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Hi everyone, it's me again, coming at you with a new Academy Works story. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you should maybe start by reading Academy I (Part 1) or Academy B (Part 2). These stories aren't really linear, so you can skip those, but it might help you understand what's going on a little bit better. Anyway, this is Academy T. It kind of steps outside the precedents set by the first two stories, so I hope people realize that Academy Works is a lot more than just a series about a regression facility. ? Same as last time, if you want to support me there's a Patreon link you can go to. Thanks for reading and leaving comments and stuff!! ~Mia~ --------------------- Academy TBy Mia Moore "The tower built for the sun and the tower built for the moon are in pursuit of different heavens." -The Source Chapter One Talita Campbell sat on her bed, staring blankly at the rails surrounding her. She was hungry. Her diaper was wet. She wanted to get out! But no matter how long she stared at the contraptions, she couldn't figure out how they worked. Every time Mommy lowered the bars, it seemed like magic. So Talita did the only thing she could to get her Mommy's attention: she cried. The LED on her bedside baby monitor glowed softly in the morning light; Mommy was listening. "And who’s a fussy baby this morning? The sun is barely awake and already you’re so eager to get up and go play, huh baby girl?" Play. With the others. That was how Talita spent a good deal of her mornings and afternoons. Playing in the playpen with neighborhood kids, or playing outside in the grass, or being taken to the park. Her Mommy had told her that it was good for her to play with the other kids, and that did make sense, although Talita knew she wasn’t a kid and neither were the others. Her thoughts were derailed - as they so easily were nowadays - by Mommy reaching down and slipping her finger between her onesie and her skin to check what she already knew was going to be a wet diaper. Talita always woke up wet. "Mommy…" Talita muttered as her Mommy took down the rails. She pressed a button, or kicked a lever, or something! But to Talita, it was magic all the same. She wiped her wet eyes and tried to close her legs, squishing the diaper between her thighs. She couldn't even remember the last time her knees touched. "Hm?" Talita's Mommy helped her off the bed. She waddled across the room to the changing table. "Can I please wear undies, just this once...? I promise I won't have any accidents, I promise..." Every day for almost a month, Talita had asked that question. It almost felt routine, as was her Mommy’s quick dismissal. But today was different. Instead of an outright no, Mommy paused to think about it. Talita's heart raced and she jumped in with renewed confidence. "One time! One time, and I swear! If I have any accidents, I pinky promise I'll never ask again!" "Oh, you pinky promise, do you? And you know what happens to little girls who break pinky promises, don’t you darling?" "...uh huh." Talita swallowed glumly. "And you want to make a pinky promise that if you have even a single accident today, you’ll never ask again?" "Maybe…um… maybe not a single accident..." "And maybe you can show Mommy how dry you can keep this diaper today, and then we’ll talk?" "Mo-mmeeee, I want to wear undies! Pretty pleeeeeaaaase?" The truth was, Talita wasn't sure she could keep up her end of the bargain. For well over a month, she had woken up in a wet diaper. Every day, it felt like a struggle to keep what little of her toilet training she had left. But if she truly was so helpless as to have an accident without even thinking, then maybe she didn't have the right to ask for underwear anyway. However, Talita had always been a risk taker. Sometimes things ended up bad and sometimes they didn’t, but Talita never regretted it. Life was more fun when she took her chances. Or, it was until she woke up in this place. "I can do it. Not any accidents." Though Talita's voice was full of confidence, her stomach was flipping with anxiety. Mommy helped her onto the changing table and looked her square in the eye. They were the same height when standing, down to the millimeter, but there was something diminutizing about sitting on the changing table that made Talita feel smaller. "Okay," Mommy said. "But if you fail, and you break your promise, then you'll be a Bad Girl for a month." Talita's eyes went wide and the color drained from her face. A month? But even if Talita had an accident, the least she could do was keep her promise. She could do that, for sure. "Otay..." The ‘undies’ in question were far from being the kind of panties an adult might wear. These were thick, cotton, stuffed with a lining of padding with prints of strawberries and unicorns on them - training pants by any assessment. To Talita, they were the most mature thing in the whole world, so much so that it distracted her from her dread as she watched her Mommy pull them out of the drawer. One day. Just one day. No accidents. She could do it. There was no way Talita was going to end up as a Bad Girl again! Mommy changed her diaper and wiped her clean. Talita wouldn't be wearing a diaper for the first time in months, but her Mommy powdered her all the same. Then, without ceremony, she slid the strawberry training pants up her legs and around her hips. Talita looked down at her knees and touched them together, a shiver of delight rushing up her spine. She was a big girl now! Everyone at school was going to be jealous! "Now it’s important you remember, Talita my darling girl, that you’re making a deal with Mommy." The woman held her finger up with all the earnest seriousness of... something serious. Talita couldn’t follow her own metaphor. So she linked pinkies with her Mommy, and just like that sealed the deal. "I’m so essited, I’m gonna be... gonna be so... so flippin’ cool, Mommy, you don’t even know!" "Well, let's get you dressed then. Daddy is making breakfast." Talita was all sunshine as her Mommy dressed her. She wore a short dress with frills underneath, flashing the seat of her training pants when she so much as bent over. Frilly ankle socks adorned her feet, along with a set of white ballet flats. Her long hair was tied in loose pigtails with plastic bauble elastics. Finally, a pacifier was clipped to her dress and pressed firmly between her lips. She was a picturesque toddler in the body of an adult, but Talita didn't even seem to notice, let alone mind. Talita walked with one foot in front of the other - something she couldn't do when waddling in a diaper - all the way to the kitchen, where Daddy was plating eggs and toast. Though she and her Mommy were the same height, Daddy was a bit taller with mussed hair and a clean beard. The couple couldn't have been more than ten years older than Talita, but they were her parents nonetheless. "Eggies!" Talita clapped her hands happily, then tried to reel in her enthusiasm. She wanted her Daddy to see just how cool and mature she was today. "That’s right, cupcake: eggs with toast." He flashed her a warm smile. "It’s not got seeds innit right, Daddy?" Talita screwed up her nose. "I dun’ like the toast with seeds innit." "Not a single seed as far as the eye can see, cupcake." Talita pursed her lips and looked skeptically, then nodded her head. "You took them all out, Daddy?" Explaining that white bread didn’t have seeds in it was going to be an exercise in futility, as it often was with Talita. She was beautiful, immature, darling, and very very dumb; so her Daddy just smiled and nodded. Breakfast in the Campbell household was all too ordinary. Talita ate bites of toast, spilling crumbs down her bib and into the little pocket at the bottom. Mommy told Daddy about Talita's promise and how she didn't need diapers anymore. Daddy got up early from the table to ready Talita's stroller for the trip to her school. Yes, breakfast in the Campbell house was all too ordinary, if Talita really had been a toddler and not a 29 year old woman. "Can I walk instead?" Talita asked as Daddy buckled her into the stroller. "I'm a big girl today, so it makes sense." "How about," Daddy said, snapping the last belt in place with a metallic click, "if you can get out of the stroller before we get there, you can walk the rest of the way." Talita's eyes lit up at the challenge and nodded her head, immediately getting to work on the buckles wrapped over her shoulders and around her waist. Ordinarily, perhaps a long time ago, Talita may have considered the best way to win this challenge. Like, for example, to wait until the last possible moment before getting out of the stroller so that she could have victory and get to show up to school walking on her own and not be so tired from the walk that she needed a nap as soon as she got there. Cool kids didn’t need a nap until at least lunchtime. Talita, though, was a very special variety of bimbaby. The kind of girl to whom such advanced machinations would never occur. In fact, they were only a few minutes from the house when she was so sure she’d managed to wriggle free already. "Daddy I did-" Her words were cut short by a frown and a gasp as the straps over her thighs and lap held fast. In all her excitement to work on the shoulder straps - which she could squirm out of and cheat her way to freedom - she’d completely forgotten to account for the others that held her firmly in place. "Did what, cupcake?" Her Daddy asked, slightly amused, as he pushed the stroller. "Nothing Daddy..." Efforts must be doubled!

Hey there readers! I hope you're still enjoying Academy Works. If you wanna start at the beginning (which I recommend, though it's not required!), you should read Academy I (Part 1), Academy B (Part 2), and Academy T (Part 3). Academy K is a bit more like A:T, but there's a lot less direct control. I really like this one because I'm playing with concepts of social manipulation and out-group biases. But I hope it's still fun to read nonetheless! If you want to support me, here's a Patreon link you can go to. Thanks to everyone who reads, likes, and/or leaves comments! ~Mia~ --------------------- Academy KBy Mia Moore "Unbound strength is not found at the end of the hermit’s pilgrimage, but throughout every step." -The Source Chapter One Kione Williams sat nervously at a table in a brightly lit room. The muscles in her arms ached for no good reason as she tried to lift them up off the table's surface. She looked at her pink palms, lighter than the rest of her skin, and stretched her fingers as far as they would allow. It hurt, but in a good way. Kione looked at the walls. They were pink, but every so often they looked green instead. She took a deep breath and counted to four. Hold, and release. The walls were pink, she was sure of it. The last thing Kione remembered was seeing that black van on her street. She was walking home from work and the headlights were off, but the running lights glowed an awkward orange. The whole sidewalk was awash with that same hue. The door of the pink room opened and a man stepped in. He was dressed in a black suit with a clipboard in his hand. Kione took another steady breath as he took a seat across from her. "Hello Kione. My name is Eli. Do you know where you are?" Kione nodded her head. She couldn't remember anything between the growl of that black van and opening her eyes in the pink room, but she knew where she was. How? She couldn't say for sure. "The Academy," Kione answered. Eli nodded slowly. If he was surprised by her answer, he didn't show it. "We are going to help you get better," Eli told her. "The Priestess can fix you." "I appreciate your concern," Kione said evenly, "but I don't need help." Eli opened the file on his desk. He flipped a few pages until he found one that he was looking for. Then he asked: "How long have you been seeing things?" Kione looked away and leaned back in her chair. It always came back to this. "Listen, I'm sure you mean well." That was a lie. For some reason, Kione didn't trust this man any further than she could throw him. And with the way her arms were hurting, and the size of Eli, that wasn't very far at all. "I have it under control. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to leave." "And where do you imagine you’ll be going?" Questions like that were phrased so open-ended, as though there could be any answer in the world. But the way that Eli had phrased it was clear as day that he only had one right answer in mind. Rarely did Kione have only one answer that seemed right. But right now, that was unimportant. Eli was waiting for an answer, and Kione knew she was screwed no matter what she said. "Wonderland? With the White Rabbit, and the Queen of Hearts?" "You’re a funny one,” Eli replied, dryly. He wasn’t smiling. "What color are the walls, Kione?" "Pink," Kione said without hesitation. "Are you sure?" Eli asked, tilting his head to the side. "Yes." Kione had made up her mind: the walls were pink. Certainty was never something she could stumble into on accident anymore; she had to make her own certainty. Eli got up from the table and walked to the door. He opened it and stepped outside. "Are you coming?" he asked. Kione nodded and stood up. The muscles in her thighs started to ache and her knees buckled beneath her. She braced herself on the table and steadied herself, then she followed Eli out of the room. Wherever he was taking her, it was better than sitting in that chair. As Kione followed down the hall, she noticed her feet. Bare. Where had her shoes gone? She noticed her pants next - white cotton, the texture of hospital scrubs - and a matching button up shirt. She probably looked like an orderly out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Kione didn't like the resemblance. At the end of the long white hall was a single door. Eli led the way through it, outside and into the sunlight. It took a moment for Kione’s eyes to adjust. There was grass - too green, like a Hollywood movie set - and a consistent blue sky with clouds that didn’t seem to move. And the sound of... children playing? Giggling? Kione looked down the hill she stood atop, Eli by her side, at the scene below her. From up there, they looked like children, but something in her head told her otherwise. Adults. All adults, like her. But acting like children. Dressed like children. Some played hopscotch. Some played tag. Some were tossing a ball around. A few dozen, maybe fifty. "What is this?" Kione asked. "Salvation," Eli responded. She looked around the large space; the adult children played in the center of a pentagonal valley, with five hills that formed the shape of a star. Past that, there was nothing but a sea of grass. Atop each of the other four hills there were structures. Not houses, not buildings... but playground equipment, like you might have expected to find in a school yard. Or, well, a really expensive school yard, like one of those private schools that churned out damaged adults. "I don't understand how this is supposed to—" Kione turned to Eli, but he wasn't there. The door where she came out wasn't there either. She hesitated at the space where she expected the door should be and reached out to touch it, but her hand went right through. There was no door. Was Eli real? Was any of this? Kione took a deep breath. Five things she could see. The massive blacktop at the bottom of the hill, with adults playing hopscotch. Swing sets in lines of six, flanked on both sides with colorful seats. Picnic tables and swaths of blankets decorating the sides of the other four hills. Huge play-scapes - or maybe small play-towns - on each of the hills, painted in different colors: red, yellow, blue, and green. And finally, in the center of the valley, adorned with pictures and ornaments, a large door stood upright. A door that didn't seem to go anywhere at all. Maybe things she could see was a bad place to start. Kione closed her eyes and took another breath. Four things she could feel. The sharp grass beneath her feet. The slight breeze against her forehead. The ache of her legs as she stood. The gravity pulling on her, tilted every so slightly forward. Three things she could hear. Laughter. Bouncing balls. Music, like from a music box. Two things she could smell. Grass, like it was recently cut, though it didn't look like it had been. Kione knew always to trust her nose over her eyes. And lavender. One thing she could taste. Moisture. Humidity. She was thirsty, and this place was alive. When Kione opened her eyes again, it was just in time to see a group of kids - or adults dressed like kids - walking up the hill toward her. "I saw her first!" "Nuhuh, Marky saw her first an' told you an' I saw her before that!" "Nuhuh." "Yuhhuh." "She looks like a Banana." "You wouldn't even know a Banana!" "I am a Banana!" "I think she's umm... she's defi...defin... um. She's a Cherry!" The chittering of the group of would-be-children terminated when the group of six made it to the top of the hill. A girl - a woman, in a pretty gingham dress the color of freshly picked red apples - was the first to speak directly to Kione. "Welcome to the Kindergarten!" "I... thank you..." Kione paused and looked at the six residents. Each was dressed very specifically, with a dominant color and an accent of white. White socks, white hair ties, white frills along the hems of their dresses. Even the boys wore shirts with white sleeves or white laces on their shoes. Two green, two yellow, two red... but no blue. "I'm sorry," Kione apologized, though she hadn't done anything wrong. "What is this place, exactly? And do you know where the exit is?" "Oh gosh." "Oh golly." "Oh goodness." "We just said it's the Kindergarten," a girl in green echoed, but she didn’t sound annoyed about it. "And there's no exit, this is your home now. What's your name?" "I'm sorry, but I can't stay here." Kione skipped over the whole name thing. If these adults really were children, then it was best they didn't get attached to her. "I have a job; I'm a counsellor. If I don't get back to my clients soon, they'll worry about me. You understand, don't you?" "Nuhuh." "Nope." "She's definitely a Blueberry..." "I'm Robin," continued the girl in the red gingham dress who did the introductions. "I know it's confusing but you'll be okay. Tonight there's gonna be a Joining when the others get here, an' then you'll feel more at home." "I... I'm really sorry, but I can't..." Kione wasn't getting anywhere, and she knew it. She looked around the hilly parkway again, then down at the door in the center of it all. Free-standing on a frame with no wall. They saw it too, didn't they? "That door," Kione asked. "Does it go anywhere?" The kids exchanged awkward looks, but Robin spoke up right away. "That's the Ever After. When we earn it, the Priestess will open the door and lead us through. But only one of us gets to go at a time. So we gotta be on our best behavior." Kione nodded in understanding. This place was some kind of cult. An indoctrination of sorts. She'd suffered through enough loneliness and ostracism that Kione knew how important it was to belong. But her knowledge gave her power too. They wouldn't sway her so easily. Nonetheless, Kione always was good at putting on a face. "What do you mean 'Priestess'?" "Well when—" one of the others began to explain, but Robin shushed him with a wave of her hand. She shook her head softly, before taking over the explanation. "After the Joining, your leader will explain everything to you." Nobody seemed willing to argue with Robin, and when nobody else spoke up, she continued. "Do you Double Dutch?" "Um..." It seemed like such a non-sequitur. A yellow-shirted boy chimed in: "It's a dumb skipping game for girls." "Shut up, Wesley," the girl wearing a yellow dress snapped back and rolled her eyes. "It's not dumb you're just bad at it." "Cause I'm not a girl." "Maybe you should be, you keep talking about it!" He puffed out his cheeks and went quiet. Robin continued: "It's a game. Do you know how to play? Come down wif' us, okay?" Robin was mostly eloquent, but with some misspoken words here and there. It was weird. Cute, but weird. Kione followed the group down the hill, looking back at where she came from. There was no playscape at the top of it. It was different. Why was it different? Soon Kione and the others made it to the bottom of the hill and the grass made way for blacktop. The small, dull stones and the sun-soaked ground made the bottoms of Kione's feet hurt. A lot of other kids - all dressed primarily in one of the four colors - looked her way, but nobody else approached to make an introduction. Robin seemed to have an odd level of control over the whole situation. Maybe she's the leader, Kione wondered. If she is, then she's the best ally. And the most dangerous enemy. "You didn' tell me your name," Robin prompted again, "an' I can't introduce you if you don't tell me your name." The boys split away to play their games, and the other two girls - one in green and one in yellow - led her to where a gaggle of girls were jumping rope. "Kione." In the end, ingratiating herself and earning the trust of the residents would benefit her more than keeping her distance. If Kione learned anything from work, it was that rapport was everything. "Well Kione, it's nice to meet you. Come this way." As Robin approached, the mixture of girls - in reds, blues, yellows, and greens - wound down their rhythmic chant. They looked at Kione excitedly. "This is Kione," Robin said. "Hi Kione!" They all intoned, in unison, like addressing a school teacher. "Is there gon' be a Joining tonight?" one of the girls in blue asked. She had her thumb in her mouth and it drew Kione's attention. She sure seemed to take this 'dress like a kid' thing a little too far. But then again, this whole place seemed a bit too Wonderland for Kione. Maybe she shouldn’t have made that joke with Eli. "There is, but let's just play for now." Robin smiled, and turned to Kione. "Do you wanna do Miss Mary Mack? Or Teddy Bear? Or is there another jump rope game you like most?" "I, uh. Miss Mary Mack would be great." Kione hadn't jumped rope since she was in grade school, but she was pretty damn good. She hoped that jump rope was like riding a bike, and she wouldn't humiliate herself in front of a bunch of overgrown school children. As Kione stepped into the middle of the two jump ropes, the girls on either end - one in yellow, one in red - began mercifully slow. "Miss.... Mary.... Mack, Mack, Mack....all dressed in black, black, black, with silv-" Kione made it about that far before tripping, and the plastic ropes caught in her feet. There were laughs and giggles, but nothing too condescending. Nothing like how an adult would make fun of someone or discourage them for trying. It just seemed like the kids were having fun, and Kione didn't know what to make of that. "I wanna try again," Kione declared.