Average Joe is a rather simple Earth pony.
He is of a moderate shade of beige with a medium-length brown mane, blue eyes that are neither too light nor too dark, and a cutie mark of a cup of coffee with three bars that go up to about the middle of the coffee cup.
He lives in a home somewhere in the middle of Ponyville by himself with all the normal accoutrements of a home and done in the standard shades and design of the Ponyville houses. He has a job at a local store, working an in-store coffee stand as a barista, and makes a normal income for his job and experience level. He had completed the normal schooling for anyone in Ponyville and had taken a couple of extra classes, but his grades were not remarkable and, after finding a job that went with his talent, pursued no more.
He had a couple of average habits, too. He showered every other day; liked to play card games with his friends and met with them once a month; and liked to go out for a beer twice a week, once on Monday to get over the long day at the start of the week, and once on Friday to celebrate at the beginning of the weekend.
Entrancing Voice is anything but a simple Pegasus pony.
He is a silvery grey body with similarly white hair, purple eyes that are a shade too light for anyone looking at them and have a tendency to draw others into them, and a cutie mark of a triangle with an eye pulsating rings out the top.
He lives in a home somewhat on the outskirts of Ponyville, designed with a specialized office connected to a special “guest bedroom” with various extras designed to his particular tastes. He ranked high in Psychology classes and quickly excelled in the areas of persuasion, and works as a professor at the local college. His talent – the ability to influence any pony with his voice and prolonged eye contact – is rather useful both in keeping his students interested and attentive to his lectures, as well as getting away with most anything he wants in terms of relationships with other ponies.
As to why Entrancing Voice and Average Joe became friends, no one is entirely sure why. Not even the two themselves.
It was a Monday sometime in early spring when Entrancing Voice was sitting at the bar with Average Joe pondering this. Entrancing Voice often picked even those he considered his friends for decent personal gain, and yet this pony in no way was remarkable. Hell, he’d never even used him for anything.
Joe liked him for reasons that Entrancing Voice could not identify. He’d invited him to a few of his monthly poker sessions (his friends had been interesting for a few good nights), and liked to talk to him when going out for a beer on Mondays (there was only one bar spot in town, and even Entrancing Voice was rather keen on a drink after work).
Joe had ordered a stout. A rather common stout, Entrancing Voice noted to himself as he sipped on his own drink, a rather elaborately designed though small martini.
“So, how did your day go, Trance?” Joe asked. If nothing else, he was rather chipper, compared to the dour professors Entrancing Voice usually dealt with.
‘Trance’ shrugged. “No better nor worse than any other Monday,” he said evenly. “How about you?”
“Same here. Works been pretty reliable lately. You hear the new Daring Do book is coming out in a month?”
“Yeah. Everyone at the university’s been talking about it.”
“Ah. I’m not sure if I’ll go to the release day; I think it’s a Monday, and I’d rather go the day after. No one plans anything on Tuesday, so the store will be empty.”
There had been many variations of this conversation every time. It was… rather predictable in a way. It occurred to Entrancing Voice that perhaps his skills could be useful for Joe. Yes… he could draw him out of his shell, yet also bring him under his control. He liked the stallion for reasons he couldn’t describe, and had yet to act on them for a long while.
Yet now it occurred to him: others were aware of what he did. Of what he could do. Average Joe was exactly that: average. And what would the average person think of his powers? The elements of fiction, certainly. Scary stories told to ponies to make them not stray from the beaten path. His own powers of hypnosis could break his guard and shake that up, making it easier for him to enter with him not suspecting it.
Yes… and if he were truly average… well, at least there’d be some consistency to the amount of fun they could have. Here now was a reason, and he almost hit himself over the head for not realizing it sooner.
“Average Joe… I am going to hypnotize you. I will be your Master, and you will be my slave.”
Joe had been in the middle of a sip of his drink. He didn’t set it down, and neither did he spit it out until he was nearly finished with it. “…I’m sorry, what did you say?”
It was almost hilariously innocent. But now… now was the time. Entrancing Voice flicked a piece of his mane out of his face, looked directly into Joe’s eyes, and put on his most suave voice. “I said, would you like another beer? It will lower your inhibitions and make it easier for me to control you.”
Joe smiled slightly. “Well I’m not into control, but I’ll take the beer. You want one, Trance? You like the bitter drinks, maybe you’d like it.”
Entrancing Voice was a little stupefied. Joe had showed near zero change in emotion. He was slightly susceptible – nearly every other time, he’d never had more than one, so that suggestion got through – but he didn’t act on anything else. “You know what? For you, I’ll try it. We may be enjoying these together a lot more often once you start listening carefully.”
“Nah, man; one on Monday and one on Friday is enough for me. Bartender! Two of the stouts, please!”
He was listening, Entrancing Voice noted as the unicorn behind the bar filled up two glasses of the stout and brought them over. He and Joe both picked up their glasses and took a few drinks of it.
“Ah…” Joe exclaimed with a satisfying sigh. “This is one of my favorites. Do you like the chocolate taste of it? You’ve told me you like dark chocolate.”
“Yes, I do.” Entrancing Voice looked at Joe and started his voice again. “It’s a nice, pleasing aroma that will make it easier for me to harness your senses in service of me.”
“Speaking of service, you should totally come down to the coffee shop some time and hear my coworkers’ stories. They’ve got some pretty funny ones about stuff that’s happened around the place. Hey, we’ve even got one about the time one of your coworkers dropped his coffee, slipped on it, and ran into the door!” And Joe laughed. “You needed to be there, but Steam Brew can tell it fantastically!”
“That’s nice. Now, why don’t just relax and let me take over your mind…”
Joe rolled his eyes, but kept his rather upbeat look. “Dude, are you ever gonna calm down with your world domination thing?”
Entrancing Voice nearly had his mouth drop to the floor. Was it really not working? Joe was currently holding a 90 percent resistance; he’d accepted the bare minimum of his commands. He quickly corrected himself and assumed a more assertive posture. “Perhaps,” he said silkily, drawing the beer glass up to his mouth and a wing around his friend, hoping the touch would relax him slightly. “Calming down and relaxing will be such a good idea when you’re my pet.”
The silky voice vanished again. He took a large drink and was suddenly struck by the strength of the drink; spitting some of it out and his wings flaring behind him. How can Joe stand this drink!? It’s really strong! Joe seemed fine, though he was a little red around the cheeks.
“You doing okay there?” Joe asked. Still as kind as he ever was…
Entrancing Voice nodded. “You… you want a water?” he asked normally. “This… whew, this is hitting me harder than I thought.”
“Yeah.” Joe waved over for a couple of waters, and they came shortly afterwards. “Did you say pet? That reminds me, there’s a pet adoption event going on at Fluttershy’s house. I was thinking of picking up one of those cockatoos. I’ve heard she has a few sweet tempered ones. You going?”
Strengthened by the water, Entrancing Voice resumed his attempt at slowly inserting himself in Joe’s mind. “Perhaps. Then I’ll be able to buy the perfect collar and leash for when you fall asleep in my hooves.”
Joe smiled and blushed. “Aww… how sweet of you.”
This time, Entrancing Voice’s mouth really did drop to the floor. “R-really…?” His own voice sounded hollow and he felt his eye twitching. Is he… is he serious? I can’t get through… everyone else would have surrendered by now… how does he even—
“Yeah. I mean, I’m not into stallions, but it’s nice to know you’re interested if I ever change my mind.”
Time to go direct… “Oh, you don’t need to be into stallions. It’ll be nice enough once my spell has taken over your mind.”
Joe raised an eyebrow. “…no homo?”
Entrancing Voice could take it no longer. He slammed his head on the counter, knocking over his glass of stout. Of course… Joe was completely average. Average enough that, if faced with this sort of thing, he wouldn’t realize it if he didn’t know what it was. “…no homo…” he said resignedly.
“Alright! And maybe afterwards, you can show me what your talent really is like you’ve been telling me you would!”
“AAAAARGH!”
