Chapter 1
Towards the outskirts of downtown Gotham, the lights of a new gentleman's club, The Cottontail Colloquium, shone on the city streets with a gentle flourish, their reputation of a playboy lover's dream establishment shone brighter amongst the many current and future patrons. Positioning itself on the edge of the seedier parts of the city, and the business end of Gotham's financial sector, it gained a strong foothold in much of the interested clientele, enough that the owners were having to consider making appointments for patrons to visit. The line seemed to be just as long for women looking to sign up to dance at the club, as rumors also disseminated about the firm control management had over every aspect, how they only expected the best, and how all the current dancers absolutely loved working there.
In a city like Gotham, such success would mean that eventually someone would look into this bright, tantalizing spot in the dark, supposedly-cursed city. In a taller building adjacent to the neon-lit club, a pair of binoculars belonging to Batgirl looked at the sign with slight disdain. Seeing the neon-lighting of a pair of wearable bunny ears and a shaking puffy cottontail made the investigating heroine shake her head; it was actually more tasteful than some of the blatant displays other clubs had, seedy clubs she occasionally-waded through and happily shut down.
The Cottontail Colloquium wouldn't have even been on Batgirl's radar were it not for something her superhero colleague Zatanna Zatara mentioned about it being strange to her. 'Fishy' was the word she used, and she like Batgirl was typically one to trust her instincts. She'd meant to connect with Zatanna about investigating it together, but it'd been at least a day since she last heard from her. Expecting to have something to report once the magician resurfaced and some light recon, Batgirl used her grappling hook to stealthily swing her way down to the club rooftop.
Through the unlocked entrance above, the caped heroine quietly kept to the shadows, taking advantage of every unlit corner, letting a wide-array directional mic installed in her cowl help narrow a search of nefarious activities in bright places where her purple and yellow would stick out, though she guessed being a clothed woman in the club was enough to stick out like a sore thumb. Aiming the high-powered mic slowly over the direction of most of the ground floor, Batgirl filtered through most of the loud music to hear customers speaking, or drooling over the girls, with a lot of heavy breathing from both towards the main entertaining area. She knew the way to the dressing room through a litany of women speaking to one another, talking about clients and performance feats. It didn't strike her as weird at first, but it amazed her how sweet and jubilant every woman sounded, how happy they were, how for the ten minutes she listened in, there wasn't a single complaint uttered by any of them. Maybe it was cliche to think of many sex workers complaining about the clientele or making fun of them, but none of that was present. In looking for something that would give away shady activity according to employees, Batgirl assumed it was just a particularly-good night, and not that an unusual element was already found.
The unusual might have come under consideration had something past the distance of the dressing room gotten her attention. Figuring it for one of the offices, it sounded like a private audience between a man and a woman. The words the man used, the way he spoke, smacked more of club owner than customer. With what little the girl said, that smacked of prospective employee. Batgirl listened closely to the conversation, having to adjust to hear it clearly enough, wondering why there was strange, audible interference in the middle of what was being said.
"...that's right. You dance like you really want this job. You dance like you need it. You are a quality dancer, the best at what you do, and you aim to prove yourself every night, with every performance. You don't have a choice...it's so much easier when you don't have a choice..."
Breathless affirmatives from whoever he was speaking to was all the confirmation the heroine needed. Using the directional mic to make sure there was a vacant path to the owner's office, Batgirl rushed through the short maze of corridors to reach one that with one door along a long wall, and a guard standing next to it. She wasted no time in using a tranquilizing batarang to pierce his throat and knock him out instantly. With no more obstacles, she kicked the locked door open to find a girl lost in the throws of a dance, and an owner donning attire fit for a circus. A green jacket and boots covered in black stars over burgundy pants and shirt, with a matching burgundy top hat to complete the garish look, the man was startled momentarily, but quickly regained his composure, smiling at Batgirl the way she smiled at the dancing girl in his peripheral vision.
"I didn't believe him when he said the heroes in Gotham take extreme initiative, but I'm impressed!"
"Just as I'm impressed that anyone let you wear that outside of a big tent," Batgirl quipped back, her attention drifting to the dancer who paid no mind to the loud intrusion.
"No one let's me do anything, young lady, especially not on my own property."
"Whatever, carnival barker, you're under arrest," she pulled out a pair of Batcuffs.
"That's Ringmaster to you, missy. And what exactly am I being charged with?" Ringmaster simply held out his hands, surprising the heroine who began cuffing him.
"Extortion and coercion," Batgirl declared, locking both his wrists in with satisfaction. On the one hand, she was happy her reputation ensured a quick surrender from the creepy, low-grade villain. On the other hand, her rush to deal with things quickly kept her from giving enough consideration to Ringmaster's leering smile in the still-undulating victim's direction, or why the dance still seemed intent on following the given direction.
"She doesn't look extorted or coerced to me...she looks lost in the act she is a natural at, something was born to do. That's what happens when you find your destiny, it's like a compelling void to which there is no escape from..." Batgirl's vision suddenly grew gently distorted, wavy, making the woman's movements even more passionate and easier to follow, it was strange how the waves carried compulsion with them, in following the dance, in whatever Ringmaster was saying. "You cannot escape the compelling void, so you don't...no, you must face it now. You must embrace the void with your gaze..." Batgirl didn't realize she'd lost her grip on the handcuffed man, or why his grip somehow reached her chin to turn her face towards his, towards the spinning void that arrested her much more convincingly than a pair of bat-shaped handcuffs ever could.
"Welcome to the void, Batgirl," Ringmaster offered the redheaded heroine, stunning her vision and drowning her remanding senses in a hypnotic whirlpool. The quickly-shrinking consciousness in Batgirl fell into irrelevancy, as the soft lines of the spiral blurred her nerves as they caressed the muscles in her face, across her torso, down every limb, even seeping into the crevices of her brain. "Come inside, deep inside to the natural path for you. In this void, everything is void except for how you feel, how you see the world, and the words that are your world, and how you feel about it. I've heard about the bat problem Gotham has, such nuisances for law-abiding...well, law-making businessmen, always loving to investigate."
The spiral attached to Ringmaster's top hat continued to spin Batgirl's mind away as his cuffed hands still reached out to hold her chin tight, and caress her face as the cyber waves his device produced parted her lips, making her more and more slack-jawed. Her lower jaw fell in-concert with her slouching shoulders and posture, almost held completely up by Ringmaster's grip, and the part of her too bedazzled to look elsewhere, her eyelids the only muscles willing to stay active, locked up to keep her attention locked down.
"I invite you to investigate yourself now, Batgirl. Feel what my power does to you from the inside, turning your skepticism into fascination, your readiness into reactiveness, your intelligence into incomprehensibility. It's as if you don't need those old parts of you, as if they were placeholders, blocking your true feelings. You've always wanted fascination, reacting to positive stimuli, to be able to make thinking so incomprehensible that you couldn't even spell the word if I asked you. You don't need to spell it, you just need to know that Batgirl is happy, and better off leaving thinking to me...isn't that right?"
The spiral eventually ended, and a line of drool formed at the corner of the cowled-woman's mouth, falling as if to symbolically answer the question given. He appreciated her attempt to nod, but it was more fun to let her head fall forward without his help keeping it up. So caught up in what he'd done to Batgirl, he'd finally noticed the dancing girl still going, still tantalizing the audience in her head, moving only for her master's approval.
"You may stop now," he told the girl who instantly ceased and resumed standing at attention.
"Yes, Master of Carnivals. I obey."
"Perfect, though it would be even better with a chorus," he rubbed his goatee, an evil glint shining brighter than usual in his eye. "Speak, Batgirl. I'll be thinking for you, yes?"
"...yeeessshh...R-r-"
"Speak properly, Batgirl," he ordered, watching her close her mouth to swallow and give her near-inanimate answer.
"Yes...Ringmaster..."
"That's very nice and proper. But around here, I prefer to be called the Master of Carnivals."
"Yes, Master of Carnivals."
"In unison now, girls."
"Yes, Master of Carnivals."
"Excellent," Ringmaster praised. "Wouldn't you say so, Magi of Mindlessness?"
From a shadowy corner of the large office, a raven-haired woman walked out into the light, wearing a black leather tube-top and skirt, and high heels. Her long hair was tied in a long ponytail, and a fairly-dizzy smile and expression plastered all over her face. A conscious Batgirl would've recognized the newcomer as the former magician Zatanna, the first resident former-heroine to be employed at the Cottontail Colloquium.
"Of course, Master of Carnivals, she speaks properly," the meta-magi agreed easily with the sentiment, some part of her recognizing the purple-clad figure, but having deeper recognition for the hypnotized state she seemed stuck in.
"Well, I think we should have our batty friend her looking and acting as properly as she's speaking now. What do you think, Magi of Mindlessness?"
Vacant blue eyes grew some clarity as they lowered, unbidden sexual interest churning in-kind with wanton, wicked intelligence, the only kind she was allowed to have.
"I don't think," the magi intoned sultry, with authority and a wink at Ringmaster. "And soon, neither will she."
"Splendid. Batgirl, I want you to begin to dance for me, the sexiest dance you couldn't ever imagine yourself doing for anyone. As you dance, let the magic wash over you," Ringmaster quickly sat himself down as Zatanna raised her hands and began to intone at Batgirl purposefully.
"etirt sgnieb dluohs maerd***
fo a suordnow, yppah dnal
suoutlumut seirrow dna serac
gnippils ekil slufdnah fo dnas"
As Batgirl's arms and torso found energy and insistence, running hands across her body, dancing to a tune she could only hear in her head, she felt the hypnotic spell that flooded her mind given more context, given a narrative to follow, her mind opening to it as her body undulated like the dancer before her. Even more of her mind fell away, like the suddenly-restrictive outfit she wanted to remove from her body.
"stab suoivne fo seinnub
ylhsiloof gniogerof yad rof thgin
uoy dluohs evig pu ruoy nesohc tirips lamina
uoy dluohs evig pu tuohtiw a thgif"
The purple outfit began to transform in the middle of Batgirl's dance, the body suit and yellow utility belt dissolving, some of it morphing to a purple panty and bra set; Ringmaster was especially pleased at the purple set of bunny ears place atop her head, as well as the yellow cottontail on the back of her panties, keeping with her old color scheme. The magi's litany produced a pole out of thin air for Batgirl to grasp, letting her body run along it, caressing the cold, hard metal like she could melt it her presence and touch. The redhead was so happy to feel her hands touching her own skin, her dance growing stronger, swinging her hips and hair to an overwhelming tune. One hand began to tease slipping into the bra, and the other toyed with the strap of her panties, making all who noticed her.
"tel ruoy renni ynnub egreme
a ylevol aedi sa ruoy ylno thguoht
ydob, sevruc, dna a tsub ot eid rof
ylsselerac tneidebo ot ruoy yrev eroc
gnilggig dna suousnes, ruoy tsap lla rof thguan"
Ringmaster loved seeing how the athletically-toned, already ideally-figured woman's bust grew noticeably larger, the shape of her slightly morphing into an hour glass figure. The hypnotized smile from earlier returned with a vengeance, naked emotions on display for Ringmaster to fully enjoy. Deep in her mind, she knew it was him he was supposed to please, and Batgirl kept her eyes squarely on him, giggling like a smitten woman, ready to walk towards her.
As she took the first step, he held a hand up, bidding her to stop; she immediately did, hands held in-front of her like an anxious schoolgirl, bouncing lightly on her feet, waiting for permission. The spiral device spun on his hat again to secure her attention.
"What's your name?"
"B.....bat...girl?" the redhead was utterly confused about her own name, or what name she was supposed to identify with in a mind pried open. Her attempt to think beyond surface level was easily short-circuited by the desire to giggle and laugh at herself, how funny it was to have a name that sounded so silly, how funny the concept of names were when reduced to happy, flighty feelings. "I...heheh...don't know," a silly grin became the easiest answer to give alongside blissful unsurety.
"No, dummy, not that name. Your personal name...the one you had before 'Batgirl'."
"Uhhh...Barbara...Gordon..." the spinning spiral drew the name out of it, her lowered IQ set aside for obedience in Ringmaster's command.
"Well, bunny-Barbara, I believe you called me a 'carnival barker.' Well, as Master of Carnivals, how about you crawl to me, barking all the way?"
The smile never left her face as she slipped to hands and knees, barking and yapping like a happy dog, approaching her master, just waiting to be petted. She never realized her crawl to him was a sultry one, exciting the hypnotist to no end. Once she reached where he sat, she barked and begged with her hands up, hoping to be treated with his approval. A few head pats and scratches to her redheaded scalp meant the world to the human dog, as did his next words.
"Back to a sexy bunny with eyes only for me now," he told her with spirals. And she slipped off the ground and onto his lap, giving him the lap dance she's been waiting to gift him for as long as she's been a bimbo.
"I must commend the Master of Fables on his ideas and contributions to this endeavor," Ringmaster thought, finding the music playing in Batgirl's head indirectly as she danced on his lap and in-between his spread legs. His evil excitement piqued as he imagined more heroic cottontails to employ, just like the former-Batgirl.
***Zatanna's Rhyme:
Trite beings should dream
of a wondrous, happy land
Tumultuous worries and cares
slipping like handfuls of sand
Bats envious of bunnies,
Foolishly-foregoing day for night.
You should give up your chosen spirit animal.
You should give up without a fight.
Let your inner-bunny emerge
A lovely idea as your only thought
Body, curves and a bust to die for,
Carelessly obedient to your very core,
Giggling and sensuous, your past all for naught.