"Oh, is that all you had?" Jake remarked. "Oh, well. I cast The Gravekeeper's Ward, allowing me to pay half of my Health Points to prohibit you from stealing any cards from my Cemetary for the rest of the duel, place one card face-down, and that's it for me."

"That's a stupid move, paying half your Health points and putting nothing out there to protect the rest." Jessica said. "Voodoo Queen, attack him directly!"

"If I knew she was coming, I'd have baked a cake." Jake said as the Voodoo Queen charged. "Actually, I can still pull up a chair." He flipped over his face-down card. "Brainwash Chair!"

"Huh?" Jessica gasped.

"This nifty little trap card imprisons your monster and holds her hostage on my side of the field." Jake explained. "You can destroy her if you want to, but for the next three turns at least, she's still your monster, and the Health Points would be deducted from your total instead of mine." he said.

"What happens after three turns?" Jessica asked.

"Her conditioning is complete and she becomes mine to command." Jake replied.

"Clever move."

"Thank you." Jake said. "My turn?" Jessica nodded. "Okay, I call Madame Nosferatu in attack mode." An attractive vampiress appeared on the field. "Now, Madame Nosferatu, attack Jessica directly!" Jessica had nothing, even a trap, between the vampiress and her Health, so the attack took a sizeable chunk out of her total score. "Ouch, that's gotta hurt. Now I place one more card face-down on the field, and end my turn." The brainwash chair lit a light that said "Stage 1 Complete."

"I'll play Vampire Huntress in attack mode!" Jessica said. "I'll combine her with Anti-Hypnosis Goggles! Vampire Huntress, use your special ability to destroy Madame Nosferatu!"

"I don't think so, Jessie." Jake responded, flipping over his trap. "Disarmament negates your accessory card, and Madame Nosferatu uses her special ability to hypnotize your Huntress, weakening her enough for her to take a bite."

"Yahoo! Go Jake!" Sarah exclaimed.

"Go vampire, yes!" Dawn cheered as Madame Nosferatu sank her fangs into Vampire Huntress's neck.

"Grr, you're going to pay for that, Jake!" Jessica exclaimed.

"I really don't see how." Jake chuckled. "Come on, Jessica, you're still ahead in Health. Don't frown."

"But I know what's going to happen once you start your turn."

"Well, then I don't have to explain." Jake said. "Good."

"My turn's over." Jessica grumbled.

"Ah, goodie." Jake said. Just like that, the fallen Vampire Huntress was resurrected, rising from the ground behind and to the left of Madame Nosferatu. Jake drew a card. "Here we go, now." Jake said. "I'll play Refill, to allow us both to draw cards until we have five in our hand."

"How very nice of you." Jessica said dryly.

"Next, I place a new card face-down on the field, and end my turn."

"How many damn cards did you buy anyway, Jake?"

"Nah-ah, a good magician or duelist never reveals his secrets."

"You just want to rub it in my face, just because you have a rich girlfriend willing to buy you every card in the game."

"Actually I was going to put it on Mato's card, but Katia volunteered instead." Jake replied. His brainwash chair now displayed a light that said "Stage 2 Complete." "You're just scared you're going to have to go on a date with me in that skimpy black dress." he concluded.

"I only agreed to that because you bet that if you lost you'd polish Lucky Lady for a year with a toothbrush!"

"It does need a good polish, you gotta admit." Jake said, but I digress, it's your move."

"I'll play a second Voodoo Queen and skip my Battle Step to destroy your Madame Nosferatu. Without her mistress to guide her, Vampire Huntress won't be able to change my Voodoo Queen into a vampire."

"Nice."

"Next, I'll play Blood Sacrifice to discard a monster from my hand and subtract its Attack power from your Health Points." Jessica declared. "The downside is I can never resurrect it under any circumstances, but it can be resurrected against me."

"Well, that's quite a blow to my score." Jake replied, looking at the tiny amount he had left. "Pity you didn't have a stronger monster, or you would have finished me."

"I still can." Jessica said. "Your new strategy won't save you."

"Please." Jake replied. "Every card you've played was in the default deck Mato set up for the opponent in his practice program."

"Huh? The default deck is a demon-based beatdown de..." Both players looked suspiciously at Dawn. "What did you bet this time, Dawn?"

"Huh?" Dawn asked. "I don't remember betting anything." She looked like she was mentally kicking herself for not having bet Sarah something heinous.

"Looks like Dawn fixed it so you could practice against my deck, but I can still outthink you!"

"You never even asked why I didn't seem worried." Jake responded. "I play Sharing Pain, to add a portion of your Health Points to mine until we both have the same amount."

"You're as bad as Dawn with the thieving!" Jessica called.

"That's a low blow!" Jake called back. "Just for that, I've got a surprise for you next turn. For now, my turn's over." the sign above the brainwash chair said "Stage 3 Complete." "There, now Voodoo Queen is my brainwashed slave. If you destroy her with a stronger monster, you can hurt me now."

"I play Shieldmaiden of Amazonia in defense, and play Agony Charger."

"Oh, I hate that card." Jake grumbled. "Being able to hit me for a thousand points for every full turn that thing's on the field before it's destroyed is a real bummer."

"Them's the breaks."

"And here's the breaker!" Jake responded. "I sacrifice Vampire Huntress and Voodoo Queen to summon Immortal Mindbender in attack mode!"

"No way!" Jessica gasped. "Not Immortal Mindbender!"

"Now every female monster placed on the field becomes the mindless slave of the Mindbender."

"That means my Amazon..."

"Is now MY Amazon." Jake said, as the Amazon walked over to stand at the Mindbender's side at mindless attention. "And that ain't all...I can discard a card from my hand to declare the name of a female monster, and if your Deck has it, then my Mindbender can compel it to jump out of your deck and onto the field." He tossed a card from his hand to the Cemetary. "Come on out, Pretty Magical Girl!" Jessica groaned as she dug into her Deck and brought out her Pretty Magical Girl. "Another will bites the dust." Jake chuckled as the Pretty Magical Girl fell under Immortal Mindbender's thrall and stood at attention by his side. "Lucky for you I have to skip my Battle Step when I use Mindbender's summon ability, so it's your turn."

Gotta turn this around! Jessica thought frantically. Never dueled a hypno-deck before...I don't know if I have the cards to counter the theme...I certainly don't have any monsters that can resist Immortal Mindbender's powers...damn, why'd I have to go with a Girl Power deck? What's the deal? I'm feeling...kind of...funny... "Jake...you're...not trying to...hyp...no...tiiiiiiiiize...." Her eyes glazed over, and she stood at attention just like Pretty Magical Girl and Shieldmaiden of Amazonia.

"Huh?" Jake asked, glancing around to find that all the women watching the duel were also standing at attention.

"You can never make the holographic experience too real, I always say." Mato said. "Seems my dueling arena's a success, wouldn't you agree?"

"Great, my big rematch called on account of mindless opponent." Jake said with a frown. "This sucks."

"Oh, I've started the defrosting process on our lovely new guest." Mato said. "She should be up and around by morning, if you'd like to introduce yourself."

"Yeah, sure, Prof." Jake said, descending the elevator.

"Are you alright?"

"Will they snap out of it once this is turned off?"

"The Mindbender's powers only work while he's on the field, so they should snap right out of it, yes."

"Okay." Jake said, reaching for the lever. On the other hand...I've got a couple of things I want to say to some of the people here first.

The first thing Freyka was aware of was a deep, bone-penetrating cold. Her brain thawed out before the rest of her, and she couldn't move. The life-support functions would keep her from dying in case this happened, but Freyka found it distressing. She opened her mind and began to probe around, sensing the nearby minds. Interesting....





*tap tap tap tap* This thing on? Jake here, just to let you know I'm still alive. The alien pod really got busy thawing the gorgeous little alien bishie inside, but I'm beginning to think she's not as nice as everybody else says she is. In fact, I kind of prefer Dawn, and that's saying something. See, because of her, I have to load Yuta's personality backup without the Professor's help.

Next time: Mon Petite Empress! Wish me luck, eh?