The Archway, Part 17 (Patreon)

Thank you for your patience.

I leaned against the playpen to rest a little after converting Duchess Cross. Not that the conversion itself had tired me out. If anything, I felt too energetic. I had been a little uncomfortable before I had stolen Cross' enhanced strength and intellect, but now, the discomfort was beginning to feel genuinely painful. My mind was running through ideas so quickly, that it felt overwhelming. I knew I needed to offload some of this power. I had suspected that I couldn't just keep accumulating enhancements like a dragon hoarding gold. There had to be some limit, and if the way I felt now was any indication, I was near the red zone again. I didn't dare try to absorb any more today. I wondered if I would be able to sleep tonight if I didn't get rid of some of it.

"Uggghhh. Let's take a break for a little while. Twenty minutes, say?" I announced. There was a murmur of relief, and several people rose and dashed off to the restrooms.

I figured that a brief hiatus would help give the crowd a chance to cool off a little before we began the final sentencing. Besides, my diaper was soggy. I wasn't sure if that had happened when Cross was pounding the crap out of me, or while I was transforming her into her entertaining new self, but I was definitely due for a fresh one. I ordered Nurse Wipes to break out the changing table.

Megan helpfully took the opportunity to rebuild my podium. I watched her with interest as I was cleaned and powdered. She folded her hands and glowed blue, and the blocks that had composed my podium began reassembling themselves, flying into place five or six at a time.

Despite the lingering effects of Nora's song, Nurse Wipes smiled warmly and hummed to herself as she dutifully wiped and powdered me. I knew I ought to be embarrassed to be changed in front of so many people, just as I knew that it wasn't normal to enjoy being changed this much. Those emotions were part of me, but thanks to Nora I had the choice to resist if I wished to. I suspected that Nurse Wipes was experiencing a similar internal friction.

Of course, the break also gave us all a chance to enjoy Duchess Stinky-Pants as she eagerly threw herself into her new role in life. There was a brief period of icy stares, horrified expressions, and quite a bit of nose pinching, but a few brave souls began gathering around to enjoy her hugs (really, they are exceptional). Soon, a sort of game developed spontaneously among the crowd, a variation on "Hot Potato". No one wanted her in their vicinity for long, and she was happy to obey any command, so they just kept passing her around.

"Go give Larry a kiss, and apologize for shooting him!" said Cynthia, spinning Duchess Stinky-Pants around and giving her a hearty slap on her generously padded rump.

"Yoooou got it, ma'am!" she excitedly toddled off and kissed Larry on the cheek, who blushed and shrank away from her. "Mistress Stinky-Pants is so, so, soooo sorry for shooting you, Mister Larry sir! Would you like me to give you a nice kiss on the butt, sir?"

"No! Just go apologize to Sara for sticking her in that horrible box! That sounded gruesome!" ordered Larry.

She obeyed without hesitation. She got on her knees in front of Sara. "Duchess Stinky-Pants is soooo sorry, Miss Sara! Duchess Stinky-Pants is such an awful person! Can you ever forgive  Duchess Stinky-Pants? Go ahead and punish me as much as you want! Duchess Stinky-Pants totally deserves it for being a big ol' meanie-face!"

Sara crossed her arms. She glared down at the woman who had stored her in a "cell" that was slightly larger than the average fishtank. "I just about lost my mind in there. You know that? If I'd spent much longer like that, I'd be catatonic right now. I suppose I'd have been a lot easier to contain that way. I want a real apology, and that wasn't it. Miranda!"

I jumped a little at the sound of my name. Nurse Wipes was just finishing taping me into a fresh diaper. Behind me, Megan finsished rebuilding the podium, and floated over to the changing table to re-fuel.

"I want this woman to give me a genuine, heartfelt apology. How can she do that if you're controlling her mind?" she asked, clearly irritated.

I sighed. "Duchess Stinky-Pants, answer the following question with total honesty: If I hadn't converted you, you'd still be trying to kill me, wouldn't you?"

"Oh yes, Mistress! Duchess Stinky-Pants would be such a mean doody head without my wonderful Mistress' to keep me in line!" she cheerfully proclaimed.

"And did you ever genuinely feel sorry for all the harm and suffering that were caused by your choices? Again, be honest." I pressed.

She seemed to consider this. Her mouth hung open for second before she answered. "Uh...well, Duchess Stinky-Pants like, totally members not really feeling bad about it at the time, but now that I really think about it, I like, totally member like, not thinking like that on...purpose? Y'know, that maybe what I was doing was...like wrong or something?"

Sara face darkened still more. "So that's it? She can't really apologize, because she was never actually sorry?"

"That's about it, yeah. I can force her to apologize to you, I can even make her feel actually sorry, but without my influence, she would still believe that we're all freaks who need to be kept locked up for the good of society. We can try having Nora sing to her and free her mind for a little while, but even then, there's no guarantee that she won't either pretend to have a change of heart or just outright refuse to apologize. You heard her testimony. She justified everything she did, even in her own thoughts."

Sara continued to glare down at Duchess Stinky-Pants as she continued to fawn on the floor in front of her. As instructed, she was pathetically desperate to win her approval.

"I still feel like like she's getting off kinda easy." she muttered.

I nodded. "I know. We can't do to her what she did to us, or we'd be monsters too. I mean, she has lost her freedom, her dignity, her status, her powers, and she will be stuck like this at least until I figure out how to de-convert people. That's gotta be worth something, isn't it?"

She shifted uncomfortably. "I guess....couldn't you make her do something more useful, though? Like, to give back to society?"

I grinned mischievously. "Oh definitely! Hey, see that line forming?"

I directed Sara's attention to the line that was forming in front of Nurse Wipe's changing table. Sara clearly didn't want to look directly at it. I recognized that to a normal person, seeing one grown woman lovingly wipe another grown woman's ass (Sammy had appeared on it almost as soon as I had stood up) must have seemed gross and disturbing, but that fact felt very distant to me now.

"What about it?" she asked suspiciously.

I looked down at Duchess Stinky-Pants, who was about to kiss Sara's prison-issue shoe. "Stinky-Pants, Nurse Wipes shouldn't have to take care of every diaper change around here. You're on diaper duty until further notice."

Playfully, I tried to alter Duchess Stinky-Pant's outfit again. This time, I imagined a maid's outfit. Sure enough, my power did the rest. With a shimmer and a sound of chimes, she was wearing a pink and white maid's outfit. The label declaring her a "Loser" migrated from her diaper to her maid's cap, and the words "Stinky Pants" now adorned her white apron. The bulge of her thick diaper was still very obvious under her skirts.

"At once, Mistress! Oh, but like, Mistress, Duchess Stinky-Pants is like, totally too stupid to wipe her own butt!"

I smiled down at her and patted her head condescendingly. "That's your butt, stupid, not other people's! Now go get to work, dumby!"

To my surprise, I felt my power kick in again. A tiny amount of the skill that I had blocked off when I had altered her mind returned to her. Just enough to change diapers. This meant I could alter my converts after I had converted them? That was huge! Why had I never tried that before?

Duchess Stinky-Pants slapped herself on the forehead. "Oh, sorry I'm such an idiot, Mistress! Nurse Wipes! Mistress says I need to wipe some stinky butts!"

With that, Duchess Stinky-pants became Assistant Butt-Wiper for the day. She was too late to help with Sammy, but she made up for it by giving Sammy's freshly diapered butt a good kissing, at her polite request. Sara and I watched with relish as she happily assisted one customer after another. I leaned over and whispered to Sara. "Sure, she's happy now, but just imagine how she'll feel the next time Nora sings to her." Despite everything she had been through, Sara couldn't hold back a crooked smile.

After everyone had been given adequate opportunity to laugh at Duchess Stinky-Pants and her antics, I ordered Nurse Wipes to change her and put her down for a nap. She was clearly disappointed to have to stop changing her former victims, but as always, she rushed to fulfill my orders.

Soon, the assembly settled back into their seats for round two. I took a seat at the restored podium, took a deep breath and addressed the crowd again. "Alright. Now that she's out of the way, let's move on to the sentences for the other staff. Cross was the one in charge, but we won't accept 'just following orders' as an excuse. We need to assign appropriate penalties for those who have allowed the horrible conditions here to continue, even passively."

Again, the prisoners were presented one at a time, and I called for sentences to be suggested and ratified by the assembly. Larry was able to speed up the process of counting the votes considerably. No one ever suggested death, and even the few suggestions of long-term imprisonment were rejected by the majority. I wondered if being confined for long periods themselves had made the residents more reluctant to sentence others to the same fate, but I may have been reading too much into it. What was clear was that the value of my unique abilities for the purposes of justice had been recognized. Forcible conversions were deemed too harsh for any lesser offense now that Cross had been given one, so one sentence was generally deemed to be both satisfactory, and eminently practical.

"Community Service!"

"Community Service!"

"Community Service!"

Once the phrase had been uttered, it became the catchphrase for the court. The maintenance staff were each sentenced to four months of it, which essentially meant they would continue their current duties for now. The Knights and former Knights were given somewhat stiffer sentences, ranging from two to six years of service. I decreed that the teddy bears would retain the ability to speak, granted them the ability to grip things with their soft, shapeless paws, and conjured them each clothing of their choosing to distinguish them from one another. This was generally viewed as fair, just...and utterly adorable. More senior staff were given longer sentences. Sentencing my own people was a bitter pill to swallow, even knowing that it wouldn't really make any difference to them. It wasn't as though I even had the option of letting them go free.

“Cassandra Keynes, you are sentenced to six years community service. You will remain in diapers, and use your powers to protect this community to the best of your ability during that period.”

"I promise to do my best, Ma'am." she answered with a stiff bow.

"Doreen Pratchett, a.k.a. Nurse Wipes, you are sentenced to seven years community service. You will spend your term changing diapers for anyone who requires it."

She smiled slightly and nodded.

"Suki Yamamoto, you are sentenced to eleven years community service. You will remain in diapers, and will serve as Head of Research and Development during your term of service."

"As you wish, Miss Hubble." she answered simply. She sounded resigned to her fate. She was no longer bound to obey me, but knew that soon her induced loyalty would come crashing down again. At least now she would be bound to obey an intellectual equal. I had had the powers of a Bright for barely half an hour, and I could already understand her so much better.

I had fantasized about being a Bright as a child. Being able to mull a problem over and discover a workable solution in only seconds. To read and memorize entire books in minutes. To always be the smart one in the room, the one with all the answers. To experience it firsthand was different, though. I didn't feel like I was thinking quickly. Instead, it felt like I was waiting for other people to finish their thoughts.  I could understand how seeing the world this way all the time could make you come across as arrogant and insufferable. How were you supposed to be modest when you could sit and watch the thoughts slowly forming in other people's minds, ramming together randomly and gracelessly, like icebergs colliding?

It would be even worse to be Royal. With the power of an Esper, they can literally sense other people's thoughts. With the power of a Sweet, they could influence and manipulate them easily, too. When you had that kind of mind, it must seem mighty obvious who should be in charge. The thought of taking orders from someone who demonstrably didn't understand the world the way you did wasn't simply frustrating. It was ridiculous, insane, even dangerous. Why not use your powers to help others by reorganizing society into an optimal configuration? Why not put the greatest minds in charge of everything, and everyone? Why not rule over the masses and silence the dull naysayers? Why, with this power, I could conquer anything and everything. I could solve every problem, remove every obstacle. I could enforce my will across all society, creating...

...creating Utopia. That was where this way of thinking led. A perfect world, where the exalted few could easily shout down the many. Intellect wasn't enough. It needed to be balanced by wisdom to be really useful, and merely stacking up memory and processing power would never add up to that. It could be used to solve problems, of course, but how to gain that benefit without behaving like a dictator? It would be so easy to take this power as my own and convince myself that I was always right, that there was no need to listen to advice or consider other people's points of view. No. That was the path back to where we started. Utopia was never the wonderful place I had always been told it was. Special Containment had shown me that. This perfect world had no place for the flawed, unique, troublesome people, except a prison.

I searched my thoughts for a solution. A way to gain the benefits of this power, without the temptation to try to "optimize" all of human existence. And sure enough, a plan occurred to me. A way to make the best possible use of my current resources.

Oooh, and Suki was gonna hate it

"Sonia Gutierez! Approach the bench!" I bellowed.

She approached nervously. With her mind still relatively free thanks to Nora, she was nervous to be seen in her diapers, despite their obvious popularity in the local community. I stepped down from the silly-looking podium and laid a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at me with concern.

“Sonia Gutierrez, aka Princess Boom-Boom! You are sentenced to eight years community service. You will remain in diapers, and you will serve as an assistant to Suki Yamamoto in Research and Development."

I savored the gasp of surprise from the crowd. Sonia herself looked like she had just watch me grow a third nostril. The look on Suki's face was absolutely priceless. There wasn't a trace of stoic acceptance in her eyes, only shock and incredulity. Then, with my thoughts focused, I got to work. I saw the scaffolding on which I could produce my greatest creation. Princess Boom-Boom thought of herself as an idiot, because I had called her one back when I had not yet understood my powers. My powers had altered her thoughts and feelings, so she now loved the fact that she was an idiot. She experienced the world around her, and the people too, rather than thinking. Her existence was now fundamentally non-intellectual. It was immediate, sensual, and empathic. I wanted to keep her that way.

And yet, I hadn't stolen her intelligence. It wasn't a power, it wasn't a gift of the Archway, so I had no power to steal it. Behind her cheerful simpleton facade, she was still just as smart as she had ever been, which I suspect was somewhat on the high end.

So, I focused my mind on hers. I sent that rushing, whirring cognitive power I had stolen from Cross, and carefully wove it into her. I willed her mind to lose all limitations, for her creativity and comprehension to blossom. She would be as brilliant and talented as Suki or Cross. Perhaps even more so. But she would never know it. She would continue to see everyone around her as brilliant and unquestionably superior to herself. She would proudly announce to everyone that she was the biggest dumb-dumb ever born, play with toys intended for infants, and laugh and play and giggle and exist in a state of perpetual joy. But all the while, her superhuman mind would be at work in the background, allowing her to have all the benefits of great intellect and none of the downsides.

Since none of these changes would be visible to the audience, I decided to give her a mark of her new status as a custom-built Bright. A long, white labcoat, much like Suki's. Unlike Suki's it was dotted with random, colorful doodles, as though a child had been left with a box of markers and no paper.

"Th...thank you...Ma'am." she said nervously. It was clear she was very uncomfortable with her current degree of self-awareness. I knew that she understood what I had done. Hell, now that my own mind was returning to normal, she probably had a better idea than I did. She turned stiffly, as though she were having difficulty directing her limbs when a maelstrom of ideas was spinning in her mind. I could only imagine what she was feeling right now. She settled back into the playpen next to Jiang-Mi, laid on her back, and waited for Nora's song to fade away like a bad acid trip.

"Ladies and Gentleman, that concludes the first court hearing of our little community, but if you'll bear with me a moment, there is one final matter that I must discuss with all of you."

I took a deep breath. I hated to bring down everyone's mood, but this had to be done.

"Laura is still out there."

I gave a moment to let the unpleasant reality sink in before I continued. "Based on the Utopian data networks that are still available to us, she has already captured and transformed nearly all of Grand Unity, and her forces are now beginning to spread out into the lands around it. Sooner or later, she is bound to show up here, at Special Containment. Utopian security forces have been fighting bravely to contain her, but they are losing ground. Every day, Laura is adding more and more Utopian citizens to her army of monsters."

Again, I paused. Many of the faces in the stands were turning pale as I spoke. The murmuring continued for a moment, then fell away. Everyone wanted to know what I was going to say next.

"I know that many of you are angry at the society that locked us up here. I know I am. I wanted so badly to believe that Utopia was truly the world of equality, justice, and peace that I was told it was as a child. My experiences here have made me bitter, and I've only had to spend one night locked in a cell. Many of you have far better reasons to be angry. But, we too have a responsibility to do what is right, to the greatest extent possible. That's why I have chosen not to wait here until an army of vicious monsters shows up at our doorstep. I am...powerful. That's not a boast. It's simply a fact. I am responsible for what I choose to do with the power that the Archway gave me.  So, I see no morally defensible option before us...but to go to war."

There was no murmuring. The room was dead quiet.

"Right now, we are the third side in this war. Utopia had a massive lead to start, but Laura is catching up and may already have overtaken them in power. We are a bit behind, but not as far behind as we were a week ago. We have the means here to produce a force that can challenge anything Laura can possibly throw at us. Cross proposed that I help Utopia to survive this conflict as a ruse, but I am still willing to coordinate with anyone who is willing to work with us. This prison will be our new fortress, and this collection of diaper-wearing women shall be the start of a grand army. We have our Brights, Suki and Princess Boom-Boom, to design new weapons and tools to allow us to compete with Laura's forces. With the right tactics, I believe we can rapidly increase our strength, and start taking back our world. I know that most of you have powers that are less than ideal for combat duty, but if you have the courage, I promise to find a way for you to help. I also promise that no matter what the tactical advantage, I will not convert any of you against your will. Whether you're one of my converts or not, you are welcome to come and fight with me."

The audience had a "deer-in-headlights look. I couldn't tell if I had totally lost them or not. I decided to charge ahead.

"This is going to be very, very, scary. Some, or even all of us, will almost certainly be killed. There will be a lot of hardship and misery in the coming weeks and months. But I am certain of one thing: Utopia was wrong to send us here. They were wrong to cast us away and reject us. We will show them why they were wrong. We are powerful. We are the ones that Utopia needs to survive this war. We will reclaim our world, and free the people that Laura has enslaved! We will force the rulers of Utopia to hear us and recognize our worth! We...will be...victorious!"

The stands erupted into cheering. My converts were the loudest, of course, but the unconverted had mostly been swept along as well. I'm starting to wonder If I might actually be good at this. With a tiny fraction of the strength being barely contained in my legs, I hopped over the podium and land in the center of the room.

"Gather around."

The playpens emptied as my crew gathered. The stands emptied as well. We stood eye to eye, as equals. I grabbed people one at a time, and gave my power away. The feeling of relief was almost worth losing some of my awesome powers. Oh well. turns out, I'm garbage at fighting anyway.

"Cynthia, Sammy, I'm appointing you both as team leaders. I'm giving each of you the strength of a Knight, so that you can go to the front lines without being too vulnerable. Nora, you're getting a Knight's strength as well. You'll be working under Sammy. With your wings and her teleportation powers, you'll be able to move around the battlefield too fast for anyone to deal with. I don't know yet whether your voice will work on Laura's monsters, but you'll definitely be one dangerous diapered angel. Jiang-Mi, a Knight's strength for you, too. You'll stay with Cynthia, to serve as a support team. Whenever anyone who is wounded or exhausted, you'll be the ones who put them back in action. Larry, I'd give you super-strength too, if I could. I need you to oversee our supplies and logistics. Cassandra, Megan, you're both with me. We'll be the heavy assault team. Suki, Princess Boom-Boom, get in the lab and make me some serious goddamn weapons! We're going out there, and we're coming back with more troops than we started with!"

There was a great commotion, as people spoke excitedly about which team they would be on and what tactics to employ. There were a few non-converted watching stonily from the stands, and some who discreetly left the room, but not many. I hoped that their enthusiasm would survive contact with the enemy.