Asset Transfer by Maurislave on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

This would be a simple job. Guys were easy after all. So Byulyi walked into the bar with her mouth curled up in her usual smirk. On most other faces, it would look haughty, but on Byul's it just gave off a magnetic aura of confidence.

She spotted the table with her targets easily. The youngest had a baby face, and curled hair dyed blonde, looking more like an idol than a hitman. But the lines around his eyes were clear when she focused, he was not someone to provoke. The one in the middle was the biggest, though it seemed as much muscle as fat, with hair cropped short. His suit was the best fit, and his air of power was palpable even from the doorway. Finally, their third companion had the sharp, intense features of a heartthrob actor, his loose shirt showing off enough skin to intrigue Byul.

Business first, though. Family business.

She undid the top buttons of her white shirt, flaying out her blazer as well to emphasise her sophisticated, but still approachable and casual image. She sauntered over to the target table, hips swaying. She even flipped her neck sideways so her hair left one side of her neck completely exposed.

The three were halfway to hypnotised by the time she placed one hand lightly on Heartthrob's shoulder to introduce herself. All three pairs of eyes were completely fixed on her. They just could not look away. Equivalent to entrancement, and she'd barely even tried.

Men.

She started by asking them for their drinks orders. Because as much as their eyes traced the lines of her skin down to the edge of her shirt, she was not their prey. She was in charge of this conversation. It's what Boss had taught her. Babyface was clearly shocked, but Bigman simply clapped and laughed with a deep, powerful voice.

Once she returned with drinks she let them introduce themselves properly, but didn't bother to actually remember their names. She just smiled, and kept eye contact (except for the occasional look down at their lips). As Heartthrob talked she made sure to laugh along with his jokes and twirl her hair playfully between two fingers.

It had the desired effect, all three of the men looked at her with undisguised hunger. Babyface regarded her coldly, but his eyes were drifting to her legs and mentally undressing them at regular intervals. Bigman was jovial, but his gaze was that of a predator, she could feel it boring into her even when she turned her head to talk to another. And Heartthrob was constantly stealing glances down at her chest, and was already unconsciously mimicking her body language. That was where she wanted them. Desperate, looking for control, in an unspoken competition with each other.

So she took charge. Not just asking follow-up questions about their obviously-fake jobs. She drove things, shared anecdotes, got them to talk about their friends. Even their pasts, their childhoods.

Frankly, they were telling her almost as much now as they would under hypnosis. Just from some bedroom eyes she was getting so much intel that she could piece together later. All three of them were practically falling over each other to impress her. So of course, she rewarded them.

Bigman offered to show her a video on his phone, so she stood from her stool, stretching just enough so that her shirt came untucked and exposed a yet-unrevealed bit of midriff. Their eyes had been drifting from her, sharing laughs with each other rather than simply to impress her. But again they were all on her. They cared only about how to win her. She had them completely enraptured.

She felt a knot in her mind vibrate, but quieted it. She was winning this battle, but they were professionals. She needed to work at them a bit longer before they were ready to be tied in.

She stirred the remains of her cocktail idly as she leaned over the table, making sure it was at an angle where their straining gazes could just about not see under her shirt. She made a random request about portfolios, and smirked as they fumbled to get out their phones. They had to please her. They had to win her. Byul even allowed herself a little flourish. Like moving her straw in a spiral motion. She even mouthed 'submit' at Heartthrob. Just subtly enough that he could deny he saw it, but the idea was planted. She wanted to make sure she hooked that one. She wanted a turn with him in the end.

Sensing they might need another chemical push, she went back to the bar for another round of drinks. She couldn't resist another flourish as she wiggled her ass in a spiralling circle. But she knew they liked it. Her instincts could feel the three men's need to pounce. To take her.

So Byul returned with completely different drinks to what they had ordered. They needed to know that she knew what was best for them. Heartthrob took it with a shrug, and Babyface eyed her coldly but accepted his espresso martini.

But Bigman was not happy at all. His deep voice silenced the others at the table as he demanded he go back and get her the correct drink. His pride was visibly bristling at the idea a younger woman could embarrass him like that.

Which was, of course, the point. So she didn't back off. She stared down at him. Taller stood up than he was sat down, her gaze bored into his with gravity. She sent a whirling strand of power into his mind. Then, while she asked him if there was a problem, she blew him a kiss to remind him what was at stake here. That opened up a gap for her power to wind its way in. And with a blink of his eyes, Bigman sat back, cowed.

She sat back down, thanking the guys for their understanding as she twirled her hair, making sure to reveal her vulnerable neck.

They all stared. She reached out another pair of strings into Babyface and Heartthrob.

It was time. All three of them were teetering on a cliff edge of cognitive dissonance. They wanted her. They wanted to acquiesce to her demands, submit to her, and be rewarded. But the reward they wanted was to be dominant, to take her and use her for their twisted desires. But submitting to dominate was impossible to reconcile. That sort of doublethink opened up so many holes in a consciousness for someone trained like Byul to exploit.

Not one of the three men would be the dominant one. Byul would use Heartthrob later, she was sure, but only one person could use Byul. So for all three of her targets, submission was the answer to the battle being waged in their subconscious.

And she could push them over the edge. Submission would win, like it had so many times before.

Spirals appeared in her eyes, as the three captivated men stared with gaping mouths, unbelieving.

She was facing Bigman. She already had her will twisted into his, so she just yanked at the string.

"What will you do for me?"

The string of her will pierced through his melted brain, and wrapped around its core. He mumbled obedient nonsense.

She turned to the confused Babyface. With a sultry snarl, she smirked and intoned so quietly only he could hear.

"Don't you feel like bed time now?"

Suddenly the mass of will that was obstructing her string became hollow. With a single stab her thread broke it like glass, and sewed itself into the depths of his mind.

Finally, the wide-eyed Hearththrob. She could feel his will convulsing as it tried to process what it saw. He was too late.

"You're mine."

He gasped as spirals replaced his eyes and felt her string of will spiral and wrap around his thoughts. His face made it very clear what his physical reaction was.

Byul giggled, another job well done, and maybe a better reward than usual.

She reached into her pocket (thank goodness for pantsuits!). As much as she would love to have her fun now, threads were pulling in her own mind which she happily went along with. There were more important things in her life. She opened up her burner phone to call over the boys to take these men to processing while their brains were still functional.

While she keyed in the number, she pulled the three new threads of thought she had created. Each held firm, each attached to the puppeteer's cross inside her own mind. Reassuringly, she felt the knots of control over her were still well-embedded within her. Only a single strand from each knot was attached to her own instrument of control. She was completely obedient to the Family, and the Family trusted her to act independently. It was a life she lived with pride and pleasure.

Which made it all the more surprising when her call to the crew was interrupted by a text from Boss himself.

Not that she minded.

Actually, the vibration it sent through the largest knot of strings in her mind was indescribable. It was like an orgasm coming from inside her thoughts, unable to be limited by her body's exhaustion. She kept a professional smirk, but inside she was grinning like a school girl.

What did her owner want?

He didn't say, but he needed her there. And with a sigh of pure pleasure tinged by only the slightest reluctance, she sent a text to Seulgi to come finish the job here. She frayed the edges of the outward-facing string of the knots she had woven into the three men's thoughts. Her colleague would easily be able to weave her own strings into them, and pick up where she left off. With a dismissive thought, even slightly frustrated, she strangled the thoughts of the trio so they would remain silent at their table until Seulgi arrived and made a new link to their helpless minds.

Then Byul turned to leave. She wouldn't get Heartthrob. But seeing the Boss was, like, five hundred times better.

She got out of the Uber, brushing the sweat from her forehead which had built up in the stuffy bar. As her arm moved past her face it revealed the most surprising yet simultaneously wonderful sight she had seen.

The Boss was waiting for her at the door!

He reached his arm out to usher her through. She looked down at it with awe. The limb itself was not that impressive, Boss' muscles were thoroughly average, but just the fact that he - Boss - was taking such care for her fulfilled her on an indescribable level.

She looked up at his eyes, her own wide with disbelief. His eyes were kind. Somehow, they had a soft quality to them. That was probably the main reason he didn't look like the heir to the Moons, like the ruthless head of a mind-controlling crime family he should have been. There were obvious years of concern worn in the wrinkles in his forehead the edge of his soft lips. But even though his face was only sexy when she was ordered to think so, Byul still loved every bit of it. She'd always been one of his favourite toys, but because of his strange... _pure_ness, she had always admired him.

But this was far more gentlemanly than even he had been before. When she was inside, he spoke in a voice barely above a whisper, as if he was holding his own throat back.

"I'm sorry, Byul... I couldn't find any other way."

She turned back to him for a moment, but he kept a professional, even expression and shuffled her forward.

He had slipped for a moment, but now he was back to being the Boss he was outside the bedroom. A rigid man who never gave away his feelings, and always came eventually to a decision that benefited his family.

So why was he sorry?

Maybe he'd needed to used some enhanced techniques to take someone into the family? And he thought she would be jealous? That was ridiculous though, Byul was well aware anyone could be the Boss' toy. She didn't begrudge him, he deserved it. She'd even watched him take Mistress Yoonsun to make the point that he was in charge, rather than the one who had woven her mind into the family.

She smiled, lost in the uniquely wonderful memory of Mistress' and the Boss' knots in her mind tugging her in unison to join them.

So by the time Boss was opening a door in front of her, she was no closer to working out anything.

Her feet took a few stalling steps into the conference hall. Beside the door she saw Boss' huge pair of bodyguards, silent men she had been escorted out of this very building by in the early hours of the morning many times. In the centre of the room where a long table should have sat was simply empty space. And at the other side of the void was another trio - two huge men, flanking another who looked even more tiny by comparison.

"Go on, Byul." The Boss whispered into her ear. Her body moved of its own accord as she took in her surroundings.

The room was wooden, adorned by old scrolls and antiques that Boss could impress people with. The visitors, if they were impressed, betrayed nothing. The two huge men, distinct from Boss' pair only by their mustaches, stood impassive. Their boss (she assumed) smiled at her with a squinted, sinister stare.

He was a bit shorter than Boss, with a similar unimpressive build. His cheeks were a bit chubbier, as well. What shocked her most was how different an impression she got from him. Boss seemed either unreadable or actually cute in his features. This man was blatantly, outwardly sleazy.

"Don't resist him."

That was Boss' voice. Choked out, too quiet to hear.

But nevertheless it vibrated through her mind. It echoed against her skull. It was an order.

Byul didn't understand. She just stood there, arms limp at her sides, searching wildly for any explanation.

The visitor stepped forward, nodding to her then angling himself slightly to bow to Boss. It was disrespectful, even though he bowed low his suspicious little eyes were always looking straight at Boss. Even the movement was informal, as if he had simply let a weight go and flopped down and back up.

"Byul-yi," He said, turning back to her. His accent was thick and his pronunciation stunted. "I am Mr. Peng."

Oh, he was from one of the Chinese families. That would explain the lack of respect. And the general vibe. Byul was filled by confidence as her haughty smirk returned.

"I accept your apology for the delay. I will start the transfer now." He spat at Boss, then the Chinese man turned back to her. He crossed his hands in front of his waist lazily, and Byul was suddenly hit by a wave of dread. Not instinctively, it was being broadcast into her brain by the strings of control woven through it.

She realised what was happening.

And then Mr. Peng's eyes locked on hers, and faint spirals filled his irises.

Byul felt an itching, a millimetre above and behind her nose. It was minor, one which would feel barely worth scratching. But with a moment of concentration she could scratch it. Block the waves of hypnosis. It would be so easy. It only needed a tiny bit of resistance.

She wanted to.

Her thoughts tightened. Her desire to resist was strangled by her order not to.

She couldn't do anything. Anything but stare at those pitiful, weak spirals.

She smirked with scorn at them, at how poor a hypnotist Peng was.

And yet, with no resistance, she still fell slowly under the spell of his eyes. She felt the itching subside naturally, and an eerie coolness filled her head, as if she'd just risen from a warm bath. Her keen senses from years of using the families' techniques detected a single string starting to wind its way through her will.

"At least... tell me why?" She gasped. Her mouth was so hard to move as the cold numbness spread over her, even though she had received no command to say it.

Peng inclined his head for a moment. Even without his eyes fully focused on her, she still felt the string weaving through her mind. It was moving in loose arcs, not cleaving to the fabric of her thoughts. It would be so, so easy to break. But even as that thought started, tighter and better woven strings strangled it away.

"Well, young Master Moon seems reluctant to explain. So I suppose I can." He drawled with disdain.

She barely listened. She couldn't think of anything but that foreign string in her thoughts. It shouldn't have been there, but she couldn't act against it. It was so loose she could probably even wrap her own string around it and pull it herself, yanking his mind under her own power...

"Well, one of Master Moon's men killed one of my own brothers. Not on Family business, simply over a game of Mahjong. He owed me a debt. I am collecting that debt. It's all simple, honourable." His low chuckle filled Byul with impotent hatred.

But any semblance of her plan to take over his string dissipated into useless vibrations in her mind. She couldn't disobey Boss' orders. Not when honour was on the line. For the families, that mattered above all else. Boss had to save face, and she was the price. She wouldn't be happy about it, but she would willingly be paid.

She felt a strange rumbling sensation, and suddenly her heels clicked together and her arms went straight at her side. She felt her chin incline upwards slightly. After the movement, she felt the string which had pierced her motor cortex and sent the command to her, bypassing her thoughts because she hadn't even tried to resist. She hadn't even heard him commanding her to stand at attention. But she had still done what she was told to.

She did hear him say "That's better" with even more scornful glee.

He had managed to command her so precisely she had not even consciously told her body to move. And yet Peng's string still slowly, inefficiently weaved around her mind. So, so utterly resistible. Peng was not this unskilled. He was toying with her.

But she couldn't stop it from gaining purchase on more and more of her thoughts. She couldn't stop his will from becoming ever more entwined with her own. She couldn't stop him from taking over the strings of her mind.

She could only rage at why she was the one to be humiliated like this.

"Boss... w-why?" She stammered. It was already so hard to even move her mouth. Her voice was muted, lifeless, emotionless.

Boss' voice didn't sound much better. "I tried to offer Peng other options. More valuable thigs. Territory. Connections. Even more useful agents. He refused them all."

As Boss spoke, Byul felt a new thought appear. It was in her voice, but not her words. Caused by the vibrations of Peng's string, as he pulled just the right parts of her mind. Exactly, even though his string was so disdainfully loose, he could still make her think... Make her think that she needed to look sexy.

She needed to look sexy, so she took the bottom of her shirt and tied it up to make a very high-cut crop top. Then she unbuttoned from the top. Boss would hate to see her like this. He preferred her as his elegant flower, not a cheap slut he could get from anywhere.

"I suppose that made him want you more. I'm so sorry, Byul... I couldn't refuse him. A single life for a life. It was a reasonable resolution."

She felt disgusted with herself, made into a mockery of what her kind owner had always loved. But then she felt Peng's string move with sudden, predatory speed, as it slashed apart that new knot of disgust. Her frown subsided into a flat line.

She didn't really care how she looked. She had been ordered to look sexy, so why did it matter?

Peng smirked. "A life for a life is far below the rate you should have paid, Master Moon. But a love for a life... a most excellent price."

Byul realised too late that all her visceral reaction (internally, externally she was almost a statue) did was highlight the knot of her love for Boss. It was separate from the strings intricately woven through her mind. Separate from the centres of command. Her affection for him... it was real.

The foreign thread darted at it. It dove into the ball and tore it apart from within, leaving it as scattered threads of thought.

The string wrapped them up and made something new.

Something... new? Byul was confused.

Why was she so annoyed about not being to Mr. Moon's preferences? It wasn't her fault he was in love with her. In fact, it was a bit annoying that she was being lost just because of that crush. She was a worthwhile asset to the Moon family, maybe moreso than Peng would have otherwise realised, if she was so bold. And now because a foolish boss couldn't separate pleasure and love, she was being sold to the Chinese.

She took comfort in the fact that even as Peng's string dug deep into her consciousness, the knot which Mistress Yoonsun had woven years ago held strong.

New vibrations in her mind ordered her to come closer to Peng, so she did. But as she did, she turned her head to look at her old Boss.

"Moon-oppa. It was an honour to serve your family." She was legitimately sad to be leaving them. But she was resigned to her fate. And that resignation turned into an impulse to be even closer to Peng. She felt her arms pulled by strings of will to drape her body over his side, both her arms cradling his left arm. Her head rested on his shoulder. Her face was pulled into a smirk as she looked at the broken face of Mr. Moon.

The physical contact with Master Peng let another string slip into her mind. It followed the last vibrations of loyalty to Mistress Yoonsun's knot, joining the first thread which was now thoroughly integrated with her thoughts.

Master Peng's strings of thought circled the knot that was at the centre of all the strings of loyalty and obedience Byul felt to the Moon family. As they had before, the strings sharpened and stabbed at the knot. But this time it held firm, immune to Peng's attacks. His control was ingrained into her, but she still felt the pull of obedience to her Family.

The new strings tried a different tactic. Instead of piercing and breaking the knot so they could take her reins, instead they started to wrap around it. They vibrated with a new thought. It wasn't a foreign entity, but rather a corruption of the loyalty that still existed.

Her lips moved, and out of pity for her old boss, Byul barely kept herself from spitting out the words.

"But you weren't good enough."

She felt Master Peng's fingers stroking her hair, and her reaction was as muted as her reaction to the sorrowful face of her old boss. He was clearly straining to not show any hurt. She knew he didn't need to, his guards wouldn't judge him, and Master Peng already thought him weak. He was, really, but all Byul could feel was a dull sympathy.

As soon as Master Peng's fingers made contact with her scalp, she felt the threads throughout her mind tighten. All those inefficiently woven things which could compel her but could not replace Mistress Yoonsun's comforting mental embrace came together. The strings pulled taut all around her mind. All at once, her thoughts went from having his power linked into them, to completely enveloped in his strings.

She could feel the puppeteer's cross in His mind move now. She felt her thoughts vibrate.

And she realised how amazing it felt to be touched by him. She squeezed at his arm a bit tighter, and was rewarded with a tingling pleasure in the nerves of her skin. She even let out a little moan as his finger lightly traced her cheek.

Earlier, when she'd thought he was only toying with her with the inelegant techniques he would know she could resist... She was completely right. He was so powerful. His will was manipulating her body completely. And she was enjoying it. She couldn't help it, her body was screaming at her that his touch and his power were amazing. He was amazing, brilliant, arousing. Even better than what Mistress Yoonsun had done to her!

That thought opened the slightest gap in the knot at the heart of her mind, and Master Peng's two strings darted inside. She felt those two limbs of his control ripping apart what was there. Her stomach felt hollow for a split second, before her body was pulled into feeling a pleasure welling up where those old feelings had disappeared.

What had been the most important thing to her for half a decade was gone in an instant. At the speed of thought. And she didn't even care.

Master was more powerful than that fool Yoonsun. She loved to obey him. The Moon family was worthless. She served Master, and the Peng family. She knew it with certainty. That was her purpose, it had always been but she needed her sexy, amazing Master to show her that.

Old, foreign strings started to fray apart in her mind as Yoonsun's power was ripped apart. Master's strings replaced them, moving into the space which was left, leaving Byul to shout out in pure, innocent happiness. Master was winning. Like he deserved. His prize was her and he was taking her completely. She would be his forever.

As his strings wove a new knot at the centre of her thoughts to keep her permanently enslaved, she bent over to kiss his fingers. She chuckled in his overwhelming baritone and raised two fingers to her chest, where they traced the word 'slave' onto her willing and welcoming breasts.

Master wrote it in Chinese, but his all-powerful control was already pulling her mind in the right direction to understand his clearly superior language.

And while he was translating for her, he had moulded her face back into her trademark derisive smirk. But now it was pointed at the small man across the room. The fool she had once served because she was guided by the wrong strings. The weak power of an unworthy family.

It didn't matter. She had come home. She looked at her Master's cunning eyes with pure adoration.

"What will you do now, Byul?" He asked, in Chinese that she instinctively understood both because he was translating it in her head, but because his voice hit her with the force of a command.

The voice that replied was different to the one she had when she was pretending she was a servant of the Moons. It was a bit higher pitched, but had a deeper undertone. Sultry, a bit of a growl at the end of her sentences. The professionalism of her past 'life' was replaced with slavish, sensual devotion to her true owner.

"I'm going to go back to the airport with you, being led around by the hand until we board your jet. While you watch the slave crew dance, I will slowly unbutton every button on your suit. Then, after I've unzipped your trousers and pulled them down in one swipe, I'm going to take the waistline of your underwear in my teeth. I'll rip those off too." Her head turned to the shaking young Mr. Moon. She was speaking in Korean to ensure he would understand what he had lost to Master. "And then I will swallow every last drop of you, Master."

She licked her lips as Master nodded to the young Moon.

"Pleasure doing business with you."

Master turned to leave, and his slave Byul didn't even look back as she let herself be dragged along with him.

------

I've hyped this up in DMs to a few people. If I've delivered on my plan for this, I honestly think this is the best mind control (as a holistic setup/description of how it works/description of how the slave things/change in behaviour) that I have ever written. So this is my Christmas present to you all!

Plus I manipped one of my favourite images for it!

I may well return to this 'puppet-strings mafia' universe in future ;3