~~~Stanley~~~

"He has mind control," Nate said, and Stanley was the only one who was surprised by the revelation. There was a general revulsion among the others, but that was the totality of their reaction.

Stanley's feelings were far different. Fear nibbled at his mind first, followed rapidly by confidence. There was no way it was powerful enough to control him, not with all of his willpower boosts. Especially not if the guy was afraid of Nate... right?

"Yeah," Bubble Man said into the silence before Stanley could reply. "The pervert used it to enslave his own little harem."

Stanley closed his mouth when no one contradicted Bubble. It was true? Why was the guy still alive? Why had Nate left him alive? Was his mind already compromised!? His soul still felt the same...

"It wasn't like that!" Harem protested. "I would never..." He looked at the woman holding his arm, his voice trailing off pleadingly. "I swear I didn't do anything on purpose."

"I know, baby," she said, with a consoling pat on his arm and more of that weird affection in her soul. Then she turned a sneer on the other man. "Quinn just wishes he could force a woman to touch him, because that's the only way it's ever going to happen."

"Fuck you, bitch!"

"In your dreams..."

"Be quiet," Stanley said, not quite shouting but infusing some of his will into his voice. He didn't care about or trust any of their opinions on the matter. Nate, on the other hand, had earned a measure of trust. His opinion mattered, and right now it felt... unsure?

Nate met his gaze evenly, a question in his soul. As if he didn't actually know the truth... but wasn't that his whole thing? Why hadn't he said anything before this meeting?

Harem's soul wasn't much help either. The man really seemed to feel bad... Had it actually been an accident? How do you accidentally mind-control someone?

On the other hand... what might it do for him? For example, it might help him level up his Mental Fortress skill. Stanley looked down and locked eyes with Caffeine; the pug was already looking up, likely sensing his elevated anxiety. Between Caffeine and Nate, he should be safe... just in case his willpower wasn't all he thought it was.

"Use it on me." Either way, he had to find out. It was that, or he killed the man right now.

Nate didn't react to his request, other than to nod at Harem when the man looked his way. His girlfriend was all for it, but Harem actually had more intelligence than Bubble, because even after getting confirmation from Nate, he still looked worriedly at Caffeine instead of immediately attacking. "I don't want to upset your dog."

Stanley wrapped his arms around Caffeine. "Just do it. He won't mind." Probably.

"Wait!" Nate shouted, sudden alarm flashing through his soul right as the premonition hit. Nate's abrupt shift in attitude was... strange. That, combined with what his premonition was showing him, triggered Still Mind.

The skill ramped up his thought process and gave him time to analyze what was coming. There was enough time to decide if he would take the hit or kill his attacker. Because the attack wasn't what he'd expected.

Not that he knew what it should feel like for someone to take over your mind... but should it feel like dying?

Even more strangely, the premonition seemed to change the longer he looked at it. What started as certain death shifted into something else. Something less. Something he could beat.

It changed enough that he let it hit... and it slammed into him like a truck.

Darkness pressed into his mind from all sides, blotting out the world and everything in it. His senses dimmed. His mind shrank.

Stanley pushed back. It didn't matter if it hit like a truck. He could tank a freight train now. Hell, he'd already thrown more than a few rail cars at the monsters out there. What was one more? He would beat this, too. He would resist...

Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress

Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress

Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress

Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress

The darkness refused to relent. Suffocating, cloying darkness enveloped his mind in a morass with no way out. Fighting back against it felt impossible. As if he were sinking deeper and deeper into a boiling tar pit. Falling. Drowning. Losing.

He ignored all that in the calm stillness of his thoughts. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except that he resisted.

The only connection he had remaining with the outside world was his domain, and even that seemed to shrink under the onslaught, but it was still large enough for Stanley to know Caffeine was staring up at his face with a worried soul.

That sight bothered him, and intellectually, he knew why it bothered him, but the feelings couldn't reach past the stillness. They couldn't touch him down here in the dark. The crushing darkness. Too crushing...

It was too strong. Why was it too strong now? He'd seen his victory...

Emotion flooded violently and abruptly back into his mind as Caffeine canceled Still Mind. Fear came first. Then guilt over the worry he could feel from Caffeine.

Then anger overrode everything else.

Stanley drove that anger against the smothering darkness with everything he had. Get. Out. Of. My. Head!

Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress

Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress

Skill Level Up: Mental Fortress

Debuff Resisted: [Mental Domination]

The darkness shattered, and reality crashed back into place around him with a jolt.

Stanley went to work comforting the frantic Caffeine first, then took in the scene before him. It wasn't at all the way he remembered it.

First off, he was no longer hovering above the ground; now he sat in the dirt, in a muddy puddle of his own blood. Not only that, but it looked like the ground had collapsed beneath him into a crater.

Harem was on his hands and knees, vomiting and crying into the dirt. His girlfriend kneeled beside him, rubbing his back while her soul radiated fear and... disappointment?

Stanley wasn't sure how long that struggle had lasted, but he suspected it was shorter than it had felt. Despite that, everyone else had backed off.

Except Nate. Instead, the man had ended up closer to Harem... and Stanley saw Nate take a step away as relief flooded his soul, replacing another emotion. A very deadly emotion.

Had Nate intended to kill the man? His soul sure felt that way, and there was that shout right before... Had he really thought Stanley would fail to resist the skill? Did he have so little faith? As if! Though, for a moment there...

"I... I'm sorry!" Harem gasped between spitting bile into the dirt. "I thought you wanted my strongest... but I shouldn't have used that!"

"Do it again," Stanley demanded as he levitated back into the air with Caffeine licking his face. He also re-upped his soul shield again while sticking food directly into his stomach.

"No!" Nate and Harem shouted in perfect unison.

"Do. It." Stanley shot glares at both of them while forcing his own fear back down. "I will resist it." He would. No matter what. They would sit right here and do it over and over. Until it was effortless. That had been far too close... though only while in Still Mind. Once he got angry, it was practically nothing.

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"It isn't... that," Harem said pleadingly while looking up at Stanley with unadulterated fear. "I can't go back in there!"

"Get over yourself," Stanley snapped. "My head's not that bad, and with a skill like that, you must have insane willpower. So suck it up and keep going!"

"I'm... intelligence-focused," he said in a whisper, then shook his head as the fear climbed higher in his soul. "But it's not that... It's..." He shivered and huddled in on himself. "There was something else in there! It saw me... and it was going to kill me if I... went any further... if I got any closer to killing you..."

That was... Stanley glanced down at Caffeine in his lap. Had he seen the pug in his soul? Of course Caffeine would have killed him if it came down to it—that was the whole point—but of course he wouldn't succeed either. "That was just Caffeine, and what the fuck do you mean, kill me? I thought it was just mind control?"

He'd seen the notification. Mental Domination. That wasn't lethal, was it? Though there had been that feeling in the premonition...

"That... that... wasn't a pug! It was..." He clutched at his neck and burst into fresh tears. "I felt it... the teeth on my throat... and that... that shadow!"

He'd broken. One little warning from Caffeine and it broke the idiot's brain. Considering that he'd said his ability was intelligence-focused, maybe that made sense. Magic was and always had been bullshit. Willpower was obviously the better way.

Instead of listening to more blubbering, Stanley turned his anger on the woman beside the crybaby. She was upset about something, and going by what he'd observed, it was because he'd resisted the mind control. "What's your problem?"

"I don't know what..."

"Don't fucking lie to me!" Stanley roared. "You wanted him to control me! You were eager for him to attack me and upset when it failed! So fucking tell me!"

Color drained from her face. "I didn't... I would never..."

"Lie!"

"I..." She took a step back while looking around as if for support. There was none. "I just wanted you brought down a peg," she finally mumbled under her breath while refusing to look at him. "The way you fly around... lording your power over everyone..."

"For fucks..." Stanley closed his eyes for a long breath. When he reopened them, his gaze landed on the next man. The man had a cloth band covering both of his eyes. "Blindfold, what's your..."

"Nope." He didn't even let Stanley finish the question before shaking his head. "Not happening."

"Just..."

"You're dreaming if you think I'll use my power on you." He tilted his head toward the still hysterical Harem. "I especially don't want to meet whatever shadowy monster he ran into..."

"He's not a monster," Stanley muttered, then sighed. "Just tell me what your ability is."

"Oh, sure." He tapped the covering over his eyes. "Whatever or whoever I look at will burn. Everything I see."

"That doesn't sound..."

"Oh, and the flames make any and every monster go completely apeshit-berserk. Enough that they will without fail attack the nearest creature they can find."

"That sounds... powerful. Though I can see why you wouldn't want to use it on me." Stanley stared at the blindfold. "Wait, is it a constant effect? As in, you can't turn it off?"

"Yep."

"Why would you pick that?"

"I adapted to a skill..." He rubbed the back of his neck. "My class changed. My class skills all changed... and here I am."

"We're hoping some levels might help with the control issues," Nate chimed in helpfully.

Stanley asked the million-dollar question. "Does it work on the undead?"

"It burns them, but the frenzy... not so much. Nate said the debuff messed with his mind, so maybe..."

That lowered its usefulness considerably. "I'm still going to have you test it on me." Stanley ignored the man's shaking head. "Later. After a few more rounds with Harem over here."

He had to find out if the ability worked on him or if Mental Fortress would block it. Inducing a violent rage sounded like the kind of thing it should block... but he wasn't sure since it involved some kind of burning.

"I told you that's not happening."

It would happen, but first, there was one more person to meet. A guy who was wearing a full-face medieval-looking helmet, boots, and shorts. Really short shorts... and nothing else. He was also obviously one of Bernard's people, with their weirdly corrupted souls. Though he didn't seem to share Bernard's hostility. "What's your deal?"

"Touch me and find out," the man said, the grin in his voice coming through despite the metal hiding his face. "I'll gladly show you."

There was obviously a risk in letting people use whatever random abilities on him, but Stanley was feeling a lot of trust in his Premonition ability lately. So he touched him, and as expected, a premonition told him what would happen a fraction of a second before it did.

Debuff Gained: [Devouring Decay]

His first thought was, Acid. That was the closest comparison he had to the sensation that engulfed his hand. Except, it wasn't quite the same. This pain felt more... draining? A pain that didn't remain in his hand but spread quickly throughout the rest of his body.

Along with the pain, he watched his flesh shrivel, dry out, and turn black.

No, not just turning black; his hand was rotting. Even as he watched, a piece of blackened and shriveled flesh crumbled to pieces and fell into the dirt. Also, the pain was getting worse.

The whole experience was extra incongruous when he could feel the pure pleasure in his attacker's soul. The guy was really enjoying himself.

Then Caffeine growled from Stanley's lap. Softly. It wasn't a threatening sound—not yet—but definitely a warning.

Debuff Removed: [Devouring Decay]

The debuff vanished the moment Stanley pulled his hand away, or what remained of his hand. Even some bones had crumbled away. So he just shoved more food into his stomach while it regenerated.

"Hoooly shiiiit!" Helmet groaned, still disturbingly happy about whatever had just happened. "Don't you want to keep testing?"

Disturbing and far too eager...

"I would," Stanley said. "But you're making it weird. Why did you enjoy that so much?"

"How do I say this?" The guy slowly calmed down as he paced back and forth a few times with nervous but happy energy. "Your... life-force? Well, everyone's energy is different, but yours has something extra—a spark of—oh, something fantastic..." His voice trailed off dreamily.

"You're still making it weird," Stanley muttered, drifting further away when the guy took a step closer. "I'm assuming that doing that heals you?" It was an obvious guess, given what the guy was wearing. Or not wearing, as it was.

"Yeah. Want to test it and see?"

"How about I just find a monster for you to hug?" Stanley said, cringing and moving back another few paces from the advancing weirdo before putting a psionic wall in his way. "Does it work on the undead?"

"It does." The answer Stanley expected from one of Bernard's people. After all, the freaks liked the miasma... "Though it's not nearly as..." He shivered in pure delight. "Nourishing."

Stanley shuddered in disgust and, from his better vantage, looked over the gathered party as they all watched him in return. He munched on some meat while he observed them, taking his time to chew it since Jerry was actually a good cook and it was, in fact, delicious.

Nate's new special team... some of whom were indeed powerful. But it was time to find out what the man wasn't telling him. "Nate, let's talk."

Stanley stopped flying when the people looked like ants far below and asked the most pressing question. One he wasn't sure could even be answered. "How do I know you didn't get mind-controlled?"

"I..." Nate stared at him, tension rising. "Did you notice something? Have I changed? I didn't think he'd gotten to me, but..."

"Not that I can tell," Stanley said quickly, a little disturbed by the man's own uncertainty. "Is it true? Did he really enslave a bunch of women? If it is, then why is he still alive? Is this another person you're keeping alive because he's too useful to kill? Because if so, that seems extremely risky on your part, or you're already compromised."

Nate held up his hands at the barrage of questions. "It's none of that! The truth is... complicated. At least, as far as I can tell. I was actually hoping to get your own take on the matter after this."

"I will, but after he ranks up my skill some more..." Stanley looked down at the soul in question. "Though he doesn't seem the type, does he?" Not that he knew what the type looked like.

"He seems too timid to me," Nate said, nodding. "Though it has been harder to trust my gut since I met him..." He eyed Stanley and then Caffeine. "For a second back there..."

"You were going to kill him, weren't you? What did you see? Or feel?"

"I was." Nate nodded again. "Everything felt fine until the moment he attacked you. Then it was as if the entire world tilted on its axis, and all our lives hung by a thread, dangling above the abyss..."

"He was... stronger than I expected." Stanley looked away from him to stare into Caffeine's eyes. "I used Still Mind by accident... and it wasn't enough. Caffeine turned it off just in time."

"Yeah," Nate chuckled with forced mirth. "I think we all felt that." Then he smiled at the pug. "He's the main reason I risked any of this, after all. I guess I should've had more faith."

"Obviously," Stanley said, smiling himself while rubbing Caffeine's ears in the way he liked. "So, what's the complicated truth?"

"First, what did you think of June?" Nate asked. "The woman hanging onto his every word?" he added at Stanley's questioning look. "Did her feelings seem... genuine?"

"You think her ability protected her from him? She's definitely got plenty of... feelings about him," Stanley said, shrugging, then shared his observations of her weirdly possessive affections.

Nate didn't seem surprised. "That fits with what she's said. As well as what most of the others have said. Believe it or not, but most of the women claim to have joined his harem willingly. Some for protection, and others for power."

"Most?"

"That's the rub," Nate said with a sigh. "A few claim there was nothing consensual in their... consent. He denies it, and the problem is that I can't tell that either side is lying. Another thing I'd like your take on."

"Just how many women are we talking about here?" Stanley asked while beginning their slow descent back to the others.

"Almost two dozen."

Stanley stopped and stared at Nate. "Seriously!?" Then he stared down toward the man in question. "What an idiot."

Nate laughed. "What, you don't want a bunch of beautiful women awaiting your pleasure?"

Stanley shook his head. "That just sounds exhausting."