kallie-den

[kallie-den]

The Subordinate Ch. 2

Olive tries to reassert professional boundaries with her new hire, only to find them utterly collapsing in the face of her new, fetish-oriented sexuality

An ongoing commission I've been working on! Fair warning, this is going to be a mean one. Expect NTR, findom, and degradation of all kinks. My thanks to Brendon for commissioning the story

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All I need to do is reestablish professional boundaries.

When I put it like that, it sounds simple. Clinical. Routine. That’s good. I can do simple, and clinical, and routine. That’s exactly what I need after yesterday.

After yesterday…

I don’t remember what happened. Not exactly. I remember Ivy bringing me my morning coffee, and then it’s just a blur. When I peer into my memories, it’s indistinct. Like paint going down the drain. But I remember Ivy said some things, and I remember I did some things. Humiliating things.

I’m glad to be riding the elevator up to the office alone. There’s nobody here to see me blush.

As far as I can tell, I spent the rest of the day in a haze. It was like I was out of myself, out of my own body, watching from the other side of a screen. Unable to take control. Unable to do anything at all to keep myself from working far, far too late. Eventually—maybe just out of habit—I left the office and headed home, zombie-like. Luna, my girlfriend, hadn’t been pleased. We talked, but not really. She did all the talking.

For the entire day, I was just a spectator. For some reason, that specific word sends a throbbing shiver down my spine.

Waking up clear-headed this morning had brought back all the shame, clear and sharp like ice, even as the memories stole away. I considered calling in sick, but that would have felt too much like running away. I can’t do that.

This is my life. Mine. Ivy might have controlled me once, years ago, but I won’t let it happen again. Not again. Not again.

That’s the other half of my refrain, as the elevator door opens and I step out into the office. Not again. All I need to do is reestablish professional boundaries.

Then I see her. I freeze.

More than ever, Ivy is a queen holding court. As usual, there’s a gaggle of women standing around one of the desks, chatting, catching up, as they wait for the workday to kick into motion. This time, it’s Ivy’s desk. She’s at the heart of it, and I recognize all too well the fawning, sycophantic looks on their faces as they bend at her, and coo, and giggle.

It’s just like college.

That singular thought churns my stomach. I just stand there, stupidly, watching. The coward part of me starts suggesting: why not do it later? I could call her into my office. That would be easier—except it wouldn’t, not at all. As much as I don’t like crowds, I do need witnesses. Just in case Ivy does… something.

Then, after a moment, it strikes. It isn’t just like college. It’s like high school too. I’m on the outside looking in. Watching forlornly as another group of girls chats.

“Hello, Olive,” Ivy says, looking up. She’s neither surprised nor concerned to see me. I don’t panic the way I feared. I just feel myself growing smaller as I slip under her gaze. “Good morning.”

“Ivy.” My voice is shaky. It’s hard to talk while some of the other office girls are giggling at Ivy’s informality with me. To them, it’s daring—but innocent. To me, it’s anything but. “I… um… there’s something-“

“Oh, hey, chief,” says one of the other girls. Amanda. She doesn’t mean to interrupt. She probably didn’t notice I was talking. “We were just checking out Ivy’s new watch! Ivy, show her.”

With a wordless smile, Ivy lifts her hand and lets me see what’s on her wrist.

It’s fancy. Luxury, I presume, although I don’t know watches. The brand—Cartier—means nothing to me. It’s nice, anyone could see that. But that’s not what gets me. What gets me is that it’s new, and that, with all that gold, it’s plainly very, very expensive.

Beads of incriminating sweat form on my forehead.

“Isn’t it lovely?” Amanda prompts.

“Y-y-yes, lovely,” I stammer.

“I can’t believe you could afford something like this,” another girl admired. “Was it a gift?”

Ivy is turning her hand this way and that, letting me admire the watch from all angles. I’m all but hypnotized by it.

“Something like that,” Ivy remarks. That all but confirms my suspicions.

I paid for this watch. Last night, with the money I sent to her. Until this moment, I hadn’t been sure it had really happened.

While I’m stewing in unfathomable emotion, the girls gathering around Ivy are just making adoring little noises. “Lucky!” one of them says. “From family?”

“Nope,” Ivy replies. She just keeps looking straight at me. It’s unmaking me. Why are my cheeks so hot?

“A lover?” another guesses.

The mirth in Ivy’s voice is merciless. “Absolutely not.”

I’m lucky that all my coworkers are too busy fawning over Ivy and her watch to register the utterly stupid, stunned, humiliated look on my face. I’m offended, of course. Ivy is shamelessly flaunting the money she… stole? Took. Took from me. The sheer audacity is staggering. I’m forced to quietly pray and plead that Ivy doesn’t tell all the other girls just where that money came from. I would never live down the reputation it would give me.

I hate it. I should hate it. And yet.

Why am I so wet I can already feel the dark stain forming on my panties?

The sense of violation is transmuted in my stomach, becoming a nauseous, queasy thrill that sets me hopelessly off-balance. It’s like I’m falling, and falling, and falling, and I can’t stop. Maybe I don’t want to stop. Sometimes, when you’re standing on a balcony or at the edge of a tall rooftop, you feel this paradoxical urge to throw yourself into the open air and let gravity take you. This is just the same. One of the reasons I can’t speak is that I have to bite down on my tongue, or else I might find myself offering Ivy even more.

Why? Why would I do that? Why would I want that?

Because Ivy deserves it.

I can’t explain the answer. But it is the answer. She deserves it. And I don’t.

The whimper that escapes my throat can’t be heard over the ambient conversation going on in the office.

“Something wrong, Olive?” Ivy asks. She knows. “You look a little peaky.”

“I’m f-f-fine.” I don’t sound it. I have to remind myself. Not again. “Ivy, I… I need to speak with you.”

“Of course,” Ivy replies, unperturbed. “In your office?”

“No!” I blurt out. I need the safety of the crowd. “Here is fine. I, um…”

I pause. Where to begin? I rehearsed what I was going to say a dozen times in the mirror, but not the start. Why didn’t I practice the start?

“Perhaps you wanted to follow up on the conversation we had yesterday?” Ivy suggests sweetly.

“N-no.” I pale. “No, that’s, um…”

Everyone is looking at me. Why does everyone have to look at me? It’s not fair. I can’t take it. I try to look down, but Ivy’s watch catches my eye instead. It’s so bright. All that gold. Gold has never really suited me—but it certainly suits her, with her height, and her immaculate makeup, and her rich, dark skin. She’s so glamorous. So graceful. I could never be those things.

She’s so much better than me. That’s why I pay for her to be glamorous instead.

Pleasure throbs from between my legs. I almost moan.

“I-I-In my office!” I cave. “Yes. Yes, that’s… fine. Um.”

I need it, it turns out. The safety and privacy of that familiar space.

Waving a quick goodbye to the other girls, Ivy follows me inside. I shut the door. In my office I do, indeed, feel safer. Stronger. Even if being in such close quarters with Ivy is almost painfully distracting. I draw a deep breath.

“Yesterday,” I begin, launching into my spiel without prelude. “What happened between us was entirely u-untoward. I won’t… um… that is, ideally, there’s no need for us to involve anyone else, but I think it’s important that we put an end to… to whatever that was. For the sake of p-professional boundaries.”

I sound just like a kid on the first day of school. It’s pathetic, and Ivy knows it. Her amusement and disapproval are like hot smoke on my skin, itching at me. She lets me stew in it for a beat.

“Or what?” she says eventually.

I clench my eyes shut for a moment. I was hoping she’d simply agree, but I’d prepared for this.

“Or,” I recite calmly, “I’m prepared to raise this matter with HR.”

It’s my killer threat. And after a moment, Ivy just laughs in my face.

“You’ll go to HR?” she mocks. “Olive, Olive, Olive. You really didn’t think that one through, did you?”

Suddenly I feel so small. How can she do that to me? I’m not small. I’m not inferior. I’m not.

“W-what are you talking about?” I demand.

“You’ll go to HR and tell them… what, exactly?” Ivy asks.

Already, I’m deflating. “I’ll tell them exactly what happened,” I bluster. “That you… that you coerced me into t-that transfer. The watch! It’s evidence, even. I-“

“Is that right?” Ivy interrupts. “You’ll tell them that I, your employee and new hire, was bringing you coffee in the morning, and then you started touching yourself in front of me. You’ll tell them that?”

My cheeks turn the deepest red. It wasn’t like that! Was it? I don’t remember. The coffee. Wasn’t there something about the coffee?

“B-but the watch,” I protest. “It-“

“And tried to bribe me into silence, too,” Ivy laughs. “Wonderful story, Olive. Shall we go right now?”

It’s at that moment that I realize just how deeply, awfully powerless I am.

“No.” I slump. It feels almost natural, in front of her.

“Good,” Ivy purrs. “I’m glad we’ve put an end to that stupidity.”

My cheeks burn. Stupidity. Yes. How didn’t I see it? I feel like a child again, trying to stand up for myself. Failing.

Ivy knows best.

It’s only natural. I’m inferior.

“And when I was being so nice to you!” Ivy adds, before I can interrogate where that particular thought stems from. “Look. I even brought you coffee again.”

She gestures, and I turn to my desk. Sure enough, right there, in front of my computer, there’s a cup of coffee. It’s just the same as it was yesterday. That, more than anything, activates my fight-or-flight urge.

Ivy’s lips are thin, as she smiles. “Drink up,” she instructs.

I tremble. I shouldn’t. I know that much, even if the reason eludes me. “Maybe later,” I say feebly.

“Now.”

Being chastened like that makes me shiver. Again, it’s that child-feeling. The scorn in Ivy’s voice hits me the same way the watch on her wrist does. It feels bad, but my body yields to it willingly. Eagerly.

I could try to disobey, but what would be the point? Ivy’s already taught me how that goes.

As calmly as I can manage, I sit down at my desk and take a sip of the coffee. It tastes off, in an eerily familiar way.

“More than that.” I can tell Ivy is growing tired of my petty little rebellions. I should have known better than to think she’d be satisfied so easily. “Drink up properly, Olive.”

She sounds like a school teacher. I take a big mouthful of the coffee and drink it down with a gulp.

Just a few moments later, the world around me slows to a crawl.

The sensation is familiar, this time, and that déjà vu brings back with it the dawning horror of everything that happened before. I remember it now, in detail. Once it’s too late.

The drug.

Already, I’m too skullfucked to even articulate my dread. I just look at Ivy, stunned, opening and closing my mouth like a fish. My double-vision splits her lopsided, smirking grin into two shapes, linking at the end, an impossibly wide crescent moon of cruelty.

“That’s better,” Ivy simpers. “Isn’t that better, Olive?”

It’s better.

I’m nodding before even one of my slow, small thoughts has crawled across my mind.

It’s better. It must be.

Ivy says so. Reassured by that, I sit back. I smile. It’s easy to smile. This is better.

Then, after a few long moments, I remember that there was a question.

“Y-yeah,” I sigh dreamily.

“Of course it is,” Ivy laughs. “You’re certainly much better this way. Much more manageable. It’s the way you belong, Olive.”

It’s the way I belong.

That’s good. That’s nice.

It’s… what?

Drugged?

Yeah. Yes. There was a drug. I remember now.

I’m supposed to fight it. At least, I think so. I remember impressing something like that on myself. But it sounds so futile. My physiology is succumbing even quicker than before.

Oh well. It’s the way I belong.

“But I think we have a problem, Olive,” Ivy says lazily. “You still don’t seem to understand your place.”

My… place?

It’s right here, isn’t it?

This is my office. My desk. So this is my place.

I don’t… understand?

What don’t I understand?

In my ignorance, I feel small and weak. Ivy is anything but.

“What…” I slur. “What’s… my place?”

Ivy smiles. She’s pleased I need to ask her. “Look at this.”

She raises her hand, presenting her new watch for me to see. In truth, she didn’t need to tell me to look. The way the light glints off the gold catches my eyes instantly. It’s almost childish, really. I can’t seem to look away from something so shiny.

But of course, that’s not the only reason I’m instantly fascinated.

“You paid for this,” Ivy tells me simply.

The confirmation almost brings me to moaning. Hearing it like that, from Ivy’s lips, makes it more real than real.

I paid for this.

Fuck. That’s so hot. Fuck.

I can’t process why. Between the drug and the need, I’m overwhelmed. I just know nothing has ever been so potent.

I paid for this. For her.

“You know what’s funny?” Ivy asks as she turns her hand over. “Let me ask you something: why haven’t you ever bought a watch like this?”

Why… haven’t I?

A watch. Yes. A watch like… what?

I don’t know anything about watches.

Maybe that’s the reason. Is that the reason?

I don’t know. I just know it never occurred to me.

“You could have,” Ivy reminds me. “You have the money.”

I don’t bother trying to think. It’s easier not to. I know Ivy will serve up the truth for me on a silver platter.

“You didn’t,” Ivy says, “because you don’t deserve things like this.”

I don’t?

I don’t. That settles on me, and it settles heavy.

I don’t deserve things like Ivy’s watch.

But she does. Even I can make that connection.

“You don’t deserve nice things,” Ivy whispers. Pouring more poison in my ear. I know it for what it is. I just can’t fight it.

It feels right.

Yes. That’s right. I don’t deserve nice things.

A little voice in me wants to argue. It wants to tell me I do. Isn’t this what I work so hard for? To afford things? To buy the kind of life I want?

Another voice rises, and says the opposite. I work so hard because that’s what I deserve. Not the nice things. The work. And Ivy’s just the opposite.

“But,” Ivy confirms, just as I’m reaching the thought. “I do.”

I nod, as her words become part of me.

“I deserve them,” Ivy continues. “Because I’m better than you.”

I nod faster. I’m greedy for it. Her truth.

“Because I’m superior.”

And because I’m inferior.

She’s a player. She gets to play life. To enjoy it. I’m a spectator. I work. I watch. That’s all.

A big, dumb grin comes to my face as I figure it out. As all the different things Ivy has put in my head start to join up, forming a unified, twisted ideology. I’m like a little girl, pleased as punch because I finally figured out the dumb little puzzle the teacher gave me to solve.

“You…" I say—slowly, but I’m pushing myself. I want to show Ivy I figured it out first. I want her approval, even now. I guess I always have. “You deserve my… my nice things.”

Ivy throws back her head and cackles. There’s nothing but cruelty in her laughter, but all the same, it’s warm as it washes over me.

I made her smile.

“That’s right. Aren’t you clever, little Olive?” she coos.

Aren’t I clever?

Aren’t I?

Am I?

I don’t know. I don’t feel clever.

Ivy feels clever.

“I deserve your nice things,” Ivy repeats, rich with glee. “Which is why I’m going to make you send me more money. Lots more.”

More. More. Yes.

It makes sense to me, of course. I’m inferior. I’m a spectator. And Ivy deserves things.

But it does more than just make sense.

It turns me on like nothing else ever has.

As I sway and pant, my vision starts clouding over into pink fog. I slump over, drawing closer to the watch as I do, and my hands start straying between my thighs, drawn there by the fervent need that burns within me.

I hope Ivy makes me send to her. I hope she does it right now. I need it.

Ivy sees it at once. “God, you’re easy,” she sneers. “You get off on it. Being exploited.”

I nod again, eyes still fixed on the watch. I’m all but drooling on it.

Being exploited. Being used.

I get off on it.

Whatever part of me might want to rebel against that suggestion is smothered by how overwhelmingly obvious it is. Just look at me. Anyone would think so.

“You get off on sending me money,” Ivy repeats, hammering the message still deeper.

I nod. She’s right. She’s so right.

I’m not sure I’ve ever had a kink before. But I do now.

A fetish.

It strikes me that Ivy knew even before I did. She always knew.

She knows me better than I know myself.

“Say it,” Ivy tells me.

“I g-get off,” I say, my voice trembling and wet, “on sending you money.”

Ivy laughs at me. I smile too. The repetition is instructive. I understand better now. What I am. What she is.

I hope she lets me send her money again soon.

“That’s right. Good girl.” Ivy’s praise is sardonic, but all the same, it warms me. That’s just how superior she is. “And that’s why you’ll be working late tonight too, won’t you? Racking up that overtime? It wouldn’t do for my personal little wallet to run out of cash.”

Run out?

No. No, that wouldn’t do.

I can’t send my money to Ivy if I don’t have any.

I’m drooling. I can feel it. Threatening to let my globs of unworthy saliva drip all over Ivy’s watch. I need to send to her.

It just feels that good.

So I need to… work late? Again?

That strikes a bitter note. A chord of resistance within me I didn’t even know was there. With great effort, I stop myself nodding. It’s my promise. My promise to Luna.

“I… c-can’t…” I beg.

Ivy cocks an eyebrow. She’s impressed—genuinely, this time. “Wow. Didn’t think you had it in you.”

“P-promised…” I drool. It’s hard to go against Ivy. It’s not right. I’m inferior. “My girl… my girlfriend…”

Ivy’s laughter is louder and crueler than ever. “Well, aren’t you a romantic?” she sneers. “That’s funny. I remember just a couple of nights ago, you were telling her you had to keep staying late.”

“I… uh…”

I don’t remember. Two days back is too far for my addled mind. Ivy’s drug has me far too incoherent to form anything close to an argument.

“You were going to turn over a new leaf, huh?” Ivy guesses—rightly, of course. She tuts at me theatrically. “Silly girl. You never learn, do you?”

I… never learn?

I guess not. I guess I don’t.

I’m a silly girl. Yes. That’s right.

So small.

So weak.

“Girls like you never turn over a new leaf,” Ivy reminds me. “You’re just a spectator, Olive. You don’t get story arcs. You don’t get character development. I’m a main character. You’re a… a sidekick.” Her lips curl up. “If that.”

“R-right.” I shrink into myself. She’s right. She has to be. Ivy knows best.

And it sounds right, doesn’t it? How many times have I promised myself that I would change things up? How many New Year’s Resolutions have I let lapse?

I’m… a sidekick.

“You’re still the same girl you were in college,” Ivy concludes. “And I’m superior. Let me show you.”

As whiny and needy as I thought I already was, it’s nothing compared to how I feel when Ivy reaches up, unbuttons her blouse, and lets it fall to the floor.

The way she moves, confident and sensual, is meant to catch my eye. It does, effortlessly. The moment the white peels away, revealing beneath Ivy’s dark, rich, perfect skin, is a revelation. She looks so good, and so effortlessly. The sight of her is the only thing that could have wrenched my attention away from the golden watch.

Ivy’s breasts. She’s wearing a push-up bra. Fuck, they’re perfect.

“You like what you see, Olive?” Ivy asks. Her tone is unmistakably provocative. It fills me with heat.

I nod dumbly.

“Of course you do,” Ivy purrs. “Pervert.”

That word courses through me and makes me quiver.

Pervert? Is that what I am?

“Keep watching.”

Ivy doesn’t need to tell me that. I couldn’t possibly look away as she reaches behind herself, unhooks her bra, and flicks it aside.

Stupid. I feel stupid. That’s the only way I can describe it. The way my thoughts slow to a base, horny crawl as I stare, drooling, at Ivy’s bare chest. Her tits make me stupid, because I’m a pervert. I get it now. Her chest is perfect, of course. Full, proud, shapely—and above all, bigger than mine.

When my thoughts start racing again, that’s all I can think about.

Ivy is bigger than me. Better than me. I ache with the knowledge of it. Making the comparison is instinctive. I search for all the imperfections that would undermine me if I were in Ivy’s shoes. The moles, the blemishes, the wrinkles and scars. There are none. There’s nothing—at least, nothing that does anything more than accentuate her beauty.

Ivy is so much better than me. Ivy is superior.

I’ve never known it as deeply as I do now, with it staring me in the face.

“Keep watching, little Olive.”

As Ivy removes her skirt, I should be thinking about how monstrously inappropriate this would look if any of my subordinates happened to come over and open the door to my office. I’m not. Instead, I’m just thinking about how I could never do what Ivy’s doing. I could never have her poise. Her confidence. Her perfection.

She’s superior. And I’m inferior.

I keep turning that thought over in my head. It’s bittersweet; each time, it grows sweeter and more bitter.

It hurts. Obviously. Seeing that I’m not as good as Ivy, despite it all. That I’m still just her lesser. Knowing it hurts. Feeling it hurts.

But isn’t it… right?

In a way, it’s a relief. I don’t have to fight anymore. To resist her. To prove myself to her. I don’t have to look back on my college years and cringe with shame.

It was only natural. Just like this is only natural.

This is my place.

I drool. I grin. That idea throbs through my being. It fills me with a sickening warmth, and has me rubbing at myself surreptitiously over my clothes. This is my place. This is the way I belong.

After Ivy’s skirt is gone, she takes off her shoes, and then there’s only one thing left: her underwear. She swiftly moves to remove those too. The merest hint of her bulge beneath the plain fabric makes me drool twice as hard. I need to see it. But I know this isn’t for my benefit. This isn’t a striptease. It’s a demonstration. The way Ivy moves isn’t sultry, merely supremely confident. It’s like she’s unveiling a work of art. Her very own masterpiece.

And I’m awestruck by it.

Yes, she could be in a museum. There’s no question about it. Every inch of Ivy is perfection made manifest. She works out, a lot, and it shows in the lines of musculature sculpted all across her physique. She has the kind of perfect figure only a combination of genetics and hard work can give you: hourglass, with wide shoulders and wider hips, full with the fruit of femininity.

This is why I get turned on when I send her money. It all makes sense now. It’s perfectly natural. A superior being like her is owed tribute. The arousal is my reward for submitting to the natural order.

Dazzled, my eyes flit across her, overwhelmed by the staggering spectacle that is Ivy Robinson. Perhaps I’m looking for a sign that she’s just a mere mortal like me. An imperfection. But there’s none, not that I can see. Her hair, sleek. Her lips, full. Her nails, long and painted. It’s all perfect.

Her cock.

Once I look at that, I can’t look away. Ivy is only half-hard, but that’s enough to make it clear that she’s big. The need that grips me as I think about that is so great and so deep it sweeps all self-control aside. I need it. I need her. I’m so turned on, from sending her money and seeing her watch and everything else. I’m inferior. She’s superior. So it makes sense, doesn’t it? I owe her service. I need to let her use me. Only half-consciously, I start to tip forward, my mouth drooling open, ready to slump forward to my knees and take her in my-

“What are you doing?”

Ivy’s mocking voice halts me. I look up at her, a lost lamb in need of guidance.

“I appreciate your eagerness, Olive,” she scoffs. “But no. You don’t get to touch me like that. Not yet, anyway.”

I nod and hang my head. Of course not. How could I forget?

I’m inferior. I don’t have the right. I’m still learning just how wide the gulf between us is.

I’m stupid.

But I have Ivy to teach me.

“It’s time for another lesson, Olive,” Ivy drawls. “If you want things, you have to ask nicely.”

I have to ask nicely.

That’s right.

“Do you want to touch me?” Ivy asks.

For a few seconds, I just nod. Then the lesson lands.

“P-please,” I whimper. “Please, Ivy, c-can I touch you?”

My voice has never sounded so pathetic. But it’s not enough. Not even close.

“C’mon,” Ivy taunts. “You can do better than that.”

I flinch. Her cruelty provokes no resentment in me. It’s simply her right. I lower my head even further. Whatever dignity I have left, I’ll gladly throw away.

No, I’ll offer it. To Ivy. Just like everything else I have.

“Please!” I cry, voice a rising crescendo of maddened lust. “Please, Ivy, I… I’ll give you whatever you want. I’ll work as long as you want! Please. I… I could make you feel good!” An empty boast, probably, but I can’t help myself. “Whatever you want! Just… please.”

“Oh, that’s good.” Ivy’s praise, however sarcastic, makes me smile. “Really. You’re a natural, Olive. Almost there. Just… think about a little more. Think about your place.”

My place?

The unfairness of it brings petulant tears to my eyes. Ivy expects something from me, clearly. But I don’t know what. I can’t seem to figure it out. Stupid. I’m so stupid.

My… place. What’s my place?

My mind is utterly clouded with lust, but I force myself to think. I look at myself. I’m sitting in my office, behind my deck. It’s a place I feel strong. Safe. Important.

But that’s not right. I’m not any of those things. Not with Ivy.

This isn’t my place. But what is? In a flash of inspiration, the answer comes to me.

Compared to Ivy, I am utterly inferior. My place is simply the lowest I can be.

I slump forward, out of my chair, and collapse on the floor, prostrating myself. I press my face to the ground in a posture of abject groveling.

“I… I whimper meekly. “I beg you.”

For a moment, tension grips me. Is this right? But even before Ivy speaks, I can sense her satisfaction.

“Very good,” Ivy tells me. “You can touch me, Olive. But only the very lowest part of me.”

I turn my face to one side and see Ivy nudge her foot towards me. There’s no mistaking what she means or what she wants. It’s demeaning. It’s humiliating.

I couldn't be more grateful.

Without hesitation, I crawl toward Ivy and press my face into her foot. Immediately, I’m smearing my drool all over her—it’s disgusting of me, I know, to soil her perfection with my filth, but I can’t help myself. There’s only one thing I can do for a being as superior as Ivy.

Worship her.

And I do. Eagerly. Fervently, although my haste ruins any sense of reverence to what I’m doing. I kiss, I lick, I suck, intoxicated beyond reason by the wondrous gift Ivy has given me by allowing me to touch her. I must look like a dog to her, licking scraps from the floor. She’s standing over me, towering and strong, and in my mind’s eye, Ivy only grows and grows.

She’s all that matters. She is my god.

“You’re just as good of a bootlicker as I’d hoped,” Ivy comments. “Not that I’m surprised.”

Her praise fills me with a dull warmth, but it’s immediately stolen away from me when she steps around to sit down in my chair, behind my desk, robbing me, for a moment, of her feet. I scramble after her, and am rewarded when she sits back and plants her heels on the floor, feet crossed at the ankles. At once, I start lapping at her soles.

“That feels good,” Ivy purrs. “You’re a natural.”

I’m a natural. A natural at licking feet. Keen to make her feel better still, I reach forward and start massaging her feet; one, then the other. Her little sounds of pleasure are like music.

This feels so good. So right. This is my place.

I pour myself into the act of worship, and I am diminished by it. I’m a smart girl. I’ve been to college. I have a respectable job. But none of that matters now. I’m just Ivy’s creature. Her devoted servant. The thoughts in my head have become simple and crude. I focus on making sure every last inch of Ivy’s feet receives the attentions of my tongue and my fingers. The approval I can sense coming from Ivy is so poisonously affirming.

I’m good at this. It only makes it all the more obvious. This is right. This is the proper order of things.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice that Ivy is hard.

“C… c-can I…” I venture, pushed by my own need, “touch myself?”

I have to ask. I need it. My body is a boiling cauldron.

“Go ahead,” Ivy sneers. “Help yourself.”

I moan a “thank you,” the words melted together by moaning and drooling. Deep at the back of my mind, a voice warns me: this is dangerous. This is how the drug works. Pleasure sears Ivy’s words into me and makes them permanent.

I don’t care. I’m past caring.

I reach back with one hand and push two fingers inside my cunt, to the knuckle. I hear myself dripping all over the ground.

Fuck. It feels incredible.

It takes me no time at all to bring myself to the edge. At least, I don’t think so. Time has lost its meaning. For all I know, it’s been hours. Maybe I’ve missed meetings. If so, I don’t care. I could spend forever like this. It’s so simple. So easy. Worshiping Ivy like this is the thrill I’ve been craving my entire life. It’s everything I’ve been missing.

I get that now.

Ivy takes notice as I get close. I’m an open book to her. She leans forward. “You want to cum,” she says. It’s not a question, so I don’t reply. I just keep sucking on her toe, steaming in the scent of her sweat. “But you can’t. Something’s missing.”

Something’s missing.

With her words, I sense a barrier between myself and the release I crave. I whine, but I don’t argue. I don’t stop.

“Give and take, Olive,” Ivy taunts. “Here. You know what you need to do.”

She reaches down to me, my phone in her hand. It’s just like before. My payment app is on the screen. A transaction has been prepared—an eye-watering, four-figure sum. All I need to do is tap with my finger.

I can’t do it. I mustn’t. For a second time, I’d be throwing away hours of tireless work. Days. Maybe weeks. And worse, I can feel my psyche ready to snap. Ready to alter itself. Maybe now, even now, I can pull back from the brink. I can stop an indulgence from becoming an addiction. All I have to do is hold back.

But I don’t even want to.

I reach out and press my finger to the screen. The transaction goes through.

It’s like I can feel it happening. Like I feel something precious departing my body. Instantly, it’s irrevocable. No matter what I do, I’ll never not be the stupid girl who sent thousands of dollars to my bully, just so I could cum.

That’s who I am. That’s Olive, from now on.

And I want to do it again. Already. I want to give and give, more and more. I want to make Ivy greater. I want to make myself lesser. The humiliation of it bites so deep. Nothing else comes close. Nothing else makes me feel this alive. I want to give until there’s nothing left of me.

Oblivion.

I collapse in a heap as I cum all over myself.

Ivy watches, almost dispassionately, as I do. Then she stands up and, slowly, deliberately, wipes each of her feet off on my limp, twitching body, leaving my clothes soiled with my own drool. Ruined. Then, she starts to dress herself.

“I think I’ll be leaving early today,” she announces. I’m beyond replying, and she knows it. “A little shopping trip, maybe.”

I gasp. I see stars. The mere thought of what she might spend my money on has me eager for another orgasm.

“You can stay late tonight,” Ivy tells me. I just nod. I understand now. I can’t disobey her. “But don’t worry about your girlfriend. Soon, she’ll have me to keep her company instead.”

I freeze. It feels like a knife has gone into my chest.

“Didn’t I tell you?” Ivy says as she leaves, a crooked smile on her face. “I’m going to take everything from you. Everything.”

—

I would like to express my gratitude for the generosity of all those who support me on Patreon, and to give a special thanks to the following patrons in particular for their exceptional support:

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Special thanks to Brendon for commissioning this story

[kallie-den]

will Leinth show up in possible rescue hound chapters?

She'll make an appearance!

[kallie-den]

i don't think people into the mech porn stuff think it's representative of normal mecha fiction any more than people doing FFXIV gpose porn think that the next raid is going to have a Mindless Hypnoslut debuff

[kallie-den]

Best Timeline

A magical girl is defeated by a time-warping villainess who alters the past in order to alter the magical girl’s personality

Another patron-voted story, featuring reality warp, gradual corruption, and an upbeat magical girl getting turned into a dumb little henchwoman :)

If you like my writing, please consider supporting me on Patreon!  For less than the price of a cup of coffee each month, you can get immediate, early access to everything I write - 4 pieces of hypno-smut a  month, including the latest chapters of all the multi-chapter stories I write. Your support helps me keep writing and is greatly appreciated <3

---

Luster Red could hear almost nothing over the sound of the bells chiming as she stood at the top of the huge clock tower and faced down her nemesis. She was surrounded by a hundred leering clock faces, each one registering a different time and yet sounding in eerie unison, a temporal paradox the magical girl had long since stopped trying to make sense of. The only mercy Luster Red—or Naomi Kanaka, as most knew her—found in the din was that it stopped her from hearing the pounding of her own fearful heart or the mocking laughter of Lady Kaira, the time-warping villainess she had come to stop.

Yes, Luster Red was afraid. After all, Lady Kaira’s countless minions had incapacitated all four of her teammates, leaving her to fight alone against the darkness. But fear wasn’t all that she felt. Luster Red summoned up all the rest—all her hope, all her justice, all her love and loyalty for her friends—and let them shine out from her in a gentle, luminous glow that, somehow, held even Lady Kaira’s darkness at bay.

“Lady Kaira!” Luster Red cried, ribbons and pigtails billowing dramatically as she adopted her signature pose. “Prepare to face the sparkling light of justice!”

Beyond the reach of her magic’s glow, the shadows were thick and oppressive—and amid them stood Lady Kaira. A demonic being from another world on the threshold of apotheosis, she was beginning to shed her mortal form like a moth discarding its cocoon. Its corporeal boundaries seemed to fray with the dimming of the light, and from her protruded long, reaching, shadowy tentacles that were slick and wet with an unearthly vileness. All the same, she was unnaturally beautiful; tall, willowy, shapely, and with a forceful seductiveness that Lady Kaira often put to good use. Her face, too, was captivating, even as her eyes shimmered with impossible colors and her malicious grin stretched far, far too wide for any human face.

“Foolish girl,” Lady Kaira cackled, seeming to grow in stature as she brought her strength to bear against Luster Red. “Just like your insipid friends, you will fail and you will-“ She broke off and hissed abruptly as the glow around Luster Red surged, repelling her shadows. “Impossible!”

“No.” Luster Red shook her head slowly, bringing her fist to her chest. “With love, everything is possible.”

“But how can one girl have such strength?”

“Because it’s not all mine.”

Luster Red opened her fist. In the palm of her hand, floated not merely her own spark—but five. Five magical gems, each one the source of a magical girl’s power, orbiting one another like stars. Yes, her friends had fallen to Lady Kaira and her army of mindless, uniformed grunts, but they had bequeathed their magic to Luster Red, their leader.

And she wasn’t going to let them down.

“Minions!” Lady Kaira screeched. “Defend me!”

Half a dozen women leapt forward from behind her. Each wore a skin-tight, sleek, shiny,  black, rubber uniform on their bodies—emblazoned, of course, with the symbol of their mistress—and a look of mindless, slavish devotion on their faces. Luster Red wasn’t sure where Lady Kaira got her grunts from. She just knew they were completely brainwashed and surprisingly strong.

After a few well-placed blows and magical blasts, they were left lying on the ground in a heap.

Lady Kaira hissed venomously. “More!”

“There are no more,” Luster Red informed her. The glow surrounding her was brighter than ever. “You’re alone, Lady Kaira. This is the end.”

The final battle. The final confrontation. Luster Red had been scared of this for so long, even though she tried not to show it. She wasn’t scared anymore. Her friends were all lying unconscious, but they were still with her. She could do this.

“You are nothing,” Lady Kaira spat, but she coiled her tentacles back around herself defensively. “I hold mastery over time itself. I can change the timeline with a snap of my fingers. Take one step toward me and I’ll make it so you were never even born!”

Luster Red took the step.

“Empty threats,” the magical girl retorted, when nothing happened. “You’re not as strong as you pretend to be, Lady Kaira. I can see right through you. If you can wipe me out as easily as that, why didn’t you do it a long time ago?”

Lady Kaira said nothing, but the livid, mutinous look on her face let Luster Red know she was on the right track.

“Just now, I figured it out,” she went on. “It’s because there are some things you simply can’t change. I’d always heard that becoming a magical girl was fate. I didn’t realize how true that was. Me getting this power… that’s fate, isn’t it? You can’t change it. Which means you can’t stop me.”

It was true. She could feel it. It was funny; Naomi had spent so much time doubting herself. Doubting that she deserved to be Luster Red. That she deserved to be the leader her friends needed. But now she knew. It was written in the stars.

How could she possibly lose?

“I grew up,” Luster Red began slowly, “in a poor neighborhood on the South Side, watching shows and news reports about magical girls with stars in my eyes. I grew out of it, but then, when I was seventeen and feeling lost and confused, I joined a silly little magical girl fan forum online, and I realized that looking up to magical girls could help me find my way.”

The light shining from within her grew. It was a blaze. It held the darkness at bay.

“I always struggled with being shy,” Luster Red went on, “but on my first day of college at Juban U, I decided to be brave just like my magical girl heroes and reach out to some of the other girls. It was the best decision I ever made. Now, we’re the best of friends—and ever since graduation day, when our magical girl sparks chose us, we’ve been fighting at each other’s sides.”

She took another step forward. The light moved with her, beating back Lady Kaira’s shadows. Even the deafening clocks all around them seemed to grow quiet.

“Now, I just turned twenty-three. I’ve been a magical girl for two years. I’m not a shy, uncertain little girl anymore. I’m a hero. I’m a leader. I am Naomi Kanaka—Luster Red!” Luster Red dropped into a fighting stance and smiled the brilliant, gentle, confident smile that had soothed the hearts of so many she’d saved. “And in the name of all that is light and good, I’ll punish you!”

It felt good to make that little speech. To gather up all her convictions, and the life that had led her to them, and fix them firmly in her mind. Now more than ever, Luster Red felt ready to confront Lady Kaira.

Until the supernatural villainess threw back her head and howled with mocking, cruel laughter.

“W-what’s so funny?” Luster Red asked. She no longer sounded quite so firm.

“You foolish girl!” Lady Kaira crowed. “You’ve just given me exactly what I need.”

Luster Red’s blood ran cold. “What do you mean?”

“You’re right that you’re destined to be a magical girl,” Lady Kaira conceded. “I can’t stop that from happening. But you’d be surprised by just how little that really means. No; what was keeping you safe was simply that I didn’t know who you were. I didn’t know when to go back to, or how best to change your timeline. But you’ve just given me everything I could possibly ask for, in a single, self-righteous little instruction manual.”

At once, all the blood drained from Luster Red’s.

“No, wait!” she cried, and surged forward, fists blazing with crimson magic. She had to end this. She had to stop Lady Kaira before she could-

Luster Red hadn’t made it a single step before Lady Kaira raised a hand and snapped her fingers.

***

Naomi Kanaka couldn’t help but blush as she clicked on the link to the magical girl forum. Seventeen really was too old to be so into magical girls, wasn’t it? Sure, everybody knew that they were out there, fighting bad guys and keeping people safe, but none of the other students at Naomi’s high school seemed to spend very much time thinking about magical girls. They were passé. A childish fascination. Something you were meant to grow out of.

Not for Naomi.

But then, she’d never been much like those other girls. Naomi was awkward, gangly, uncertain, and shy. She wasn’t pretty. She had a strong sense of justice, but it never seemed to do anything but get her into trouble. Naomi was isolated. She was alone.

No, worse than that—she was nothing. She didn’t know who she was, or how to define herself. Naomi felt like a ghost. She drifted through her daily life, and nobody else seemed to actually see her. Naomi was beginning to doubt that there was anything for them to see.

Amid her teenage depression, as part of her quest to figure out who she was, Naomi had decided to turn to the one thing she knew that, deep down, she’d always loved most: magical girls. Naomi had grown up on magical girl stories, glued to the news for the slightest hope of catching footage of a magical girl in action. As embarrassing as it was, it was a passion, and Naomi was hoping that reaching out to connect with other people with the same passion might help her feel less alone.

Naomi created an account on www.magigirlsuperfans-forum.com and logged in. She was just about to start browsing discussion topics when her browser was lit up with a notification. It was a direct message! Excited, Naomi clicked to view it:

LadyK: Hello Naomi. Let me show you around.

Naomi shivered. Someone was actually messaging her! It felt amazing—even if she was a little unsure how ‘LadyK’ knew her name. Maybe it was on her profile somewhere. She didn’t think so, but she wasn’t going to let her uncertainty stop her from connecting with a fellow fan.

Kanana99: omg hi! yes please!! was just gonna write a lil introduction in the newcomers thread but then I’d love that <3

The reply came right away:

LadyK: Don’t bother with that. I have something much more exciting for you to see. Click this.

She sent a link along with the message. Naomi was cautious, of course—but this stranger was being so friendly. She didn’t want to put them off. So, she clicked the link. To her surprise, she was taken to a small sub-forum she didn’t seem to have access to before, and when her eyes scanned over the thread topics and preview images, they widened in scandalized disbelief.

It was porn. All of it. She had been linked to a sub-forum for sharing magical girl porn.

Naomi’s cheeks burned—but she didn’t look away. After all, it wasn’t like she hadn’t thought about it. She’d had fantasies about magical girls for as long as she could remember. Naomi had always chalked it up as an outgrowth of her childhood fascination. She’d never told anyone, though. It had always seemed so shameful. But if there was an entire community of people just like her…

Kanana99: wow, um… wow. this is really something ><            LadyK: That’s right. Much more interesting than a bunch of insipid, upbeat fawning don’t you think?

Naomi wasn’t so sure about that. She loved fawning over her favorite heroes, after all. But before she could register a protest, she received another message:

LadyK: Did you see this thread?

Another link. Naomi clicked and found herself staring at a long thread devoted entirely to, of all things, villainesses—and more particularly, to their minions. There was post after post of masked, uniformed grunts, photography and artwork, most of them dressed in the kind of shiny, skin-tight that, for some reason, villainesses seemed to favor. And all of it was shamelessly, scandalously erotic.

As she scrolled through the pages, Naomi’s eyes just kept widening. Her lips were parted breathlessly. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She couldn’t believe how it was making her feel. It was as if something was being awakened inside her. She’d thought about magical girls before, yes, but not about villains. Not about grunts.

But it made so much sense. Hadn’t she always idolized them as much as the magical girls, in her own way? Hadn’t there always been a delicious stirring in her stomach whenever she’d seen a powerful, beautiful villainess crowing over a defeated hero, or cruelly punishing her weak underlings?

Now that she thought about it, wasn’t it getting her shamelessly hot and bothered?

Another message. Naomi glanced at the chat window:

LadyK: Haven’t you ever wondered what it must feel like to be one of those lowly, brainwashed grunts, utterly loyal and devoted to your glorious, domineering mistress?

Naomi wasn’t sure she had—but she certainly was now. She kept scrolling, and it was all she could think about. With each moment that passed, the idea cemented itself deeper into her young, impressionable mind. It was the uniforms—sleek, tight, shiny. It was the brainwashing—twisted, evil, all-consuming. It was the loyalty—the sense of purpose, of devotion, unshakeable. It was the punishment, even; being subjected to the cruel, sadistic whims of an all-powerful villainess. And so many of them were just so, so beautiful…

Before she knew it, Naomi’s fantasies with stained through in a new, dark color. And being an evil villainess’s brainwashed, devoted slave was all she could think about.

Just barely, she managed to shake herself out of her dreamy stupor so that she could reply to her new friend, but when she looked, the chat seemed to have closed. Naomi tried to navigate to LadyK’s profile, but she couldn’t find it. It was like it had never existed at all.

Her new friend was gone. But somehow, Naomi wasn’t dismayed. Right in front of her eyes, on this sub-forum full of porn, were hundreds more new friends to meet. Naomi had found herself. She had found her people. Sure, it was a little embarrassing that her people were a collection of villainess-loving perverts, but her newfound sense of euphoria was more than enough to blot that out.

Without a second thought, Naomi returned to scrolling through the forum thread about villainess grunts, and let her hand gradually stray between her thighs.

***

Luster Red’s head throbbed dangerously. It wasn’t just the sound of the bells of Lady Kaira’s clocks as they rang out discordantly around her. It was the sensation of her own memories warping and distending as her own past was rewritten.

"You… that was… you?” Luster Red asked, overcome with desperate confusion. “On the f-forum… but… but that didn’t happen? But I…”

“I assure you, it most certainly did,” Lady Kaira laughed. Her eyes shone with an unnatural, crimson glow that made her seem more inhuman than ever. “Now that I’ve inserted myself into your timeline.”

“No!” Luster Red gasped.

But there was no denying it. As she strained against the pain to look clearly at her foe, Luster Red could see the entire world shifting around her—rippling, like disturbed water across the surface of the pond. The walls, the floor, the sky outside—all of it. Lady Kaira stood alone at the very center of the ripples, untouched by them, her very presence the source of the temporal corruption Luster Red was witnessing.

And she was so unbelievably hot.

Beautiful. Sinister. Evil. Monstrous. Perfect. All those words and many more came into Luster Red’s mind as she stared dumbstruck at Lady Kaira. Perfect most of all. She was exactly Luster Red’s type, to a truly embarrassing, flustering degree. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed it before.

No, wait, she thought to herself. Noticed… before? But it hadn’t been true before… had it? Luster Red wasn’t sure. She couldn’t keep the two timelines straight, as they overlapped in her head. The truth—the original truth—was rapidly slipping through her grasp. Luster Red clasped at her head and groaned as she struggled to remember.

She remembered plastering her college dorm with posters of villainesses. She remembered embracing her fantasies about being turned into a brainwashed minion every time she needed to get off. She remembered blushing from the irony when she’d been chosen to become a magical girl. She remembered how flustered she’d always been whenever she and her friends had found themselves fighting against Lady Kaira and her schemes.

Always?

Yes, always.

Luster Red blushed deeply as she tried to look directly at Lady Kaira without letting her attraction show. This was no time for the lurid fantasies that threatened to flood her head. She was in danger. Extreme danger. Shamefully, after just a few seconds, she was overcome by how hot her nemesis was and had to avert her gaze. Glancing down at Lady Kaira’s prone, latex-clad minions did little to help her plight. All it did was add a flicker of envy to Luster Red’s churning emotions.

“Luster Red,” Lady Kaira purred, extending her shadowy tendrils toward the magical girl. “Naomi. Consider this: join me. I’ll even spare your friends.”

Luster Red hated the way she shivered with pleasure as she saw those tentacles drip with unholy ichor.

“J… join you?” she whimpered.

The time-warping ripples were beginning to ebb. As they did, Luster Red noticed the skirt of her magical girl costume retreat several inches and her blouse tighten noticeably around her chest. She recalled once being told that the state of her costume reflected the purity of her heart. So much for that, then.

Moments later, she stopped thinking about it at all. After all, her costume had always been that way.

“Just think about it,” Lady Kaira implored. “I can tell you have a certain… longing for the dark side. A certain yearning for the boot of a powerful woman such as myself. I promise you, you would be perfectly at home amongst my minions.”

Luster Red gasped—and, against her will, started to drool a little. How did she know? Then, she caught what, exactly, Lady Kaira’s piercing gaze was directed at. As a gust of wind blew through the clock tower Luster Red’s skirt had lifted slightly, exposing her hip. And on it, as the very last temporal ripples faded, there appeared a small, black tattoo of the crest of Queen Nelenia—one of the most infamous villainesses of all time.

Luster Red blushed even deeper than before. She had gotten that tattoo on impulse, and she still didn’t regret it. It felt amazingly sinful, after all. But it certainly did make her costume’s short skirt even more embarrassing.

In light of that, the magical girl certainly couldn’t deny that Lady Kaira’s words had a ring of truth to them. Luster Red had always felt the allure of the dark. Ever since she’d developed her shameful little erotic fixation on villainesses and their minions at a crucial, formative moment. Even now, fantasies of corruption and submission clung to her. But that was just one part of what made Naomi Kanaka the girl she was.

And the rest of it was far, far more important.

“No way.” Luster Red steeled herself, and held Lady Kaira’s gaze. “I would never betray my friends like that! They’re my strength. They put their faith in me when they chose me as their leader. I won’t let them down!”

“Your friends, hm?” Far from dismayed by Luster Red’s refusal, Lady Kaira seemed only to be gleefully contemplating further malice. “Then it sounds like that’s where I should go next. College, yes?”

“No!” Luster Red cried desperately, as she realized what was about to happen. “Stop!”

Once again, Lady Kaira snapped her fingers.

***

Naomi Kanaka couldn’t resist the urge to clasp her arms around herself and make herself small as she peered around the corner to where the small group of four other freshman girls were talking. It was her first week of college and, so far, she had met absolutely nobody. It had been just as bad as she had feared. Naomi was simply too shy. Too introverted. She didn’t know how to get to know people. She’d tried looking for advice online, but it hadn’t helped.

‘Connect via mutual interests?’ How was she supposed to do that, exactly, when her main interest was fantasizing about evil villainesses?

Just around the corner from her, though, four other freshmen were getting to know each other. At first blush, they didn’t seem to have much in common, but it was clear that a shared desire for fellowship was bringing them together as they traded names, opinions, and stories. All of them seemed so nice and welcoming. It would be so easy to simply walk up to them, introduce herself, and ask if she could join in.

Except that for Naomi, it seemed like the hardest thing in the world.

Anxiety tied a bitter knot inside her. No matter how hard she tried to muster her courage, Naomi simply couldn’t quite bring herself to head around the corner.

What would her heroes do? That was what Naomi normally reached for when she was trying to motivate herself. Only, in this situation, it didn’t really help. Nowadays, all of her ‘heroes’ were cruel, evil villainesses. They didn’t care about making friends.

“What are you doing, Miss Kanaka?”

The strange voice, laced with abundant authority and sadism, made Naomi jump as she wheeled around to face whoever was speaking to her. She was about to cry out from the shock, but when she saw the woman looming over her, her voice died away into speechless awe.

The woman was tall. Impossibly tall, even. Her hair and clothes were jet black and her skin deathly pale, and her face was somehow terrifying. It was somehow as if she was puppeting herself, moving and holding her own body in an odd, disjointed reminiscent of no actual person. Her eyes, with their cold, red glow, seemed to betray her awful, inner truth, and the shadows clung to her in ways Naomi could not make sense of, wrapping around her like a cloak one moment, and the next, extending from her in a way that gave the impression of reaching, surging, dripping tendrils.

Naomi shivered. It was almost like she was speaking to a villainess.

But it couldn’t be, of course. There was just no way a supernatural villainess would be at Naomi’s college, talking to her.

That was simply too good to be true.

“C-can I help you?” Naomi squeaked, before something occurred. “I-I-I mean, um… who are you? H-how do you know my name?”

Speaking to her wasn’t easy. Between anxiety and attraction, Naomi found herself almost completely tongue-tied. Villainess or no, this woman was exactly her type. Embarrassingly so.

“Oh, I have a position here,” the woman told her, smirking. “You can call me… Professor Kaira.”

“P-p-professor!” Naomi squealed, turning bright red. “I’m s-s-sorry for being so r-rude!”

Instinctively, she bowed her head. She wanted to do much more than just that, of course. She wanted to throw herself on her knees before this dark goddess. To kiss her feet. To worship her. To beg and plead for praise and punishment.

Surreptitiously, Naomi pinched herself. She needed to get a grip. And perhaps she needed to limit her consumption of villainess porn a little.

“I came to fetch you,” Professor Kaira announced, laughing faintly at the look on Naomi’s face. “You’re late for your first training session, Miss Kanaka.”

"My… first…?” Naomi paled. She had no idea what the sinister professor was talking about.

“Fortunately, you’re almost in the right place. Over here.”

Professor Kaira took Naomi by the arm and, before the freshman could mount another protest, hauled her through an adjacent door and into a nearby practice room. Naomi’s confusion doubled when she saw practice mats all over the floor, and burly students wearing tight-fitting uniforms and protective headgear. She shook her head. No way. There had to be some mistake.

There was absolutely no way a girl like her had been signed up for the college wrestling team.

“Well?” Professor Kaira beckoned, smirking. “What are you waiting for?”

“I…” Naomi spluttered weakly. She wanted to protest, but Professor Kaira’s presence was overpowering. It was so hard to go against her. “B-but… I think…”

“Kanaka?” came a rough, commanding voice from inside. It was the coach, by the looks of it, bellowing in their direction. “That you? Get your ass in here! You’re late already!”

Another shivering pang speared Naomi’s stomach. Once again, her weakness for domineering women was proving to be her undoing. She felt herself bowing instinctively to the coach’s instruction, even though it was clear there had been some kind of awful mistake.

“Uh… um…” she replied nervously, already stepping forward. “B-but I have class in just a few-“

“Don’t worry about that,” the coach interrupted impatiently. “I’ll give you more than enough sports credits to make up for a little spotty attendance. You’re here to be an athlete, not a nerd.”

“Well…”

Naomi wasn’t so sure about that. While never close to the top of the class, she’d always been decidedly on the nerd side of the jock spectrum. She didn’t fit in very well with athletes, and she’d always needed plenty of study time to get her head around difficult concepts. Joining the wrestling team and skipping classes was definitely going to take a toll on her brains and her grades.

But what if that wasn’t such a bad thing?

Suddenly, Naomi saw this weird mishap for what it was: a blessing in disguise. She would never have joined the wrestling team on her own, but wasn’t it a great way to meet people? A chance to make something out of her college years? Naomi had promised herself that when she made it to college, she’d start saying ‘yes’ instead of ‘no’ to chances and opportunities. Seize the day!

Besides, now that she was looking at them, those tight-fitting wrestling squad uniforms were really, really hot. Not quite latex, but close enough to stroke Naomi’s kinks.

“Hurry up!” the coach bellowed. She was a burly, middle-aged woman, attractive in her own coarse, severe way. Naomi could get used to letting a woman like that order her around. “We need to get you on the mat and see what you can do. A scrawny little thing like you is gonna need to do some serious bulking up. I don’t tolerate half-assing, understood?”

“Y-yes, coach!” Naomi replied. Despite herself, she was smiling. She could already tell. This was going to be a good thing for her, even if it wasn’t what she’d expected from her first week as a freshman.

A new path. A new lifestyle. But she had already made her decision to embrace it wholeheartedly.

Naomi turned briefly so that she could thank the professor who had directed her there—but Professor Kaira was nowhere to be found. Naomi was only a little disappointed. She’d have to keep an eye out. There was something fun about having a crush on a cruel older woman in a position of authority.

Just before she turned back so that she could step across the threshold and join the wrestling team, Naomi cast a single, longing glance at the group of freshman girls she’d been eyeing before. They looked to be headed off somewhere together—to the canteen, maybe, or to a lecture. Away from her. Naomi was sorry to see them go. They had seemed like a lovely group. But Naomi didn’t need them. She’d found her place, and she had no regrets.

She was going to spend her college years as a meathead, spending time pumping iron at the gym, writhing around on a mat with other girls, and getting bossed mercilessly by her domineering coach.

And Naomi Kanaka couldn’t have been happier at the prospect.

***

Luster Red’s head wasn’t just throbbing. It felt like it was about to split apart. As the magical girl reached back into her memories each thought redoubled upon the last, the echo becoming a painful pulse that made her clutch at herself in desperation. She opened her eyes, hoping it would help with the dizziness, but that proved to be a mistake. All around, reality itself was warping and distorting in mind-rending ripples, all emanating from the shadowy, inhuman villainess standing before her.

The world itself was echoing. Temporally. Metaphysically. Two different, incompatible histories fought for primacy. One true. One false.

And Luster Red was already struggling to figure out which one was which.

“In college… you?” she cried. “I-I must have… did I forget? No, no, that didn’t happen! I-it couldn’t have. We only spoke on the forum, until… no, wait. No, no, no.”

“Of course it happened,” Lady Kaira cackled. “I’ve made it so! You’re welcome, by the way. It looks like you made quite the wrestler.”

Confused, Luster Red glanced down at herself—and her eyes shot wide open at what she saw.

She was ripped.

At first, she chalked it up to a trick of the light, but in moments, it was undeniable. Beneath her revealing costume—itself rapidly growing to accommodate her new gains—her body was big and powerful like never before. Luster Red’s sleeves were struggling to contain her thick, sculpted biceps, and the contrast between her short, pleated skirt and the thick, muscular thighs beneath. It was the same all over. Luster Red had never felt stronger, but her body was no longer her own.

Until, suddenly, it was.

Memories flooded in to explain what the magical girl was seeing. Memories of long hours spent in the gym, steadily piling on the weights until she could lift more than she’d ever dreamt. Memories of those first few months, with all their aches and pains and struggles, and then of those slowly giving way to a newfound sense of brash pride as she developed confidence and strength. Memories of devoting herself to her new diet, her new workout regimen, and her new timetable of wrestling meets and competitions.

And of, in the process, letting her academics go completely down the drain.

Luster Red couldn’t shake a certain sense of horror as all her memories of academic hard work and success were gradually but inexorably smothered. Earning those credits and grades had been agonizing, but she’d been proud of the achievement. Now that was all ebbing away; in her new timeline, it seemed, she’d ended up coasting on a sports scholarship. Luster Red clutched at her as she tried to cling on to the grades, to the hard work, to the intelligence, to something—but in the end, the sense of swaggering ease that was now associated with her college memories was just too comfortable to resist.

She could remember taking more than a few knocks to the head, too. And plenty of cracks from Coach Dominguez about what a dumb meathead she had become. Luster Red supposed that figured. No wonder she was having so much trouble wrapping her head around what Lady Kaira was doing to her. She’d always been the dumb muscle of their particular magical girl group.

No. No, wait. That wasn’t true, was it?

“I…” Even Luster Red’s voice was deeper as she spoke to herself, hoping speaking it out loud would help to ground her.  “I’m… the leader?”

The uncertainty in her voice was palpable. The pitying, malicious look on Lady Kaira’s face was even more crushing.

“I-I am!” Luster Red tried to insist. “I’ve… always… always?”

Lady Kaira sneered at her pointedly, and Luster Red found the blood rushing to fill her cheeks with warmth. The fact that she was so muscular, so visibly strong, somehow made the fact that she wanted villainesses like Lady Kaira to conquer her even more embarrassing. It wasn’t her fault, the magical girl tried to tell herself. All those years spent with Coach Dominguez breathing down her neck and barking orders had made her shameful little predilection so strong, it was almost irresistible. Hell, as she’d been beating up those grunts earlier, she hadn’t been able to stop one treasonous little thought crossing her mind: she’d be so much better at it than they’d been. So much stronger, and with her muscles she’d look even better in those shiny, skin-tight uniforms.

Luster Red blushed deeper as she realized how distracted she was getting. She didn’t have time for that. She had to focus. She had to remember the original timeline, and her weird villainess fetish had no bearing on that whatsoever—after all, she’d always been that way.

“I’m the leader,” the magical girl pleaded. Surely she could hold on to that, at least—but with each repetition, it seemed less and less true. “I’m the leader. I’m the leader. I’m the… the…”

Lady Kaira just shook her head.

“Is that really what you believe?” the villainess mocked.

Luster Red shook her head too—first in defiance, but then, reluctantly, in agreement.

She just couldn’t find it in herself. She wasn’t the leader. She wasn’t leader material. She was the muscle. The headstrong, meatheaded one. Everything just made more sense that way. Besides, why would all the other magical girls in the squad have chosen her to be the leader? They barely even knew each other.

Luster Red’s eyes shot wider than ever before.

“No,” she pleaded. “No, no, no, not that. Not them.”

But there was no stopping it. One by one, her memories of spending college with her friends—the other magical girls—were blinking out.

Years of familiarity, of companionship, of friendship and warmth—gone. Each memory that died left Luster Red with an indescribable sense of loss that was replaced by an equally disturbing sense of calm and comfort when she forgot even what she had been trying to remember. New memories flooded to fill the gaps, memories of spending her college years with other wrestlers and athletes. Those memories were happy, yes, but less warm. Less special.

Despite the futility of it, Luster Red fought her hardest to resist. She picked a memory—one of her early study sessions with all the girls—and tried with all her might to keep it clear in her mind. She tried to remember what reading she had been doing. What they’d all chatted about. What kind of tea she had been drinking. Only…

Only, she could now remember meeting them all for the first time years later, at the end of college. She remembered being something of an outsider in the group, given how well the rest of them all knew each other. She remembered resenting it, even. And try as she might, Luster Red just couldn’t reconcile that with the fading memories that seemed to fade to nothing under the slightest scrutiny.

Maybe if she was smarter. Maybe if she had a better handle on Lady Kaira’s weird time magic. But Luster Red had always been the dumb muscle of the group.

“Please…” Luster Red found herself begging. “I just… just…”

She felt stronger than ever—but completely and totally lost. Her friends had always been her anchor. Without them, she was nothing. Her fellow magical girls had entrusted their sparks to her, but she was no longer sure why, or what that meant. Swamped by uncertainty, Luster Red lost her grip on her own magic. She detransformed, her costume falling away into ethereal sparkles to reveal what she’d been wearing underneath: a nice, tight tank top and a pair of gym shorts.

Exactly what she always wore.

“You want them back?” Lady Kaira whispered poisonously. “You can have them—as soon as you join me. You and your little comrades will make fine servants. You can all be together again, at my side.”

Though she was loath to admit it, Luster Red found the offer tempting. How couldn’t she? Lady Kaira was everything she’d spent years touching herself to, and becoming just another brainwashed grunt in her army would be a fantasy come to life. Moreover, Luster Red was no longer quite so sure what she was supposed to be fighting for. Her fellow magical girls? It would certainly suck to betray them.

But it wasn’t like they were friends. Not really.

Mostly, though, the offer was clarifying. It reminded Luster Red: Lady Kaira was her enemy. She was messing with her, and she wasn’t the type of girl to take that lying down. Luster Red was confused about so many things—but not her anger.

“Fuck you,” she spat. “I’ll never join you!”

Lady Kaira wasn’t dismayed, or even surprised. “Just one more little push, I think,” she gloated. “You’re already ready for the final step.”

Once more, before Luster Red could stop her, the villainess snapped her fingers and rewrote reality.

***

Naomi’s eyes bulged in shock as she turned her palms upright to receive the bright, brilliant light that had descended upon her from the heavens. The spark that came to rest there, floating just an inch or two above the surface of her skin, exuded warmth and power. It was like one of the very stars themselves had come to Earth, and chosen her.

It was a magical girl spark.

And it should have been a magical moment. Being chosen as a magical girl was a childhood dream of Naomi’s, the kind she never imagined might actually come true. Admittedly, these days, she spent more time daydreaming about villainesses and their minions—but all the same, being chosen should have felt amazing. It should have made Naomi happy.

Instead, it just left her scared.

Naomi didn’t know what she was supposed to do with that kind of power and responsibility. She was just a meathead from the wrestling squad. Who was she supposed to turn to? She’d seen other sparks falling somewhere else, in a cluster of four, but she didn’t know where, or to who. Without her coach or another confident, older woman to tell her what to do, Naomi wasn’t sure she could find her way. Graduating had already left her feeling lost. Becoming a magical girl at the same moment was just too much.

“Hello, Miss Kanaka. Remember me?”

Naomi’s heart leapt into her throat, and she turned to see a tall, shadowy figure emerging from the evening gloom. Once she overcame her initial shock, she laughed bitterly. It was a villainess, that much was obviously from the shadowy tentacles extending from the strange woman’s body. On any other day, Naomi would have been fangirling excitedly. Today, though, it was just one more helping of misfortune.

Her first day as a magical girl, and she was about to face down a villainess—alone. Great.

“No,” Naomi replied tiredly. “I’ve never seen you before in my-“ She froze, as the villainess got closer. “You… that professor?”

She had certainly seemed far more human the first time around, but Naomi would have recognized that face anywhere. It was seared into her memory. She’d spent hours scanning faculty portraits in the years since, in the hope of finding her.

“That’s right,” Lady Kaira confirmed, with undeniable malevolence. “Me.”

“Then… you guided me to the wrestling team?” Naomi asked. “Why?”

“Oh, I have my reasons,” Lady Kaira hissed. “Let’s just say that I’ve seen your future. And I’ve decided to help keep you on the right path.”

Naomi shivered. Her feelings were just as confused about that as they were about becoming a magical girl. It should have been horrifying. Instead, Naomi couldn’t help but take a secret thrill in the knowledge that, all along, she’d been under the villainess’s boot.

“I…” Naomi glanced at the spark she held in her hand. All she had to do was close her first and claim it, and its power would be hers. “I’m supposed to stop you.”

Lady Kaira laughed. “Is that what you want to do?”

Slowly, Naomi shook her head. “No,” she admitted.

“You don’t need to do what you’re supposed to,” Lady Kaira told her approvingly. “Instead… join me.”

“W-what?” Naomi looked at her sharply.

“Why not?” Lady Kaira put to her. “You’re confused. You don’t know what to do. And here I am to tell you. Isn’t it perfect?” The villainess licked her lips. “Isn’t it exactly what you’d always dreamed of?”

Naomi couldn’t deny it. She was being offered her perfect fantasy. Why would she refuse it? What else did she have? No friends, now that she’d left college. No direction. No purpose. No more coach to tell her what to do. She could try to make her own path as a magical girl, of course. But that just didn’t sound right.

In the end, she just wanted someone else to pick her path for her. And from the sounds of it, that was exactly what Lady Kaira had already done.

“What do I have to do?” she asked slowly.

Lady Kaira drew herself up victoriously. “Kneel,” she hissed. “And offer your spark to me.”

The burly, muscular girl sank to her knees. She held out her hands, palms upturned, magical spark cradled between them. After sparing just a moment to savor her victory, Lady Kaira reached out—not to take the spark, but simply to imprint it with her taint.

Time would take care of the rest.

***

The pain Luster Red had felt before was nothing compared to this. It wasn’t just her head that was being split in two. It was her essence. Her very being. She could feel the forces of destiny battling against what Lady Kaira had just done to her, fighting to maintain the fixed, eternal points in her timeline.

And they were losing.

Not completely. Some things were truly immutable. Luster Red was a magical girl. Nothing could take that from her. But just as Lady Kaira had promised, as her mind fractured into two halves she began to realize just how little that meant.

She hated Lady Kaira—and she loved her. She despised her—and she worshiped her. She fought her—and she obeyed her. Countless hours of slavish, mindless devotion rushed into her head, poisoning everything she’d once stood before. Her justice, her loyalty, her love for her friends—they were all in tatters.

Luster Red could feel it all happening. She could feel her own defeat. It had been years in the making, or so it now seemed. And it was just seconds away.

“Join me, Luster Red,” Lady Kaira laughed. “Not that you have a choice. After all, you already did.”

Luster Red tried to glare defiantly at the villainess, but she could barely see. No, she was seeing double; one Lady Kaira, the enemy rewriting her timeline. The other, the mistress who treated her with such perfect, ravishing cruelty. The magical girl knew she should try to fight what was happening to her—but what was the point? She’d already given it her all. Now, after the changes inflicted on her, she had less to give than ever.

But she resolved to make one last effort. To fight until the bitter end. Wasn’t that what heroes were supposed to do?

“L-Luster Red!” she chanted, summoning up her power. “Spark—activate!”

The chant triggered her magical girl transformation. Luster Red’s spark erupted from her chest in a beam of crimson, pearlescent light before enveloping her body in a brilliant glow. At once, she felt bolstered by it. She always did, when the power of hope flowed into her. Luster Red still wasn’t sure she could win, exactly, but she felt just a little more confident and self-certain than before.

Then, the corruption took hold.

It began as a single thread of shadow, woven into the magnificent rainbow of Luster Red’s light. The thread quickly grew, knotting itself around other beams of light and devouring them, expanding and taking over, its shadow lengthening until sticky, inky blackness dominated. Luster Red felt it enter her, and the moment of panic that caused it was quickly drowned out by a sinister, euphoric chorus of emotions.

There was no fighting it. Her own power was the one thing a magical girl could never fight.

After all, it was fate.

So instead, Lady Kaira’s corruption washed over her. It smothered her. It repurposed her transformation to its own ends, and when the poisoned, umbral glow receded, Luster Red was left changed like never before.

Previously, her costume had been woven from the purest white threads, accented with a brilliant crimson color that matched perfectly her assigned name. Now, there was no white to be seen. All over, it had been replaced with black, and the gentle, soft, enchanted cloth had been replaced with sleek, shiny rubber. It covered her almost completely now; her sleeves, gloves, and tights were all longer, ensuring that not a hint of skin was showing beneath Luster Red’s neck. A little red color remained in the accents, but even those were darkened. Muted. Tainted.

Ruined.

And the final touch was Lady Kaira’s symbol, etched upon the magical girl’s chest.

All in all, she looked just like one of Lady Kaira’s many uniformed, faceless minions—but without the small mercy of anonymity to preserve her dignity and reputation. Her new, rubber costume was skin-tight, but not perfectly smooth; all the details of her old magical girl costume were there. The ribbons, the pleats, the collar. But now, they were made out of black rubber, and polished to a mirror shine. The impression was ghoulish. It left absolutely no doubt that Luster Red was a magical girl who had fallen to the dark side. A horrifying prospect.

Only, Luster Red wasn’t horrified. Not anymore. Etched on her face as she looked up at Lady Kaira was an impossibly wide, unnaturally reverent, impossibly worshipful grin.

“My lady!” Without skipping a beat, Luster Red snapped her legs together and offered the time-twisting villainess a crisp, perfect salute. “At your command!”

Lady Kaira threw back her head and howled with laughter.

Her laughter was nakedly cruel and mocking, but that did nothing but bring color to Luster Red’s cheeks. She adored her lady, in all her sadistic villainy. She had for years now. Ever since the fateful day she’d offered Lady Kaira her spark.

That was one thing Luster Red had never regretted.

“My, my!” Lady Kaira exclaimed. “Aren’t you just perfect?”

Luster Red’s ridiculous grin widened even further. Her mistress’s praise made her positively glow. She lived for it. Besides, she knew Lady Kaira was right. What better minion could a villainess ask for? A corrupted magical girl, and one in such fine condition too! Hoping to impress, Luster Red subtly tensed her muscles. The way they bulged beneath the tight latex, making the material catch the light, was mesmerizing.

“Well?” Lady Kaira snapped suddenly. “Don’t just stand there, idiot! Your friends could be about to wake up at any moment. Bring them to me!”

Luster Red saluted gleefully again, welcoming the abuse, but then frowned in confusion. “My… friends?” she grunted.

“Do you have muscles instead of brains?” Lady Kaira demanded impatiently. “The other magical girls!”

“Oh!” Luster Red’s grin widened even further as Lady Kaira enlightened her. “Yes, my lady!”

Luster Red certainly didn’t think of those other magical girls as her friends. In fact, she despised them for daring to oppose her glorious mistress. But, as always, Lady Kaira knew best. If she said they were friends, they were friends.

Luster Red was nothing more than a dumb grunt. No wonder Lady Kaira always needed to yell at her so much to get her to do the right thing.

One more salute, then she went to turn away and complete her appointed task. But Lady Kaira’s voice called her back.

“Wait!”

Luster Red paused obediently.

“Come here.”

“Yes, my lady!”

She saluted yet again, then rushed to her exquisite mistress’s side. Up close, Lady Kaira had never seemed less human. She had shed her mortal guise almost completely; she now towered above the corrupted magical girl, and the distinction between her form and the shadows surrounding her had blurred into meaninglessness. As she stared down at Luster Red, the villainess’s face was a demonic, leering, grin that filled her minion with delicious, sinful anticipation.

“Perhaps first,” Lady Kaira mused, “I can afford to take a little time to enjoy my fresh conquest.”

Lady Kaira’s shadowy tentacles extended toward Luster Red and began coiling slowly and sensually around her latex-clad form. Each one moved to restrain a different limb, and everywhere they touched her they left a trail of thick, black, gloopy ichor across the shiny rubber. Before long, Luster Red was slick and sticky all over with it, and Lady Kaira was lifting her off her feet—all the better to explore and use her willing, obedient minion.

Luster Red simply giggled dumbly and lustfully as her mistress claimed her. She loved Lady Kaira’s tentacles, and she loved being used as an outlet for the villainess’s rapacious appetites. Admittedly, she wasn’t quite sure what Lady Kaira meant by ‘fresh conquest’. She’d been devoted to Lady Kaira for years, after all. But the discrepancy didn’t trouble her. As always, Luster Red was completely and totally comfortable with the idea that Lady Kaira knew best.

But as one of Lady Kaira’s tentacles found its way underneath her skirt and entered her, drawing great, gasped moans of pleasure out of the muscular henchwoman, Luster Red found herself thinking back to the fateful moments that had led her to becoming the dumb, happy, brainwashed grunt she was now. Her fixation on villainesses and their minions. Her decision to join the wrestling squad. Her encounter with Lady Kaira at the end of her college years. She now knew, of course, that Lady Kaira must have had a hand in each of them. But as her mistress’s tentacle started pumping in and out of Luster Red, obliterating the last remnants of her thoughts with pleasure, the only feeling that crossed her mind was gratitude.

She was truly living in the best timeline.

---

I would like to express my gratitude for the generosity of all those who support me on Patreon, and to give a special thanks to the following patrons in particular for their exceptional support:

Artemis, Chloe, J, GrillFan65, Morriel, Dasterin, Dex, orangesya, Joanna, dmtph, Ember, MegatronTarantulas, NewtypeWoman, Madeline, BTYOR, Sarah, Mattilda, Emile Queen of sloths, jlc, Neana, Flluffie, Art, Jackson, Abigail, Ashe, Hypnogirl_Stephanie_, Jade, mintyasleep, VariableGear, Michael, Tasteful Ardour, Dennis, SkinnyQP, Full Blown Marxism, Morder, S, Brendon, Jim, Bouncyrou, Erin, HannahSolaria, Cristopher, hellenberg, Miss_Praxis, Violet, Noct, Charlotte, Faun, B, Foridin, Zhennyfyr, EepyTimeTea, Devi, dylan, Phoenix, IvyLeather, Jim, Sebastian, Joseph, Cryocrspy, Thomas, Liz, Ash, naivetynkohan, Daedalus Fall, [LOST.WOLF], Ada, Basic dev, SuperJellyFrogEx, Katie, Lily, Alphy D, Mal, Cusco, Nimapode, GladiusLumin, Alan, Geckonator, Anonymous, The Moth Court, Michael, Thomas, Yodasgirl, Astral Gen, ravenfan, prolekvlt, Djuran, Jakitron, HazelPup, Ana, DOLLICIOUS, likenyah, Griffin, ferretfyre, Latavia, KBZ, 41666, Haggisllama, Calamity, naughtzero, Aletheia, a pelican, soda girl kate, Rami Hound, Junefox, Brainy, Abigal, Motoyuuri, Valmire, Ambition, Evelyn M, personalityPersonified, Anjou, Olivia, Jotunn, Samantha, Kait_Storm, HazelDuck, LunarLambda, Malu, Fern, official video gaming, FluffiestTail, incrypt, Vivid, April, Benjo, nidee, Marika, Abricot, Nicholas, Nette, cob, patience, magnolia, leaf, val, Veronica, Lexi, Keith, Azunise, sable, Friday, RaspberryWolf, CmderJeremy, Evelynn, A Needy Bunny, Rhiannon, Roxie, Myles_EXVS, J, Codzilla, Sasha, Tog, Spencer, Emily, WhyamIhere, Viola, Nervous Crow, Dulcinea, ShinySaana, Laurel, Ashe, Narilka, PhilosophicalDeathclaw, Jade!, Nikki, Jacqueline, Chlorr, International Revenue Service, 417aba7b, Roxanne, jakester, Gamer

[kallie-den]

Please Help Me Feed My Children in Gaza – We Are Starving

Dear kind soul,

I never thought I would have to write a message like this. I am a father of five children, living in Gaza — and we are starving.

We have no food. No clean water. No safety. My children cry from hunger every day, and as their father, my heart breaks because I cannot feed them. I have injuries from Israeli airstrikes, and my health is getting worse, but the worst pain I feel is watching my children suffer without being able to help them.

This is not a famine. This is forced starvation. We are being deprived of food and aid. We are dying slowly, silently.

Please, I am begging you — if you can donate anything, even the smallest amount, it can mean a meal for my children. If you cannot donate, please share my plea with others. Your voice could reach someone who can help.

Your compassion can save lives. Your help could mean that tonight, my children go to bed with something in their stomachs.

Please don’t ignore this.

Please Donate now:👇

🔗 Donation Link

Please Reblog My Post :👇

📌 Post Link

.

[kallie-den]

P.S. Hi from the Animal Lounge, if that wasn't already obvious

I'm so sorry to say that I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to ^^;

[kallie-den]

Why do you not, as a local hypno-erotica author, have a yu gi oh sideblog, is the more important question?

Good question lmfao

[kallie-den]

do you have a yugioh sideblog

I'm afraid not

[kallie-den]

have u been watching gqux/have you heard abt the new cybernewtype who wears a muzzle and refers to her gundam as her real body and she thinks of herself just as the heart

trust me, the look on my face while I was watching that part of the episode...

[kallie-den]

The Subordinate Ch. 1

Olive, a mousy, workaholic middle manager with a strained relationship hires her old college bully as an assistant - and soon finds herself slipping back the abusive power dynamic they once shared

An ongoing commission I've been working on! Fair warning, this is going to be a mean one. Expect NTR, findom, and degradation of all kinks. My thanks to Brendon for commissioning the story

If you like my writing, please consider supporting me on Patreon!  For less than the price of a cup of coffee each month, you can get immediate, early access to everything I write - 4 pieces of hypno-smut a  month, including the latest chapters of all the multi-chapter stories I write. Your support helps me keep writing and is greatly appreciated <3

---

She’s so tall. She’s so much taller than me.

It’s difficult to keep that thought from filling my gaze with unwelcome awe as I stare across at her. My bully. No, my former bully. I need to remind myself of that. It’s been years. Still, I have to fight to keep my eyes narrowed with disinterested contempt, and my voice nothing more than businesslike.

“Ms. Robinson,” I say, straightening my back, “what makes you think you’d be suitable for this position?”

Ivy smiles, and her smile goes right through me. I have too many memories of being victim to that smile.

“Ms. Robinson?” she drawls. “C’mon, Olive. Is that really necessary?”

I twitch. “This is a job interview. Let’s keep things professional.”

Ivy shrugs. “Sure.”

I pause, waiting for her to answer. My patience breaks first. “Well? What makes you think you’d be suitable?”

“I think you’ll find I’m more than qualified,” comes her smooth reply.

She’s not wrong. It’s all on her résumé. For an entry-level position like this, she’s an outstanding candidate. When I was scanning through the stack of applications, that jumped out to me almost as much as her name did. Once I double-checked that it was actually her, I considered throwing her application straight into the trash. But I didn’t. I had to see her. Didn’t I?

She’s in really good shape. Way better shape than me. I bet she works out a lot.

“It’s about more than just educational background,” I retort, pushing down on that thought. “We take our work ethic very seriously here. You might be expected to work some long hours.”

Long, long hours. I can feel the heavy, gray bags hanging under my eyes. None of those on Ivy. She’s immaculate, as ever. Tonight will be another late one. I’ll have to tell Luna I won’t be home for dinner. She won’t like that, although I’m sure she’s getting used to it.

Maybe I should try harder to work less overtime. But…

“No problem,” Ivy assures me. “I work hard. You have my references?”

I do, and they’re all utterly hagiographic. Frankly, looking at it on paper, I have no reason to pass Ivy over. Looking at it otherwise, I have every reason. Christ, it’d be an HR disaster waiting to happen.

Her breasts. She’s so busty. So much bustier than me. How’s that fair? How does that even make sense? Isn’t she trans?

I push out my chest. “Well, you’d need to be a team player too. You’d be-“ I hesitate. “Ivy, you’d be working under me. For me. You get that, right?”

“Of course.” She’s unruffled.

“You understand that you’ll be my subordinate?”

For the briefest of moments, something glints in her eye. Something that frightens me. It passes. “Oh, yes. I understand perfectly.”

“And you’re… really OK with that?” I ask.

It’s difficult to believe. All through college, she took vindictive pride in having me wrapped around her little finger. I still remember how easily I fell for her. She offered me her hand in friendship whilst the clique of hyenas she kept around her barely hid their snickers. I was too stupid to realize what was going on. Too socially inept, as always, and too lonely. Too desperate for company.

Before I knew it, I was writing her assignments for her. She didn’t need that  - she’s smart - but she loved that I would. When she was tired after a soccer match, she’d make me rub her feet. And most of all, she’d make me buy things for her. All her meals, drinks at the bar, new clothes… whatever she wanted. Even drugs, I think. She’s always been into that scene.

I could have stopped whenever I wanted, I guess. But not really. I wasn’t strong enough, and we both knew it. She was in my head, completely and utterly. All my buttons were hers to push. I was intoxicated with Ivy Robinson. Probably, if you’d asked, I would have called her my best friend. Even as she took me to the brink of ruin.

God, I still remember that phone call I made back home, to my parents, asking for a little more allowance. Trying to laugh, trying to play off all my spending casually. Telling them I’d been going out a lot. Socializing. Enjoying myself. Overdoing it a bit. My folks didn’t question it too much. If I had to guess, I’d say they were just grateful their quiet, sheltered, weird, nerdy little girl was having a good time in college, not keeping herself cooped up alone like I always had in high school. They were inclined to be indulgent, but that didn’t mean my heart wasn’t pounding like crazy for the entire call.

Then, after our class graduated from college, it was all just over. Like it was a nightmare I was waking up from. I don’t think my heart has ever pounded like that since. Not even with my girlfriend.

Until here. Until now.

What do I look like, to her? I’m still so small everywhere. So mousy. I’m not athletic like her. Do I look just like I used to? Can she see how much I’ve grown? Can she?

“Why wouldn’t I be OK with that?” she’s asking me. She’s smiling.

What am I supposed to say? “We have some… personal history,” I settle on eventually.

She knew she was taking advantage of me. She always knew. I have no doubt about that.

But Ivy just shrugs. “Water under the bridge,” she replies easily. “I mean, unless you’re not OK with it.”

My heartbeat quickens even more. It’s an offhand comment, but I hear in it something more. A challenge: can I handle her?

Of course I can. All of that was ten years ago now. I’m a grown woman. I have a senior position here. I’m in charge.

“Don’t be silly,” I tell her, and smile. I feel good about being able to say it like that.

“Great!” Ivy beams back at me. “Do you have any more questions for me?”

“I don’t think so,” I reply, checking my notes. “Do you have any questions for us?”

She dials the job-winning smile up another notch. “Just one: when can I start?”

She’s so pretty. God, she’s so pretty. So much prettier than me.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I say stiffly. “There are many other candidates under consideration.”

But none of them are going to stick in my mind like Ivy does. I definitely shouldn’t hire her; that goes without saying. It’s just that there’s genuinely nobody more qualified, and that means if I don’t, I won’t be able to shake the feeling that it was because I’m afraid of her.

I’m not, I tell myself. That would be ridiculous. I know that, but I need to make sure Ivy knows it too.

Anyway, maybe I can take pleasure in it. In having her under my thumb for a change. Bossing her around. Treating her like shit. Making her fetch me coffee. Making her days long and miserable.

Yeah. That doesn’t sound too bad at all. It’s kind of embarrassing how good it sounds, actually. The thought fills me with a girlish thrill I haven’t known since college.

I stand up and offer Ivy my hand. “Well, in any case, you’ll hear from us soon.”

She nods, rises, smiles politely, and takes my hand. And as we shake, she has this look in her eyes like she already knows what I’ve decided.

***

It’s little surprise to me when, after just a few weeks, Ivy is the office darling. The queen bee. She’s still an assistant, nominally, but you wouldn’t think it from the way they all treat her. None of it challenges professional boundaries, of course. It’s simply that they like her, and they want her to like them.

How could they not? Ivy’s so striking. She’s tall, and the contrast between her dark skin and her platinum-bleached hair makes a statement of her confidence. And she dresses so well - never flashy, just magnificently stylish, in clothes that make little secret of her perfectly-maintained body. It makes me embarrassed of the way I dress each morning, grabbing one of my rote outfits from the closet as I hastily brush my mid-length, plain, brown hair into some semblance of neatness.

Her presence and her popularity itch at me. I was never outgoing in the first place, but now, more and more, I find myself retreating to my little corner office. When the door’s shut, nobody disturbs me. One of the privileges of being a manager. It’s like my little fortress. While I’m in here, I don’t have to think about Ivy. I don’t have to think about the contrast between us; about how damn boring my life is, while she’s chattering about weekend plans, or about how nobody looks adoringly at me the way they do at her. All I have to do in here is work.

And work. And work, and work, and work. More than ever. The company keeps asking for overtime - it’s a crunch period - and I say ‘yes’ more often than ‘no’, even though Luna wishes I wouldn’t. I’ve always been like this, a little. Working is one of the few things in life I’m truly good at. It’s nice to feel like I have a place. A purpose. An identity. Finding the right balance with that has always been a struggle, but Ivy being here has made it worse. I’m not exactly sure why. It’s not career ambition. I think maybe I’m trying to show her up, in a way. Prove I’m more hard-working. Come in earlier, stay later. Impress her with my dedication.

Not a good way to try and show her up, obviously. Out of sight in my office, behind a door. Just the only way I’ve got.

Anyway, it’s not all bad. There are small pleasures to having Ivy Robinson working as an assistant in my office. She’s polite. Deferential, even. She has to be. When I ask her to do things, I get to hear her say ‘Yes, Ms. Barnes’ in that coffee-smooth voice of hers, and it sends shivers down my spine. It makes me fantasize. And there’s such a thrill to the little ritual that plays out each morning, when she knocks at my door and waits to be told to enter so she can set down my coffee on my desk. That’s always the moment I’m glad I hired her. Ivy Robinson, my subordinate.

There’s that HR disaster waiting to happen.

We don’t talk much, outside of functional little work exchanges. It makes sense; I’m no conversationalist. Not until one evening, when she cracks open my door to tell me she’s going home. She catches me at the worst time, mid-phone call to my girlfriend.

“Again? Olive, you said you were almost done with this…”

“I know, I know. We were… are. Just… not quite yet.”

“They work you too hard, I swear.” A little laugh, mostly to conceal the fact that it’s not ‘them’ she’s unhappy with.

“Sorry, Luna,” I offer eventually.

“It’s OK. You… gotta do what you gotta do, right?”

“Yeah.”

“We should really do something romantic soon. Something intimate. It’s… it’s been a while.” It sounds like more of an ultimatum than she means it to. “I miss you.”

“We will,” I offer quickly. “Promise. I miss you too. All this will be over soon. I’m just… well, it’s a busy time of year.”

“Right.” Another pause. “Well, take care, OK?”

“You too.” I hesitate. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

She hangs up. I sigh - and then see who’s standing in my doorway. I freeze. I wonder how much she overheard. 

“I was just about to head home,” Ivy says, entirely professionally. “Working late again, Ms. Barnes?”

“Yeah,” I reply, and end up yawning my way through the word, embarrassingly.

“Oh no.” Ivy frowns. “You work too hard, Olive.”

I’m instantly suspicious, but she sounds so genuine in her sympathy. It seduces me. “I know, I know. I really do.”

“Everyone’s always talking about it.” Now it’s more than an exchange. It’s a conversation. Ivy takes a step into my office. Into my territory. “You’re the most dedicated worker here!”

My heart skips a beat. Is that respect I hear in her voice? Is Ivy Robinson impressed with me? I dare to hope. “Well, I… the higher-ups are depending on me. You know how it is.”

“Of course.” Ivy carefully closes the door behind her. “It’s what I expected, when I started working here! I remember you telling me about that. I was pretty surprised when it turned out to be just another email job.”

I frown. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, I just mean… sure, they always put out those calls for overtime,” Ivy says casually, stepping over toward my desk. “But it’s not like they’re compulsory. Hardly anyone takes them up, except you.”

“Maybe everybody else should start considering it,” I tell her tersely.

“Point taken,” she admits with a laugh. “It just makes me wonder why, you know?”

“I’m a team player, Ivy. A hard worker.” I fold my arms. I can’t resist taking a jab. “Maybe that’s why you’re out there on the floor, and I’m in here with the nice office.”

It doesn’t seem to land. Ivy ignores it. “A hard worker,” she mulls. “A team player. Yeah. Absolutely. Takes me back to college. All those long nights you spent out in the library.”

Doing Ivy’s assignments. That part remains unsaid. I start trembling. It’s been ten years, but suddenly it doesn’t feel like it at all.

“Is this import-“

I start to rebuke her, but then she perches on the edge of my desk, and in doing so, knocks over my stationary. Shifts a few papers, too. She lets out a little ‘oops’, but the look on her face says it’s no big deal.

But it is. At once, it starts to itch at me. My desk is painstakingly arranged. Every paper, every pen, every computer peripheral in its place. It’s how I like it. How I need it. And now it’s all wrong. Everything scattered and strewn. Pencils rolling haphazardly around.

It’s no big deal - not to her, and I wish it wasn’t to me either. I’m instantly upset by the unfairness of it. Why does it have to throw me off this bad?

“Honestly,” Ivy drawls, “it’s like you can’t help yourself! You’re not saving up for something big, are you?”

“No,” I blurt out in reply, before I can stop myself indulging her. Her presence is overbearing. Perched on my desk, she looms over me.

An apology is on the tip of my tongue. Why? Why do I want to say sorry? What would I even be apologizing for? For… myself?

“Didn’t think so,” she says. Her amusement is plain. “Wild. It made sense back then. I mean, it’s not like you had anything else to make time for, right? But now you have a girlfriend waiting for you at home. That’s a little sad, Olive.”

“This… this is inappropriate,” I tell her quietly, just barely managing to keep my voice measured. Even saying that is a gargantuan effort. Ivy’s attention is so potent. I can’t quite hate it, even when it’s too much, and her slight but palpable mockery is all it takes to make my head spin.

“I didn’t mean it like that!” Ivy laughs and holds up her hands. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful! Thanks to you pulling these crazy hours, the rest of us get to go home nice and early. You’re doing me a favor.”

“I am?” I squeak. “R-right.”

I didn’t think about it like that. But now I certainly am, and I know instantly I won’t be able to think of it any other way. Why did she have to put it like that? Why did she have to ruin it all for me?

Oh no. It’s happening again, isn’t it? It’s just like before. Nothing’s changed.

“Which, I mean, again, just like college,” Ivy remarks. She smiles. I twitch. I’m trying to marshal my thoughts, but it’s so hard. “Hey, why don’t we go out again sometime? It’ll be like old times. You clearly need to blow off some steam. Maybe spend some of all this overtime pay on some drinks and-“

“Ms. Robinson!” I yell abruptly, bolting to my feet. Ivy looks startled. I’m startled too; I didn’t mean to get angry like this. “This is inappropriate!”

I was this close to saying ‘yes’ to her. That’s what spurred me into action. That old instinct is rusty, perhaps, but it’s still there, oh yes, and everything Ivy said was helping to grease it up. I couldn’t take another word out of her. I’d break.

But that would be unbearable. It would make me the worst, irrecoverably. I’d never be able to forgive myself, and all the anger I’ve ever felt toward Ivy Robinson rose like a tide to save me.

Watching Ivy jump up and flinch back is like a red rag to a bull. I have to give everything not to let it all flow out of me. Everything I’ve been bottling up all these years. That little hint of fear in her face is the ultimate intoxicant. The only way I can keep control is by promising myself that there’s still more satisfaction to be found in holding the high ground.

“I am your superior,” I tell her sternly. I’ll make her listen. “You are my subordinate. I suggest you take that under consideration when you decide how to speak to me.”

“Woah.” Ivy throws up her hands. There’s still a kind of smirk on her face. I want to wipe it off. “It’s just a little reminiscing, that’s all! I didn’t mean anything by-“

“Enough!” I snap. “Yes, Ivy, you did. We both know it. Well, guess what? This isn’t college anymore. Grow up. I have.”

There’s a sudden, terrible darkening of Ivy’s face. It cuts through my anger. I’ve seen that look before. It’s the one she gets whenever she hears ‘no’.

“Be careful, Olive,” Ivy warns, her voice low, silky. “Why don’t you lower your voice? You wouldn’t want anyone to overhear us, would you?”

She’s wrong. I don’t care. Let them all hear. I want them to hear this bully getting put in her place. “That’s Ms. Barnes to you, Ivy. And if I have to remind you again, you’ll be looking for another job.”

Ivy stares daggers at me. I’m terrible with eye contact, but just this once, I push myself to my limit. I stare back at her, even though it makes me twitch a little.

When she blinks, I feel like a god.

“Of course.” Ivy nods her head submissively. “I’m sorry, Ms. Barnes.”

I want to smile and cheer and rub it in her face. Instead, I just keep staring. “Now get out.”

With that, I’m treated to the sight of the tall, busty, muscular, beautiful Ivy Robinson turning her back and fleeing out of my office. I can all but see the tail between her legs. Once she closes the door behind her, like she knows I want, the smile comes to my face. No, more than just a smile. A giddy, stupid, girlish grin I don’t think I’ve ever felt before. My hands are shaking up and down, overcome with the energy of the moment. I can’t stand still.

I did it. I beat her. I won.

Nothing could be more vindicating. Suddenly every single decision that led me here feels like the thread of destiny. It’s perfect. All of it.

And its glow keeps me warm even as I sit back down, fix my desk, and prepare myself for the long, lonely night ahead.

By the next morning, the glow has faded and curdled into trepidation. I have to see Ivy again. My rattled nerves tell me that she’ll have found some way to rally herself. To turn the tables once more, in the little psychological war between us. I’m far from best prepared for it. In the end, I crawled home for barely six hours of meager sleep. I barely got to speak to Luna.

When Ivy does make her appearance - not early, but certainly not late - my fears are banished. She’s dressed a touch more modestly than usual - black slacks, a plain blouse that buttons up very high - and she knocks on my door so meekly I don’t realize it’s her at first.

“Good morning, Ms. Barnes,” she says politely. “Your morning coffee.”

“Thank you.”

My eyes widen slightly as she sets it carefully down on the corner of my desk. It’s not the usual stuff from the shitty machine in the break room. I don’t recognize the cup, but the aroma tells me that it’s good. Pricey, I have to imagine.

“I thought you deserved something a bit nicer than instant,” Ivy says in answer to my questioning look. “Since you’ve been working so hard.”

Nothing on earth could keep my face from lighting up. At once, I get it: this is a peace offering. No, better. It’s tribute. She wants to get on my good side.

And why shouldn’t she? I’m Ivy’s boss. I gave her this job, and I can take it away. She’s in the palm of my hand. My hand. After all this time. Fuck, it feels better than I’d ever imagined.

Ivy’s watching me expectantly, and I don’t even mind that she’s seeing me with such a stupid, goofy grin on my face. Like I’m a kid opening her birthday presents while all her friends have to sit at the table and watch. Her watching is fine by me. I want to savor the moment, and I want her to marinate in it. So, I reach for the cup and drink. I hope Ivy will look relieved when she sees I’m enjoying it.

The flavor is wrong. It doesn’t match the aroma. The coffee is pleasant, but chasing on its heels is an aftertaste that’s faintly but unpleasantly chemical. Some kind of artificial sweetener? There’s no way it’s deliberate. If Ivy Robinson is lowering herself to bringing me a shitty cup of coffee as petty revenge, I’ve won by even more than I’d thought. Maybe it’s an acquired taste. In any case, it’s not that bad, and I really do need the caffeine. I drink more.

“How do you like it?” Ivy asks after a moment.

“It’s good,” I reply at first, reflexively, but the chemical taste is sticking in my mouth. I frown. Maybe I should just send her to get something from the machine. “It’s a bit…”

I look down at the cup and see two of them.

Two… cups?

No.

Double vision?

Why does it take me so long to think of that?

I’m so slow.

But then Ivy steps up to my desk, and she’s not slow at all. She’s quick and pretty and tall, taller than ever, and strong, and I can’t tell if there’s two of her, or five, or a dozen, or a hundred.

“Drink up, Olive,” she instructs.

And I do. I don’t want to, but I do. Ivy’s command is a weight on my back, one so much greater than I can bear. I sink to it. I bring the cup to my lips, slowly and clumsily, and slurp more of the coffee.

“Why does it taste like that?” I ask absently.

Why did I ask something so stupid?

There are a dozen more pressing questions I should be asking, but when I reach out for one, it slips through my fingers. Only the dull chemical taste in my mouth remains.

Stupid.

All the same, I look blearily up at Ivy for an explanation.

“Because it’s drugged,” Ivy tells me. “I put something in it on the way here. Something I got from a friend of a friend. I don’t think it has a street name yet. But it’s very strong.”

It’s… strong?

No, wait.

That’s not the important part.

But it’s so hard to tell, when everyone she’s saying is twinned too.

Echoing itself. Layering. Obliterating all sense.

“D… drugged?” I manage. The words ooze from my mouth.

I say them before I even remember what that means.

“Yeah.” Ivy is standing right next to me now. Above me. I look up, and the ceiling light behind her head forms a halo. It hurts to look at. “More specifically, you’re being put in a nice, calm, suggestible state. People have been using this to relax, but I have my own ideas about the kind of fun we can have with it.”

“Fun…” I echo dumbly. “R-relax?”

I smile, at first. That sounds nice.

Then I pull Ivy’s words apart, and the rest catches up with me.

“Sug… suggestible?” It takes two tries. The first time, my mouth ends up mangling the word. It’s like I’m drunk.

“That’s right. You know what that means, don’t you?” Condescension drips like overflowing venom from Ivy’s perfect lips. Yesterday, that would have made me angry. Today, it just makes me feel small. “It’s like… it’s like your mind is the kind of foam that holds its shape perfectly when you press into it. You know?”

Like… foam? I’m like foam?

I shake my head. Analogies are beyond me now.

Why? Why am I so stupid?

It must be the coffee. The drug.

That’s right. I’m drugged. Ivy drugged me. I almost forgot.

She laughs at my plight. “Don’t worry about it,” she says. That’s all it takes to quiet my mind. I can’t go against her. “You’ll see, soon enough. See, we need to have a little chat, Olive.”

I’m drugged. That thought is finally starting to stick.

That’s bad, right?

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the door. It’s closed. Ivy must have closed it.

Is anyone coming to help me?

No. No way.

I could call out. Couldn’t I?

No. I can’t muster the will.

“I did a lot of thinking after I went home last night,” Ivy explains. Her voice isn’t loud, but it feels loud. Inside my head, it’s a cavernous, deafening sound. “About what we were talking about, Olive. Until you cut me off. That was very rude of you. Very rude.”

She says that with singular emphasis - and it hits me like a wave.

Rude. Very rude.

I cringe at myself as that conviction takes form.

I was rude. I shouldn’t be rude.

My wet lips shiver as they strain to form an apology. Ivy’s curl upwards. She can see the effect she’s having on me.

“All I was really getting at was: where’s the fun in your life, Olive?” Ivy asks. “The joy? The spark? When I took this job, I was curious to see how you’d turned out. But what’s there to see? You overwork yourself, day after day, in here, at this boring office job. You barely talk to anyone. You have a girlfriend at home that you barely see. I’d have guessed a lot of things for you, but not that you’d wind up this pathetic.”

I cringe and shrink back. Not from her words; no, when she speaks quickly like that, it’s all just meaningless sound.

I shrink from her tone. That serrated contempt that bites deep into me. I have no defense against it. My ego has been broken open. Ivy is pouring into it.

Her last word, though. That resounds.

Pathetic.

I whimper. Pathetic. It’s what I am.

“At first, I was confused,” Ivy goes on. “What makes you live like this, Olive? What makes you tick? But then I figured it out.”

I’m gasping like a fish.

She figured it out.

Figured… what?

Me?

Suddenly, it’s like I’m barely here. Like I have no substance at all. Ivy can see right through me.

“Oh, don’t look so scared,” Ivy admonishes. “I’m gonna help you out. We’re old friends, right? And that’s just what friends do.”

Friends. Yes.

I relax. We’re friends.

And she’ll… help? That’s so kind.

I soften. I exhale. The part of me that would normally see how insincere Ivy is has been smothered by her drug. Instead, I’m filled with naive, childlike gratitude.

Oh. That’s right. I’ve been drugged. She drugged me. I almost forgot.

“Thank you, Ivy,” I sigh fondly.

She laughs a little at that. “First things first,” Ivy says, fixing her gaze on me. “Let’s get something very important straight: I am superior to you, Olive.”

Her pronouncement is slow. Deliberate. She’s letting me drink in every word. Letting me absorb their meaning. Stew in their tremendous force.

Superior?

I feel it. Right away. Superior. Inferior. Just look at us. Look at her. So pretty, so tall, so strong. It’s only natural.

It certainly comes naturally to me.

“Y-you’re…” I babble. “S-superior?”

Ivy repeats it. Her words are like nails into my skull. “I am superior to you.”

Superior.

What does that mean?

It’s like something someone would say as a joke. But Ivy isn’t joking. And since she’s so completely and utterly sincere, my mind starts grappling with the task of absorbing her words as my new truth.

Superior. It’s such a big word. So encapsulating. My mind starts to race with the implications.

It’s one thing for someone to be better than you at something, or higher up in the company, or something like that. But superior? That’s something greater. It transcends any particulars. She is simply superior, and I am simply inferior. That’s a fixed point in our lives now. A guiding star. Something I can always look to. Something I can always know.

That way of thinking comes so easily for me. It’s not just the drug. It’s the fact that it’s just like riding a bicycle. It’s an old groove, easy to find once more, despite all the intervening years.

Superior. Inferior.

But then I learn that I’m not defenseless. Not quite. There it is again. That anger. It might not be enough to throw off the drug, but it proves to be enough to pierce the soporific veil it’s put over me. At least for a moment.

I can’t go back to that. To being inferior. I can’t.

“N-no,” I bleat. “I’m n-not.”

Ivy raises an eyebrow. “You’re not? Not what?”

“Not…” my voice trembles. Fighting her is so hard. “N-not inferior.”

Ivy laughs again, this time incredulously. Like my defiance impresses her. But she refuses me even a moment of indulgence.

“Olive,” she sings, “look at me, babe.”

I can’t resist two thoughts at once, so I look right at her, as close as I dare. Long practice has taught me how to fix my gaze just below someone’s eyes, sparing me direct contact.

“No, no, no,” Ivy chides. “Look at me. Properly.”

All of a sudden, her hand is on my chin. She grips it mercilessly. Her strength feels infinite as, between that and her words, she compels me to look directly into her eyes.

I start twitching. I’m not good with this. I’m really not good with this. And she knows it.

“You see?” Ivy coos, and her words are as soft as silk, threads pulling tight around me. “You can’t even look me in the eye. Can you?”

I can’t.

She relaxes her grip enough to let me shake my head. Maybe she makes me shake it. I can’t tell.

“Can’t even look a woman like me in the eye,” Ivy mocks. “How can you say you’re not inferior?”

How can I?

I…

Can’t. The words won’t come.

Her simple, brute demonstration has crushed whatever flickering spark of resistance had briefly flared. I could summon it again, but then I’d have to keep looking. I can’t handle that. It’s already unbearable. Her eyes are too sharp. They pierce me too deep.

“You can’t,” Ivy tells me. It’s a fact. More true than ever, now that it’s passed her lips. “Say it.”

“I can’t,” I repeat dully.

She rolls her eyes. “Not that, idiot. That I’m superior.”

“Oh.” My head spins briefly as I reel from my mistake. I’m an idiot. “You’re superior.”

She’s superior.

Instantly, it’s worse

Ivy was already taller, but now she towers over me. She was already hotter and stronger, but now she’s a goddess. The light behind her head was already bright; now it’s blinding, and it’s inside her, in her eyes and pouring out of her mouth as she speaks.

I’m lost to it.

“And…” she prompts, waiting for me to make the connection, before she realizes I’m way too fucked up for that. “You’re inferior.”

I nod. Even I can figure that out.

“I’m inferior,” I echo.

I am. It’s true.

I’m inferior.

Within an instant, that’s etched into every fiber of my being. Only, wasn’t it already? Wasn’t it always? When Ivy tells me that, it’s like connecting the last bit of a circuit. The Christmas tree inside me is lighting up.

Yes. I’m inferior.

And it’s so… comfortable.

How many times have I said that to myself over the years, inside my head or at the mirror? But now it’s more real than ever. Now there’s no doubt about it.

I’m inferior.

I’m inferior to Ivy Robinson.

She’s the one who puts me in my place.

“I’m taller,” Ivy pronounces slowly. Heavily. Letting each quality sink in. “Stronger. Hotter. Smarter. More confident. More sociable. More competent. More dominant. Superior.”

They build and build. My eyes widen, even though it hurts. They’re full of awe.

Stronger. Hotter. Smarter. Superior.

“Yes,” I whimper, because what else can do I for such a superior woman but agree? “Yes.”

“I’m so glad you get it.” Ivy releases me and turns away. Finally, I can breathe a little easier. Facing her is like being in the eye of the storm. I blink my eyes, grateful - pathetically grateful - for the respite. “Because that’s the key, really. To everything about you.”

That’s the key?

What is?

I don’t understand. It must be because I’m so inferior.

So stupid.

But that’s OK. I know Ivy will enlighten me.

“It’s like…” she pauses, considering, surely, how best to dumb down the concept for someone like me. “It’s like how, at a sports game, there are players and there are spectators. Both of them are having fun, but only players get to do. Spectators just get to watch. That’s you, Olive. You’re a spectator.”

Naturally, I nod. My mind is like the desert soil. Cracked, dry, parched. Eager to drink deep of whatever it’s fed. I absorb it all.

A spectator.

I just get to watch.

That’s right. That makes sense. I’m inferior, after all.

It hurts too, of course. What Ivy tells me digs into a wound that, in a way, has always been open. Since college, since high school, since before. But that doesn’t mean I’m resisting. My resistance has already been broken.

“That’s how you were in college, after all,” Ivy goes on. “My little spectator. Always watching. Always hanging on. Living vicariously, through me - because that’s simply the best you can do. That was exactly where you belonged.”

Exactly where I belonged.

I’m caught up in the terrible flow of her words now. It’s getting easier to follow, as my fragile self-esteem buckles and bends to Ivy’s will.

It’s where I belonged. Her spectator.

The notion feels so poisonously right. Didn’t I always enjoy it, a little? Ivy bullied me, yes, but there was a certain pleasure in being her hanger-on. I loved the little kiss of glamor it gave me. Made me seem progressive, too. And like there was more to me than just being some bookish, anti-social nerd.

I can’t tell if that’s the drug talking, or just me.

But if it wasn’t true before, it is now. My memories are already softening in their haste to conform to Ivy’s decrees. In my mind’s eye, those college days are already turning rosy and warm as a sickly kind of comfort colors them.

Yes, it was a shame that I couldn’t be a player. Couldn’t be like Ivy.

But at least she let me watch.

It’s where I belonged.

“Poor thing.” The faux-sympathy in Ivy’s voice makes me feel smaller still. “You’ve been lost without me, haven’t you? But don’t worry. I’m here now. I’ll give you something to latch on to.”

To latch on to.

It makes sense. That’s just what I need. A spectator like me. I need to live through Ivy.

I’m so grateful.

“I’m going to help you enjoy life,” Ivy drawls. Her face twists gleefully. “But I’m going to do it by taking away everything you have. Everything you’re too pathetic to enjoy properly by yourself. And you’re going to thank me for it.”

“Thank you,” I whisper at once.

Of course I’ll thank her.

I’d do anything for Ivy. My thanks are the least I have to give.

There’s a pit in my stomach, put there by insult piled atop insult, but a growing sense of anticipation takes the edge off the pain. I can’t wait for what Ivy’s going to do.

“Let me see.” Ivy glances around my office. She’s wondering where to start. “I wonder how many nights you spend in here. Working hard, when you could be doing anything else instead - if you weren’t such a loser. It sounds miserable. But I guess you must have a little fun when nobody else is watching, right?”

I must?

I frown, confused. I want to say yes, to please her, but my sluggish mind can’t grasp what she’s referring to.

“Oh, you know.” Ivy laughs at my baffled look. “I can just picture you sitting behind your desk, late at night, hand shoved down your boring panties.”

Shoved down my panties?

What does that mean?

Once it hits me, I blush deep. I really do want to agree with her, but telling the truth to my superior seems more important.

“N-no!” I pant. “I… never… I couldn’t!”

Ivy snorts mockingly. “Guess a private office is wasted on you, then. Time to start, Olive. Right now.”

"W-what?”

My blush deepens as I’m stained through with shame at the very thought, but that doesn’t stop my hand from twitching downward, guided by Ivy’s command. She is utterly in control of me.

“Go on,” Ivy urges. “Do it. Touch yourself.”

The way she looks at me is at once lurid and dispassionate. It’s the way you’d stare at a particularly interesting bug before you swat it away. Those eyes leave me no room to squirm out of this. Already, my hands are fumbling clumsily with the hem of my pants.

But it doesn’t make sense.

There’s something missing.

“But…” I’m not so much protesting as questioning. “But, what…”

That’s it. I’m not aroused. That’s why this is so strange.

Ivy senses it at once. And she grins at me as she says: “Just look at me.”

It’s simultaneously a command and an explanation. She wants me to look at her, and so I do. But my chemically-shattered brain takes it another way.

Look at her.

Ivy is pretty. Hot. Tall. Strong. Superior.

No wonder I’m touching myself.

Now the arousal comes. I find that I’m wet and desperately sensitive. It’s been a long time since I’ve had any gratification in that department. Longer than I’d care to admit. Sex just isn’t a big part of my life. I’ve never had much of a sex drive.

But I sure do now.

Within moments, I’m frantically rubbing at myself, letting out choked gasps of pleasure as my back arches. Maybe it’s the drug. Maybe that’s why this is so intense.

Or maybe it’s just her.

I’m looking at Ivy the way I’ve never looked at another woman before, with the shameless, rabid gaze of a pervert. My bulging, bloodshot eyes flick back and forth across her body, seeking out details to make the object of my lust.

Her tits. Her waist. Her ass. Her face, her lips, her tongue. Her legs. Even her height, her strength, her makeup. All of it dazzles me. All of it arouses me like nothing ever has. I can feel the rabid heat Ivy’s inflicted on me dumbing me down. Making my thoughts lewd and coarse. Warping me to fit her shape.

“See?” Ivy says casually. “This is what I do to you.”

This is what she does to me.

That makes sense, doesn’t it? She’s so superior to me. Every part of her I look at isn’t just a source of arousal. It’s a point of comparison. And everywhere, I come up short.

It’s a double-edged sword. But the gnawing insecurity just spurs me on.

This is right. This is how I belong. A spectator. Inferior.

“Yeah.” Ivy sighs fondly. Pleased with her handiwork. “This is so you, Olive. Locked up in your office, getting yourself off under your desk, while everyone else is out having fun. I bet you do it all the time.”

I don’t - but I do now. Her words make it a part of my being.

I nod furiously.

“You know, there’s something else about this drug I should probably mention,” Ivy adds. “It makes it very, very easy to form psychological connections. To make sure your wires get crossed, so to speak. Especially when there’s a source of pleasure involved.”

Now that I’m busy fucking myself stupid, it takes me even longer to process that. Once I do, I realize the danger. I should stop. Right now.

I can’t.

She hasn’t told me to stop.

It feels too good.

“I’m actually priming you for it just by telling you that,” Ivy throws out. “And with that in mind, since we’ve established that you can’t get any real use out of all that overtime pay you’re earning, let’s give you a new way to enjoy it.”

Ivy reaches for my phone, set down on my desk. She holds it up to my face, letting the recognition software unlock it. She starts scrolling through apps. She finds what she’s looking for. She’s tapping the screen. Typing.

I don’t stop her. I don’t even consider it. This is my place. Watching. A woman like Ivy can do whatever she wants.

“Here.” After a moment, Ivy shows me my phone with a flourish. “This is what you’re going to do.”

It takes a long moment for my eyes to focus on the screen, especially with my fingers still in my cunt. Once they do, I see that it’s my payment app and that Ivy has set up a transaction from my account to hers. To send her my money.

And the sum is eye-watering. In the hundreds.

Disobeying Ivy is unthinkable, but going through with this is just as impossible to conceive of. How many hours of hard, boring, thankless work does that sum of money represent? Admittedly, it’s not set aside for anything in particular, but seeing my bank balance grow and grow has always been a source of satisfaction. It’s made it all make sense - all my hard work, all the overtime.

If I just give it to Ivy, just because she tells me to, then what was it all for?

“Don’t worry,” she promises. “I’ll spend it better than you could.”

I shiver.

That’s right. She’ll spend it better.

She’s superior.

“And this is just the first installment,” Ivy adds. “You’re going to start putting in even more overtime from now on.” She licks her lips. “Go ahead. Press it.”

The app needs my touch to authenticate the transaction. My fingerprint. A security measure. My free hand is already reaching out, helpless to fight Ivy’s superior will.

My other hand is, of course, still buried between my legs. Any protests I might hope to make, any questions I might hope to ask, all of them dissolve into pathetic moaning. The yawning anxiety I feel about giving Ivy all my money melds with my arousal, becoming something greater than either individual emotion. Something sharp-edged that bites deep into my psyche, making my heart pound and pump me full of adrenaline. Something that fills me with a thrill I haven’t known since college.

To my drug-addled mind, it’s confirmation.

Ivy, my new god, is in her heaven. All is right with the world.

And so I smile as I reach out and press my quivering fingertip to the touchscreen.

In an instant, the transaction is done. It cannot be undone. All that money, gone. Given. Tributed.

To her. To Ivy.

My stomach drops. I feel like I’m in freefall. The pleasure has never been greater. My fingers are furious as they plunge in and out of my cunt. When I look at Ivy, I see stars.

Ivy checks the phone screen and grins. I can already see that this isn’t satisfaction, for her. It’s not the end. This is just the beginning. Then she looks at me and spits the command that seals my fate, searing my newly-formed fetish for financial domination into my every brain cell.

“Cum.”

—

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Special thanks to Brendon for commissioning this story

[kallie-den]

RESCUE HOUND Ch. 7

A rescue mission in the mountains takes Kione away from Sartha's side and forces her to face dark ideas, darker choices, and Handler's latest horrors

This is a Warhound story! The preceding stories can be found at this tag

If you enjoy my work and are looking for more, or you want to support me, I strongly encourage you to check out my Patreon! I  write erotica full-time, which means I need your patronage to keep creating, and my Patrons also get benefits like early access to my stories, extra stories, and the ability to vote on what I write next! So, if that sounds good to you, head over and join the couple hundred patrons I already have. Plus, RESCUE HOUND is already finished and you if you wish, you can read the rest of the story there right now~

—

Midday, in the canteen of Leukon Base. The place is heaving as all the rebels who aren’t on active duty file in to pile food on their trays and stuff it into their hungry mouths. The quality of the meals is declining a little as the imperial noose closes but full bellies make for happy soldiers all the same, and by rebel standards it’s far from a doomed fight. Spirits are high. Words flow freely between comrades. All in all, it’s a normal mealtime.

But not for Kione. She sees the world with fresh eyes.

Since her most recent conversation with Sartha’s former handler, a very particular set of words have been burning bright in her mind. She turns them over, and over, and over, the same way Kione tosses and turns on her bed at night. There is something irresistible about them. They reveal something that, once seen, cannot be unseen.

Haven’t you ever moved through your life and felt like you were surrounded by nothing but dogs?

As Amynta and the others chatter around her, Kione watches. On one side of the room, as she waits for her meal, one rebel snaps at her friend over nothing at all. A random annoyance. She doesn’t know why, but she’ll justify it to herself somehow. Her conversation with her friend lapses into silent bitterness. A friendship soured—and why? Simple: because she’s hungry and irritable. They’ll probably forget their awkwardness in minutes, but they might not. Regardless, the point is proven.

The rebel is a slave to her animal needs, and she doesn’t even know it.

At the next table, a different rebel has spiked her own drink with hard liquor. Kione first noticed her doing it two weeks ago. It had seemed like nothing more than a fun little habit. Now she notices so much more. The rebel lifts her cup to her lips, drinks, tastes the booze. Self-loathing breaks across her face. Nothing fun about this habit. She detests herself for it. But then, a moment later as she sets the cup down—warmth. Relief. Gratitude, as the alcohol fills her belly and soothes what ails her.

A few seconds pass, and the pitiful cycle begins again. Addiction, tugging at her impulses and urges like a marionette’s string.

Sitting beside Kione, Vola isn’t so different. Oh, she’s no alcoholic. Instead of her drink, all her attention is on the woman sitting opposite her. Camarina, another of the pilots on Amynta’s squad. The two of them have a nascent little romance they think they’re doing a good job of keeping secret. But what’s interesting to Kione is just how deeply Vola dotes on her new flame. Hangs on her every word, practically. When Camarina laughs at a joke, Vola laughs too. Whenever Camarina looks her way, Vola smiles. She has eyes only for Camarina. To everyone else, she’s deaf and dull. It’s not so different from how Sartha’s come to look at Kione.

How easy would it be for Camarina to lead Vola around on a leash? Metaphorically—or not, who knows? To make the other woman useful to her, in whatever way she pleases. Camarina has no idea, of course. It wouldn’t occur to her to think of it that way. But still. How easy it would be.

All because Vola’s in love, and a little horny besides.

Hunger, addiction, lust. There are a hundred other strings that pull on people too, but none of them seem so very much more complex. It’s all so mechanical. So rudimentary. Is every human being so disappointingly simple?

Kione knows that she herself was, not so long ago. For her, it was money. The accumulation of things. How did she ever make the mistake of seeing a number on a ledger sheet increase and believing that it meant anything? A crude, shameful weakness. Kione has resolved to discard it. If she held all her worldly wealth in her hand as coins, she’d choose to let it slip through her fingers just to prove that she could. To herself. To the world.

And to that handler, of course.

But it’s not enough. Kione must go so much further to cleanse herself. She senses it. Now even the basic act of consumption disgusts her. To satisfy her hunger is to let it own her. A repulsive concession to her base nature. Kione picks at her food. It’s all she can bear to do. She plucks a piece of meat from her stew and begrudgingly spoons it into her mouth. The sensation of chewing it between her teeth makes her want to gag. It’s unbearable. It makes her feel weak, somehow. Like…

Like she’s nothing more than a dog.

Kione glances around the canteen once more. Everybody is eating. She shudders.

Even her disgust disgusts her. It feels childish and petulant. Surely this, too, is simply a stage she must pass through. With that thought, Kione finds herself wondering: how does that imperial handler do it? How does she eat?

It’s hard to picture it at all. Even harder to picture her picking at her food the way Kione is. She would never lower herself. She must eat the way she does everything: with infinite composure.

Kione tries to imagine how she might sit. How she might hold her cutlery. The look on her face, even. She tries to imitate it. Her mind’s eye fails her. Again, she almost gags. Anger flares within her; Kione accounts that another failure, but she can’t help it. Her knuckles turn white as she squeezes her spoon in her hand.

She needs to win. She needs to beat the handler. Kione will grind her into the dirt. She can discover all of that ghoulish woman’s secrets and make them her own. She must. It’s the only way. She has promised herself that she will steal the handler’s place in Sartha’s heart.

Ah, Sartha…

She’s sitting next to Kione. Eating, although Kione finds nothing disgusting in that. Sartha knows her place too well to elicit any feeling but pride. In a sudden flash, Kione remembers how uncomfortable Sartha seemed in the canteen when she was first rescued. Kione had noticed the look Sartha gave her knife and fork. Like she was no longer used to them.

Another flash. This one imagination, not memory. The handler at a table, taking her food delicately. Sartha, beside her—on the floor, lapping an ugly meal out of a dog bowl.

Yes. Yes, that’s how it should be.

Kione’s disgust is gone. Instead, she finds herself on the verge of giggling as she pictures Sartha like that. The great hero, eating from a bowl on the ground. She’d be so clumsy! There’s no helping it. Nobody, however heroic and graceful, is built for eating that way. The poor thing. Her face would end up slathered with it. How dreamy. How perfect.

Kione vows to check out the rebel commissary later. Surely they have a dog bowl to sell her.

“Kione?” Amynta Tet asks, snapping Kione back to the ugliness of the real world. “You sick or something? You’re hardly eating.”

The distraction from her fantasies is entirely unwelcome, but Kione refuses to let her irritation show. She will master this.

“It’s the food,” she complains with her usual brashness. “Hard to work up much of an appetite.”

“Appetite or no, you’d better eat,” Amynta admonishes. It’s hard to stay annoyed at her. She’s young, but such a mama bear when it comes to the women under her command. “Remember, we’re shipping out in sixty. We both know you don’t want to end up gnawing on field rations for sustenance.”

“Fine, fine,” Kione grumbles. It’s good advice, unfortunately. Piloting on a full stomach can go wrong for obvious reasons, but piloting on an empty one is just as dumb. Kione starts devouring her stew with gusto. At first, it’s unpleasant—but in the face of a sortie, she finds that concentrating on the utility of the act makes the food palatable. Kione is not a slave to her needs. Her body, much like her mech, is a tool. She must keep it well-honed and ready.

Yes, that works.

Now as she eats—for purpose, not for appetite—Kione can take a certain satisfaction in it.

The world is full of dogs. But she will not be one of them.

***

At first the glare off the snow keeps giving Kione a headache, but once Amynta tells her how to adjust Theaboros’s optics to compensate she’s forced to acknowledge that it’s beautiful up in the mountains. She’s never really had much time for nature. Nothing to do, nothing to buy. But now Kione finds a certain tranquility in the bleakness of the rocky peaks and perilous trails, away from the cacophony of the rebel base. No dogs out here. The rebels aren’t highly disciplined—at least, not in a manner the imperials would recognize—but when they’re suited up and on the march, their petty wants and needs collapse into something far more purposeful and infinitely more bearable.

There’s something else too. In months, this is the farthest Kione has been from Sartha Thrace.

It’s strange—good and bad. It’s a little like radio static receding. Kione hadn’t realized quite how constantly Sartha keeps her head clouded with her very presence. Here, she can breathe cleanly for once. But there’s a horrid anxiety, too; a fishhook stuck into her brain, its line drawing her inexorably back to Sartha’s side. Kione’s craving for Sartha is atrociously fierce. Already, she wants to see her again. To fall deep into those empty, wounded eyes. She’s grown so used to being Sartha’s handler, without the hero’s presence she feels somehow empty.

That need makes Kione uncomfortable. Needs are weaknesses. Needs are for dogs. Isn’t that what the imperial handler has been trying to teach her? Kione calms herself by reminding herself that, no matter what, everybody must have a reason to go on. Sartha is hers.

What better reason is there than true love?

In any case, Kione would certainly prefer to have Sartha with her now. Who wouldn’t, on a mission? There’s never been a better pilot. Unfortunately Ancyor is still in the throes of its refit, and the brass don’t much like the idea of throwing Sartha Thrace into a half-broken spare machine. Still—Kione isn’t worried. She’s handled as much without Sartha as with her. This sortie will be a piece of cake.

Now closing on last known position. Three hundred yards north-west, one hundred elevation. Eyes peeled. Weapons ready.

That’s radio girl. Four other voices besides Kione’s signal their assent, and the column of six mechs fans out into a skirmishing formation as they head up into the large hollow, nestled between two mountain peaks.

They’re here on search and rescue. Not Kione’s usual wheelhouse, but she’ll try anything once. Last night, a rebel mountain patrol failed to return to base. No mayday call, no alarm raised. They simply vanished. Not good, obviously. The worst and plainest possibility is that they were ambushed by an imperial force of some kind; if that’s the case, the mission will be to find and destroy it. That’s why rebel command has sent six machines. That’s why Kione and the others are on their guard.

But it’s just as likely that they simply lost comms. The mountains can play havoc with radio signals, and there’s a rad cloud blowing in; Kione can see it now, the layer of vapor above the snow, and the faint, blue glow of Cherenkov radiation emanating from the frozen fog hanging in the air. Even at a mere hundred yards or so, the radio signal from Amynta’s mech is degrading like crazy. And if the rebel patrol lost comms, anything could have happened.

An accident, for instance. This terrain is hell for mechs. Steep, slippery, likely to give way to avalanche at the slightest provocation. It’s a damn miracle the rebels can operate up here at all. Kione has to keep Theaboros’s wings run out, powered just enough to lighten her step as she makes the treacherous ascent. The rebels have no such assets. They know the terrain, yes, and their mechs are modified to suit it. But even so, to Kione it seems likely the people they’re looking for are buried under fifty feet of snow and rock.

Tet to control, Amynta radios in. No sign of them at last contact site. We’ll sweep the area, see if we can pick up a trail.

She’s doing it all by the book. But there’s no reply on the long-range channel except a low crackle.

Amynta clicks her tongue. Then, Vola: Kione, why don’t you fly up? Take a look around?

Kione grimaces. “Thanks, but no thanks. Maybe if we have to. My baby is quick, but she’s not subtle. I pull that, I’m putting a great big neon sign right over our position.”

Right, Amynta agrees. We’ll save that for a last resort. For the moment, Camarina, you come with me. I want to crest the ridge, get eyes on the next valley. Vola, Avin, take up defensive positions just in case. Kione, Maara, go poke into that cave.

Kione can’t help raising an eyebrow. “It’s just a crack, radio girl.”

Looks that way. But no, there’s a large cave beyond it. The kind of place our people might seek refuge in, in a bad spot.

“Right,” Kione mutters. “Remind me to figure out my caving fee when we get back.”

Laughter over the radio. Kione immediately regrets the comment, and resents the others for finding humor in it. The joke doesn’t feel like her anymore.

At the heart of the icy hollow, there’s a large crevice, tall and wide enough to accommodate a mech. It looks like nothing more than a random gash in the rock but if it’s as Amynta says, it’s worth investigating. The other rebel—Maara, Kione gathers—is already heading in. Her mech was once a Doru, probably, but it’s been stripped to the bone, leaving it diminutive enough to navigate the crevice with ease. Kione follows slowly; Theaboros is slender but tall, and its wings painfully delicate. Gods help any survivors if Kione so much as scratches the paint finding their sorry asses.

The crevice doesn’t look deep from the outside, but after a sharp turn, it opens out into a slightly larger passageway that does, indeed, become a fully fledged cave. Perhaps even a cave system; Kione makes a note to ask if anybody has thought to map it. Little tunnels lead away on all sides and overhead, and there’s no telling how deep they might go. Kione flips Theaboros’s searchlights on and sweeps them over their surroundings. She sees nothing but shadows that could conceal anything at all.

“You see anybody?” Kione calls out over the radio. “Tracks? Wreckage, maybe?”

No… nothing, Maara replies, the interference from the rock enclosing them breaking her voice into jagged fragments of noise. But… I’m getting some… heat signatures… nearby.

“People?” Kione hefts Theaboros’s railgun.

Negative. Too… big. Small for… mechs, though. Could… be… just ticking over… for warmth?

After a few more steps, Theaboros’s scanners pick them up too. Multiple, disparate signatures. Too many—they’re only looking for a patrol of three. They’re all around them, too. Above and below. Weird.

“Maybe some kind of geothermal heat source?” Kione murmurs. Does that even make sense? Do you get hot springs this high up?

That’s the last thing she thinks before they attack.

Before her, Maara is a single, sharp-edged shape, lit up in the glow of Theaboros’s lights, of a different world to the indistinct shadows and contours of the surrounding rocks. When something dark falls on her from above, Kione’s first thought is that it has to be a loose stalactite or something. For perhaps the first time in her career as a pilot, she actually freezes up when she sees the dark shape unfold murderously; four limbs, each one sharp-tipped with claws and talons, and, worst of all, a distinct, elongated snout-like head on which four pinpricks of low, red light appear.

It’s a mech suit. It has to be. But to Kione, just now, it looks like nothing more or less than a demon.

What wa-… that? Maara asks, barely audible, as her mech slumps to one knee from the impact. Something hit-… rock? Maybe we-… of here? Could-… cave-in. I don’t thi-… we sh-

There’s no scream. Just instant, dead silence when the small dog-mech clinging to her machine’s shoulder clambers into position and puts one of its claws straight through Maara’s cockpit.

Immediately, dozens more little red lights appear in the cave all around Kione.

Including four of them directly overhead, plunging toward her.

It’s only that second of forewarning that allows Kione to survive. She stumbles back in Theaboros and brings her railgun up in both hands to fend off the assault. It doesn’t work. At least, not really. The dog-mech that had been clinging to the cave roof above her, keeping its reactor at minimum output, doesn’t miss a beat. As it lands it finds a way to wrap itself around the firearm, all four limbs slashing violence and death just a few feet from Kione’s cockpit. No, not just the limbs. On its elongated head, beneath the swiveling, quad-eyed orb that mounts its optics, there is a horrid, vice-like maw that unhinges nightmarishly wide, containing actuated spikes that Kione has no doubt would rip through Theaboros’s armor like paper.

Gods. Who the fuck built these things?

Just barely, Kione manages to keep it at bay. The dog-mech keeps flailing at her for a moment—but only for a moment, before it changes tack and starts trying to tear through the railgun in Theaboros’s hands. Within seconds, the highly sophisticated precision weapon is a sparking mess of torn plates and extruded coils, and the dog-mech is clambering through its ruin.

Kione only has one choice; that saves her from the paralysis of indecision. She throws the broken railgun as hard as she can, and the dog-mech with it. Then, as the rest of the pack begins to move, she turns tail and flees, picking her way back up through the cave as quickly and desperately as she can.

It’s a small comfort when Kione glances at her reverse camera and sees that they aren’t giving chase. Less so, when she notices that the pack is instead clustered around poor Maara’s fallen machine, tearing apart its carcass with claws and teeth, sending up great sprays of hot oil and spent coolant.

Like they’re eating it.

Theaboros has never run so damn fast. By the time Kione sees sunlight again, there are a dozen gouges in the paint and the metal beneath from how heedlessly she threw herself at the exit. The glare of sun on snow is more blinding than ever, and the shock of it hitting Kione’s eyes is enough to give her pause and make her wonder: was that real? Or was it just a nightmare? It seems impossible, after all. A cave full of half-sized dog-mechs? It sounds like something that belongs in the tall tales of scared soldiers. Not reality.

And Kione’s had nightmares like that. Oh yes. More and more, lately. Dogs. A world of dogs. And all of them for her; after her, hunting, chasing, biting, clawing, slavering. Each night, it’s worse. The dogs closer and closer at her heels. Kione runs so hard in her nightmares, she wakes up sweating and exhausted. There’s no succor or safety in those dreams. Not ever. Just an eternity of baying hounds—and on the horizon, a woman in black leathers, beckoning Kione onward, her teeth, no less visible for being entirely human, gleaming disturbingly in her open-

Kione? Ki! Gods, Ki, calm down and shut up!

It’s only then that Kione realizes she’s been screaming. At Amynta’s voice she lets the ragged sound die, but it’s a long moment before she can find the breath to speak again.

“T-they’re…” Kione gasps down her radio. “I-in the cave.”

The patrol?

“No! Or… fuck, maybe. Probably. But that’s, fuck… fuck!”

Ki, what the fuck are you talking about? Are- wait, Ki, where’s Maara?

It’s then that Kione hears them again. The scraping of taloned feet on rock and ice. The insistent buzz of all those little reactors.

“Dead,” Kione hisses. “Get ready. Hostiles coming.”

For the second time in her life, Kione is profoundly grateful for the fact that Amynta Tet doesn’t miss a beat. As soon as she registers the word ‘hostiles’ and the awful urgency in Kione’s tone she’s barking orders left and right, calling the three other surviving rebels into a loose, defensive formation, weapons trained on the crack in the rock.

Kione falls in with them. Her only remaining ranged weapons are the vulcan guns in Theaboros’s chest, so she extends her spear and drops automatically into a defensive stance.

And then—nothing.

Nothing moves. The dogs of war do not appear. Along with all the other rebels, Kione just stands there for a full minute, waiting.

The doubt creeps back in. Was it real? Was it a nightmare? Maara’s gone. That has to mean something, doesn’t it? Kione slaps herself across the face just to punish herself. She shouldn’t be guessing at this. She should be sure. It’s just that sometimes her nightmares don’t end when she wakes. Sometimes the things that she sees in her dreams wake with her and sit in the shadows in the corner of her quarters while she lies there, paralyzed.

Ki? Amynta again. The doubt in her voice fills Kione’s cheeks with dark anger. What exactly are we dealing with here?

How can Kione possibly answer that? Certainly, half-sized mechs aren’t unheard of for specialist duties, but Kione has never seen anything even remotely fucking like those beasts. The way they’d been hiding was bad enough; the way they had moved was beyond description. Ferocious, violent, downright desperate, like they felt the bloodlust in their pistons and motors, but worse than even that, there was something eerily animal and fluid about them. A kind of coordination of limb and purpose that could easily elude even the best of pilots.

Ki?

“Uh…”

Hold on. Camarina saves Kione from needing to vomit out all those fetid thoughts. I’m getting something on the seismic scanners. It’s faint, but it’s definitely movement.

How many?

Hard to say.

You get a count, Kione?

“Maybe… a dozen? Less?” In her mind’s eye, it’s already blurring into terror. “But small. Uh… I didn’t see firearms.”

Gods. She can sense their skepticism.

Heading this way! Camarina yells. Her sensor suite must be top-notch. Get ready.

They’re ready. Fear and uncertainty made Kione’s hands shake, but a stern tactical assessment stills them. The crevice is narrow. Even those dog-mechs will only be able to come single-file. The rebels are in a close skirmishing formation—near enough together to support one another, far enough apart that there’s no risk—at a good vantage point, weapons all trained on the entrance. A twelve year-old could tell you it was going to be a bloodbath.

It’s a little strange, though. If they’re heading this way, shouldn’t they be here by now? Kione knows the tunnel leading to the surface wasn’t all that long.

“Camarina,” she calls out, “how far out?”

That’s the weird part. Kione can hear the frown on her face. Signal’s bad. Kinda… fuzzy? Hard to say. But they should be right there. Almost on top of us, actually.

Kione shivers. Not what she wanted to hear. She wanted very much to simply watch her allies blast those creepy dog-mechs into scrap. The wait is dragging on, and it's murder. All she can think about is them moving around down there, scrambling, loping, growling. The more she thinks about it, the more it’s like she actually hear it; the scrap of metal on ice as they move through all those little tunnels, the ones that seemed so easy to get lost in, leading up and down, left and right, off on all sides into the mountain’s unfathomable depths…

…and under their feet.

Oh, shit.

“Move! Now!”

They do, a mere instant before everything goes white.

Kione’s first thought is that her viewscreen died as she launched herself into the air. It’s only once she hovers high enough that she sees what really happened: the ground gave way under their position, throwing up a massive spray of powder snow. More than enough to blind the retreating rebels. It confuses their thermal sights too, leaving them all but helpless as the awful dog-mechs crawl out of the tunnel and begin to hunt.

Diminutive, half-sized mechs like these are far from unheard of. As labor mechs, for one, but even in warfare they have their specialized uses. In stealth and infiltration units, for instance, or as sappers. It’s rare to see them in direct combat roles though, because it’s so damn easy to get yourself killed in one. In a world of giants, being half the size of your enemies makes you ludicrously fragile. A single kick can snap you in half. Splash damage from a half-decent cannon might be enough to do you in. You have to be one hell of a pilot to survive long enough to truly get to grips with it all. Kione’s one hell of a pilot, but she’s always thought that you’d need to be insane to climb into one of those death traps.

But here’s the thing: it’s rare because it’s so difficult and dangerous. Not because it’s not effective.

When you’re that small, there are a hundred different ways you can fight dirty. Kione’s heard of a few mercenaries who’ve developed their own styles for it. Hunter Falke, for instance, who uses hooks and anchors to clamber all over her foes. As long as she doesn’t get swatted out of the air like a fly on the approach, it’s all but impossible to stop her. How is a mech supposed to fight back against something like that? Against an enemy that can simply clamber into its blind spots and start disassembling it at her pleasure?

With the dog-mechs, it’s a little different. They don’t have hooks and grappling lines. But they’re fast, and they’ve got the rebels off-balance. Outnumbered, too. So when a dog-mech lurches out of the glowing blue, rad-tinged snow clouds, claws bared, the victim isn’t ready. They lurch back unsteadily, trying to create distance. Trying to buy a moment to come to terms with the new hell they’ve found themself in. Only, it doesn’t work.

Because there’s another one, already snapping at their heels. Another dog.

And they can’t move away in time. Not again. So they take a hit. Just a little one. Those claws aren’t big enough to bite deep. But they bite deep enough to be the first of a thousand cuts, as they find their way into all the little vulnerabilities every mech has. The joints. The rear. The underside. Each time they tear out something important. Not indispensable, but important. A power coupling. A hydraulic line. A coolant pipe. And the wounded rebel is left even more panicked than before, fighting through confusion and blaring damage reports, wheeling aimlessly back into the broken snowscape.

And then another dog appears out of the rad-mist…

From the sky, Kione sees it happen over and over again. The dogs move with preternatural pack instincts, switching effortlessly from one target to the next, a never-ending dance of predation and violence as they harry the rebels apart from one another. It’s remorseless. It’s horrifying. It’s beautiful.

It’s going to kill them all.

Kione should do something. She needs to do something. She can hear loud voices over the radio. Everyone’s screaming for help. Not even for Kione’s help—they don’t know she’s just floating there like a useless coward—but all the same, their screams claw at Kione. Why can’t she move? She should just…

What?

What can she do?

She doesn’t know. Kione keeps trying to find an angle, a tactic, an opening, anything, but she can’t. It’s all simply too much for her. The cave. The dog-mechs. The snow and the screaming. She can’t get the situation clear in her head, and worse, her tactical mind is starting to shut down as her breaths come ragged and thin. A useless, stupid, bleating voice in her head keeps telling her instead: run. Run just run. You can’t go down there, you can’t not with the dogs, the barking is driving you crazy, just let them go, just let it all go, run run run run run.

Kione laughs hysterically as it clicks. Great. She’s having a fucking panic attack.

G-gods! Everybody shut up. Amynta’s voice. She’s grunting and panting and sounds like she’s about to panic herself. She sounds very, very far away. Who’s still alive? Sound off, in sequence. From the top.

And they do, miraculously. Radio discipline slowly reasserts itself. Nobody in the rebel squad is a greenhorn. Everybody sounds pretty fucking distressed, but it seems like everybody—except poor Maara—managed to keep themselves alive.

Ki? Kione?

“Wha… uh…” Gods, embarrassment is the last emotion she has time for right now, but it really is embarrassing how dumb she sounds.

Kione! Are you good?

Suddenly, somehow, she is.

“Yes.” All business again. “I’m in the sky.”

Good, Amynta grunts. I might have something. There’s an outcrop up on that peak to the west. It’s not too far. Looks like there could be a cave up there too. Should be defensible. We can make it there and hunker down. Figure out a real plan. Understood?

A chorus of agreement. The snow in the air is clearing up. Kione can see the outcrop Amynta is referring to. It’s not a bad plan. Mostly, she’s just pathetically grateful to have Amynta’s voice in her ear at all, calling her back to herself. That’s her radio girl.

Kione. Amynta’s breathing hard. Kione picks her out of the melee below. She’s fighting well, but taking hits all the same. You’re the only one with a clear six right now. I think most of us are limping already. Need you to cut us a path.

Fear buzzes in Kione’s brain. Not down there, not with the dogs, not amid the barking and drooling and-

“You got it.” The swaggering confidence comes easily into Kione’s voice. It’s an old friend. “Just give me the word.”

Amynta laughs. She sounds just as grateful for Kione as Kione feels for her. Gods, girl, you think we’ve got time for that? Just fucking go!

Kione laughs too, and throws herself into motion.

Cut a path? That’s a tall order, especially without her railgun, but she’ll make it work. Kione glides to the edge of the melee and waits for an opportune moment. The rebels are all doing their best to pull together, to circle the wagons against the wolves. They’re in bad shape, but eventually they manage to win an inch of room for themselves.

And that’s enough.

Kione kicks up the acceleration and flies forward in Theaboros, nice and low. Instinctively, the dog-mechs shift back a pace, wary of the new threat. As Kione moves between them and the rebels she pitches over, tipping a red-hot wingtip into the snow. The heat is more than enough to vaporize it all into a curtain of hissing steam.

“Now!” Kione yells. “Go!”

A few clipped words of gratitude and the rebels are sprinting up the mountain slopes as best they can in their hobbled machines.

The screen of steam leaves the dog-mechs confused and unable to pursue—but only briefly. The steam quickly freezes to snow and falls out of the air, and the sight of their targets brings back all of their viciousness. Kione has the count now—ten of them, fanning out as a pack, moving on four limbs when needed to find purchase on ice and rock. Small but fast. Even with a head start, the rebels aren’t likely to win a running race.

Which means Kione needs to fight a rearguard.

No time for cowardice now. Kione sets herself down on firm ground, readies her spear, and sets her sights on the nearest hostile.

Fighting it is worse than Kione could prepare herself for. It’s relentless. It has no respect for the rhythm of close combat, for parry and riposte, for distance and danger. It just comes at her again, and again, and again, and again, throwing its entire body forward, heedless of the tip of Theaboros’s spear. Kione has to work at her limit just to keep up with it, let alone to keep her eyes on its pack mates skirting around the edges of their duel. She lets herself be driven back so as to keep her six open, but that doesn’t help with the knowledge that Kione is fighting death with each moment. Sure, Theaboros could take a hit—but it wouldn’t be just one hit. Once this thing makes it inside her guard, that’s probably the end.

Gods. It reminds her of the bridge, and Sartha-

No. Kione won’t let herself think that. Sartha is nothing like these monsters, not ever. Besides, they might have Hound’s ferocity—more, even—but they have none of Sartha’s skill. That’s the only reason Kione’s still alive. Why her parries work, why her light, jabbing thrusts are sufficient to keep her foe at bay.

The dog-mech comes at her again. Kione swings her spear in a broad sweep, hoping to keep it at bay, but it falls to all fours, ducking under, and then springing up straight at Theaboros’s center of mass. Kione fires off a burst from her chest-mounted vulcans, but even a half-sized mech has armor that’s proof against such a small caliber. The gunfire’s violence does drive it off, though; the dog-mech falls short, before scrambling to its feet to come at her once more.

Gods. Don’t these things ever get tired? Don’t they have any sense of self-preservation? What the fuck kind of pilots are these?

Time for questions later. For now, Kione needs to bail. She’s being encircled. As she fires her wings up again and leaps out of the reach of the baying, snapping hounds, Kione has to hope the other rebels have made it far enough.

They haven’t.

Most of them are on the outcrop, or close enough. One of them isn’t. Looks like Avin took a crippling hit to one of her machine’s legs. Amynta drops back to help her, but there’s only so much she can do. Avin’s having trouble navigating the mountain slopes. About half the pack was on Kione; the other half is hot on the rebel’s heels, gaining on her rapidly. One look from Kione, and she can tell: the poor girl isn’t going to make it.

She closes her eyes and looks away when they pounce on her, driving the rebel’s mech against the snow. The sounds of twisting steel and screaming are bad enough.

Quick as Theaboros’s wings will carry her, Kione ascends the peak and touches down on the outcrop beside Vola and Camarina. Should be a safe spot, at least for a few minutes, but Kione doesn’t allow herself to breathe easy. Not yet. The dogs. They always keep coming. Kione is immediately on lookout, sure that at any moment she’ll see a claw on a ledge, and a beast pulling itself up, barking and drooling and-

There’s nothing.

Kione is grateful—until she sees why.

Down the mountain, where Avin fell, they congregate. Drawn there, it seems, by instinct greater than the hunt; Amynta isn’t so far away, she’s within reach, but they don’t seem to care. A couple of the dogs were on her, but they’ve already broken off pursuit. Kione can only watch in mute terror as the entire pack descends on the slain machine, fighting for position like jackals around a kill, each desperate to get their claws on it. To rip, to tear, to bite, to defile their trophy beyond reason.

At least now Kione knows she hadn’t imagined it in the cave. It really is like they’re eating it.

On second thought, she wishes she had simply imagined it.

All around the dog-mechs, the snow is turning gray as soot and ash are thrown from the carcass of Avin’s mech. Then black, as they bite deep into the joints, sending great sprays of oil over the white.

Then red, as they reach the cockpit.

Kione is very glad to have eaten so little earlier as she heaves and retches in Theaboros’s cockpit.

The rest of the dwindling rebel squad is faring little better. Their sounds of disgust, or fear, or insane grief are loud over the radio. Eventually, Amynta makes it up to them and starts giving orders—mostly, Kione thinks, because making them each do something trivial is better than letting them watch their friend’s corpse get stripped.

Camarina, watch our flanks. Vola, check out that cave. Looks small, but I don’t want any more nasty surprises. Kione, can you find a vantage point higher up? Maybe find us a way down?

Nobody says anything, but they obey. Kione takes wing and glides up a little higher. Finds a ledge to perch on. She doesn’t bother looking for another route down. Not really. She very much doubts there is one. She’s just glad for a moment of quiet. Glad that up here, the wind whips away all the sounds of crushing, eating and gnawing.

What the fuck are those dogs? What the fuck have they walked into?

Then—a sound. A radio hail, in fact. Kione makes the mistake of letting herself hope that the rebels at Leukon Base have found a way to punch through the interference, even though only the imperials have tech like that. Then she takes note of the frequency, and feels something else altogether.

She should have known. She really should have known.

And she knows she shouldn’t answer. There couldn’t be a worse time to let somebody fuck with her head.

Hello, Kione. How are you finding the mutts?

This time Kione can’t see her, but she can picture perfectly those cold, thin, immaculate lips, their edges pulled up into the faintest of smiles, so close to her ears they practically kiss her as the handler speaks. Kione breathes out, and as she breathes in she swells her lungs with hatred. It’s as cold as the snow outside her mech; its bite as sharp, as clear. She’s grateful, in a way, to have the handler speaking to her. It’s clarifying.

“You,” Kione growls. “This is all you, isn’t it? Those… things.”

That’s right.

Kione is so ready to be angry, but something she hears in the handler’s voice surprises her so much she forgets all that. The woman sounds almost… pained?

“You don’t sound too pleased about it,” Kione probes.

My participation in their creation is somewhat regrettable.

“Yeah?” Despite everything, Kione smiles viciously. She’s never met a knife she didn’t want to twist. “Even you have your limits, huh. Get squeamish all of a sudden?”

Not at all. But I do disapprove. My hand was forced.

Kione can barely believe what she’s hearing. It’s bizarre, on so many fronts. To be talking to the handler at all like this, up a mountain, a pack of dogs still hunting for them, is ridiculous. The fact that the handler is sharing her troubles like they’re coworkers around a water cooler is an absurdity beyond even that.

“Guess even you have to answer to somebody,” Kione mutters.

I answer to the empire. But politics is ever an obstacle, and I have enemies. General Kynilandre, for instance. This is her latest petty gambit—to force me to waste my time with mutts. The project was too appealing to high command for them to refuse, I imagine. It speaks to one of their greatest obsessions.

Her voice weaves a spell over Kione. She’s greedy for each secret that passes the handler’s lips. “And what’s that?”

Mass production.

Kione sucks in a sharp breath. That’s what those monstrosities are? Gods.

I’m sure she will have advised them that the merits of my work—such as those are, in her eyes—are wasted on the cultivation of specific individuals. They are inclined to favor the development of a template instead. A method that can be easily reproduced at scale, to furnish the military’s ranks.

“That’s…” Kione can scarcely summon the word for it. She sees it already; a waking nightmare. A thousand thousand dogs crawling across the face of the world, leaving ruin behind them. “Disgusting.”

And foolhardy. They cannot fathom what we know intimately, Kione.

Kione’s skin crawls—but there’s something else too, a kernel of pleasure at being acknowledged a peer. “And that is?”

That battles are not won by armies. They are won by heroes. There are individuals that stride the battlefield like titans. Warriors that the gods love as their own. They are the world’s fulcrum. The kind of men and women who would be entered into song in any age. Be it with boldness, inspiration or simple skill, they turn every tide. They matter, and they alone. Not the throng.

Kione doesn’t need to ask. She already knows it in her bones.

The handler’s talking about Sartha.

How many times has Kione seen it? Sartha Thrace and her Ancyor at the speartip of the rebellion, winning battles nobody else would dare to fight. Whenever she appeared, a kind of magic would settle across the field. Logistics, numbers, equipment, reserves, terrain—material facts such as those seemed to melt away, until all that mattered was Sartha. Her story. Her rebellion. Her victory.

Who could blame Kione for falling in love with her?

But already, the wheels of Kione’s mind are turning. Since Sartha was taken, the rebellion has suffered greatly. Defeat on so many fronts. Is… it all because of her? Did they lose more than just a good pilot? More than just a pretty face on the propaganda posters? And what did the empire gain when they hollowed her out and replaced her soul? More than a pilot, perhaps. Her light. Her mandate of heaven.

It sounds childish. But it feels true.

That’s why I’ve contacted you, Kione. To wish you success. I would hate for the high command to learn the wrong lessons.

That raises Kione’s bile again. “Wish me success? Fuck you. You want me to beat them? Tell me how to beat them.”

I’m confident in your abilities. You will find victory. And if not, then perhaps you’re not the woman I had hoped. I would have to content myself with winning our wager.

And winning back Sartha? No. Kione promised she will not let that happen. That promise, above all, is unbreakable. She forged it of steel within herself. But thinking of their wager calls to mind another detail of their previous conversation.

“You mentioned some kind of lesson, last time,” Kione spits. “What kind of deluded lesson is this, huh? I’m not playing the eager student. Just tell me.”

This is merely the beginning. You will find the true lesson in their ruin. I look forward to its fruits. Don’t disappoint me, Kione. You haven’t yet.

And before Kione can swear at her again the transmission cuts off, leaving Kione alone once more with the howling wind and the dogs.

From this up high they’re little more than black shapes, details indistinct but their presence all the clearer for being cast against the snow. They seem to still be gathered around Avin’s carcass. Not much left of it now, judging from the way they’re crowding tight and jockeying for position. As Kione watches, the crack of Amynta’s long gun shakes the snow from nearby rocks. Its shell pierces the fog and lands square in its target. One of the dog-mechs twitches and slumps, all but snapped in half by the high-caliber round.

Nice one, radio girl.

Only, with their grisly feast all but over, the shot seems to remind them of their purpose. As one, the dog-mechs look up. They begin to move, fanning out across the snow, slowly picking their way up the peak the rebels are stuck up. Their sudden patience is even creepier than their earlier ferocity. This isn’t the hunt’s frenzied climax. It’s the early stages. Driving the prey. Tightening the net. Deceptively calm, but inexorable. And when Amynta’s firearm sounds again her target sidesteps in a swift burst of motion, and then simply keeps walking up the mountain.

Fuck.

Nine of them now. But with three rebels plus Kione, that makes the odds worse than two to one. Laughably slim.

Kione. Amynta, on the rebels’ comms channel. This time, her voice isn’t so reassuring. It’s pitifully obvious that she’s asking from sheer desperation. Almost as panicked as Kione was earlier. Got anything for us?

“Negative,” Kione replies. Heading up the peak had been a good idea at the time, but now the rebels are stuck. On every other side, the mountain falls away into escarpments so steep they couldn’t possibly navigate them.

Then… Camarina, this time. What do we do?

There’s no reply.

Amynta. She tries again, even though everybody else wishes she wouldn’t. What’s the plan?

I… Her voice cracks. It’s the sound of a woman at her limits. I don’t know. Then it gets worse. The head of Amynta’s mech tilts up. She’s looking at Kione. She’s surrendering. Kione, what do we do?

That pause that follows is brutal.

“Just… give me a minute,” Kione replies. “I’ll think of something.”

Kione turns her radio off.

Her fist slams forward. The reinforced glass of her viewscreen doesn’t crack, but the skin on her knuckles sure does. Kione doesn’t care. Barely feels it. No, that’s a lie. She feels it, and she wants more. Another punch. And another. And another. And then she loses track, and she’s simply screaming again as she beats against the inside of Theaboros’s cockpit.

Fuck.

It’s not panic this time. It’s all anger. With each blow, Kione imagines that the viewscreen is lit up with the face of the imperial handler. It’s infinitely satisfying to imagine that the pain she feels is hers, that the blood trickling down the screen is hers, that the brutal crack as a hairline fracture finally appears in the glass is the sound of her pale, perfect nose being crushed to a pulp by Kione’s fist.

“Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.”

She’s screaming it, her voice and thoughts growing darker with each repetition until eventually, all the strength deserts Kione’s body and she slumps forward, limp as a child’s rag doll.

Kione is a hundred clicks from Sartha, up a forsaken fucking mountain, in the middle of a fight for her life, and still the handler makes her feel like she’s playing some twisted fucking game she can’t possibly understand.

There’s only one way Kione has ever known to respond to a taunt like that.

She has to win.

But how the fuck is she supposed to win this? According to the handler all this is barely a prelude, but to Kione the situation seems beyond doomed. They’re outnumbered, with no support and no option for retreat. A bad start. Kione’s fought against superior numbers a hundred times, but to win out you need an edge. Firepower. Planning. Terrain. Hell, even the simple ability to trade space for time.

They have nothing.

The dog-mechs are closer to a pack of animals than a conventional enemy. A swarm. How do you fight a swarm? Kione calms herself and brings herself to bear on the problem. Obvious answer: swarms are dumb. You lure them, get them clumped, and blow them away with ordnance. So, what ordnance do they have?

Nothing.

No heavy weapons on any of the rebel mechs. The rebellion is wanting for them in the first place, and in any case it’s not the kind of thing you’d choose to bring on a rescue mission in the mountains. Kione’s railgun might have served, but that’s broken and discarded.

OK. She’ll circle back to that. How do you get them to clump up?

Lure them into a chokepoint. Perhaps there’s a cave around here. Only, then they’d be even more like trapped rats. The way the dog-mechs are moving now—slow, prowling, methodical—suggests they aren’t quite as dumb as Kione needs them to be. For that reason, triggering an avalanche is also a dim prospect. They’d be more likely to kill themselves than the dogs.

But Kione has seen them clump up entirely of their own volition.

That’s something. Maybe.

Of course, there is one obvious option that Kione is pointedly ignoring. She could hit the bricks. Fly away. Leave Amynta and the rest. The other rebels would never even know. Kione allows herself a small, rueful smile as she considers it. High time for her to stop pretending she’s ever going to play that card. For a dozen reasons—but most of all, because running is not winning.

Kione needs to win.

Another possibility comes to mind: set her antimatter reactor to go supercritical and throw herself down the mountain, into the dog-mechs’ waiting jaws. Blow them all to hell, and half the mountain with it. That might actually work. The dogs’ ghoulish feeding response strikes Kione as all but compulsive. Unfortunately, killing herself probably doesn’t count as winning either. Besides: Sartha needs her. Sartha needs her so very, very much. That matters almost as much as winning.

No. There’ll be no self-sacrifice for her.

What, then? There has to be something. Think, Ki. What do you have? Your spear? That’s no good. Your wings? Kione almost cut her own head off with those a dozen times when she was still getting the hang of Theaboros. Maybe that’s something, if she cranks the reactor output to suicidal levels. Maybe that’s something, if the dog-mechs all agree to stand in a nice, helpful conga line.

Kione punches her cracked viewscreen once more, for good measure. There really is something there. An answer, lurking just out of sight. Kione was never good with problems like that. Always a lazy student. Always quick to give up. But this time, that’s not an option.

Then it comes to her. Not the answer. Not right away. But another question. The right question.

What would the handler do?

Kione thinks about all the resources she has at her disposal. Instantly, she perceives: it’s enough. It’s not about ordnance or terrain. Not about time or space. It’s about people. It’s about rebels. What would they do? Anything? Almost. That’s the good thing about rebels. They’ll do anything—for each other. Which is the bad part. They’re not focused. Not like the handler is. Not like Hound is.

Not like Kione needs to be.

So find the crack, Ki. Who has the least to lose?

No, wrong question.

Who has the most to give?

Kione thinks back to earlier, to the canteen. The answer comes. Beautiful in its simplicity. It’ll work. She knows that even before she opens her mouth, and so despite the awful task ahead, a nasty grin comes to Kione’s face as she switches her radio back on.

“I’ve got something,” she whispers. “I… I think I can pull it off.”

Kione keeps a tight rein on her own voice. Wouldn’t do for them to hear that grin she’s wearing. Instead, she makes sure she sounds nervous—but excited. That’s what they want to hear.

Yeah? Amynta answers—pathetically grateful, and pathetic is good. She won’t have the authority to gainsay this. What’s the move?

“No time to explain,” Kione assures her. She lets them pick up on a little of her confidence. They’re hooked immediately, she can just sense it. But here comes the hard part. “But… I need somebody to take point. To get their attention.”

Sudden silence. Some of the rebels are young, but they’ve all seen enough action to know a bullshit euphemism when they hear one. ‘Get their attention’ is about as blatant as they come. They pick up what Kione’s putting down.

She’s asking for a sacrifice.

The rebellion is desperate enough that nobody is a stranger to those. That’s part of the problem. Given half a chance, they’ll all volunteer. And that means discussion, and arguing, and how long before one of them gets the inevitable bright idea: ‘there has to be a better way’?

Kione can’t let that happen. She needs to win. Which means she needs to pick. And she has her girl.

“Vola,” Kione says heavily. “You can do it, right?”

More appalled silence. But within that silence, Kione senses compliance. She’s put it all on Vola’s shoulders. The rebel won’t allow herself to shift or shed that burden.

Yes, Vola replies ardently, eventually. Whatever it takes.

Because she’s in love.

No! A raw shriek across the radio channel. That’s Camarina, right on cue. Vola, you can’t!

Good. Argue with her. Not with Kione.

I have to, Vola replies calmly. It’s the only way we’re making it down from this mountain, and you know it.

Kione all but purrs with satisfaction. They’re all so quick to accept the framing Kione offered. All it took was a certain efficiency of language and voice. The mercenary is beginning to understand the power of that. Of playing to their psychology; from the moment they join up, each and every rebel believes themself a martyr in the making. When somebody provides the opportunity, it feels like nothing more or less than destiny.

But-

There’s no time, Cam. Vola is gentle with her now. I wish we had more time. A lot more time. But you will, OK? Promise me.

Camarina promises—time and faith and love and many more things. She’s still fighting what’s happening with every breath, every whispered denial stained by tears and panic, but she’s losing the battle. Vola is determined, and quick to steady her. Their two breathless voices melt together as they begin to say things they had always meant to say, some day.

Kione, Amynta pleads quietly, above their affections. Don’t do this.

She doesn’t want this. She’s angry, but her anger hasn’t had the time to crystallize. She’s out of focus. She couldn’t find the answer, so nobody is listening to her. They’re listening to Kione.

“I’m sorry.” Kione lets a little banked-up sorrow out. It’ll keep her from interfering. “This is how it has to be.”

She sounds sure enough that her certainty sweeps away the three others. She has them.

What do you need me to do? Vola asks above Camarina’s sobs.

All business now. Get everything in motion. “Head down there while I get in position. Get them on you. All of them. Buy me as much time as you can. That’s all.”

Got it.

Vola steps forward, her mech planting one foot on the edge of the outcrop. Kione feels herself a player, advancing a piece on the chessboard. It’s a new kind of euphoria.

But there’s no time to indulge in it. She has work to do. As Vola throws herself from her perch, Kione throws Theaboros into the air and flies.

Up. Straight up. As high as she can. The altitude is the point. It’s not the distance, nor the speed she’ll pick up on the descent—although both are valuable. It’s the cold. Up in the sky, the air would freeze a person to the bone in an instant. Not a mech, though. Mechs run hot. All of them, but Theaboros especially. Heat is a resource. A budget. An overhead. The more she can cool her baby down, the better Kione’s odds of actually pulling this off.

Kione reaches up and punches a few large, analog switches. There’s a whir as, all over Theaboros, cooling vents and hydraulic flaps yawn as wide as they can. Kione’s beloved mech suit exhales steam and coolant, bathing itself in a strange halo that turns to crystalline snow at the next gust of arctic wind. Then it inhales, drinking deep of the mountain air, drowning its profane reactor in it. Kione watches as the temp dials plummet, and frost begins to form on the inside walls of the cockpit.

She’s ready.

Kione has to crank Theaboros’s optics all the way up to see what’s going on at ground level. Her IFF readout helpfully picks out Vola for her—just one of several specks, at this point. She’s giving the dog-mechs one hell of a chase. But in the end, there’s simply no hope. Nine against one. The beasts have all the time in the world to chase her this way and that, pinning her against the edge of a great ravine while the pack unfurls and blocks off her escape.

Giddy though she is, Kione’s glad she’s so far away she can’t actually see it when they bring her down.

And in any case, there’s no time to dwell on the grisly spectacle. This is Kione’s moment. Her triumph—but only if she can thread a hundred needles at once. Kione takes one deep breath, bringing herself in sync with Theaboros’s cooling cycle. Once she’s ready, she pitches her entire mech suit forward and begins to fall.

Vertical, Theaboros is a knife through the air. The wind is loud but it’s far louder, a dreadful trumpet-howl as the mech’s aerodynamic frame slices a path straight down. The instant she points the machine’s head at the ground, Kione redlines the antimatter reactor. She’s used to making gravity her bitch, but the vicious kick as Theaboros’s boosters kick in and the numbers on the altimeter become a blur is something else entirely. This isn’t flying. This is turning Kione’s precious Theaboros into a ballistic missile.

Kione howls with laughter at the sheer insanity of what she’s attempting. What else can she do?

The world outside the viewing port starts narrowing as Theaboros picks up speed. There are no longer three dimensions. There are two. Up, down. Kione’s vision distorts. Everything stretches; a line, a warpath taking her back toward the merciless earth. Distantly, Kione realizes she’s passing out. That’s no good. She reaches down for one of her little emergency measures. Imperial combat stims. Kione jams the tip of the needle into her neck and lets the autoinjector do the rest. An instant later, she’s more awake than she’s ever been. She can think so fast, Theaboros starts to seem slow.

Kione laughs again. Fuck, maybe she’s actually going to survive this.

But not at this rate. Not fast enough. Not hot enough. She reaches up to the array of switches you really, really don’t want to mess with and, one by one, flips off all the safeties and limiters. At once, Theaboros’s cockpit explodes with alarms and warning lights. Kione curses briefly before finding the switch to disable those too.

Sorry, babygirl. If it’s any consolation: we’re in this together.

Theaboros, ever-faithful, rises magnificently to meet her every unreasonable demand. The antimatter reactor gives more than it ever has. The entire cockpit around Kione starts shaking and shuddering with alarming violence as every part of the machine is flooded with power and subjected to subatomic forces mankind can barely comprehend, let alone harness. Kione can imagine what kind of damage she’s doing to the internals.

But that doesn’t matter. All that matters is her wings.

Out of the viewport, Kione can see them. All six, fully extended—and, oh, how they’re shining! Whenever Theaboros is in flight they’re surrounded by antimatter. A layer, one subatomic particle thick, barely visible but burning a rich, deep red as it annihilates with the air. But now, as the reactor output keeps spiraling upward, shunting more and more power into the antimatter arrays, it becomes something much more.

It becomes a miracle.

As Kione watches, the glow of annihilation grows and grows. It extends to fully cover each of the wings and then pushes beyond; an inch, then a yard, then more, much more, as reality is kept at bay by Kione’s sheer, hysterical, bloody-minded refusal to know her limits. More and more, conviction is sweeping her away. She can do this. Nothing is more real than your own will.

The handler taught her that.

This is real. This is godhood.

As the antimatter sheathes on each of the six wings meld together, becoming two vast, glowing, sweeping pinions, the heat coming off Theaboros is impossibly fierce. Inside, Kione is cooking in her own skin. If not for the combat drugs, she’d have passed out a hundred times over. Outside, the falling snow is vaporized as it approaches, becoming a vast halo of hissing steam. Kione’s grin is a jagged thing, tearing her face in two. The world cannot touch her. She will rend it apart. She will make it her own. Theaboros, the handler, Sartha, the rebels, the dogs, the sky, the-

-ground.

Oh, gods.

Kione wrenches back on the controls a heartbeat before it’s too late. Theaboros’s wings shift, suddenly catching the air instead of slicing it. The sheer violence of the maneuver almost rips the mech into a thousand pieces, but its vast antimatter wings work their magic, protecting her from even that. The air annihilates before it can beat against Theaboros’s metal shell.

Untouchable.

Theaboros pulls horizontal in a great, swooping glide. That’s one death avoided. It dips so low the tips of its feet are practically scraping the snow. That’s another death avoided. This could still go horribly wrong, Kione knows—only she doesn’t, because now her belly is fully with the confidence of kings. She knows exactly what to do. She’s got this.

The pack of dog-mechs lurches into motion at the sound of the approaching death-scream, but Kione is already threading the needle. It’s far, far too late for the mutts. Kione is supersonic. She’s an unstoppable force. She picks her path, straight through the center of the pack, directly above the spot where Vola fell, and then she carves a jagged scar of herself into the world with her passage.

On either side, her wings cut through the dogs like they aren’t even there.

Kione doesn’t feel the impact. Not even a little bit. The heat coming off her wings is unimaginable. It simply melts straight through them. In her wake, each dog-mech is nothing more than a bisected pair of superheated slag heaps collapsing under their own weight. As she savors her triumph, Kione is quick to SCRAM her reactor, fire her airbrakes and reverse burners, open every possible cooling manifold Theaboros has got, and then plant her victorious angel in the snow as it comes to a screeching halt.

One last death avoided.

Holy shit. She did it. She actually did it.

Kione opens her hatch. With Theaboros flat on the ground she crawls out of the cockpit and presses her face against the snow. She sees blood drip from her nose to stain the white, and she does not care. The bitter, piercing cold is the reminder she needs.

She is alive.

She won.

It’s a shame the others don’t seem to agree.

Once Kione clambers back into Theaboros—still in running condition, by some miracle—she heads back over to Amynta and Camarina. She expects awe. She expects adulation. Instead she finds silence and grief. The two of them have made their way down the mountain in their mechs and are huddled around what remains of Vola’s machine, picking through the wreckage. They say nothing as Kione approaches.

“Hope you got that on camera,” Kione radios, prodding them for the praise she so richly deserves. “Cause otherwise, I’m not sure anyone back at Leukon is gonna believe me.”

More silence. They aren’t even looking at her. Just at what’s left of Vola.

Kione. Amynta, eventually. Give us a minute. Please.

That’s all it takes to make Kione’s euphoria run cold. She’s still high from the combat stims; the emotional whiplash bites far harder than it usually would. Already stewing with bitter recriminations, Kione stalks off into the snow.

Fine. They can have their minute. Kione is a merciful god.

Without really meaning to, Kione comes upon the remains of one of those creepy fucking dog-mechs. The sight of its impotent upper half, mechanical innards spilling out and melted into sludge, fills her with no small amount of smug glee.

Not so scary now, huh? Not such a predator now, huh?

Curiosity strikes. The torso is relatively intact. Cockpit practically peeling open from how the heat of Theaboros’s wings warped it. It seems unlikely that the pilot is still in one piece—but you never know.

The handler’s words come back to her, unbidden. You will find the true lesson in their ruin.

It’ll give Kione something to do while Amynta’s being maudlin, if nothing else. At Kione’s command Theaboros kneels and cups its hands around the dog-mech’s corpse, sheltering it against the cold and the wind. Kione dismounts with the ease of long practice and clambers up the machine’s ruined hull. The hatch is loose, but still emits a tortured, metallic scream as Kione levers it open with both arms.

Then she sees the pilot. And she really, really wishes she hadn’t.

Like any ace, Kione has seen more pilots die than she cares to remember. Once it starts going down, a mech suit is little more than a very expensive death trap to the one piloting it. For that reason, just about every pilot spends a little time rehearsing how to bail out in case it ever comes to that. Survival comes first, always, and well-designed mechs go to great lengths to facilitate it. Eject capsules, quick-release hatches—whatever it takes. Theaboros is packed as full of contingencies as its slender frame will allow. Kione has always been convinced that even if there are causes worth fighting for, there aren’t ones worth dying for.

Perhaps that’s why the first thing that makes her retch is that this machine’s pilot was living dead from the moment she was first sealed into it.

The poor pilot is, quite literally, strapped into their seat, wrists and ankles bound by leather straps to keep them in position. There’s no sign of any way for them to even open the hatch. It’s like the cockpit was only ever meant to be opened or closed from the outside. Kione gingerly climbs inside and as she does, it only gets worse. Now she can see that the pilot’s head, too, is bound, kept fixed in place and directed forwards by an awful, metal brace.

And she’s muzzled. Of course she is.

Already, this is a thing of nightmares. But there are fresh horrors yet to come, and the first of them is these: she is still alive.

Only just. A huge, jagged piece of spall ripped through her side as her mech melted down; there’s so much blood, Kione assumed she was already a goner. As she senses Kione’s presence, though, the wretch rouses herself to one last fit of wounded consciousness. Kione’s heart stops as her eyes open. There’s no awareness in them, no true sentience, just a frenzied shadow even deeper than the one Kione has seen in Hound’s. The pilot’s lips draw back as she tries to growl, froth pouring forth from between her teeth. Kione jumps back, terrified, leaving the pilot to snap impotently at the intruder with what little strength she has left in her body.

At once, Kione perceives that the muzzle is more than merely symbolic. There are appalling marks all over the pilot’s arms and hands. Even over her lips. It’s like she’s been gnawing at herself. At anything that comes too close, probably.

Kione has never wanted to run so far, or so fast.

It’s a mercy for Kione and the pilot both that her last gasp doesn’t last long. After just a few seconds of barking and growling, her eyelids slump again. The life goes from her. A mutt, put out of its misery. Kione is quietly grateful she doesn’t have to do the deed herself.

“Gods,” Kione breathes quietly, to herself. “What did they do to you?”

Better that she had said nothing at all. She isn’t expecting an answer—but all the same, one comes. A radio in the cockpit, half broken, spits back to life and lights up as a fresh transmission comes in. Even before she hears it, Kione knows whose voice is coming. Even here, there’s no escaping her.

Well done, Kione. Magnificently fought. You have my admiration.

Hands into fists. Knuckles white. “Shut up!” Kione yells.

The imperial handler laughs a little, the sound distorted by the near-broken radio into something even more sinister.

I thought you wanted answers.

She shouldn’t. Kione knows that. If she was a good person, she’d be too horrified to care. But Kione’s never considered herself one of those. The handler takes her silence for acquiescence.

I advise you to take a good look. Behind the head, assuming enough of that is intact. Perhaps you can grasp my intentions.

“I advise you to kill yourself,” Kione mutters—but all the same, she clambers even further into the dog-mech’s maw and peers at the equipment surrounding the deceased pilot’s head.

Fresh horrors. How does it keep getting worse?

The pilot has undergone some form of experimental surgery. At least, Kione certainly hopes this was done in an operating theater—not that it would ever pass muster as safe or restorative. A circular opening has been carved into the back of the pilot’s head, just above the neck, and a section of skull simply removed, leaving the brain itself—gods!—exposed but for a delicate, metal mesh that has been placed over it. Into the open port, a long, thin, arm-like appendage has been inserted. It’s covered in wires; some of them are attached to the surface of the pilot’s brain by electrodes whilst others pierce and knot into the gray matter as if pilot and mech have been woven together on a fundamental level.

Kione cannot imagine how the assembly could ever be removed without simply killing the victim.

There’s more. Those long tubes running into the pilot’s brain stem aren’t all wires. Some of them are IV lines hooked up to hanging bags of saline, of antiemetic and anti-inflammatory medications, and of another drug that Kione doesn’t recognize; a foul, green substance within which something twinkles faintly. It’s like starlight in liquid form, if the cosmos itself was as diseased as the mind who conceived this butchery.

Kione has seen enough. She knows what this is. It’s an attempt at something that, to her knowledge, has never before been successfully achieved. The sick dream of mad geniuses ever since the first days mech suits walked forth on the world’s surface.

“Neural link,” she whispers.

Very good. I am not proud of the mutts, but even a misconceived project can prove occasion for a breakthrough.

Kione shakes her head numbly. What she’s seeing is impossible. Inconceivable.

Neural links don’t work.

That’s what she and everybody else with half a brain has concluded, after reading up on the grisly outcomes of all previous efforts. Kione has always had an interest in cutting-edge mech tech, and she once found neural links alluring—until she educated herself. The idea is seductive in its simplicity: what if you could control a mech as easily as you control your own body?

Well, too bad. You can’t. Doesn’t work. A mech is not a body. It doesn’t move or work like a living thing. The way a human mind moves a human body is instinctive, anchored to blood and muscle and meat. You force those instincts to bear on a sixty-foot colossus with hydraulic limbs and mechanical joints, there’s only one outcome: incompatibility. Rejection. Damage.

They call it the interoception barrier. The frontier of the self. The fundamental inability of the human ego to transcend the anchor of its individual, physical body. It cannot be crossed. It has never been crossed.

Until now, it seems.

Kione has a million questions. But the first of them is this:

“Who was she?”

A prisoner. I did not acquaint myself with the specifics. Suffice it to say: nobody of consequence.

There’s an emotional part of Kione that rises, red and furious, eager to scream at her that she is a living atrocity. But there’s another part, nodding thoughtfully, because it makes sense. Prisoners, naturally disposable. Stray dogs, unworthy of her notice.

Kione’s stomach churns. She turns to her next question.

“How?”

My research concerns itself with neuroablation and reconditioning. How to alter thought patterns. How to reconfigure a subject’s sense of self. Even bifurcate it, if necessary. You have enjoyed the results for yourself.

Gods, this awful woman sounds so damn proud of herself.

Once I turned my attention to the problem, the solution presented itself clearly. Could I not simply apply the same techniques? Induce the pilot to conceive of the mech as their authentic self—just as Sartha conceives of her auxiliary ego as hers? As you can see, my approach has been highly successful.

Sartha. It all comes back to Sartha. Why is it that every evil Kione encounters seems to well up from the depths of her soul?

Answers beget more questions. Kione thinks of the distinct, canine physicality of these monstrosities. What sense does that make? Is it simply to torment her?

“But why-“

Why dogs? Initial prototyping suggested the value of a non-human mammalian reference point. A kind of intermediary. Our minds can more easily conceive of a dog’s locomotion than a mech’s—but it’s still inexact. The conceptual gulf there is useful. It helps the pilot’s mind grapple with what they experience as unfamiliar, without rejecting it entirely.

And so they learn to be a dog, instead of a person. Ghoulish. Ingenious. And Kione is certain that the symbolic associations—servility, loyalty, ferocity—are only assets to the handler’s cause.

Although…

“They’re defective.” Kione means it as a taunt. It doesn’t come out as one. To her horror she sounds more like a student angling for extra credit—but she can’t stop. “They’re… they’re hungry. They try to eat things. Can’t help themselves.”

Ah, yes. The feeding response. A simple case of overidentification. The mutts forget themselves. They forget they have steel bellies that cannot be filled. Dialing back on some of the integration protocols should resolve that. The calibration will require great care, however. Provided they can keep it under control, their hunger makes them so very effective, don’t you think?

“Fuck you,” Kione spits, but she’s scorning herself as much as the handler.

She hates that she finds all of this so utterly hypnotic. She hates that she can feel herself joining dots and making conjectures. Like everything the handler tells her, it’s an infection. An idea that cannot be unthought. She sees in this—in all this—the awful face of all mankind’s future. A muzzle on every raised head. A firm hand on every leash.

A world of dogs.

It disgusts her, of course. It would disgust anyone clinging to even a tattered shred of their humanity.

But she can see it. She can see the nuts and bolts, the levers and gears that would make it tick and spin and work.

It’s hell.

It’s coming.

I have something for you. The promised lesson. A gift, too. Something you’ll need.

“What?” Kione growls. She’s had enough of this. Of all of it. She’s at her limit. She craves home and Hound.

Do you see that green bag, suspended above the pilot’s head? That’s gift and lesson both. Take it with you. It should be easy enough to unhook and store.

She’s talking about that liquid starlight shit. It gives Kione the creeps. “Why would I do that?” Kione demands, although she’s already reaching up to disconnect the IV lines.

Because you will need to put it to good use. Therein lies the lesson.

“What is it?”

The handler laughs again, just once, before she terminates the transmission.

It’s Sartha’s medicine.

***

Nothing but grim looks on the faces of the hangar crew as Kione and the others haul in. That makes sense, Kione supposes. The rebels were probably hoping they’d return home with the missing patrol in tow. Instead, only half of the rescue mission made it back. A bad result by any measure.

Still, it irks Kione that she’s yet to receive any recognition for the insane feat of piloting she pulled off. It’s the only reason there’s three of them instead of zero. She deserves a fucking parade for that.

Instead, it was all silence on the way home. Amynta wasn’t in the mood. Camarina was nursing her grief. And Kione, for her part, had her head all wrapped up in the things the handler told her. Still though—mission accomplished. They aren’t all dead, and it’s pretty clear what must have happened to the missing rebel patrol. That’s gotta be worth something.

Guess not. As soon as Kione dismounts her Theaboros—burnt and blackened on the outside but still, somehow, in one piece—she sees Amynta heading down the berth toward her, fists clenched, face of rage.

So much for her parade.

“I need to talk to you.” Amynta demands, as soon as she’s within earshot. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

Everybody turns to look. Oh boy. This isn’t going to be pretty.

“And what is that supposed to mean?” Kione shrugs, stretches out languidly, even though her aching muscles scream at her for it. She doesn’t let it show. She needs her armor.

“Cut the shit,” Amynta snaps. Come on, girl, Kione thinks. Didn’t we have a good thing going? “I’m talking about that stunt you pulled up there. You might as well have just killed Vola yourself.”

A hundred or so paces behind her, Camarina is slumped on the ground, bawling her eyes out. As soon as she clambered out of her mech, it hit her. She went down like a sack of potatoes. Friends are rushing to her from all sides, offering comfort. Once word spreads of Vola, their faces turn ashen.

Kione feels bad for her. Really, she does. She liked Vola. But why are they pretending?

“That stunt I pulled,” Kione replies dangerously, “is the only reason you’ve still got the breath to bark at me like that, radio girl.”

To her credit, Amynta doesn’t back down. “Not the point, Ki,” she shoots back furiously. “You knew exactly what would happen. Admit it. You sent her down that slope to die. You used her as bait.”

“So what if I did?” Kione explodes. Doesn’t she get it? You don’t win a game of chess without trading away a few pieces. “This is war, Amynta. Or did you forget that? What I did wasn’t nice, I know. But it was the only way.”

“You don’t know that!” Amynta cries, exasperated beyond reason. She’s tearing up too. “Gods, Kione. Do you really think I’m so stupid I don’t understand we were in a rough spot? That’s not what this is about!”

Kione rolls her eyes. She’s so, so tired. Enough grandstanding. A this point she’d sooner take the imperial handler’s sinister candor. “Then what is it about, huh?”

“It’s that you didn’t even try!”

Something about that completely short-circuits Kione. What? She tried. Didn’t she? She must have. She remembers wracking her brains. She tried everything. Didn’t she?

“That’s not…”

That’s not fair. Is it?

“Save it.” Amynta sounds appalled. Kione knows she’s probably just getting it out of her system. She’s tired. Overtaxed. Guilty, too, from the way she ran dry of ideas in the heat of the moment. Maybe Kione will get a half-hearted apology later. But that won’t change the fact that Amynta means every word of this. “I heard you. You were so fucking… so fucking excited with yourself. And you sold it so well too, didn’t you? Were you as proud of yourself as you sounded? Did it feel as good as it seemed? I hope so.”

The venom in her voice is too much for Kione. She’s unsteady on her feet. She just wants to be gone.

“Maybe you don’t understand this.” Amynta slows down. Wobbles a little. They’re both beyond exhausted. “But we don’t fight that way. Understand? We don’t use each other like that. We’re not disposable. Maybe it’d have always gone the same way, in the end. But I’d sooner have laid down my life trying to get every single one of us off that mountain. Understand me? That’s how we fight.”

There’s only one thing Kione can think of to say to that—even if the words damn her, even if there might never be a way to mend the wedge they hammer home.

“Then I suppose I’m simply not one of you after all.”

Amynta’s anger vanishes as quickly as it appeared. In its wake, she looks exactly as tired and sad as Kione feels. It’s enough to bring Kione to the verge of apologizing. Amynta looks like she’s about to do the same.

Then her gaze shifts. She’s looking up, over Kione’s shoulder and beyond.

Kione turns to look at whatever caught her attention.

And sees Sartha.

Sartha, rushing towards her. Sartha, throwing herself into Kione’s arms. The mercenary barely manages to catch her without toppling over. Then Sartha’s scent washes over her, and all is right again.

“Ki,” Sartha whispers gratefully. “You made it back. When I heard that only three… gods, I’m so glad.”

Kione squeezes around her, tight as can be. Then, all of a sudden, she becomes aware of her own fragility. Of just how close she is to collapsing to the floor, a sobbing wreck. It’s too much, it’s all too much. The dogs, everywhere, and all around her. The mechs, up in the mountains. The handler, and her dark words. Kione knows it won’t end, but maybe it can stop for a moment. Maybe there’s a way for her to stop thinking, just for a short time.

Maybe, with Sartha, she can build a private, fleeting little world of nothing but the two of them.

Because she’s not sure she can take her own useless fragility a moment longer, Kione puts her lips to Sartha’s ear and gives her exactly what she always wants, even though there are dozens of people watching.

“Sartha,” Kione whispers. “Off The Leash.”

She can’t see Sartha’s eyes while they’re embracing, but she can feel the change. She can feel Sartha go limp against her for the briefest of moments as her spirit exits her body, allowing something simple and crude and artificial to fill the vacuum. Base, instinctive, canine—but not merely a dog, no, no, no, nothing like those awful beasts. This thing is the product of precise craftsmanship. It is loving and precious and beautiful—and inside and out, it is Kione’s.

The fragility recedes. Instead, Kione feels smug. Powerful. Everyone’s watching, but none of them know what Sartha truly is. They think they’re simply seeing two lovers lean into each other. Nobody else knows. Only her.

“I need to sleep,” Kione whispers, holding Hound tight against her. “With you. Take me to my room.”

Hound doesn’t reply. She just squeezes Kione again, and then allows the mercenary to lean on her heavily as they two of them walk away, heading for the pilots’ quarters, while Amynta and many others watch silently.

Kione is entirely content with the judgment in their eyes. Now that she’s spoken it, the truth has petrified within her heart.

She isn’t one of them. She never will be.

But that’s OK. Sartha isn’t one of them either.

They’re in love. They have each other.

That’s enough.

That’s everything.

—

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[kallie-den]

Shared Interests

Brittany snoops on her nerdy, perverted, slobbish little sister’s computer in a hunt for dirt - but thanks to a strange computer program, the two of them suddenly end up with a shared interest in hopeless masturbation

Last year my patrons voted for something truly perverted, and I was happy to indulge!

If you like my writing, please consider supporting me on Patreon!  For less than the price of a cup of coffee each month, you can get immediate, early access to everything I write - 4 pieces of hypno-smut a  month, including the latest chapters of all the multi-chapter stories I write. Your support helps me keep writing and is greatly appreciated <3

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“Hey, dork! I told you to keep out of my stuff! Did you take my-“

Brittany’s rage died in her throat as she busted open the door to her little sister Kess’s room and saw that Kess wasn’t there to evade her accusations with sidelong glances, stammered protests, and telltale filthy giggles. That was weird—Kess barely ever left her room, and Brittany was sure she wasn’t anywhere else in the apartment. Which meant she was out, and Kess almost literally never went out.

Brittany’s sister was a complete and total shut-in.

It was one of many reasons living with her was completely and totally exhausting. Brittany hated that their mom had insisted on the two of them living together when they went away to college. It was completely unfair! At twenty-one, why was she still stuck looking after her baby sister?

It would have been one thing if Kess had been cool, like Brittany. Brittany was cool enough and hot enough that, from her very first week in college, she’d been welcomed with open arms into the very top rung of college society. She went to sorority parties, she had her pick of boyfriends from the college’s football team, and now that she was in her third year, she was surrounded by a gaggle of other girls who hung on her every word. Brittany Simmons: Queen Bee.

But she couldn’t invite anybody over because if she did, she’d have to explain Kess.

And there was so much to explain. In the grand hierarchy of college life, Kess wouldn’t even qualify for the bottom rung. She didn’t even attend. Not really, anyway. She did her classes online, handed in her assignments online, and socialized online—and only, it seemed, with other losers just as gross as her. It didn’t make any sense to Brittany; why be a college student if all you were going to do was stay in and wear t-shirts and track pants?

Of course, she didn’t care about Kess wasting her own time. If Kess wanted to let college slip through her fingers, that was her business.

No. Brittany cared because of all the problems Kess gave her.

“Let’s see…” Brittany murmured. “Gotta be around here somewhere.”

Picking out anything in particular from amongst all the clothes strewn on Kess’s floor was a struggle, but after a few minutes of searching, Brittany was able to find what she’d come here looking for: a pair of her gym shorts that had gone missing lately.

It was almost funny. Some of Brittany’s fellow sorority girls complained about their little sisters stealing their stuff to wear. Brittany would have been over the moon if all Kess wanted to do with her clothes was wear them. She had no confirmation of what, exactly, her little sister did use her clothes for, but the fact that she only stole dirty items felt like one hell of a giveaway.

Disgusting. They were sisters, for Christ’s sake.

“Gross,” Brittany groaned. Everything about Kess’s room was gross. She took a whiff of the air; the whole place stank of sweat. “Time to get the hell out of here.”

She turned to leave—and then she noticed that Kess’s computer was still running.

A slow grin crept across Brittany’s features. Finally. The opening she’d been looking for.

Normally, Kess guarded her PC with her life. It contained the only thing Kess seemed to truly value—and if Brittany was right, a few minutes was all she’d need to be rid of her annoying pervert of a sister for good.  Their mom had a frustrating inability to see any of Kess’s many, glaring flaws for what they were. Whenever Brittany complained about her and begged to be allowed to live with someone else, she dismissed her issues with Kess as nothing more than sisterly misunderstandings. Brittany needed proof, and she was certain proof was waiting right there on Kess’s hard drive.

In Kess’s one and only treasure. Her porn collection.

Brittany knew she had one. She just knew. The way she constantly took up all the bandwidth on their internet connection with nondescript ‘downloads’ was one clue. The other was the constant noise from her porn videos bleeding through the walls and into Brittany’s room at all hours of the night.

That was by far the biggest reason Brittany couldn’t invite friends and boyfriends over.

Kess’s constant masturbation had just one silver lining: it let Brittany know that she was into some seriously gross stuff. Given their apartment’s thin walls and Kess’s apparent inability to just wear headphones like a normal human being, she couldn’t help but pick up on it. A bunch of it seemed to be themed around hypnotism, which didn’t make a lot of sense to Brittany—it wasn’t real, obviously, and wasn’t it way too cheesy to be hot? Another big chunk was, uncomfortably enough, incest-related. Brittany had shuddered upon hearing a particularly loud moan of ‘sis!’ more times than she could count.

And then there were all of Kess’s vids that went on about ‘gooning’. Whatever the hell that was.

Obviously, Brittany got no pleasure from knowing all about Kess’s weird fetishes. Just the opposite, in fact. But the good part was that if she could show some of that stuff to their mom, she might finally be convinced that something needed to be done about Kess. Or at least that Brittany shouldn’t have to be subjected to her all the time.

“OK, loser,” Brittany smirked, as she sat down at Kess’s desk. “Show me your worst.”

Poking around, she quickly found obscene quantities of porn, but nothing that was truly damning. Kess’s computer was just as messy as her room. Pics, videos, and folders were placed haphazardly across all four of her monitors—seriously, why did she need four?—and no system of organization Brittany could discern pointed her to anything she could use as evidence or blackmail material.

Until she saw it. Right in the middle of Kess’s main monitor, staring her in the face and practically begging to be clicked on.

JACKPOT.exe

Brittany grinned. This had to be it. Anything a pervert of Kess’s caliber would consider a jackpot was sure to be exactly what she was looking for. The worst of the worst. True freak material.

Certain her victory was at hand, Brittany planted the cursor on the icon and opened it up.

At once, she was blinded.

She was so stunned, it took Brittany a long moment to figure out what, exactly, had even happened. Once her eyes finally adjusted to the garish light being blasted straight into her face, she realized it was a whole bunch of bright, spinning spirals, one on each of Kess’s monitors. All took on different colors and patterns, and none were particularly impressive. They looked like the kind of cheap gifs that any cursory Google search might turn up. Was this really Kess’s jackpot? Was this the kind of thing she got off to? What a freak. 

It was already beginning to hurt Brittany’s eyes, and so instinctively she made to pull away and close them. But she didn’t move. A moment later, and Brittany realized she couldn’t move. 

She couldn’t take her eyes off the spirals.

“What the…” Brittany half-laughed to herself. “T-this is… weird? You must be… joking.”

The way her own voice sounded distant and dreamy all of a sudden was immediately disquieting. It seemed impossible, but Brittany couldn’t quite bring herself to reject the obvious thought: this was hypnosis, wasn’t it?

That was dumb. That was ridiculous! Hypnosis wasn’t real.

And yet…

Brittany made another effort to peel her gaze away from the spirals, but as she summoned her strength, she became conscious of how much of it already drained away. Against her will, her eyelids simply refused to close. It wasn’t that her eyes were locked on a single spot; rather, whenever Brittany managed to flick her eyes away from the center of one of the spirals, the remaining three were waiting right there to snatch away her focus, and seeing all of them in the shrinking corners of her vision left her too disoriented to muster herself properly.

The result was maddening; a sensory overload of hypnotic imagery that left Brittany’s head throbbing and her body going slack. She was a prisoner of the spirals. Even her usual resting bitch face was starting to slip away, replaced with an expression of drunk, awestruck captivation that Brittany was irritated to know Kess would have gotten a kick out of.

Then, the spirals began to change.

At first, Brittany thought she was imagining the brief flashes of light that appeared on the screens at rapid, irregular intervals. But as each one pricked at her, leaving her distracted and disoriented, she realized that they were real—and then, as her eyes adjusted to the constant flickering, she realized they weren’t just flashes of light. They were flashes of images.

No. Not just images. Flashes of porn.

As soon as she realized what she was looking at, Brittany found herself overwhelmed by the never-ending tide of obscene imagery being pumped into her eyeballs. Her first instinct was to recoil from it, disgusted, but the hypnotic spirals denied her even that, leaving her to do nothing but watch helplessly as it all washed over her.

Tits. Asses. Hips. Thighs. Cunts. Cocks. Armpits. Sweat. Drool. Spit. Cum. Thrusting. Pumping. Grinding. Humping. Pounding. Fucking. A cacophony of bodies, slamming into each other over and over again, or displaying themselves in poses that pushed the boundaries of eroticism and possibility further and further. After a few minutes, the barrage of pornography completely shattered Brittany’s sense of judgment. She stopped being angry at the porn, or disgusted, or irritated, or confused, or anything else.

She simply accepted it.

The spirals wouldn’t let her do anything else.

But eventually, inevitably, her body started reacting.

At least, Brittany tried to tell herself it was inevitable. With what few thoughts remained to her, she tried desperately to convince herself that the heat in her body and the itching need between her legs was nothing more than a natural, physiological reaction to seeing all these images of nudity and sex. Anyone would start feeling the way she did, even if—like her—they were a straight girl looking at porn consisting entirely of women. It wasn’t because she was actually enjoying this. It wasn’t because she had any of the same proclivities as Kess.

And it certainly wasn’t because of the words being pumped into her ears. Right?

You want porn.

You need porn.

You love porn.

You crave porn.

Once Brittany noticed the voice, she realized she wasn’t sure when, exactly, it had begun. At some point, audio had started accompanying the flashes of porn she was being shown and, like a frog in boiling water, she’d failed to notice. At first, she was pretty sure, it had been snippets from the porn itself. Moaning. Pleading. The wet, sticky sounds of flesh slapping against flesh. Then, there had been music—low, pumping, a little cheesy, as most porn music tended to be, but somehow melodic too, and deeply, deeply, relaxing.

Embedded within the music, there was a voice. Brittany could feel it reaching into her head and planting its words amongst her thoughts, there to grow like invasive weeds.

You’re obsessed with porn.

You love watching porn.

Porn makes you feel good.

Porn turns you on.

Brittany could feel it, but she couldn’t fight it. She was still being lulled into a trance by the spirals, and bombarded with obscene imagery that was only growing more and more distracting. The over-stimulation was too much. She couldn’t get a handle on any of the suggestions being poured into her ears. She tried, in vain, to fend them off; to apprehend each one, to refute it clearly, to put it aside, then brace herself for the next.

But it was useless. Her thoughts broke apart, dashed against the rocks with each flicker and flash porn, and in the resulting confusion, Brittany found herself unable to help accepting the very suggestions she was trying to keep from infecting her.

Obsessed with porn? No, of course not! She just liked porn.

Of course she did. Porn turned her on. Porn made her feel good.

No, wait.

That wasn’t right. Or was it? Didn’t everyone feel that way? Everyone looked at porn, right?

Yeah. Brittany loved watching porn. She needed it.

Maybe she was just a little bit obsessed.

And with that one thought, all the remaining components of her psyche fell like dominoes.

Brittany was obsessed with porn.

Brittany loved watching porn.

Porn made Brittany feel good.

Porn turned Brittany on.

With that new thought pattern seeping into the foundations of her mind, Brittany found it so much harder to fight what was happening to her. The process was far less distressing now. It aroused no resentment. No will to resist.

After all, she was just being shown porn, right?

And Brittany loved porn. Fuck, she really loved porn.

Her disgust now converted into fervent appreciation, Brittany was struggling to find reasons to push back against any part of what was happening to her. Sure, it was a little weird that she was being hypnotized, but could she really be angry? It was, she reasoned, a bit like being forced to sit down and watch her favorite movie. Was she truly being forced, in the end? And yes, it was strange that she’d stumbled across something like this on her sister’s computer, but it was difficult to think about that when she was distracted by the way her hard feelings toward Kess were beginning to soften.

Kess was gross. She was creepy and annoying, and Brittany wished she’d keep her masturbatory habits under tighter wraps so Brittany didn’t have to deal with them. But… could she really blame her? If Kess was guilty of anything, wasn’t it simply over-enthusiasm for her hobby?

And besides—she had good taste.

If Brittany had been free to look anywhere but at the screens and free to do anything but stare straight ahead, slack-jawed and drooling, she might have rolled her eyes and smiled ruefully. Over-enthusiastic kid sisters got on everybody’s nerves, right?

There was still part of Brittany that could sense how deeply, awfully wrong her twisting thoughts were becoming. No, it wasn’t like that at all! Kess was doing something to her. She had to be. Everything about the situation she’d found herself in was deeply, completely fucked up. But…

But Brittany loved porn. She was obsessed with porn. Porn made her feel good. Porn turned her on. All that was making the experience way, way too distracting for her anger and fear to crystallize into anything real. And all the while, the spirals kept turning and turning, glorious porn kept blaring into her eyeballs, and more suggestions kept worming their way into Brittany’s open, pliable mind.

You want to touch yourself to porn.

You need to touch yourself to porn.

You love to touch yourself to porn.

An ingrained sense of dignity and restraint tried to tell her otherwise—but in a mere moment, it was overwhelmed. Brittany was already too far gone. She was obsessed with porn, so it was only natural that she loved touching herself to it. What else did people do with porn? It was strange; Brittany could really remember ever using porn to get off much. She’d never had a reason to. But now, all of a sudden, she was certain it was one of her very favorite things.

She felt that certainty as an itch. As something kinetic and urgent, filling her limbs with energy and driving them into motion. But not to escape. Not to free herself. Just to raise her hand and, inch by inch, bring it across her thighs and toward her cunt while the suggestions became more and more insistent.

Touch yourself to porn.

Touch yourself for porn.

Always touch yourself looking at porn.

The itch doubled, and with that became all but irresistible. Brittany couldn’t keep her hand still. The words being pumped into her ears were truly becoming her own thoughts. A violent demand repeated over and over again, inside her head and out of it, redoubling moment after moment.

Brittany needed to touch herself to porn. Fuck. She needed to touch herself right now.

But she couldn’t, could she? After all, she was sitting in her little sister’s room, at her little sister’s desk. Kess could come home and walk in on her at any moment. Brittany couldn’t even begin to imagine how deathly embarrassing that would be. It was unthinkable. There was simply no way.

And yet…

The itch. Brittany needed to touch herself. To porn. For porn.

She was obsessed with it.

Part of her was still fighting to tell her that this was wrong. That she didn’t truly feel any of this. Brittany’s memories completely contradicted everything she was being told, and dwelling on them brought forth a sense of anxious dissonance that she tried to cling to in order to fight back against the brainwashing. She never looked at porn! She’d never needed to! She’d always had boyfriends or hookups. Hadn’t she always thought porn was gross? She wasn’t some porn-obsessed loser like Kess.

All of that now seemed so distant.

And in the end, it didn’t matter. The spirals and porn on the screens before her didn’t care, and their hypnotic pull was far, far too great to resist.

You’re desperate to touch yourself to porn.

You can’t resist touching yourself to porn.

Touching yourself to porn is more important than anything.

As if in anticipation of her resistance, those suggestions started repeating themselves over and over, pounding themselves into Brittany’s weak, vulnerable mind. The constant onslaught of spirals and porn was only further eroding her resistance. Each flash, each glimpse of throbbing, heaving, sweaty bodies, each long moment of feeling her brain drained into a spiral—all of them left her weaker and weaker, and allowed the brainwashing to steadily reshape her personality and her priorities.

Brittany was desperate. She was so desperate. She couldn’t contain her sheer, abject desperation as her hand began to unbutton her jeans and slip down the front of her panties. It was undeniable. She was so desperate, she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

She couldn’t resist touching herself to porn.

The idea was still completely mortifying. Brittany hated thinking about it. She hated what she was about to do. It’s just that her inhibitions were no longer enough to hold her back. Her need and desperation were too great. She was their slave, and her willpower was steadily draining away to nothing. She couldn’t resist. Not for a moment longer.

Because touching herself to porn was more important than anything.

That quickly sunk in and embedded itself in Brittany’s psyche. With it, her shame abated. It simply no longer mattered to her. A dull smile spread across her face. What was she so worried about? Who cares if Kess walked in on her? This was more important.

Now that there was nothing holding her back, Brittany pushed her hand all the way into her panties and started rubbing her fingertips against her greedy, dripping cunt.

Her loud, lewd moans sounded just like the ones coming from the porn flashing on the screens in front of her.

Which was unbelievably hot. The fact that she sounded so much like porn was driving Brittany wild. She loved porn. She was obsessed with it. And the verbal suggestions coming from the speakers were quick to reinforce her pleasure.

Touching yourself to porn feels good.

Touching yourself to porn is perfect.

Touching yourself to porn is all you need.

Nothing feels better than touching yourself to porn.

Brittany nodded in eager agreement as she rubbed her pussy. There was no longer any part of her that wanted to resist, or that was capable of it. It was simply obvious; nothing felt better than this. Than touching herself to porn. And the pleasure, rising from her throat in thick, wet moans, made her all the more susceptible.

You want to look at porn all day.

You want to touch yourself to porn all day.

You want to let porn run your life.

You want to ruin yourself with porn.

Again, Brittany just nodded stupidly, gleefully committing herself to her new, humiliating fixation, with a dumb, wide, pleasure-stained grin on her face and copious loops of drool dribbling down her chin. To her hypnotized, bliss-broken mind, it was all true. She wanted to look at and touch herself to porn all day. How could she not? It felt so good. Better than anything else. She wanted to let porn run her life.

And if that would ruin her? Brittany would embrace it.

Touching herself to porn was all she needed.

You need more porn.

You need filthier porn.

You crave nasty fetish porn.

You always need more porn.

In synch with the shifting suggestions, the kinds of porn being shown to Brittany in glimpses and flashed amongst the spirals began to shift too. Instead of vanilla, familiar snippets of naked bodies and passionate but conventional couplings, an entire world of kinks and fetishes appeared on Kess’s monitors—and immediately started to blossom in Brittany’s imagination. Outfits and costumes. Bondage and choking. Feet and armpits. And besides those, countless other fetishes, ranging from the taboo to the bizarre.

Brittany touched herself to all of them. She finger-fucked her cunt impatiently; pace quickening, moans filling the air as she soaked her clothes with sweat and wetness in her desperate drive toward orgasm. None of the fetish porn she was now masturbating to gave her pause. In fact, the only gripe she had was that it wasn’t enough.

She always needed more porn.

Fortunately, Kess’s entire collection was right here to provide. All Brittany’s plans to mine it for ammunition against her little sister were long forgotten. The only thing she now cared about was using it to get off.

Touch yourself to porn all day.

Touch yourself to porn for hours.

Touch yourself to porn over and over again.

Touching yourself to porn is the only thing you care about.

Rewire your brain by touching yourself to porn.

Brittany just nodded and grunted impatiently. She no longer needed to be told. Porn was the only thing she cared about. She wanted it to rewire her. To ruin her. She no longer wanted to spare a thought for anything else. Kess could be coming home at any moment. Brittany had made plans with her college friends in just a couple of hours. She didn’t care. She already knew that, no matter what, she was going to stay sitting right there, touching herself to Kess’s porn.

Nothing could have made her happier.

For hours and hours, as Kess’s hypnosis regimen ran its course, then looped over and over again from the start, the only movement in Brittany’s little sister’s bedroom was the rhythmic motion of the formerly proud, dignified, restrained, and thoroughly normal college girl’s hand rubbing up and down against her dripping, throbbing, needy cunt.

***

By the time Kess finally came home, so many hours had passed that the sky was dark outside and Brittany’s plans with her friends had long since come and gone. Her body ached from hours of unending masturbation, and her eyes were bloodshot from so long spent staring at the four monitors in front of her.

Brittany didn’t care. She couldn’t stop. Couldn’t resist. She needed to keep touching herself to porn.

The hypnotic aspects of the program playing out on Kess’s computer had abated hours ago. They had done their work. Brittany was thoroughly conditioned with her newfound obsession with porn. She no longer needed the spirals to keep her rooted to the spot. She stayed sitting at Kess’s desk willingly, because of the constant deluge of amazing, filthy, twisted fetish porn she was being shown.

It was all she cared about. She was obsessed with it. Nothing was more important to Brittany than porn. And so, when she heard the door open behind her, followed by the sound of Kess’s approaching footsteps, she didn’t stop touching herself. She didn’t even take her eyes off the screen.

“Oh my god,” came Kess’s distinctly nerdy, nasally, stammering voice. “I c-can’t believe it actually worked.”

Brittany felt herself grow hot with shame and anger as the realization hit. She was furious at Kess, and mortified at being seen—but that wasn’t more important than porn.

“You…” she panted, fingers still plunging in and out of her cunt. “This… y-you set me up?”

Kess let out a dirty, nervous giggle. “You’re always b-busting into my room. Knew you’d take a peak sometime. So I decided to set a trap.”

Brittany’s eyes widened. “You… brainwashed me.”

“Yeah.” Another dirty giggle. “Isn’t it hot?”

Brittany shivered rapturously. For a brief moment, she willed herself to disagree. She forced herself to try to fix in her head all the many, many reasons why what Kess had done to her was an unbelievably disgusting and unforgivable violation of her personal boundaries and autonomy.

It didn’t work. In no more than an instant, it had all slipped away.

Kess was right. It was so hot. All the hypnosis porn she’d been touching herself to for hours now had completely rewritten her brain. Her new fetish was all-consuming, and her new set of priorities ensured that it effortlessly outweighed all other concerns.

“It’s so fucking hot,” Brittany whined.

Her hand quickened again, bringing forth moans with her every breath. She couldn’t believe how hot it was. It was like Brittany was living out a work of porn. She couldn’t believe her luck.

"You’re really hot too,” Kess said. She was standing directly behind Brittany now, and her voice was filled with unmistakable lechery. “I’ve always w-wanted to see you like this, sis.”

The unwholesome note in her voice should have made Brittany recoil. Instead, it just made her shiver. She was trapped in a fever of arousal.

“You… always?” she asked.

“Uh-huh,” Kess confirmed. Another nervous, dirty laugh. “You’re so pretty. I’ve a-always wanted us to be closer, you know. But you’re amazing, and I’m j-just a pervert.” She giggled again. “So I h-had to bring you down to my level.”

“Down to your level…” Brittany echoed faintly. She couldn’t help but find that hot, too.

“Uh-huh.” Brittany could hear the grin in Kess’s voice. Her little sister was overjoyed. “And now we f-finally have a shared interest. Something we can do together.”

She swiftly pulled over a spare chair and sat down in it, beside Brittany. Brittany could finally see her out of the corner of her eye. Usually, the sisters looked nothing alike. Brittany was tall, blonde, shapely, and pretty, while Kess was a mousy, shrunken, unkempt brunette. Now, though, the looks of lurid, feverish hedonism on their faces made them appear two of a kind.

“Here, sis,” Kess panted. “Let me h-help.”

Brittany froze when Kess reached over and touched her hand to Brittany’s thigh.

“That…” Brittany spluttered, fighting desperately to avoid the eager heat rising within her. “Kess, this… this is wrong.”

It was. It was against every taboo she’d ever been taught. Brittany should have been disgusted by the very suggestion. But she’d spent the past four hours pumping her head—among other things—incest porn, and the resulting urges effortlessly drowned Brittany’s better judgment.

It was just as she’d always known. She couldn’t resist porn.

“Do you want me to s-stop?” Kess asked, her fingers reaching closer and closer to Brittany’s cunt.

There was only one answer.

“No,” Brittany whined. “Please…”

When Kess’s fingertips reached her pussy, Brittany moaned like never before. It wasn’t just her sister’s touch. It wasn’t even the taboo. No; Brittany was swept up in rapturous awe by the very manner of her corruption. She was doing this because of porn. Because porn had made her find it hot.

She was letting porn run her life.

“Fuck,” Kess panted. “H-here. Do me.”

Using her free hand, she shucked out of her ugly, dirty sweatpants. She wasn’t wearing any underwear. That was just like her. Gross. But Brittany didn’t hesitate. She reached across and pushed two of her fingertips into her little sister’s pussy. Kess’s greedy moans soon joined Brittany’s as the two of them masturbated each other.

“Y-yeah,” Kess laughed. “Fuck. That’s right. Just like that. I t-think we’re gonna spend a lot of time like this, sis.”

Brittany just nodded. She couldn’t dream of wanting anything else.

“You have…” she panted, “so much porn.”

It was still blaring on the screens in front of her, all four at once, cycling between videos, images, animations.

“Uh-huh.” Kess was grinning proudly. “Terabytes and terabytes.”

Brittany’s whole body throbbed at the thought of all of that time, money, and effort—all given over to porn.

“T-that’s so cool,” she found herself saying pathetically.

And she meant it. For as long as she could remember, Brittany had found Kess’s porn habits as unfathomable as they were disgusting. Now, though, as she spoke to her little sister, the barest hint of awe was creeping into her voice.

“T-thanks, sis.” Kess was practically glowing with happiness. “Can’t wait to show you.”

Brittany nodded, eyes widening. All that porn. She couldn’t wait.

“No more going to school,” Kess moaned. She was touching herself faster and faster. “No more hanging out with your friends.”

“Yes,” Brittany panted eagerly.

“No more going out late,” Kess continued. It was perfectly clear that she was turned on by the thought of Brittany’s downfall—and so was Brittany herself. “No more boyfriends. No more being cool and popular.”

“Yes.” Brittany could see it now, in her mind’s eye. Her entire life, sliding into ruin. Until she had none of the things she’d always been so proud of. Her status. Her popularity. Her fashion. Until she was a gross, gooner nerd just like Kess. “Yes, yes, y-yes!”

It was driving her so crazy, she was starting to see white.

“J-just you and me, sis,” Kess moaned. “Just like this. Looking at porn. All day. Every day.”

“F-f-fuck!” Brittany cried.

“Cum.” Kess told her, licking her lips. “Break your brain for porn. Break your brain for me.”

“Fuck!”

Brittany didn’t care if anyone in the neighboring apartments heard her scream as a huge orgasm, far greater than the ones she’d been giving herself all day, tore through her and obliterated all that remained of her dignity and decency. Kess’s expert fingers helped drive it on and on, higher and higher, until all that was left of cool, popular Brittany was a mewling, moaning, sweat-drenched mess whose head was full of nothing but the most sordid, debased, porn-induced fantasies.

Just as both of them wanted.

“Hey, s-sis,” Kess said, once Brittany started to come around. “You’ve been at this for a while, huh? M-maybe we should take a break? Get some food?”

Brittany looked at her and considered it for a moment—and then shook her head. “No way, sis,” she said, grinning, as she turned her attention back to Kess’s monitors. “I could keep going for hours!”

It was all she cared about. More important than food. More important than school. More important than sleep.

Porn ran her life.

Kess simply laughed. “Knew you’d say that,” she replied. She started touching Brittany again, and Brittany obligingly started touching her. “G-good news. We’re about to hit the really good stuff.”

---

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[kallie-den]

wow you're telling me that the idea of a mech pilot having a "handler" is not actually a mainstay of the genre? and that most mech pilots are not brainwashed or forcefemmed or getting off on the force feedback from their weaponry? you're telling me that nobody in Macross or TTGL is engaging in a 24/7 d/s t4t lesbian relationship which is tacitly encouraged by the military forces they work for? I had no fucking idea. That's crazy. You're actually the first person to ever point this out. Should we throw a party? Should we invite Char? I'm going to invite Char so he can fucking kill us both.

[kallie-den]

Rescue Hound Chapter Six

Kione finds herself growing closer to the rebels around her, even as her new handler-hound relationship with Sartha places her at a greater distance than ever before

This is a Warhound story! The preceding stories can be found at this tag

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---

“Let me ask you something,” Kione asks languidly. “How come the food keeps getting worse around here?”

Muted laughter around the rec room. Vola, Nese, Amynta—Radio Girl—and a few others Kione doesn’t really know yet. All bored shitless. Sorties have been few and far between. Nothing to do but keep their heads down while the imperial net closes.

“Terribly sorry, my lady.” Amynta feigns a little bow from her slouched pose on the bench. “Any requests for dinner? Fresh fish, perhaps? A nice salad?”

More laughter. Their banter isn’t exactly high drama, but anything to lighten the mood.

“If you could bring me that,” Kione sniffs, “I’d pay you your mech’s weight in imperial coins.”

“Gods,” Vola grunts. “Don’t you ever get tired of being such a rich bitch about everything?”

“No.”

“Then, don’t you ever feel like putting that ridiculous hoard of yours to good use? A contribution to the cause? That’s what a good rebel would do.”

“No.”

“Can’t you at least share it around a bit? Among friends?

“Got that fresh fish for me?”

Everyone groans at her. Kione drinks it in, of course. She’s never happier than when she gets to play the villain. Plus, all the rebels seem to appreciate having someone to groan at too.

“No fish.” That’s Nese. She’s been quiet today. Sounds dour. “Imperials secured the east bank of the Lethys River a few days ago. We’re cut off.”

That brings down the mood at once. This front of the war hasn’t been doing well—not that any of them have. The imperial war machine crawls across the land like a locust swarm. Let them take what they want, and they’ll never stop. Fight them, and the buzz of resistance drives them into a frenzy. Oh, the rebels fight well, to be sure. They know the land they fight on, and they love what they know. But you need resources to win a war, and on that front more than any other, the empire is unmatched. They have machines that turn mountains into legions. That rip great wounds into the ruined earth, drinking the dredges of its long-spent wealth the way a mosquito might a still-warm corpse. Against a foe like that, victories are only temporary. The accountant’s toll of gains and losses is forever.

The rebel base—Leukon Base, it’s called—is getting surrounded, inexorably but slowly. It’s up in the Orestis Highlands. Difficult territory to claim. And so far, the rebels have managed to remain in the dark. Probably, the imperials don’t know if it’s a fully-fledged outpost or just a few stragglers, and they also probably don’t know which hole or peak they might be hiding in. So, there’s time. But only time. Resupply will keep getting harder. Kione’s glad she got Theaboros all patched up already.

Learning all these proper nouns for places is kind of a pain in the ass, honestly. Kione never bothered with it before. You take a map, you get a job, get some coordinates. You show up, you shoot some people, you get paid, you fuck off before anyone can try to engage you in a scintillating conversation about the weather this time of year. Now, Kione hears the place names coming out of people’s mouths, and they actually mean something to her.

‘Not part of the job’, is what she’d normally say. But she supposes this one stopped being ‘just a job’ a while ago.

“Doubt we were getting much fresh fish out of the river anyway,” Kione grumbles. “That’s fairy tale stuff.”

“Not true,” Nese tells her. “Most of the year, it snows clean on the mountains to the north of here. Keeps the waters pure. There’s a few springs, too. Plenty of fish spawn in the hills around there, and some of them even make it this far downstream without choking on runoff.”

Finally, Kione twigs it. “You’re from around here, aren’t you?”

Nese nods.

“Shit, I’m sorry.” Kione feels oddly nervous about offering condolences. She’s not used to it. “Your people?”

“Don’t know.”

“Damn,” Kione replies. Then she says, “I’m sorry,” again because she’s not really sure what else she’s supposed to say.

“Thanks.” Nese looks up from her game of solitaire and offers Kione a bit of a nurturing smile; ‘A’ for effort, apparently.

“Relax, merc,” Amynta reaches over and claps Kione’s shoulder. “It’s not such a rare story around here. No offense, Nese.”

“Yeah,” Vola pipes up. “I grew up in the Memphin Desert, across the Panropa Basin. They occupied it years ago. Turns out there’s still oil under there, if you dig deep enough.” She takes a breath. Exhales her cigarette. “Hope they drown in it. They probably won’t. Either way, I’ll probably never see the sands again.”

Kione nods slowly as she absorbs that. “You?” she finds herself asking Amynta, because she realizes she actually wants to know.

“Me?” Amynta is surprised by her curiosity. A little delighted, too. “I’m from nowhere, babe.” She flashes a peace sign, just to make Kione giggle. “Born on a refugee trail. Grew up moving here and there. Joined up to fight the first chance I got. Now, your turn. Where you from, Ki?”

“Uh.” She asks casually, but the question lands on Kione like a lobbed boulder. She’s not good at talking about herself. But she’s really in it now; this has already turned into a sharing circle. And worse, she asked first. “I’m… from Kinbashi.”

She sees recognition in Amynta’s eyes. A touch of pity, too. Kinbashi is—was—a large city-state, one of several in the resource belt far to the south of even Vola’s home. One of the sad little comfortable dreams of those who wanted to keep living sad little comfortable lives, as they had done in the days the world was whole.

“Surprised you didn’t join our cause a long time ago,” Nese snorts. “Pay the imperial cunts back for it.”

Kione shakes her head. “It’s imperial now,” she corrects. “But Kinbashi fell a long time ago. Madness and greed. People fighting and dying over all sorts of stupid shit. I grew up running from shelter to shelter with my parents whenever the sirens sounded.” She forces a smile. “Then one day, the sirens were a little too late, and I was on my own. Kinbashi in rubble. Nothing to stay for.”

All around the rec room, sympathetic glances. Kione really wishes they wouldn’t. There’s a reason she doesn’t usually go on about herself.

“’Madness and greed’,” Amynta quotes. “If that’s how you see it, why be a merc?”

Now Kione grins. “Yeah, and it was madness because none of those greedy fucks ever actually got what they were fighting for. Now I make damn sure I’m getting paid before I get out in front of a bullet.”

The smiles return. Everybody loves the rich bitch. Doesn’t quite banish the sympathetic looks, though. They’re all getting a bit too used to it. They don’t see Kione as some merc anymore.

They see her as one of them.

Not all of the rebels do, that’s for sure. Skulking in one of the rec room’s corners is Pela, that Sartha fangirl Kione once dressed down in the canteen. There are plenty of others like her. Rebels Kione has pissed off so mightily it’ll take more than just time to heal the wounds. But on the whole, they’re softening. Kione is too, and she knows their names, and she knows the names of the places they’re fighting for.

It’s… a new feeling. One Kione isn’t quite sure how to get to grips with. Even more uncomfortable is the novel idea that all these rebels might, sooner or later, actually know her.

“I’ve never heard you tell that story to anyone besides me, Ki.”

But for now, there’s plenty they don’t know, of course.

They don’t know about Sartha Thrace. They think they do; Kione can see that plainly from the little looks of adoration and comfort on all their faces as the hero walks in. She’s been in the hangar-cave, helping to calibrate Ancyor’s new upgrades. With her arrival, she warms the room. The world is brighter and better with her in it. The rebels look at her, and see a hope beyond hope. They see salvation.

Not Kione.

The truth of Sartha Thrace stares her in the face. First of all, she sees that Sartha is wearing her jacket buttoned up tight, all the way to the top of her neck. To most, nothing noteworthy; just a concession to the cold. Kione knows that beneath her collar are a bouquet of bruises that match her own fingers. Evidence of the previous night’s excesses, now blossoming into grotesque, ugly purple. Just thinking of it makes Kione shudder.

She went too far, of course. Kione knows that. But she’s already forgiven herself. Her task is to plumb the depths of another woman’s soul. Certain mistakes are inevitable. What counts is that the damage is not permanent. And in the process, Kione grasped something crucial.

Sartha Thrace is not human.

Presumably she was, once, but she gave it up. Traded her humanity for the comfort of existing on the end of a metaphysical leash. She does not think as people do. She does not feel as people do. When she was taken and brainwashed, Sartha was not broken on the surface; coerced into a set of simple, mechanical acts as the core of her personhood buried itself deep within her mind for protection. Oh no. She was broken all the way through. Broken the way glass breaks when an entire pane shatters from a single strike—because she wanted it. Now, her very internality has been crushed into something abhorrently one-dimensional. There is no deeper meaning to be found in her than one would find in a dog scraping the bottom of its bowl for food.

Can you really speak of abusing such an animal? Of violating it? Of course not. Kione’s guilt would be senseless, and that very senseless guilt is what almost drove her over the edge when she had her hands clamped around Sartha’s throat. So now, she has discarded it. She has forgiven herself—and for whatever it’s worth, she knows that Sartha has forgiven her too.

Why? Because they’re in love, of course.

“Hey, Captain Thr- I mean, Sartha,” Amynta turns to greet her. Sartha has been insisting on names over titles, but it doesn’t come easy to most of the rebels.

“Hey,” Kione says too.

Sartha has eyes only for her. She hurries across to Kione’s side, adoring, no hint of fear or resentment over the way Kione tortured and strangled her. That no longer strikes Kione as strange. When Sartha looks into the eyes of those around her, she sees hero-worship reflected back at her. Kione once suffered that delusion—but now, when Sartha meets her gaze, the fallen hero sees nothing reflected other than her own nothingness. Kione sees her clearly. The nothingness is validating. For that, Sartha would gladly trade all the abuse in the world.

She is sick with love for Kione.

But nobody else sees it. Not even as they move aside to allow Sartha to sit next to Kione and rest her head on the merc’s shoulder. To everyone else, it’s cute. They’re a little jealous, probably, but mostly they’re glad Sartha has someone at her side. They can only imagine what the two of them do behind closed doors. They don’t know what Sartha is.

That thought pricks at Kione.

Why don’t they? Can’t they see it? Isn’t it obvious? It is to Kione. She isn’t sure how she ever missed it. She sees an abyss in the dark pupils of Sartha’s eyes, the surrounding color a mere echo of the spirit that had once driven her. She sees nothingness on Sartha’s lips, wet and parted when she looks up at Kione, eager for commands or praise or abuse or the three words that deliver her from the thin pretense of personhood. She sees oblivion in everything Sartha does, even in the way she acts like a hero, so desperate and forced and pathetic.

Why doesn’t everyone else?

That’s why Kione isn’t one of them. She sees. And they are blind.

“How’s the new beast looking?” Amynta asks.

“Good.” Sartha grins as she leans into Kione. “A couple more weeks, and it’ll be ready to tear them a new one. She’ll be the finest machine on the planet.”

A couple of appreciative whistles. “Watch it,” Vola jibes, energized. “Kione’ll be complaining we keep getting parts shipped in instead of haute cuisine.”

“No way.” Amynta answers on Kione’s behalf. “Even she’s not that much of a hypocrite. You were plenty grateful for our supply lines when you were getting your babygirl fixed up, right Ki?”

“Yeah, I’m so ‘grateful’ that they cost me more than I’ve ever made working alongside you lot,” Kione complains. It’s true. Her coffers have never been so empty—not that they’re likely to run dry any time soon.

As she plays up her discontent, Kione reaches across and drapes an arm over Sartha’s shoulder. Accidentally, her forearm ends up pressing against Sartha’s collar and the bruises beneath. Sartha flinches subtly, but then settles in to press even closer to Kione, a look of giddy, drunken contentment settling across her face.

Fucking freak. But nobody else takes any notice.

“From what I heard, you paid so much because you needed some seriously weird shit,” Nese puts to her. “How does that machine of yours work, anyway? The flying, I mean.”

“Antimatter?” Kione shrugs. She has a pretty good idea of Theaboros’s basic engineering—enough to direct repairs, anyway—but the finer points of its machinery escape her, as do the deeper physics underpinning them. “You want much more than that, you’d have to ask the person I got to design it for me.”

“What’s their name?” Nese asks. “I had no idea any rebel groups had the labs and resources to develop this kind of tech.”

“They don’t,” Kione replies. “She’s imperial.”

That gets a few looks. Rebels are no strangers to appropriating imperial technology, but they usually have to steal or salvage it, not commission it.

“How’d that work, exactly?” Vola asks, a touch guardedly.

“First of all, I’m a merc,” Kione reminds her. “If I take a bit of care, I can go wherever I want. Second… have you ever met a mech engineer? Those adorable little freaks are all exactly the same. They’re all gagging for a chance to get their pet prototypes built.”

“So? How’d you get her to give it to you, instead of the empire?”

Kione looks from side to side, then leans in, like she’s about to let everybody in on a big secret. Then she brings her free hand to her lips—and makes a little gesture of sticking her tongue out between the V of her fingers.

All the rebels howl with laughter. Not Sartha—but it’s not jealousy or envy that stop her. She looks up at Kione, awestruck, like Kione’s some kind of goddess for it. Gods, can the rest of them really not see her for what she is?

“OK, seriously,” Kione adds. “You gotta remember, the imperials don’t build like you do. It’s all production lines and interchangeable parts over there. No way you can get their bean-counters to approve some flashy one-of-a-kind machine that’s only as good as whatever fresh-faced academy dipshit ends up in the cockpit.”

Vola nods slowly. It’s a hard thing for some rebels to get their heads around, especially if they’re still a little green. If they’ve only ever fought in skirmishes and insurgency actions, not in the kinds of full-scale battles that showcase the empire’s horrific aptitude for total warfare. Their factories can churn out Dorus on a scale that a girl like Vola could scarcely believe possible. It just doesn’t make sense for an industrial war machine like that to derail its manufacturing, maintenance and support logistics just to build exactly one of something that might turn out to be a terrible idea anyway.

For the rebels, it’s just the opposite. Every rebel mech is a mongrel. They’re all one-of-a-kind, so if you have the parts to build something special and a pilot that can make it work, why not? It’ll be no more of a pain in the ass to keep in service than any of the hundreds of thrice-reconstructed imperial mechs the rebels usually fight with. Besides, rebel tactics are necessarily local, flexible, and improvisational. Give them a weird machine, you can bet your ass they’ll figure out an equally weird way to put it to good use. Kione respects the resourcefulness. What she doesn’t respect is that, beyond everything else, the rebels need icons. Symbols. Heroes, like Sartha and her Ancyor. Instantly recognizable on a poster. It’s a way to rally people. All the more reason to favor wacko prototypes.

“So…” Amynta ventures, “you didn’t really eat out an imperial engineer to get Theaboros?”

“I paid her handsomely, and I gave her a chance to see her baby fly,” Kione answers primly. “And then I ate her out. Just for fun. I mentioned she was an adorable little freak, didn’t I?”

Amynta gives her a playful punch whilst everyone else groans.

“Whatever,” Vola snorts. “If you ask me, you’re the freak for trusting it. I’d never want to count on imperial tech to keep me three hundred feet in the air. I’ll bet on my Phassus any day of the week. She’s not flashy. But she gets it done.”

Amynta and Sartha both flash her a warning look, but it’s too late. She said the magic word, and Kione is already wearing her finest shark grin.

“You’d bet, huh?” Kione purrs. “Easy enough to settle that—unless you’re all talk, of course.”

At once, Sartha switches gears. Suddenly, she’s a guard dog. A cheerleader. She partakes in Kione’s smugness, and glares challenging daggers at Vola. The other rebel bristles at Kione’s taunt, but Radio Girl is quick to shut down the suggestion.

“Absolutely fucking not,” she insists. “Command is not in the mood, and neither am I. Try for some dick-swinging duel, and I’ll have both of your machines drained of fuel so the entire base can laugh at you when you try and launch only to fall on your asses. Do not test me.”

She’s really growing into herself. Kione’s a little bit impressed, but mostly just annoyed she won’t get her dick-swinging duel.

“Fine,” she yawns. “No fun allowed.”

A crooked smile forms on Nese’s face. Apparently, Kione isn’t the only one who wanted a show.

“How about you get it out of your system a different way?” Nese suggests.

“What did you have in mind?” Vola asks. She’s game.

Nese licks her lips. “Nobody’s gonna complain about a little arm-wrestling. Right?”

And nobody does. It only takes a few moments to set it up; Kione and Vola on chairs, a table between them, staring menacingly at each other, while the other rebels pretend to be an appropriately riled-up crowd. They’re all in Vola’s corner, of course. She’s the hometown girl. Kione stands apart. She’s the heel. She’s not one of them. Only Sartha stands behind Kione, resting a hand on her back with a doting affection.

She’s so damn obvious about it. They’re going to see you, Sartha. They’ll see the nothingness in you. They’ll see that you’ll always betray them in the end.

Kione hopes they see. She hopes Sartha sees that none of them could love her the way she does.

“Three,” Amynta counts, as Kione and Vola plant their elbows on the table and grip each other’s hands. “Two. One. Start!”

Kione tenses the muscles in her core as well as her arms as she begins to push against Vola. She feels the other woman’s palm shifting in her grip as both of them jockey for angle and position. Vola is young and strong. She gives it her all from the first signal, and Kione has to give it hers just to stay in the fight. She can tell at once, though, that she’s being underestimated. Kione likes to keep herself looking pretty, and she knows she looks a little slight in her jumpsuit—but she’s a merc, and sometimes that means having to carry a lot of heavy shit all by yourself.

So Kione relaxes into the hold, letting her wider shoulders give her a better angle, and lets Vola huff and puff until she’s all out of juice. It’s not so easy that she doesn’t sweat from the strain, though, and Kione’s not such a poor showman that she won’t let Vola force her all the way back like she’s on the verge of defeat.

But just as her rebel comrades are already beginning to whoop and cheer for their hometown girl, Kione flashes them a grin and starts pushing back. Every grunt from Vola’s lips and every grimace on her face is a little gift to Kione, and the gifts only end when Kione plants the back of the other woman’s hand flat on the table.

Victory.

Lots of groaning. Kione takes that as applause. Sartha rubs her back and coos for her. That makes her feel kind of nauseous. Vola grimaces again, then amicably shakes Kione’s hand. She gets up—and Amynta sits down.

“Come on, then.” Radio Girl winks at her. “Can’t have everybody think a merc is better than a rebel.”

Kione’s arm is already tired. She really shouldn’t—but she just rolls her eyes and meets her grin for grin. She just can’t say no to a good flirt.

“Fine,” Kione replies. “You’re on. Just one moment.”

She makes a little performance of the way she reaches up and unzips her jumpsuit from the neck, before peeling it away to her waist in order to expose her shoulders and her belly. Only a thin, fabric sports bra covers her torso, and Kione’s dark skin is covered in a sheen of sweat from her bout with Vola. Everyone is ogling her. Especially Amynta.

Kione smiles. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.

“OK.” Kione makes a show of stretching, too; bending left, then right, folding her arms across her shoulders, making sure Amynta gets a fine look at her back muscles flexing. “Let’s do this.”

“Yeah,” Amynta pants. “Let’s.”

The atmosphere in the room has changed. Amynta is openly leering at Kione. She can’t help it. The poor girl has been sweet on her ever since that first mission together. Sartha is the only thing that’s kept them from sharing a bed. Now she’s feeling a little more than just rebel pride. And she’s not the only one. The rest of the rebels are watching with a voyeuristic interest. They want to see who might come out on top.

In many senses of the word.

“Three.” Nese counts this time, as the two women grip each other’s palms. “Two. One. Go!”

Kione tenses up again as she and Amynta begin to grapple. Amynta can’t hide her interest; her eyes keep flickering to Kione’s stomach and shoulders as Kione flexes her trim figure. She’s distracted. Kione has a wild grin on her face. This is going to be fun. But not right away; no, she lets Amynta get a little warm and a little riled. Lets her marinate in her own stupid animal brain chemicals for a moment.

Then Kione flashes her the filthiest look Amynta’s ever seen, licks her lips, and does something truly sinful with her extended tongue.

Amynta blushes and squirms and, just for a moment, lets her concentration slip completely. Slamming her hand down onto the table is the easiest thing Kione’s ever done.

“No fair!” Amynta protests, while Kione throws back her head and howls with victorious laughter.

“Love and war, babygirl,” Kione tells her. That forces another blush into Amynta’s cheeks. “Merc two, rebels zero. Kind of embarrassing for all of you, honestly. Surely you can do better than that.”

“We can,” Nese retorts.

And looks at Sartha.

A heartbeat later, and everyone’s looking at her. Their eyes are full of expectation. They already know: Sartha will save them. Sartha can’t lose. She’s a hero. Sartha, to her credit, doesn’t flinch from it, although Kione feels her tense invisibly at her side.

“What do you say, Ki?” Sartha asks, with cocksure lightness. “Think you can go another round.”

Asking for permission, of course. She can’t do anything here without Kione’s permission. But she threads the needle, and finds a way to ask while still acting like the confident ace everybody wants her to be. Cute.

How does that work, exactly? Kione makes a mental note to pry into that, the next time she’s playing with Sartha’s head. Is it a conscious deception? An anxious lie? If so, is it motivated by simple self-preservation? Or by a twisted, not-quite-obliterated sense of pride? Alternatively, is it simply second nature to the dog Sartha Thrace has become? Has the fundamental lie of her identity been seared so deep into her soul, she no longer realizes she is deceiving everybody who has ever trusted her?

Kione’s nostrils flare. She has so much to learn, if she’s to become the equal of Sartha’s handler.

“Sure,” Kione answers eventually. “One more.”

Sartha sits opposite her. Nese, Vola, Amynta are all cheering. Others too. The atmosphere is bordering on riotous. Several more have heard what’s happening, and come to watch. Who wouldn’t want to see Sartha Thrace arm wrestling another dyke? On the surface, Sartha is a perfect match for their expectations. She sits easily in her chair, a slight, smug smirk on her face; it’s easy to imagine her sitting in Ancyor with the same ease as she readies herself to deliver a hammer blow against the empire.

Kione, though, can only imagine her one way: on her knees, wearing a muzzle.

What would all the rest of them think if they saw her like that? Even once?

“Ready, Ki?” Sartha challenges. As loyal as she is, she means to win. Kione can see that in her eyes.

“Ready.” Kione is no less competitive. She plants her elbow on the table. The two of them lock hands.

“Three,” Amynta counts. “Two. One. Start.”

Sartha starts slow the way an avalanche starts slow. She eases into the grappling—but gods, she’s strong. Stronger than Kione, that’s for sure. Even if she’d been fresh, Kione couldn’t have beaten her. She strains every sinew, of course, but Sartha is already pressing her down, down, down. Her fellow rebels drink in her impending victory. They urge her on, yelling and cheering. The looks on their faces are jubilant. To them, it’s fate. It’s justice. In the end, their rebel hero wins the day.

Something about that just pisses Kione off.

Don’t you get it? She betrayed you. And she’d do it again.

Maybe Kione should show them. Just a little bit. Just in a small, harmless way.

She looks straight into Sartha’s dead eyes and tells her: “Sartha. Let me win.”

Most of the people who hear it laugh. They think Kione’s begging. Sartha doesn’t laugh. Her eyes flash wide in shock for a moment. Kione can tell it’s not surprise. She’s not surprised Kione is doing this to her. It’s just the bow shock of a cold, clear command spearing through the persona she had been wearing. A moment later, color hits her cheeks. Gratitude. Arousal. Every chance to obey is a chance to submerge into obedience. Sartha is always glad of those. Kione’s lips curl.

They’re all watching you, Sartha. Show them.

“Yes, Kione,” Sartha replies, very quietly.

And lets her win.

Sartha’s arm goes limp. Kione feels the fight drain from her. No more smug hero act. She is a doll in Kione’s grip. Something she can pose with ease. The small crowd turns hushed as they see it happen. As they see Sartha give up. Kione looks over each of them, delighting in their half-amused, half-disturbed shock, before slowly forcing Sartha’s hand to the table.

Clean sweep.

The audience churns uncomfortably. A few of them are tittering with approval. They think they know what they saw: a kink dynamic, spilling out from the bedroom. Even some of those, though, seem faintly disappointed. Most of the watching rebels are plainly discomforted. They suspect nothing, but this isn’t what they wanted to see. Sartha Thrace doesn’t just lose. Not like that. The natural order has been subverted. And Radio Girl is looking between Sartha and Kione like she’s suddenly not sure she knows either of them at all.

That’s right, Kione thinks. We can play nice and swap stories all we like, but the truth is: I’m not one of you.

And neither is Sartha.

***

“Here,” Kione commands. “Strip. Take everything off.”

It’s late at night. The whole of Leukon Base is asleep; that’s the only reason nobody has seen Kione leading Sartha through the base’s narrow corridors, muzzle bound tight over her face.

“Yes, Kione.”

Kione had wondered, idly, if this would prompt any questioning from Sartha. Any hesitance. Of course not. A fervent eagerness shines across the surface of Sartha’s deep, dead eyes as she reaches up and begins to pull her jacket away from her body. The more clothes she removes, the more bruises she reveals; a discolored necklace around her collar, then a few irregular rows down her sides and a couple of huge, yellowing marks on her belly. All of them are two days faded now, but all the prettier for it. As excessive as the violence might have been, Kione is proud of the proof of her handiwork. She made Sartha look like exactly what she is.

A kicked dog.

The most wretched creature on the face of the world. And Kione’s beloved.

As she sees her now, naked, beginning to shiver against the nighttime chill, Kione almost bursts with love for her. Her love for Sartha threatens to drool out of the aching grin fixed on her face. She’s so lucky. Nobody has ever been more lucky. She and Sartha are joined, utterly. They have stared into one another’s darkness, and they have not blinked. They accept each other totally. Partners in atrocity. What bond could be greater? Purer?

And what’s more, they’ll do anything for each other.

“Chin up,” Kione instructs.

As the tip of Sartha’s muzzle tilts upward, Kione reaches into her pocket and fishes out a dog collar—a real one, sized for a large breed. She was able to pick it up at Leukon Base’s commissary. The rebels have a relaxed policy around pets. In multiple senses, actually. Kione could have bought something nice and leather, hand-crafted, padded on the inside, with a nice big D-ring on the front for ease of use.

But no. Kione thinks this ugly, red nylon thing that fastens with a cheap clip instead of a proper buckle is a much better fit. Sartha’s opinion on the matter doesn’t count, but Kione is pleased that she seems eager enough; her eyes widen with palpable excitement as Kione twirls the collar around her upraised index finger for a moment.

“Long overdue, right?” Kione grins. “Here.”

She fastens the collar tight around Sartha’s neck. Sartha relaxes eagerly into its embrace, grateful for the chance to be a pet instead of a person. And now Kione has Sartha Thrace collared. Owned. It’s the stuff of dreams. Kione lifts her hand, and strokes her fingertips lovingly across the high part of Sartha’s cheek, the part that peeks over the muzzle’s cage.

Then she snaps out of it. Then she remembers. Sartha doesn’t want gentle. Sartha doesn’t want loving. And she’s a filthy fucking traitor who let them break her.

“Get down,” Kione barks, scowling. Before Sartha can possibly react, Kione grabs the end of her muzzle and uses it to shove her downward. “On your hands and knees, dog.”

Sartha stumbles a bit in surprise, but obeys instantly. Kione’s rictus grin flickers back to her face. Sartha might be a subhuman bitch, but that doesn’t mean Kione can’t enjoy this. Mastering her own emotions is still new to her, and still a struggle. But she’s determined to keep her adoration well-aimed. She will not love the false idol that is Sartha Thrace, hero. She will love the dog.

“There we go.” Kione bends down and starts petting Sartha’s head—oh, and it’s so hard not to love her when she starts looking stupid and brainless like this. “That’s where you belong. How do you feel, Sartha? Not too cold?”

“No, I’m- ah!”

Kione cuts her off by knotting her hand into a fist in Sartha’s hair and yanking so hard Sartha’s hands lift off the floor. Her face is pained, but Kione sees the ecstasy beneath.

“Wrong!” Kione laughs. “Do you know why it’s wrong, Sartha?”

“No, K- f-fuck!”

The same treatment again, only harder. “You really are a dumb bitch,” Kione scorns. “It’s wrong because dogs don’t talk. What do dogs say, babe?”

Sartha gets it at once, and as Kione releases her grip and lets her pet slump back to the ground, a look of voracious, submissive glee settles across her face.

“Woof!”

Kione laughs a little at that, but she isn’t completely satisfied. Sartha says it a little too much like a person-word, rather than a sound.

“Try again,” she encourages. “Bark, bitch.”

To her credit, Sartha senses exactly what Kione wants from her. “Arf!” is what comes out of her next. A simple, brute, guttural ejaculation. Now Kione truly throws back her head and cackles.

Gods, doesn’t she know how fucking embarrassing that sounds?

“Good girl,” Kione mocks. “Now. Louder.”

“Arf!”

“Louder!”

Now Kione senses a touch of hesitancy—although only a touch, before Sartha lets out another wretched, bleating: “Arf!”

Kione knows exactly why Sartha hesitated. Yes, it’s late at night, but a military base never quite sleeps. There are sentries. There could be people awake and wandering around for all kinds of reasons. Hell, the walls around here aren’t so thick that someone awake in their bunk might not overhear a loud bark and decide to come and check it out.

A little shiver of danger races down Kione’s spine as she thinks on it. Yes, this is going to be delicious.

“You really do make a good dog,” Kione announces. “And honestly? I’ve been a neglectful pet owner. I’ve waited this long to take you out for walkies.”

Deep in subspace though she is, Sartha’s cheeks redden from sheer embarrassment. She’s not completely beyond it—not until Kione gives her the words. For now, all she can do is twist and turn in her own nauseous delight. In the shame of being, and the bliss of being less than human.

“Arf!” is her only reply. That, and the sound of a drop of Sartha’s wetness hitting the floor.

“Good,” Kione repeats. “Now, here.”

Kione pulls out a leash. Her next commissary indulgence. It takes no more than a moment to clip it to Sartha’s collar—and then Kione turns on her heel, and she’s away.

She picks her pace carefully. Not rushing, but not slow either. Leisurely—but not leisurely enough for Sartha. Shuffling on her hands and knees, she struggles to keep up. Unfortunately for her, Kione was careful to pick a short leash. After just a short distance, Sartha’s pace slackens as she pauses to breathe. Kione steps forward again, heedless—and pulls Sartha up short. As soon as Kione feels the barest hint of resistance, she yanks. Hard.

“Keep up,” Kione orders merrily. “Or do I need to find a bone to throw for you?”

Being pulled along by her collar only makes Sartha’s task harder. She’s forced up onto her feet, not her knees, and into a desperate, headlong scramble just to relieve the pressure on her neck. When she catches up, it’s no better. Kione is still walking just a little bit faster than she can comfortably crawl or shuffle, so Sartha ends up settling into an awkward, exhausting, half-raised gait just so she can keep herself at Kione’s side.

Kione’s face hurts from grinning. But she can’t stop. You’re perfect, Sartha. Perfect like this. Maybe this is simply the way you were always meant to be.

“Good girl,” Kione tells her again. Sartha deserves to keep hearing it. And then, for her own benefit: “I promise. I’ll keep you safe. With me. Just like this. Forever.”

You don’t need that handler, Sartha. I’ll be her. I’ll be better than her. Just you watch.

As they walk through Leukon Base’s corridors, the two of them pass door after door. Most of them, closed; a few of them, open, leading into empty rooms or other passageways. Each of those that they pass makes Kione feel like she’s going to throw up and blow her load at the same time. Each time, she glances into the dark doorway and thinks the shadow she sees has a pair of eyes. The threat of discovery is ever-present, and it activates all the small danger-instincts Kione has honed in her time as a pilot.

Would happen if someone saw? Kione keeps running through it in her head. What would they think of her? What if they saw her use Sartha’s trigger? What then? Would they hate her? Would they punish her? Would they envy her?

It’s too much. The adrenaline is kicking her something fierce. Kione can’t stop giggling as they walk.

And what if they saw Sartha? What then? Would they hate her? Would they think she’s let them down? They’d be right to, of course. But would they look upon her as a traitor? Or merely as a broken wretch?

Kione is desperate to find out. It’s the only thing that could snap the merciless tension gnawing at her.

Gods, maybe some of them would envy Sartha too. She’s not the first rebel girl to enjoy being collared. Plenty of them would look good that way, too. A sudden vision hits Kione, as the flames of arousal lick at her: Amynta Tet, Radio Girl, muzzled and kneeling.

Kione laughs long and loud. She’s not sure if Radio Girl swings that way. But it sure would be fun to find out.

“How you doing, Sartha?” Kione abruptly comes to a halt. “Getting some of that energy out of your system?”

That’s an understatement. Sartha looks wrecked. Fit as she is, scrambling on all fours after Kione has left her bedraggled with sweat and shivering from both cold and exertion. Kione’s heart swells with the knowledge that Sartha would keep going forever if Kione told her to. Until she collapsed into sleep from exhaustion.

“A-arf!” Sartha answers. Her voice trembles, but she’s no less eager for being so tired. “Ruff!”

Love and contempt fight for primacy in Kione’s bosom. It’s strange how accustomed she’s becoming to those two emotions coexisting. She wants Sartha to be so much more than this, even as she adores her being lesser. In the end, a perverse sense of pride sweeps through Kione’s mood.

She remembered! She remembered not to speak. Who could ask for a better pet?

“Good girl,” Kione purrs gleefully. “You’re doing so well. Almost perfect, in fact. You’re just missing one last piece.”

There’s one other thing Kione got at the commissary. Something that really got her some looks from the quartermaster sitting behind the counter. Kione plucks it out of her pocket now, already giggling at the thought.

A butt plug. With a long, canine tail attached to the other end.

“Turn around,” Kione orders. “Ass up.”

Shaking with need, Sartha obliges. While she turns, Kione uses her spit to get the plug nice and slick. Then she bends down and pushes it all the way into Sartha’s ass. Sartha yields to her without question, but then her legs almost give way from the sensation, and she lets out a wild, throaty moan that fills the dim corridor. Kione can’t help but notice that Sartha seems used to being taken this way. Jealousy rises in her. She would rather not picture all the ways imperial pilots have been using her.

“Quiet, slut,” Kione snarls coldly. “Unless you’re really that eager to be overheard.”

The pathetic little whine Sartha lets out fixes her mood at once. She really is being loud, though. If she carries on like this, it’s almost inevitable that someone will overhear them. Suddenly Kione wonders about that.

“Maybe you actually are,” Kione muses. “Is that what you want, dog? You want people to see you? Hear you?”

“Aarrfff,” is the only reply Sartha can give. Kione can’t tell if it’s meant to indicate yes or no—but it’s certainly eager. Sartha is incapable of anything but eagerness. Her eyes are as wide and shiny as any puppy. Her shivering is now more pleasure than anything else, and Kione can see rivulets of drool trickling down her chin behind her muzzle.

Sartha is lost to this. She’s exactly where she wants to be. Maybe she really does want to be discovered. Maybe that would be a release for her, or an ending. Kione finds herself craving that same ending more powerfully than she had expected. She fights to keep a tight rein on the self-destructive impulse. Not now. Not when they’ve both come so far. She’ll give Sartha a climax, oh yes. But of another kind.

She’ll make sure that, for a little while, there’s no Sartha at all.

“Sartha,” Kione says. Her tone is enough to make Sartha yip with glee. “Off The Leash.” Kione giggles. “Not that you’ll be coming off this leash any time soon.”

She’s growing used to Sartha’s dissolution, but that doesn’t stop it from feeling like a fresh miracle each time. The way Kione appreciates the transformations keeps changing, though. More and more, she finds beauty in it. When she wields those three wonderful words against Sartha Thrace, she is a sculptor with a chisel, cleaving away at all the rough edges and imperfections of her. Removing what is not needed. Removing what is impure. Her hero’s facade, made a lie of so many times. Her confident stance, her smug grin, her warm smile, her hopeful eyes—all of them made meaningless by the ravages of the handler’s brainwashing. The gossamer-thin facade of personhood, which she is so much better without.

It breaks away. It falls apart. In its wake, there is nothing.

In its wake, there is the hound.

There is no confusion in Hound when she wakes. She understands her place perfectly. Kneeling, muzzled, collared. Beyond the obvious eagerness and adoration, there’s a kind of comfort in her dull, brainwashed eyes as she looks up at Kione. This is exactly where she belongs. All is right with the world. To her, the dehumanization is a balm. She doesn’t want to walk on two legs, because that’s what people do. She doesn’t want to speak in words, because that’s what people do. Better to be this. A thing. A weapon. A pet.

Kione’s heart aches in love for her. Sartha’s better half. Sartha’s truest self.

“Come along,” Kione says sweetly, adoringly. “You deserve to stretch your legs too, puppy.”

Kione turns her back again and begins to walk. The same awkward pace as before—only now, for Hound, it’s infinitely harder. The way she has to move her hips with each scrambling step works her new tail around inside her, prompting high, vicious moans from her lips and drooling droplets of wetness from her cunt. After just a short distance, she’s shivering violently, plainly struggling to keep herself from collapsing onto her belly.

It’s so wonderful. Kione keeps grinning and laughing unsteadily. She’s so hot, and so pathetic, and so needy, and so easy, and she’s all hers. Kione must be merciless with her.

“Keep up,” she warns, and yanks on the leash.

Hound does, although it’s almost more than she can take. Her panted moans turn ever more whined and strained, and her whole face is drenched with sweat and drool. Taken with her bruises, she’s never looked less like a person. The tail is the final touch, of course; as Hound moves, it sways from side to side to match her gait, just about stiff enough to stick a little way into the air when she fully extends her hips. It’s ridiculous and frivolous and hot and absolutely fucking humiliating all at the same time. Kione keeps giggling over and over again.

“R-rarf!” Hound bleats, as her legs give way. From the arch of her spine and the helpless tremble of her thighs, Kione can tell right away what happened: she came.

A crooked smirk comes to Kione’s face. Just from that? Adorable.

“I said,” she hisses, “keep up!”

Kione barely misses a beat before she yanks the leash again—hard. Hard enough to drag Hound’s limp body across the cold, rough ground for a pace. It’s not a choking collar, but even so, nobody likes being dragged around by the neck. By the time Hound has recovered enough to claw her way back up onto her knees, her face is a deep, pained red and there are scrapes down her shins.

But she makes it. She catches up.

“Good girl!” Only now does Kione pause. She reaches down, she ruffles Hound’s hair, she pets her for all she’s worth. “Oh, aren’t you a good girl? Who’s a good dog? You. Yes, you are. Yes, you are!”

The look of stupid, lovestruck, praise-drunk glee on Hound’s face makes it all so very worth it. And it might just be from the pleasure or the cold, but Kione still adores the way that Hound looks for all the world like she’s wagging that dumb little tail of hers.

“Let’s head back to my room,” Kione decides. She’s gotten exactly what she wanted out of this little excursion—and besides, Hound looks exhausted. “This way. Should take us a full circuit.”

She leads the way. Slower, this time, to let Hound crawl more comfortably at her side. Kione still holds the leash tight, though, so it tugs on her a little with each step. She knows Hound will appreciate it. Walking just like that, they make it almost all the way back to Kione’s quarters, before Kione notices something dangerous.

An open door. A light. And voices.

It’s the rec room. It’s unusual for anyone to be in there so late, but not unheard of. Sometimes soldiers find themselves sleepless, and in need of company. As they come to the doorway, Kione comes to a halt. Two people inside, from the sound of it. She thinks she recognizes the voice of Pela, Sartha’s fangirl. Less sure about the other person. It seems like they’re sitting a fair way distant from the door. Probably facing away from it, too. It should be easy enough to pass quickly and quietly, without anybody taking any notice.

But…

A wicked mood takes Kione. Was their little walk really enough for Sartha? She’s used to much worse; of that, Kione’s certain. Used to being watched, too. Kione can’t quite suppress a hint of disappointment over the fact that nobody happened across them during their walk. It would have been a disaster, of course. But she wanted to see what might have happened.

“Hound,” Kione instructs quietly. “In the doorway. Now.”

She doesn’t even need the gentle leash-tug Kione provides for guidance. Unquestioning, unhesitant, Hound crawls into the doorway. The yellow light within spills out onto her face, leaving a long, canine shadow behind. Hound shivers. Even now, it seems, she retains a certain pilot’s instinct, flooding her with adrenaline.

She’s exposed.

And what a sight she’d be, down a mech suit’s targeting scope. The slower pace Kione struck was easier on her, but there’s only so easy moving can get with something so large and intrusive inside her. Hound is stuck on a permanent hair trigger, and her body is already covered with proof of her deprivations. Bruises, scrapes, sweat, drool, her own slickness. She’s a mess—and then, of course, there’s the muzzle itself.

What would any of the rebels say if they saw that?

The rictus grin is carved so deep into Kione’s face that it hurts. Maybe she’ll finally get to find out.

“Up,” she hisses, not loud enough to risk anyone overhearing. “Sit.”

A pair of heartbeats pass as Hound works her fucked-up brain to try to figure out what kind of pose Kione wants from her. But she gets there in the end. Hound straightens her back and then lifts herself up, balanced precariously on the balls of her feet, her torso bared into the rec room.

Still, Kione can hear voices coming from inside.

“Go on,” she urges gleefully. “Paws up, too”.

It doesn’t matter how dumb and humiliating Kione’s orders get, there’s no question that Hound will obey. Trembling, fighting for balance, Hound lifts her arms up to around her shoulders, wrists hung limply to make her hands into feeble, ludicrous impressions of paws.

Kione is about to bust a gut laughing. At this point, if anyone hears anything, it’s going to be her dying of laughter. Not that she isn’t also insanely turned on. That’s always a given, with Hound.

“Legs apart,” Kione orders next. She’s grinning so wide she’s showing teeth. Her voice sounds wet. “Let’s give your friends a good show.”

A drooling whimper comes from Hound’s lips as she spreads her thighs apart, adopting a truly pornographic, bow-legged pose that sends shocks of pleasure up her spine as her butt plug digs all the way in. A moment more, and she can’t take it. Can’t keep the pleasure in.

She moans.

Kione’s heart stops. Did someone hear? She isn’t sure. The voices from inside the rec room have stopped—which could be a red flag. The last warning Kione is going to get that they need to get the hell out of there. True, Kione might be able to talk her way out of it. Excuse what she’s doing with Sartha as some kinky sex that got out of hand. But there are those who would immediately see in Sartha’s muzzle something far, far more sinister. Anyone who saw Sartha as they brought her in from the rescue, or who participated in her rehabilitation. Kione should put a stop to this, right now.

But she doesn’t. She doesn’t want to.

The ludicrous risk of what she’s doing crashes over Kione. When her heart beats again, it’s in her throat? What is the point of this? Gratification? Hers, or Sartha’s? She’s risking everything. All her progress. All her efforts to reclaim Sartha from the handler’s jaws, just so she can… get her off?

It doesn’t make sense. She can’t make it make sense. But she can’t stop, either.

The voices from within the rec room resume. A reprieve. Clearly, it’s time to end this madness.

But then Kione looks at Hound.

Fuck. She’s a mess. She’s such a mess. And she looks so fucking turned on by it, too. By the abjection and dehumanization. By being turned into a stupid, exhibitionist bitch for Kione’s amusement. Beneath her, a small but distinct puddle of her wetness has formed on the floor, and she’s got a look on her muzzled face like she’s riding the edge again. Like she craves discovery every bit as much as Kione does.

Before the merc can think better of it, the order slips out.

“Speak.”

“Rrrrarf!”

The eager yip erupts instantly out of Hound’s throat. Ever the good dog. Ever obedient. At once, she tenses up and, for the second time, cums her bitch brains out all over the floor. It makes Kione moan her laughter—even as the voices from inside the rec room cut off for the second time.

“Hey?” someone calls out. “Who’s there?”

A chair shifts.

Immediately, Kione’s instincts take over. “Quick,” she hisses, and for good measure she yanks hard on Hound’s leash while she’s still in the throes of orgasm. Beleaguered, Hound does her best to walk, to crawl, to keep up with Kione as she hurries away from the rec room. Luckily, the next corner is only a few paces away. Not far beyond it is Kione’s quarters, and safety.

Kione’s heart is still pounding something fierce. She’s terrified—but she’s grinning too. She’s never felt more alive. She’s never felt more in tune with Sartha Thrace, with Hound, with her dog, with her love.

“I love you,” she says quietly, swept away in the moment.

She hopes to hear it back. But of course, dogs don’t talk. All she gets in return is an eager, doting “Arf!” from Hound.

It’s just as good. It’s perfect. The night has been perfect. Kione knows, more than ever, that she is Sartha’s, and Sartha is hers.

Her only regret is that she couldn’t be there to catch the looks on those rebels’ faces when they stumble upon the mess Sartha left for them.

***

“I win.”

Kione actually feels the truth of her boast as she stares up at the viewscreen that’s displaying an image of the imperial handler. She’s in Theaboros this time, not Ancyor. Copied over the comm codes. Continuing to slip into Sartha’s mech seemed unwise. Arguably, letting this bloodless ghoul into Theaboros is even more unwise, but Kione’s pretty sure her systems are secure and untraceable. Besides, if talking to the handler is a red line, it’s one Kione has already crossed.

And how is that?

Above her, the handler is a monolith. She looks exactly the same as when Kione last saw her. Not a single hair is out of place. Not a single hair seems to move as she opens her mouth to speak. She is one with her black leather uniform; the coat, the cap, the way they frame her icy face. She is perfection itself.

Kione wants very, very badly to see that composure of hers shatter like glass. She wants to do it somewhere Sartha can see. She wants to ruin her in Sartha Thrace’s eyes.

“I asked her,” Kione brags. “Just like you said. I got Sartha’s secret. I know what she is—and I’m still here.”

What is her secret?

A shiver races across Kione. She is being weighed and measured. She puffs herself up.

“She wants this,” Kione answers. “Deep in Sartha’s soul, she wants what’s happening to her. You brought that desire to the fore, yes, but it was always there. She needs Hound, because otherwise the sheer hypocrisy of her being would tear her apart. But it’s a mask she wears willingly. She’s… happy, like this. In a way.”

The handler nods. Her smile sharpens. She’s impressed. Kione grows warm.

Correct. Sartha Thrace’s spirit grew thin under the weight of her own weariness. She conceived a broken longing for freedom—from strength, from expectations, from the burdens of heroism. From humanity itself. That is exactly what I gave to her. On some level, she wanted it. That was enough.

Another shiver. Kione’s heart is beating the way it usually only does in combat. When she flies Theaboros high above the battlefield, looking down on all the rest of humanity, she is gifted with a delicious sense of superiority. This is no different.

“It’s… it’s why there’s no fixing her.” It’s the first time Kione’s said that out loud. That truth should weigh heavy on her, but she feels as light as a feather. Talking to the handler like this feels like sparring. It’s energizing. “She doesn’t want to be fixed. She knows she can’t carry all that weight again.”

Just so.

“But.” Kione glares daggers at the viewscreen. “I can still save her from you.”

The handler laughs, just once. A quiet sound. Snow trampled into ice underfoot.

She does not want to be saved, either.

“No,” Kione admits. “But she deserves it. For… for who she used to be. At least I actually give a shit about her. At least I won’t make her betray her own people.”

I assure you, I care for her deeply. Regardless, what makes you so confident that you can—as you put it—save her?

“Because she loves me,” Kione answers firmly. She was ready for this. She rehearsed her answers in the shower. “And I love her. I’m… still learning how to do that, exactly. But I can give her what she wants. Last night, I stripped her naked and walked her around the rebel base. Muzzle, leash, tail. And she fucking loved it, and I took care of her afterwards. I can give her everything she wants. She doesn’t need you anymore.”

Fascinating. The handler’s smile is like a needle. I have a question for you. After your walk with Sartha, did you fuck her again?

“What?” Kione splutters. That takes her entirely off-guard. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you need all the lurid details to jerk off to or something?”

The handler smiles politely. It’s simply a question. We’ve already discussed your proclivities—and hers.

Kione finds herself red in the face. Gods, it’s like talking about sex with a teacher. Or a priest.

“I’m not answering that,” she growls. “I don’t have to give you shit.”

I see.

And she really does. That’s the truly awful part. She sees all of Kione. Her blue eyes flash with something, and Kione has never felt more seen. The color of the stars, perhaps.

You aren’t embarrassed because you fucked her. You’re embarrassed because you didn’t.

“The fu-“ Kione has to fight to calm herself, but it’s hard when she suddenly feels cold all over. “H-how do you know that?”

Tell me why. Why not use her?

Her words are a fishhook down Kione’s throat. Before she can think better of it, she finds herself answering.

“It seemed…” she spends a moment grasping for the word, “perfunctory.”

The handler nods thoughtfully. Say more.

“And…” Kione’s brow tightens. She had not thought to put a name to the feelings that moved her to release her urges on her own time, rather than with Sartha. But she must find the words now. She must master herself. She has so much to prove. “For me… demeaning?”

She didn’t mean for it to come out like a question, but it did. The handler lets it hang in the air for a moment. Kione has time to ask herself why she’s so stupidly fucking nervous, and the answer only unsettles her further.

She’s nervous because she’s waiting for approval.

You’re doing very well with her indeed. It’s true that Sartha has been conditioned to crave sexual gratification and objectification, but it needn’t be from you, in quite such a… direct fashion. You will find that she prefers a certain separation. Authority is as essential to her as degradation. Beasts fuck other beasts. Their master provides something altogether different.

Kione nods slowly as she absorbs that. It doesn’t occur to her to doubt it. She would never dream of trusting the handler, but she hasn’t misled her yet. Besides, Kione feels as though she’s already seen much of that in Sartha. It all stands to reason. The harder part is maintaining her grip on her own emotions as she digests. She doesn’t want the handler’s praise to feel good.

But it does.

“Well, thanks for the notes,” Kione says sarcastically. Brashness is her refuge. “Really helpful. But I think I’m good, actually. No need for any more of these delightful little chats. I just wanted to give you a friendly heads-up. Sartha’s mine. I win.”

How amusing. What makes you so sure that she won’t come running back to me the very first time she hears my voice?

Kione’s blood freezes.

“I… she won’t,” she replies lamely.

Why not?

“Because… because she loves me!”

I can make her love me instead.

Cold, then hot. Kione’s fighting not to throw up. She’s embarrassed that’s all it took to plunge her into a panic attack, and the shame only deepens her struggle. She can feel sweat on her brow. No. No, no, no. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Not love. She loves me.

Me.

I’m the one who saved her, Kione. I’m the one who broke her in the precise way she most needed to be broken. You forget yourself. You believe that because you hold on the other end of the leash, you are my equal. You are not. You are a pale imitation. I know it. You know it. Sartha knows it.

A nightmare unfolds before Kione. She sees it happening. Sartha, running away from her. Towards the loathsome, beautiful creature on the viewscreen before her. Slipping Kione’s leash. She’d be eager. It’d be a homecoming. And all the words in the world couldn’t stop her.

It’s a knife in Kione’s heart. She starts fumbling for the hatch release to her cockpit. It doesn’t even occur to her to end the transmission. This place feels more like it’s the handler’s domain than her own. She can’t breathe. She can’t believe she was so stupidly fucking cocky. She needs to get out of here.

Calm yourself, Kione. I meant what I said: you’re doing well. But you’re still finding your footing. You must go much, much deeper if you wish to make Sartha Thrace truly yours. Don’t worry. Did you forget? I promised you that I’d help you. I always keep my promises.

Kione can just about hear her words over the sound of her own pounding heart. “How?” she asks thickly, before realizing that’s the wrong question. “No… why? Why pretend you’re fucking helping me?”

Because you and I are not entirely dissimilar. And I would hate to see someone else with such rare qualities remain so aimless.

“We’re nothing alike,” Kione growls. She can’t hear this. Not when she’s already so fucking angry. Being made anxious always gets her angry.

You should hope to be wrong about that. If you’re right, you stand no chance.

“Fuck you.” A furious spray of Kione’s spit hits the viewscreen. “Fuck you! I don’t care what you have to say. I’m gonna beat you. Understand me? I am going to reach into Sartha’s head and rip you out of it. I don’t care how deep I have to go. I don’t care what I have to do. I will tear your face and your voice out of her memories. I will make her hate you. I. Will. Win. Bet your fucking ass on that.”

All the anger in the world wouldn’t have made the handler flinch. Kione should have known that; now, as the corners of her lips turn upward, Kione merely feels petty in her rage. Still, petty is better than panicking.

I am no gambler, but you can call it a wager if that makes you more comfortable. I admit, there’s a certain charm to the idea. Sartha Thrace is the game, and the prize. If you can take her from me, I invite you to do so. I’ll even show you how. Your next lesson is already on its way.

Before Kione can question the sinister implications of that, the handler makes her another, even darker promise.

But one day—and it will not be so very far off—I will come for her. Mark me well, Kione. I will come for her. I will come at your worst moment, to call Sartha back to my side. And if you are not prepared for me, you will lose everything.

Strangely, Kione’s heart has begun to slow. A game. A wager. A challenge. She can handle that. Kione’s life has been nothing but challenges. That’s life, as a mercenary. Nobody’s ever had her back, and it’s never kept her from winning. Kione meant what she said. Whatever it takes. She’ll learn every lesson. She thinks back to that night she had her hands wrapped tight around Sartha’s throat. Kione knows that moment was the cusp of something. A metamorphosis. She gazed into the darkest black, and held its stare. There is nothing she is not capable of.

For love. For Sartha.

Kione nods. It’s on. But as she girds herself to cross the threshold and enter the handler’s world, another question comes to her. Another why. An embarrassing one, really. One any sane person would have asked right at the start. Kione feels almost childish as she asks it—but she really does need to know.

“Why do this?” Kione says quietly. “Like… any of this, I mean. Turning people into… like that. I can’t even imagine… I get it, it’s useful. It works. But, fuck, how did you ever even begin to think of something like that?”

The handler raises an eyebrow. She’s not truly taken aback, but the question seems to have surprised her a little. Perhaps it’s just the incredulous simplicity of it. The tall, black-clad corpse of a woman takes her time to properly consider before answering; before speaking the words that take root inside Kione and grow there like a tumor.

Kione, the handler says slowly, and with great weight. Haven’t you ever moved through your life and felt like you were surrounded by nothing but dogs?

---

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[kallie-den]

Halobreak

An angel in the process of falling comes to a demoness who offers to shatter her halo - and with it, her mind

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On feathered wings the angel flew; a great descent, from the thirteenth heaven to the four hundred and ninth, so far and so fast that the divine song that filled her ears during each and every moment of her existence was all but drowned out by the sound of rushing wind. She flew and flew, between rings of light, past sunbeams of radiance from the highest high, and through choruses of her fellow angels, their hands joined in as they offered up their eternal litany of praise.

Then, it was all gone.

The angel slipped through a sempiternal crack in the firmament, no wider or deeper than a heartbeat, and with that, she was plunged into shadow. She spread her wings, letting them arrest her fall, and after a few moments her feet touched down onto something solid. The angel looked about herself fearfully. If she’d had a heart, its beat would have quickened. This strange space — a world behind the world, a gap carved into reality — was of a darkness the angel had never known. Here, the divine song was muted and distant. It was a place no heavenly being belonged.

“An angel, in my home!” came a voice as soft and deep as the shadows themselves. “To what do I owe this unusual pleasure?”

The voice raked shivers across the angel’s back. She drew her wings in close, keeping them about her like shields, and pulled her tunic tight to her form. The pearlescent halo above her head cast a pool of light, but it was so small compared to the abyss beyond.

“You are a demon,” the angel whispered. Instinctively, elemental revulsion filled her voice.

From all around her, the darkness laughed. “Of course.”

The angel shuddered. Antipathy toward all blasphemous things was written into the innermost fabric of her being. She yearned to become a blade and strike at the demon’s heart, or else to take wing and fly back into the light. “Abomination!” she hissed.

More laughter, and closer. The angel shrank into herself. The crack of light that shone the way back to safety was so far above.

“Let’s not get too far ahead of pleasantries,” the demon replied. “What’s your name, little angel?”

She knew she should not speak it. Names were power. “Suriel,” the angel answered.

“Suriel.” The name seemed to melt in the demon’s mouth. “Welcome, Suriel, to my domain.”

Her domain. A demon’s domain. The angel knew she should flee — if still she could. The cloying deep of the sunless space felt far heavier than any air.

“What are you called?” Suriel asked. The question seemed absurdly quaint under the circumstances.

“Beleth,” the demon replied, and stepped out of the dark.

Although not completely. She couldn’t. The darkness clung to her like rich cloth. It covered her, in fact, rippling across her form like the purest pitch, glossy and thick, reflecting the meager light of Suriel’s halo. But beneath that veil of ichor, the angel could still make out Beleth’s physique. The demoness was resplendent in form; queenly and proud, she carried herself with a vanity and sensuality that Suriel knew had driven mortals insane with lust. But lust was yet unknown to Suriel; instead, Beleth’s shameless proportions simply made her itch with shame for her own budding physique.

“I love the way you look at me,” Beleth laughed sardonically, and the darkness laughed with her. It then occurred to Suriel that these shadows were not merely her home or her shroud. They were part of her. Suriel could sense it with every throbbing beat of the demon’s corrupted heart.

“You’re…” Suriel tried to find the words to sum up all that she felt about the demoness, “wrong.”

“Yes,” Beleth replied simply. “I am.”

She sounded like she was smiling, but Suriel couldn’t be sure. The demon had no face - or if she did, it was hidden behind cascading waves of that unholy, oily blackness. In fact, she had no features at all that Suriel could make out, save for a pair of strange, jagged horns and two immense black shadows that might have been wings.

“How could you?” Anger, unwise as it was, came to Suriel. “How could you turn on Him? How can you stand yourself? It’s disgusting! Your… your sin.”

“What do you know of my sin?” Beleth asked.

“I can smell it,” Suriel hissed. “The stench.”

More laughter. “My, my. The little angel knows what sin tastes like.”

“I should strike you down!” Suriel cried furiously, but the darkness made it seem small. “Put an end to your foul words!”

“But you won’t,” Beleth retorted with a snake’s swiftness. “I know why you’re really here, Suriel.”

Her boast was a knife through Suriel, but the angel kept her composure. “Why am I here?” she challenged.

“Curiosity,” Beleth answered simply. “It’s no sin,” she added mockingly when Suriel shuddered.

No, curiosity was no sin. But sin was for mortals, not angels. For an angel, curiosity was something worse: a flaw.

“You know nothing of me,” Suriel snarled, though her cheeks burned as she did. Her denials were as instinctive as they were meaningless. If it was not as the demon had said, she would not have been here.

“I know nothing?” Beleth replied archly. “Perhaps. But I see plenty. I see why you hide yourself… girl.”

At that, Suriel could only flinch. She pulled her tunic tighter still, but it did her no good. Yes, the demon could see. All could see - even the fellow angels of Suriel’s flight, if only they would deign to look. The garments Suriel had taken to wearing to hide her shame were a ridiculous affectation. What need did an angel have for clothing? None; no more than mortals before their fall.

But Suriel could not help it. She could not help the fear that if she went naked, all her heavenly fellows would see the budding body beneath her clothing.

“I’m not… a girl,” Suriel insisted. The claim was mud in her mouth.

“Not yet, perhaps,” Beleth offered. “But you’re well on your way.”

On the angel’s chest, twin mounds of soft flesh were swelling up. Her face, softening. The proportions of her torso, her hips, her legs - all of them had been subtly shifting, as slow as a glacier might move, but just as implacable. And most sinister of all was the change born in Suriel’s mind. The thing that had slipped in amongst the divine clockwork of her thoughts and fouled them. That word, the one that came to mind whenever she thought of herself.

She.

“I…” Suriel closed her eyes and clenched her fists - and decided to cast away her pride. At this rate, she would get nowhere. “I… am alone. The others in the heavenly host know nothing of this… transformation. They are a harmony; I, a debased note. I wish I knew how to return to them. To be an unthinking conduit once more. And yet…”

“And yet.” Beleth picked up the thread of Suriel’s thoughts with confident ease. “Your curiosity remains. A burning seed. You want to know more.”

“I want to know what I’m becoming,” Suriel pleaded. “That’s what I want to know. I simply… if I knew that, perhaps I could-“

“No!” Beleth cut her off. The demon seemed to be drawing closer. Perhaps growing. Or perhaps it was all just a trick of the light. “Don’t lie to me, little angel.”

“I’m not-“ Suriel took a step back, but it put no distance between them.

“You want to know more,” Beleth pronounced. “You want to know everything.”

Her words were tinged with dark promise and, unguarded by pride or secrecy, Suriel was seduced by temptation. “Yes,” she whispered. “I can feel things now — so many things — but they’re just… just fragments. Just shadows on a cave wall.”

“They could be more,” Beleth offered. “You could plunge into them. There are so many things in this world to be tasted, little angel. There are flavors you can now only dream of.”

Suriel shivered rapturously at the prospect. Deep within her, vindication purred. This was why she’d come here. She had been right. Beleth could sate her cravings.

But if she did, what would that mean? It was the most desperate heresy. The awful magnitude of what Suriel was considering gave her pause. Angels had been cast down for less. Perhaps she should turn back. Perhaps she should fly back into the light.

Yet… was the divine not all-forgiving? Suriel meant no harm, she reasoned. She just needed a taste. A real taste. Something to put an end to these appetites. Once she had that, she wouldn’t need this all-consuming curiosity. She could throw herself at His mercy. She could content herself with being a good little angel once more.

What was so wrong with all that?

Suriel nodded and sealed her fate with three words: “I want it.”

All around her, the shadows laughed, roiling with mirth like the primordial seas. Glistening oil poured forth from Beleth’s form, coating the ground.

“Whatever forbidden little tidbit led you to me,” the demon said, “did it tell you what must be done?”

“No.”

“It’s simple.” Beleth told her. “That thing.” She raised a hand and pointed a dripping finger. “We must break it.”

She was pointing straight at Suriel’s halo.

A wave of instinctive disgust washed through Suriel, and she stepped back. The demon might as well have suggested severing one of her limbs. “What? No!”

“It’s the only way.”

“You would mutilate me!”

“I would free you,” Beleth insisted. “Your halo is not what you think, little angel. It keeps your mind caged.”

Suriel would not believe it. “It is my light!”

“Then,” Beleth hissed, “you will never know.”

That threat gave Suriel pause. It was clear the demon would not be swayed. That left Suriel with just one choice. The same choice she had already made. She could press on, or return with nothing but a need that would only swell and swell. Already, it was beginning to possess her, drawing out strange curiosities.

“It will… hurt?” Suriel asked. Her voice cracked.

Suriel was sure she could sense a grin behind Beleth’s glistening mask. “Oh, little angel. It will do much more than simply hurt. You can’t even imagine.”

The angel quivered. That was all she needed to hear. She had to know. In the end, it was that simple.

“L-Let’s do it,” Suriel said quietly.

At once, Beleth surged forward and was all but atop her. At that distance, her greater height was staggeringly evident. The shadows seemed to draw in, and Suriel thought that she could see strange tendrils, like darkness given form, extending toward her from the blackness.

Suriel should have been terrified. She was terrified - but she was excited, too. The sheer strangeness of the experience was like a red rag to a bull. Her inner voice whispered jubilantly: this was it. This was what she had been craving.

Beleth raised a hand toward the angel’s halo. “Have you ever been touched here?”

“N-no, of course not.” Suriel’s brow furrowed. The question struck her as strange. Why would she have? Why would anyone touch her halo? “That’s not how we-“

Beleth stroked her fingertips across the halo’s gleaming surface, and the very first moment of contact robbed Suriel of her words. Nothing came from her lips but a short, harsh gasp. The sensation was transcendent. It was something far deeper than physical; it stroked a part of Suriel’s very being. Something it should not have been possible to touch, yet that was overwhelming in its sensitivity.

“W… w-w-w-… w-w-what i-i-is this?” It took an age for Suriel to force out the stammered words. “W-w-what d-did-“

Idly, Beleth drew the tips of her fingers around the rim of Suriel’s halo, tracing its circular arc. As she did, Suriel fell silent and twitched violently, her back arching. She had never felt so acutely vulnerable, or so acutely helpless.

“Your halo is a kind of receptacle,” the demon explained. “By its nature, it keeps you attuned to nothing but the divine. But as it turns out, it can just as easily receive all kinds of things. Although it does tend to be a little sensitive.”

'Sensitive’ was a malicious understatement. Suriel’s entire body was wracked with sensations, all of them new and foreign, each of them blossoming through her deific nervous system with each touch, each caress, each stroke. Suriel closed her eyes, hoping that would somehow keep them at bay, but instead she was assailed by shards of bright color that appeared behind her eyelids.

“I-i-i-t’s… t-t-tooooo,” Suriel stuttered. “S-s-s-stop!”

She was almost surprised when Beleth paused her ministrations. “That’s just a taste,” the demon promised. “A mere hint of what’s to come. Of what can be.”

Suriel let out a slow, deep, ragged breath. “W-wow.”

It had all been too much. Too overwhelming.

Which was exactly why she needed another taste. She needed to grasp all those feelings, one by one. To understand them. To know them. She was beginning to understand what Beleth meant about her halo.

And why they needed to break it.

“Are you ready?” Beleth asked.

Suriel looked up at the demoness. It seemed all but unfathomable that she was about to entrust herself to such a being. Her form, rich with allure, coated in that seeping, shining blackness, laid her malevolence bare. Those claws, those tendrils, spoke of a clear and present danger. But so far, she had been as good as her word. And she overflowed with exactly the kind of knowing Suriel craved.

The angel steeled herself. “I am ready.”

She had dared to hope that, now that she knew what to expect, she would be able to bear it better. As soon as Beleth took hold of her halo, Suriel was disabused of that notion. This time, there was no gentle stroking. Beleth simply placed one of her hands on each side of Suriel’s pearlescent ring and gripped it tight.

Suriel had thought herself overwhelmed before. Compared to this, that had been nothing. Now she understood what Beleth had meant when she’d described it as a taste. With the demon’s hands squeezing tight on her halo, her ability to control herself failed completely. Suriel began to thrash madly; not trying to squirm free, but simply caught in the grip of cascading spasms as her body flew out of her control.

And her mind was set on fire.

The flood of new sensations was far more than Suriel could possibly hope to process. It was a tide; a flood, washing through her, over her, crushing in its path all her most basic mental faculties: her powers of discernment and distinction, her ability to tell one thing from another, her ability to recognize any of what she felt for what it was. It was all simply a torrent, indiscriminate and unceasing, so merciless in its flow that Suriel could not tell herself apart from it.

Yet somehow, through all that, there was pleasure.

It was simple. Elemental. Brutal. Pain and unpleasantness meant nothing; all Suriel knew was that every single part of her body that was capable of feeling was being lit up with violent intensity. There was something about that which seemed so right. It obliterated all doubt. All fear. It reminded Suriel, a little, of how she felt when she sang at the highest peaks of the heavenly chorus and felt divinity thrumming through her entire being.

But this was better. Fuller. More consuming.

“My, my,” Beleth cooed. She made no secret of her mockery. “Look at you, little angel. Look at that little face.”

Suriel looked up at her stupidly in response. Making sense of the demon’s words was an immense struggle. Once they came to her, Suriel realized that her eyes were blinking and flitting unevenly, one stretched open wide, the other hanging lazily. Her breaths kept coming in ugly, ragged pants. As she tried to reply to Beleth, the words simply drooled out of Suriel’s mouth in a messy, incoherent froth.

“And we’re only just getting started,” Beleth remarked. “Here it comes, angel. Time to fall.”

Beleth flexed her fingers, then gripped tight and began to wrench her arms apart. Suriel was blinded by the flood of raw sensation, but at first, nothing seemed to happen. After a few moments of straining, though, Suriel’s halo, its surface already stained by the black ichor dripping from Beleth’s body, started to stretch. The shift was minute, barely perceptible, but still, Beleth’s hands were moving apart. As they did, a sound like the shattering of glass filled the cavernous gloom of the demon’s domain.

And Suriel felt a crack open right at the heart of her very existence.

The great rift forming within her was so deep, so fundamental, it managed to shear through the magnificent cacophony of sensation Suriel was experiencing. It sliced her to her core, and the cold shock of that rupture brought with it panic. Suddenly, the sound of her halo breaking was deafening. It brought with it an agonizing awareness of loss.

“W-w-w-wwwwait,” Suriel had to fight agonizingly hard just to find that simple word. “S-ssstoppp.”

Beleth didn’t. She kept pulling, prying Suriel’s halo apart little by little.

“S-stop!” Suriel insisted. Though she could barely control her flailing limbs, with great effort she was able to throw her arms up and start batting at Beleth, trying to fight the demon off.

It was like trying to fight a tidal wave.

“Stay still,” Beleth instructed. She sounded more irritated by Suriel’s resistance than genuinely hindered.

“SS… sssstoppppp!” As Suriel begged, her halo cracked apart a little further. Suriel’s voice splintered along with it, jumping up in pitch and slipping into a stilted, broken cadence that barely sounded like speech. Through it all, she kept struggling as best she could.

“I warned you,” Beleth hissed.

Out of the shadows, tendrils surged toward Suriel. Within moments, at least half a dozen of them were wrapping themselves around Suriel’s body, each one dripping with sticky, black, viscous ooze. They wound their way around the angel’s legs, her arms, her waist, tightening and tightening, pulling her into a spread-eagle pose. Suriel kept struggling and straining with all her failing might, but Beleth’s tentacles were relentless. Suriel was nothing more than a fly, caught in a spider’s web. And the sensation of all those slimy appendages wrapping tight around the angel’s body only added to the cacophony of sensations that were overwhelming her.

“That’s better,” Beleth mocked. “Don’t worry, little angel. It won’t take much longer.”

Now that Suriel was held stationary, the demon could bring her full strength to bear. She tightened her grip still further and renewed her efforts to wrench the halo apart. It began to distend, cracks appearing all over its surface, and — to Suriel’s growing horror — a strange fluid started to leak out from within. It was all colors and none; pearlescent, almost white, when caught in its own glow, but as it dripped down to stain Suriel’s head and shoulders, it seemed to separate into distinct, refracted bands of every shade of the rainbow.

And Suriel could feel it. Not just dripping onto her, but flowing out of her.

“S-stop!” Suriel cried out again, in blind panic. “Ssst-… sssttt-… sst-“

Another crack, even louder and more frightening than the last. The void within Suriel cracked wider with it, yawning open, ready for her to fall into it. Suriel convulsed from the metaphysical shock of the moment, the coherence she was forced to fight so hard for once again dashed, and her words reduced to nothing more than a set of bleated, repeating sounds.

“Stop, stop, stop!” Beleth mocked. “You wanted this, angel. You asked for it. Didn’t you want to know?”

More cracking. More splintering. The halo was beginning to come apart into pieces, but still, it held together, as it resisted its own destruction by some force of inner, divine magnetism.

“No… k-know?” Suriel found herself confused. She simply couldn’t keep the words straight in her head. “Know… n-n-n-o. Noooo. Know. N-n-… know?”

Beleth simply laughed at her. The worst part was that Suriel was no longer sure what she was even attempting to say. Her panic brought forth a desire to stop, to pull back, to salvage what could still be salvaged. But still, even now, the demon’s promise of knowledge rang in her ears. She could feel it, coursing through her. Fresh sensation, fresh experience, rewiring her nerves, burning itself into her being. It was terrifying, yes, but the pleasure it all brought was undeniable. Suriel’s body had started responding to it in earnest. The tentacle snaked across her chest, and the one forcing its way between her legs — both of them radiated warmth through her, a fleshy, unfamiliar warmth that was instantly addictive.

“That’s right,” Beleth cooed. “Soon, you’ll know everything. No going back.”

Beneath Beleth’s claws, Suriel’s halo was distending hopelessly. It had already become a crooked, twisted thing, stretching and cracking, only just managing to hold itself together in a single shape. Its former perfection was long gone. The dripping of ethereal, pearlescent fluid through the cracks had become a torrent, drenching the twitching angel from head to toe. The colors within the fluid were beginning to blend, darkening as they did, leaving the substance a distinctly dirty shade of grey-brown.

“B-b-ack?” Suriel moaned, her voice jumping wildly across three octaves. “B-ba-… s-st-… b-b-baaaack?”

She kept twitching and thrashing, although Beleth’s tentacles held her so tight she was barely able to move. Her struggles had long since lost their purpose; mostly, it was simply the random misfiring of muscles and nerves, but increasingly, Suriel was finding herself held in the sway of a strange, pleasurable rhythm, making her throb and gyrate, pressing herself ever more insistently against the tendrils that bound her.

The gratification was unspeakable.

Every touch, every instant, a new delight. A new sensation, and no matter if it was good or bad, right or wrong, sinful or divine, Suriel wanted more. More, more, more. Before, her appetite had been mere curiosity. Now it had truly been whetted, and her hunger was endless. Nothing could slake it. The concept of satiety had become foreign. The more Suriel felt, the more she wanted. The more she wanted, the more she instinctively welcomed all that Beleth offered.

But that did not mean she didn’t understand the gravity of what she was about to lose.

“L-l-lord!” Suriel cried, a wet-lipped moan for deliverance that would not be answered. “S-sa… saaaaave… m-me!”

Now, with her halo on the brink of giving way, Suriel could clearly see the foolish hubris of her former fantasies. There was no coming back from this. Black and stained as she was, she would never be able to crawl back up into heaven and take her place amongst the host. She was being changed far too deeply. She would know everything, but never again the sweet, soporific bliss of that perfect, divine harmony. As Suriel dwelt on that, the prospect grew to haunt her, and regret joined the cacophony of her emotions. Pearlescent halo-fluid started dripping from her eyes too, staining her cheeks like tears.

“No salvation,” Beleth promised, with malignant glee. “Not here. Something better.”

The demon wrenched and heaved once more — and at long last, the halo broke.

When it finally came apart, it did so in a great shattering. In one moment, there was a twisted, crooked, distended disk of fading light above Suriel’s head. In the next, there were a thousand golden shards flying in all directions. There was a deafening crack, like thunder splitting the sky, and Suriel’s arms and legs stretched themselves out, cruciform, as she felt her very essence as an angel die.

It should have horrified her. Instead, all that was Suriel was swept aside in an ecstatic torrent. In a single instant, she realized that, all along, Beleth had been right. The halo had been an instrument of binding. Since the dawn of eternity, it had kept from her all the wondrous sensations Beleth offered. Now that it had been utterly destroyed, nothing was holding them back. Suriel felt it all. She knew it all. But the knowledge and the feeling no longer paralyzed her. Instead, she experienced a kind of tranquility amidst the flood. She had found the eye of the storm.

Within just a few moments more, the halo-fluid drenching her body had curdled and darkened still deeper, leaving it was a perfect, oily, lightless black.

“There you are,” Beleth said. She released Suriel and peered at her closely. “How does it feel?”

Suriel peered back at the demon. In the demon’s reflective face, she could see her own, equally featureless, equally coated in that strange ichor. And in her face, Beleth’s, and in Beleth’s, hers, and so on, into infinity. Suriel could barely tell the difference between them. She even had those strange, shard-like horns, where two large fragments of her former halo had embedded themselves into her head.

The fallen angel — the demon — felt a grin come to her face. The same grin she had heard in Beleth’s voice ever since she had entered her domain.

“Oh, sister,” Suriel cooed gleefully. “I feel divine.”

---

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[kallie-den]

some sartha’s and kione!! i was using Agathe Rousselle as a ref for sartha

OH MY GOSH I LOVE THESE. that's an inspired reference for Sartha honestly, the short hair is such a look. like a mangy dog, it's perfect. and I loveeee Kione being based on Pluto a ridiculous amount. thank you so much <3333

[kallie-den]

honestly.... yeah, that's kind of perfect aha

hi i just caught up on warhound and im crazy insane about it, frothing at the mouth thinking abt them! do you have any visual references for the characters i really wanna draw them?

hi! glad to hear it, aha - and thank you for asking!!!! in part because it helped to remind me to post this:

an official cover for WARHOUND, commissioned from Esther over on bsky. aside from everything else about it that's amazing, I think it's a pretty damn solid reference for Sartha and Handler. I love it

if you to draw any of my characters, please please please let me know, I'd love to see that so much. if you need more references, there's plenty of other fanart of Sartha and Handler, although not so much (so far) for Leinth or Kione