💡🐇 Naughty Thoughts

꩜ Fallen Fruit

I imagine this one as a kind of episodic story, with these travellers getting involved with different situations. Maybe a series of novellas.

A world where mind control is relatively common. The man in the street doesn't know anything about it, but there are plenty of organisations or rich guys with some kind of technological or mystical mind control. They tend to keep to their own business, and not mess in world politics. A lot of them are men (or women) picking up a harem of attractive, brainwashed, young women (or men).

Adam is a bit different. He doesn't like to use his power, because he sees it as something like a cheat code. He's a serious gamer, and thinks that he can have the most fun by playing a game fairly, to explore it fully.

He knows about the hidden harems, and occasionally gets involved with them, but for the most part he doesn't interfere with someone else's business. The only exception is his 'fallen fruit'. Brainwashed slaves from one hidden harem or another, young women who were turned into sex slaves and then abandoned when they were no longer young or pretty enough. Adam collects them, and tries to help them to cope in the outside world again. Sometimes he'll reverse their programming, and try to help them recover their old identity. Sometimes he'll try to help them become who they want to be. If they genuinely want to be controlled he sees no problem with that, and might become their 'Master' temporarily until he finds someone else he can trust to leave them with.

ADAM has a past shrouded in mystery. He won't answer questions about where he came from, but will drop hints to indicate that he might be immortal, or some kind of demigod or something. He travels the country with his fourth-cousin Eve (and always introduces her in that fashion). He can be affected by someone else's MC powers, but has a few innate abilities with which to fight back.

ADAM has the power to absorb any psychic ability that is used on him. He doesn't have supernatural awareness, but has built himself a set of rituals and routines that make it easier to notice change. If he knows that something has influenced his thought process, he can absolutely nullify that technique so it will no longer affect him. If he does this while in physical contact with the power user (including through VR), he permanently steals the power from them. Even if the power was granted by some helmet, device, or amulet, it becomes an innate ability for Adam. And the original user can't use it again even if they get a replacement gadget.

EVE is a demure, soft-spoken girl who explodes in a blaze of homicidal rage when pushed too far. She always complains about not having any money, but owns a top-of-the-range RV. If pushed about her history, she won't answer but will drop hints that she and Adam might be artificial lifeforms created to keep MC and psionic powers in check around the world. This is completely at odds with Adam's story, but there's no way for anybody other than the two of them to know the truth. She will clearly state that she was made for Adam, and is his property. She always refers to him as her "owner" or "fiancé". She also has a couple of odd powers, though hers are more passive.

EVE is affected normally by most MC stuff. But she has two "hardwired" rules in her brain, which cannot be overridden. If someone who has hypnotised her orders her to break these two rules, she will just ignore them. If they insist, or the control is too direct/invasive, their control over her will break completely and render her immune to their influence (and usually also very angry).

* Rule 1: Eve is absolutely devoted to Adam, and will not harm him physically or emotionally. He owns her soul. She also cannot be compelled to disobey his orders. (She can disobey him of her own free will, but can't be compelled or manipulated to do so)

* Rule 2: Eve immediately understands the nature, rules, and limitations of any MC or other psychic power that has ever been used on her, and she cannot be made to forget this knowledge.

Possible addition:

I think if there was a third member, she'd have to be named LILY. And, because the other two have their own incompatible backstories, she'd have to tell people that she's an alien princess come to investigate Earth culture and sexuality; or she's the archangel of lust depending who she's talking to. She acts like every stereotype of a rebellious teen, with poor impulse control and little forward planning. She's completely oblivious to other people trying to MC her, and doesn't have a good track record when it comes to noticing when something's wrong in general. So some mysterious guy walks into the women's' changing room at the pool, and suddenly all the women present feel compelled to strip off and masturbate for his amusement. Lily isn't affected, but somehow completely fails to realise there's anything odd about the sudden orgy, so she might join in anyway. And to match the others, some powers that can be incredibly powerful, but might be hard to use effectively:

1. She's unaffected by any control attempt she's not aware of

2. If she knows someone is going to try to influence her, it will bounce off to affect someone else instead. Usually the controller, depending on the nature of the power

3. She is also in possession of the Bag of Sins, a seemingly bottomless repository of semi-divine artefacts with a wide range of different (mostly MC-ish) powers. Most of them act like a virus or are otherwise hard to control, and Adam's response frequently involves the line "Put that away or I will take it away."

The story would probably be told through the eyes of people they're helping or various hangers-on. So we know some stuff about them, but there's a lot of subtext there, things that they've argued out in the past that are now resolved. Between the two (or three) of them, they probably know the true story of their origins, and why they were sent out to roam the Earth (and what their actual long-term goals are, which might not be the same). But that's old news, something that the reader (like everyone else they meet) can only guess at. They know the truth, but there's no benefit to them in talking about it.