Fighting Them There Ch. 14

### Fighting Them There, Chapter 14 ###

"Sophie wants us to go meet her," Miriam said, showing the text message that had appeared on her phone. "I dunno why, but it sounds important." She had conceded that point because Sophie had written 'IMPORTANT!!!' at the end of the message.

"Um... OK," Max agreed with only mild puzzlement, "we can go do... whatever it is that she's doing." He'd been mostly enjoying himself at the party, but he'd trade it in a heartbeat for an evening cuddling with his girlfriend.

The redhead shook her head. "No, sorry. She wants us to go meet her. Meaning just me and Ulzhari." She reached out and grabbed the powerful orc by the arm. "You three keep dancing or whatever." She wiggled her fingers to collectively refer to Fiona, Chaeryn, and Max himself. After kind of getting Ulzhari's agreement, she dragged the larger woman toward the door. An even more puzzled Max waved to the departing members of his party, wondering what trouble Sophie wanted to cook up with those two specifically, and why he wasn't invited.

He had to accept that he wasn't invited. His girlfriend was also his party member, and also the head of his harem. Any space that Sophie wanted to have was something he just needed to grant her. But he did think it was a little strange that she wanted that space during a dance party. It wasn't like they had a lot of dance parties to go to while living on a military base on a planet many light-years from Earth.

Chaeryn and Fiona seemed happy enough to have him to themselves. Or, at least just to each other. While the envy seals ensured that they all enjoyed watching him cavort with the other women on the team, it was still true that they sometimes chafed at getting less than twenty percent of his attention. Being able to get his attention divided only into two brought a visible happiness to both women's faces. Their respective almond-shaped eyes developed a bit of a twinkle that was similar despite that one set of eyes was a vibrant purple and the other a very dark brown.

The truth was that he enjoyed their attentions. Even more so when they were obviously enjoying themselves. Sometimes he felt like he was forcing the women in his party to do things against their will, an idea that was reinforced by the term 'slave' getting tossed around so casually. Seeing his party members, his slaves, give him joyful looks made him feel better about himself. Chaeryn insinuated herself under his arm. Fiona grabbed his other arm and snuggled her head into his bicep. The live acts had finished, and the canned R&B and pop-country wasn't massively different from what they played at the mess hall, but he was dressed in a military dress uniform and had two beautiful women on his arms, so it felt somewhat festive to him.

His contemplation was interrupted by getting shoved from behind. If his boots didn't provide magically enhanced stability, he surely would have fallen from the sudden impact. "There's the guy!" He heard Alex's voice from behind him. "The pervo-creep everyone's talking about!" There was a mean chuckle from a couple other men, but the event mostly staggered on around them as if nothing had happened.

Fiona whirled and pointed her finger at the the blond C-tier slayer. "Back off, Alex!" She was about to say more, but she was cut off by her finger being grabbed at lightning speed.

"Or you'll what?" He smirked gratuitously at the Vietnamese American. "You gonna shadow call? You know that no matter how much you'd rather be fucked by a real man than your crappy boyfriend, your shadow magic doesn't even recognize me as an enemy." His smirk turned into a triumphant grin and he bent down and gave a theatrical kiss to her finger, causing her face to scrunch up in disgust. Max tensed up, ready to spring into action but unable to see a course of action that could end well. Despite the substantial bonuses his seals provided, Chaeryn and Fiona were still D-tier second liners, there was no way they could compete in a test of strength against a C-tier front liner like Alex. And despite his willingness to put himself forward, the blatant reality was that Max was even more out of his league in a direct confrontation with an Executioner. Seeing Max's distress, Alex snarled contemptuously. "That's right, without your girlfriend to hide behind, you ain't shit, are you? How long do you think it'll take before she realizes how fucking worthless you are? Until she leaves you for someone a bit... stronger? See, you're doing fine when everyone's sucking your dick, but I'm never going to be a man that does that. If someone stands up to you, you just gotta sit the fuck down. Because you. Ain't. Shit!" Tiny flecks of spittle left his mouth at speeds only achievable by those with supernaturally enhanced strength.

Another man, brown haired and possessed of the kind of mustache that Max could not grow if he tried, walked up to the furious trio with confidant strides. "Well, well, well... it seems we have a bit of a discussion going on." He had a cape that was covered with feathers. Dungeon equipment. Equipment that marked him as Ramon Costanza, Eagle Warrior. Everyone knew of him, he was a B-tier flanker from three tours ahead, someone who was going to graduate from the training program in February. Someone who was almost certainly going to get into the SDRF when he finished. "So this is the Great Max Mitchell. I've heard so much about him that seeing him in person is really... it's kind of a let down, to be honest." He waved his hand at Alex, who released Fiona's hand and took two steps away.

Max was confused, but still very much on edge. He was extremely cognizant of the fact that Chaeryn didn't have her crossbow and Ramon was conspicuously wearing some of his dungeon equipment. As a B-tier hunter half way through his fourth tour, the man was powerful enough to be a real military asset all by himself. Powerful enough that the fraught social situation could easily be made much, much worse at a moment's notice. "You're Ramon Costanza, right?" It was a completely meaningless placeholder of a thing to say, but at least it reclaimed initiative of sorts.

"So you do know me," the Eagle Warrior smiled, "as you should." He made an expansive gesture that took in Alex and a couple other surly men. "I've heard a rumor that you were chatting up Danika and Jessica, and I would ask that you stay in your fucking lane." The man's piercing gaze fell directly upon Max, and it was not a kind gaze at all.

If he was confused before, Max's understanding of the situation now felt like it had fallen through the floor. "But... you're fourth tour, what do you care what first or second tour hunters do?" Parties could be made jointly with hunters from second and third or from hunters from third and fourth. Danika and Jessica would be on their third tour when they returned from the February recess, but by then Ramon wouldn't even be in the program.

Raising his arms up toward the ceiling, Ramon's cape spread out behind him like an upside down peacock's tail. Displayed in that manner, Max thought the feathers didn't quite look like those of any Earth bird he was aware of, and they probably were not. The Eagle Warrior didn't let him ponder that question for long. "You have eyes, but you do not see what the eagle sees! You've been told that you're the next big thing, and maybe that's true. But right now, I am the big thing. I see what the eagle sees. And when I tell you to do something, you fucking do it! Right now I'm giving you the benefit of the eagle's sight, don't make me teach you the lessons of the eagle's claws!" The vagueness of the threat and the lines being drawn in the sand set Max's teeth on edge.

"Uhhh... OK?" Max felt like he was in way over his head. It seemed a little less like he was about to be punched in the face, but he didn't feel good about the way things had gone.

Alex saw his consternation and savored it. "It better be, we are watching you, Mitchell." There were several chuckles and a few crueler laughs from the surly men. Max seethed inside. He seethed at his tormentors, but he also seethed at the fact that he could do nothing but seethe.

####

While most chairs on the base were optimized for transportability over comfort, the green room had some genuine upholstery in it. Sophie leaned back in the comfy chair and attempted to explain. "Miriam and Ulzhari are totally mercenary about all of this." She gestured to herself. "So like, I'm Max's girlfriend," she gestured to the newcomers, "but these women do this for the power."

Ulzhari took in the scene and asked the question that seemed most appropriate. To her. "Sophie, are these the singing ladies? Are you trying to get them into Max's harem?"

"His what?" Katherine Davis, AKA Sidewinder Kate seemed less than fully thrilled.

The Valkyrie smiled and held up her hands placatingly. "In orcish cultures, it's completely normal for women to share men. That translates to harem. Max's power doesn't require that we have sex with him. It doesn't have to be that kind of harem." Sophie didn't feel like she was lying, because what was saying was true, at least in a literal sense.

Monique Jackson, AKA Peppa Grinda rolled her eyes. "You don't call it a harem if you don't wanna scare 'em."

Miriam was impressed. "That was a really fast rhyme. Do you have like a lot of rhymes premade, or do you just riff 'em out when you need 'em?" Her excitement took Sophie off-guard, the Valkyrie noting that the redhead didn't normally swallow her THs.

"Bofe 'em," the hip hop artist replied boastfully, "plans and saved rhymes for some, at other times you finda crumb, you drop some dimes and hope words come."

"That's so cool," Miriam fan-squeed, "are there words you can't rhyme? Anything you get stuck on?" Ulzhari and Sophie both looked at Miriam with calculating eyes. The truth was that while they'd both had sex with Miriam and shed blood fighting alongside her, neither had known her that long. They didn't know her favorite food, her favorite movie, or her favorite song. The Berserker was basically OK with that, having long expected to eventually be in a harem with women whose interests overlapped with hers only as much as might be expected of co-workers. Sophie, however, took the realization fairly hard. Before she'd had sex with Max they had been boyfriend and girlfriend for more than four years. When he'd learned to like sushi, she'd been there. When Max had decided that he liked light metal music, she'd been there too. She'd known and loved every bit of him as a person before their bodies had come to know each other. With the other women who had come into their lives, Sophie scarcely knew them at all, and that revelation both scared and excited her.

Peppa's smile reached her eyes. "Girl, you can git stuck on anything. But you can also git through anything. Like, folks say you can't rhyme 'Orange,' but you can. It's just about yer intention when ya say each word. Like: duh Poor mensch got More hench, put his Four inch in the Whore wench. Or-ange." She mimed dropping a mic.

Miriam clapped like a seal begging for fish. "Wow. You are so cool. I really hope you join us in Max's harem." She gushed at the performer with the sincerity that came naturally to a teenage fan.

"Whoa there fillies," Kate objected, "that's twice your girls have mentioned a harem. What kind of freaky sex circus are you running here?" Sophie facepalmed. Miriam turned red. Ulzhari didn't seem affected at all.

It was precisely her blasé attitude toward the situation that allowed the orcish woman to get the first word in. "Max's class lets him put seals on us that can be made bigger with rituals. We could do rituals without having sex with Max and Sophie, we've each decided we would rather have sex and power. Not just power. Sophie has been very kind, let us fuck her boyfriend with her." Ulzhari smiled and made a soft oink to indicate that she was finished.

Katherine Davis looked incredulously at Sophie. Before she'd even said anything, the blond Valkyrie adopted a look of contrition. "Hole-ee shit! You let them have threesomes with your boyfriend?" The pop-country singers didn't sound angry, but she did sound like she had something in her coils that she had absolutely no intention of letting go of. "Does yer boyfriend know what an absolute freak you are?" Despite being several centimeters shorter than the hunter, she leaned in and loomed over Sophie. She was only physically able to do it because Sophie was sitting down, but she was socially able to do it because Sophie was too embarrassed to defend her personal space.

For her part, the most powerful flower of their crop wilted in the harsh gaze of the singer. "No. He doesn't." It seemed that Sophie was near to crying, retreating into shame that her party members did not understand.

Unsure of what had just transpired, Miriam plowed ahead. "Seriously, it's a good deal. When Max puts his seals on you, they give you magically improved strength, speed, stamina, and beauty. And not only do they last forever, but you can make the bonuses bigger and have sex with Max at the same time."

"Beauty," said Sidewinder Kate dismissively, "is in the eyes of the producer."

Monique Jackson was not so quick to discount the idea. "You got eyes Kate, these bitches are A. F. Hawt. Don't large-size hate, let's hear what they got." She turned her gaze from one hunter to the other. Both Miriam and Sophie glanced at Ulzhari, and then both singers looked expectantly at the Berserker as well.

Having been put on the spot, the orc oinked with uncertainty and then steeled herself to make an explanation. "When Max's seal goes on, body changes to fit Max's desire. Sophie changed least, I changed most." That admission provoked interested looks, and Ulzhari began unbuttoning her military uniform. Many clothes, especially those with buttons, are designed to enhance the apparent size of a woman's chest, but that was absolutely not the case with the dress uniform for guardians of the Space Force. The buttons were placed to make a straight diagonal line from the clavicle to the diaphragm, which visually made the shoulders look broader and the chest look flatter. Certainly nothing in nature would make a straight line across breasts as big and round as those sported by Ulzhari's chest. So when she opened up the front of her uniform to reveal the true size and shape of her hidden treasures, there was a sharp intake of breath audible from at least one of the performers.

Feeling a bit like a game show hostess, Miriam gestured at the unboxed breasts. "Max obviously likes really big breasts. But he only likes them on large framed women who can support them. You'll see from my own chest," she said while casually dropping the shoulder straps from her dress, "that Max has diverse tastes of beauty. My breasts grew and perked up, but they didn't become the huge chestasauruses that appear on my orcish harem sister." The harem sister in question had no idea what a chestasaurus was, but she was happy to be introduced as a harem sister by Miriam. It made her feel like she belonged in a way that the House of Iron Claws had never really tried to achieve. The undershirt was also removed, and the breasts sproinged into full view. Breasts that size might be expected to fall to the belly, as stones roll down hill, but Ulzhari's stood proud, supported seemingly effortlessly by the Berserker's super-humanly powerful back muscles. When she was naked from the waist up, she looked like a statue of a sex goddess.

"Da-yum!" Peppa exclaimed, too impressed to even remember to rhyme.

Kate's eyes were fixed on the improbably large breasts before her. "Yeah, I can't say I disagree. So yer Max he... he gives magical boob jobs?"

Having recovered from her retreat into shame, Sophie grasped Sidewinder Kate's hands with her own. "Oh, it's so much better than a boob job. Here," she said, pulling the pop-country singer's hands onto one of Ulzhari's melons, "feel this thing. It's amazing. So soft and smooth, but so so strong and firm at the same time." The performer squeezed with both hands, a giddy smile on her face as she was confronted by the mix of pliant softness and resilient durability. "You could get lost in these things, let her mother you while you get crushed and protected in the warmth of her giant, perfect, tits." The Valkyrie's hand moved to the back of Sidewinder Kate's head, and very gently pressed it forward "Why don't you just put your mouth there and taste them?"

Katherine Davis hungrily mouthed that boob flesh that was before her. Her hands moved with desperation over, under, around, and between the orc's breasts while she tried to get as much of the piebald breast meat into her mouth as possible. It was a doomed endeavor, there was simply no way that a substantial portion of Ulzhari's tits were going to fit between Kate's lips, but she groaned happily in the attempt. Sophie helped guide her head, rubbing her against, upon, and between the breasts, though it was hardly necessary. Sidewinder Kate was happy to explore the tastes and textures of the tremendous melons at the pace that Sophie set, but wouldn't have pried her face away from the orc's chest if the Valkyrie's hand wasn't there. Ulzhari oinked in pleasant confusion, enjoying the attentions of the human woman, but not really understanding what was going on.

When Katherine had calmed down slightly, she looked up into the Berserker's face and blushed sheepishly. The orcish woman had been indulging her, the way an adult indulged a small child who wanted another go with the swings. Sidewinder Kate had never felt so dominated in her whole life. She wanted to sit on the orcish woman's lap while getting her hair brushed. She wanted to lay prone across the orcish woman's thighs while she got spanked for naughtiness. Kate felt the intensity of Ulzhari's supernaturally enhanced strength and knew that she was utterly in the orc's power. And she didn't want to be anywhere else. Scandalous thoughts raced through her head of how she could signal her submission to the greater woman. Dropping to her knees, sticking out her neck to be collared or choked, every possibility send moisture from her mind to her muff.

So lost in fantasy was she that she almost missed the reality of Ulzhari's powerful hands tilting her head up to look eye to eye. It was amazing and humbling how far she had to look up to meet the orc's gaze. One of the hands moved down to Kate's back and held her, Ulzhari's great strength was both a fortress and a prison. Kate felt so small, so owned. She couldn't escape and didn't want to. She smiled up at the orc's tusky face. She awaited being pushed around and told what to do. To strip, to lick pussy, to bend over and get spanked. She was prepared to be asked practically anything, only to be asked something much more mundane. "Do you make rhymes like other lady who sings of sex?"

Kate blinked. "Um... no," she admitted haltingly, "fer me the music is about the music, the words are jus there to remind folks where the notes are. Fer I Snake Your Snake, I mostly jus sing my name. Fer the round up on Where My Socks, I only sang two words. But the songs get sung, ya know? Because of the music." She hugged herself into the orc. For all her softness and smoothness, Ulzhari moved as much as a mountain. "I have ta suck yer boyfriend's cock for you ta treat me like this, don't I? I think I jus might."

Peppa Grinda pffted. "I am sure you will, Cat. You sucked dick for a lot less than that." Kate had to admit, it was a pretty good rhyme.

####

Crack! Zap! Boom! That was the order that things happened with the whip. If the tip was made to break the sound barrier, an electrical arc formed, and then a peel of thunder would follow it. "Fuck!" Max shouted, his frustration evident. "Fucking useless!" He swung the whip with all his might, which was emblematically ineffective. No crack, no zap, no boom. His wild swing lacked coherence and the extra force just caused the middle of the whip to make a sin wave pattern and the end to turn over like the last flop of a fish on land. He looked at it despondently. "I'm fucking useless." His sour mood had already sent Chaeryn off to find something to cheer him up.

Fiona had stayed to try to cheer him up with her words. "Ramon is a B-tier flanker midway through his final training tour. You've probably never met a man he couldn't kill with his bare hands. And in less time than it would take you to tell him to stop." The tone of voice she used indicated that she was trying to console him. The absurdity of that made him chuckle.

"Seriously," he asked with more lightheartedness than he would have been able to muster just a short time previously, "was that supposed to make me feel better? What the hell, Fiona? Yeah, I know that Ramon can literally punch my head off with his fist." He sighed. "That's the whole problem, isn't it? Everyone has this idea that I'm a big fish who needs to swim in the big tank with the sharks... but I'm still just me. My stats are still basically E-tier." He had the choice to buy them up further with Mastery, but the exchange rate was horrible and he didn't think that his stats would be decent for D-tier even if he bought them up as high as they'd go with all the Mastery he could spend. "You know people are talking about me taking down Calamity Lords? And not just Sophie. Like, other people. I barely took down two corpse constructs!"

Reaching up to put her hand on his shoulder, Fiona tut-tutted. "It has been a long time since the greatest general in the war was expected to be the greatest warrior on the field." That long time was measured in centuries on Earth, though it was just a few generations on other Alliance home worlds. It had been quite a shock to both elvish and orcish cultures when they were first exposed to human concepts of industrial warfare. "I actually believe that you'll be killing Calamity Lords one day. And by you, I mean Sophie. But I also believe that Sophie won't be able to do that without your help. It's your powers that will get her into those raids, and your powers that will get her back home alive." She turned him to look her in her almond-shaped eyes. "For all his buster, Ramon is no Kalu. He's going to fight on the front lines against some major invasion gates, he'll be away for days at a time accomplishing great things. But... when the next black gate is identified, Ramon isn't getting mobilized. But you might be. If not the next one, then the one after that."

Max shook his head. "We aren't good enough for that." The resonance between his statement and the envy seal rituals they used were not lost on him. He winced when he realized what he'd said.

The irony of Max's words wasn't lost on the Vietnamese American hunter either. "No, silly. You actually are good enough. I think that I'm not good enough," she paused and shivered as the act of supplication progressed her seal, "but the moment you get your slave storage to two, you're going to make the short list for every world-threat, right? Even if they don't take our whole team, in any Calamity Lord scenario they're going to have you slap seals on Baba Iva or Fa Ying, right? Even if all you can do is hide, the fact that you can bring both Fa Ying, The Moon Codex and Sophie, Chooser of the Slain despite being only one body on the dungeon gate means you automatically get a slot, right?" It was a compelling argument.

"Did you just pick Sophie's media nickname?" He wasn't sure whether to be amused or offended on behalf of his girlfriend. Privately, he doubted that anyone like Baba Iva or Fa Ying was going to accept getting marked as his slave, no matter what the stakes were. But he could well imagine military officers arguing that they should submit to him on pure efficiency grounds. He suspected that The Mother of Shadows or The Moon Codex would actually just burn him to death to take the option off the table, so he hoped no one pushed the idea too strenuously to either of them.

Fiona giggled. "Well, someone has to. She's B-tier, she's boosted by your ridiculous seals, and... I mean... she's movie-star pretty, right? Even if she wasn't killing Jotunheim giants in single-combat, she'd still end up in puff pieces because she is hot." She cocked her head. "And you know that if she doesn't go in with an AKA carefully designed by yours truly that they're gonna name her something dumb like America's Sweetheart or The Killer Prom Queen." Her suggestions had the intended effect, and she laughed at his sour expression. She put her hands out as if framing a sign and provided a few more tongue-in-cheek options. "She could be The Bombshell! Or maybe The Sword Belle!"

He shook his head, hints of a smile breaking through as he found himself unable to hold on to his dour expression. "OK, point taken. But we'll need to keep working on it, I think Chooser of the Slain is a bit long."

"Yes Master," she said with only a modest amount of sarcasm, "I'll keep working on it."

"Uh... good?" He was never sure what he should say when the women in his party went deep on the master and slave talk. "But right now, I should be working on getting this whip to work." The secret was to have just two waves pass through the length of the whip and to send the second one through a bit faster so that the waves interacted near the end of the whip. The sudden change in position for the end of the whip translated to a very fast speed for the whip tip, and if that speed was faster than the speed of sound, it started the cascade. Crack! Zap! Boom!

He looked at the results of the successful test. The truth was that it took hardly any effort at all. All he needed to do was to avoid the wasteful thrashing that came from being frustrated and lashing out. Indeed, it was actually ironic that the term for flailing uselessly might be lashing out, when using the lash correctly required precision rather than passion. Lashing properly was quite undone by having a temper tantrum. It seemed like there was probably a lesson there, if he cared to untangle it.

Sophie floated in about thirty minutes later. By that point he was getting the lightning bolts to go off when and where he wanted them to almost all the time. Which, in turn, was almost good enough. Chaeryn and Fiona praised him for his progress, but it didn't feel like he'd come far enough. "We got 'em!" Sophie chortled. "Sidewinder Kate will suck your dick if we let her be Ulzhari's human pet. And Peppa Grinda will get claimed if she likes what she sees with Sidewinder Kate. And she will, so you have two slaves who are famous singers! They'll sing your praises. Literally!"

Her gushing victory dance was met with stares. "I'm sorry, can you back up a bit? Sidewinder Kate. The singer. Wants to be Ulzhari's WHAT?" He flicked the whip forward and back. Crack! Zap! Boom!

####

Ulzhari sat naked on the bed, oinking worriedly. "What do I do?" Fiona and Miriam were also naked, and the Berserker looked to them for explanation. Chaeryn, Sophie, and Max were clothed, and hung back.

That explanation came from Fiona. "Sidewinder Kate has chosen you as her dommy mommy. That means she wants you to dominate her in a manner very similar to how Sophie dominates you." She ran her hand down the orc's muscular arm. "She wants you to fuck her, obviously, and to tell her to do things. She wants you to hold her in a way that is jealous and controlling, but also protective and supportive. She wants you to be both a sexual partner and a mother figure."

Despite trying to follow along, Ulzhari looked confused and the edges of panic were slipping into her oinks. "I never mothered anyone." She was quite literally a mother, but her daughter was far away on another planet, being raised by the House of Iron Claws. Ulzhari's body had performed the ancient biological tasks necessary to create life, but not once had she meaningfully contributed to the raising of that child. Being there for a child as a parent had been something she had intended to do only after her career as a hunter had completed. When she was part of a harem that she could raise the children with. She looked to the women around her, to her harem sisters. She thought that perhaps the time had come to learn motherhood. Earlier than expected, but everything else about her harem had come earlier than expected as well.

Sophie wasn't naked, or even initially part of the session but she still had pointers to give. "Think of it like a battle," she explained, relying on what she knew of Ulzhari's interests, "you're going to be conquering Sidewinder Kate for Master Max. You need to capture her, occupy her, make her feel protected, and finally give her to our master. When you hold her, when you press her against your breasts or your pussy, you're controlling her but your show of force should also make her feel safe."

The black skinned elf had another idea, which she chose to share with Max. "What if we just tell her about your glorious destiny? Once she knows that you're the Spider Herald and she can have her body and mind rewritten into a fate-tempered servant of the man who will save her world, she'd beg to be allowed your seals and your Essence." Her purple eyes revealed not the slightest drop of sarcasm.

"Yeah," Max looked like he'd just seen the credit card bill after a vacation, "we are definitely not telling her that." Neither Max nor Sophie had advocated Chaeryn having any contact with potential non-hunter slaves prior to them getting seals. He didn't doubt her loyalty, but her religious zeal gave him the creeps at times. He could only imagine how off-putting her tales of alien prophecies would be to someone for whom magic and aliens were things that appeared only on the other side of a screen. But while he was somewhat bothered by Chaeryn's intense certainty, he was more concerned with the obvious uncertainty of his other alien party member. "Ulzhari, if you're not comfortable with any of this, we don't have to go through with it. Whatever we'd get from having these women join the group, you're more important to me. I don't want you to feel like you have to do things that make you feel taken advantage of."

His speech got an oink in reply that expressed gratitude. Forced to think of what she actually wanted, Ulzhari was unsure. The truth was that she liked having sex the way her harem sisters told her to. And she liked being told what to do by Max, she liked being told what to do by her harem sisters. And now her harem sisters were telling her to take that role and tell a new harem sister what to do, how to have sex. It was only fair that she rise to this challenge, but she didn't know if she could. "Master, I think it is my turn to train one of your slaves. I hope I don't disappoint you." She looked to Fiona. "So how do I make her love being owned by Master Max?"

"First," the black haired human mused, "you have to get her to love being owned by you. Once she's yours, you can give her to our master. Once she belongs to Max, she'll love being owned as much as we do." She gestured to the redhead. "So Miriam's going to sit on your lap. One hand you're going to use to hold her. That will both steady her and restrain her. Your other hand is going to pet her. Like... I dunno. Do you pet worgs?" Fiona's attempted metaphor ran aground on her lack of familiarity with the domesticated beasts of Nishrek.

The tangent was strengthened when Ulzhari answered in earnest. "Worgs are temperamental and have strong jaws that can crush bones, but they are loyal. Skilled worg trainers can pet them, and sometimes they do so as a public spectacle. Hunters sometimes have the strength and durability to domesticate and pet wild worgs despite the dangers. Worg fur is very soft, despite their terrifying appearance." Despite the enlightenment she had received, Fiona frowned, feeling that they had gotten off track.

Max stepped in, both in the sense that he filled a conversational void and in the sense that he literally took a physical step into Ulzhari's personal space. "I think what she's getting at is something like this." He put his hand firmly on Ulzhari's right breast. She leaned in to his grip, gasping as she felt the progression of her claiming seal. "Your hand that holds her is going to be steady, it's there to turn her on as well as hold her in place. And then," his other hand reached up to her hair and then tenderly ran along the side of her head, running down her multi-colored hair without hurry or strength, "you're being gentle when you caress her head. So there's a combination of firmness and softness. Got it?" The Berserker's eyelids were half closed and she oinked quietly in affirmation.

That was good enough for Fiona, who restarted her plotting. "So, Miriam will need to sit on your lap. She'll be Sidewinder Kate for this." The Geomancer sat her pale, freckled rump between Ulzhari's piebald, muscular thighs. Two colored skin pressed into three colored skin. "Excellent. Now, you're going to be grabbing her, petting her, owning her!" It was very obvious how excited the party's Night Caller was getting over the scenario she was creating.

The Berserker's arm closed around Miriam's smaller body like a seat belt made of iron. Miriam leaned back into the prodigious breasts behind her and Ulzhari's embrace followed her in a mild constriction. A hand strong enough to crush stone gently brushed Miriam's red hair. She closed her eyes and luxuriated in the feeling of her head being pet by her party member. It felt good to be held and caressed by Ulzhari. Miriam didn't consider herself a lesbian, but she could make an exception for Sophie and Ulzhari. They were tall, and strong, and simply put the boys she dallied with in high-school to absolute shame. Sidewinder Kate's melting for the rugged orc made sense to her. She was also happy enough to lez out with Fiona or Chaeryn for Max, because that was still just fooling around to get at her master's dick. But despite being women, the front liners in her party were better than any man she had a right to expect the attentions of. No, she didn't consider herself a lesbian, but she didn't mind at all being in a harem with Max's women.

As the redhead sighed in comfort, Fiona gave them a thumb's up. "Wow. We'll make a switch out of you yet." Ulzhari and Chaeryn did not understand the terminology, but all the humans seemed to accept the prognostication. Even Max, whose initially skeptical expression softened as he thought more about the possibility. "Next, we're going to practice spanking. Remember that Sidewinder Kate is not a hunter, so she's a lot more delicate than Miriam is. There's a good chance that she's going to act bratty at some point to provoke you into disciplining her. If you pass her challenge, she will agree to be sealed by Max. So it's really important that you get his one right." All the human women nodded.

Sophie volunteered herself. "First, obviously, Max should spank me. We can talk you through it while that's happening." She didn't even wait for anyone to agree before she dropped her underwear. "I'm going to get over Max's knee. Now, Sidewinder Kate might just get over your knee when it's offered. Or she might want you to pick her up and put her over your knee. You're so much stronger than she is that it shouldn't be a problem either way, but you should be prepared for her to pretend at refusal to get you to use that strength of yours." Max humored her by giving her a lap to lie across, and soon her naked butt was a full moon on display. Her seals were the most elaborate in the party, and it was hard to believe that the three pieces of sprawling filigree across her butt and lower back had started as simple runes that could be hidden under a palm. When Max's palm came down upon her butt cheeks, the seals of envy and binding were never more than half covered.

As Sophie happily submitted to smack after smack, Fiona gave the play by play. "The spanks are hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough to do lasting damage. He's taking control of her butt, and she's letting him have that control. Now, we can all feel in our envy seals that we are watching an act of love, but it does still hurt her. When Sophie is done getting spankings, she's going to need aftercare. That's where you're going to give that tenderness along with the protective embrace." It was a lot to keep track of, but Ulzhari couldn't look away as Sophie counted out her spankings. Sophie twitched and moaned in Max's lap despite the fact that the blows were barely severe enough for the Valkyrie to notice. Ulzhari's envy seal progressed while she watched, but that wasn't the only reason she found the scene so riveting.

####

The message had been unclear. Well, it hadn't been unclear, but it had left room for interpretation. The next raid was going to be Max Mitchell plus team of six. It was a possible reading of it that they wanted Max to assemble five more hunters to complete a team of six. If it was not for the fact that Max had been demonstrated publicly to have raided a dungeon with a party of seven, that is absolutely what everyone would have assumed that it meant. Of course, knowing what they knew that the brass knew, the meaning was obvious.

"... and that's why I asked you both to come." He concluded.

Alice was skeptical. "Why didn't you come to us one at a time? You know, one of us says No and then you make your pitch to the other? Or maybe your fave says yes and you don't talk to your second pick at all? I mean, what are you gonna do if we both say Yes? Or both say No?" Chloe turned her helmeted head to Alice and bobbed her head in agreement. Both women looked at Max expectantly.

While it wasn't the question he'd been expecting, it was a question he was prepared to answer. "I don't want to have secrets from anyone I end up working with. And I don't want either of you to be mad at me. If I went to either one of you first, I think the other would resent that, and I think they'd be right to. Whether you're in my party or not, we're still on the same team. We're still living on the same base, we're still going to fight the same monsters." Max sighed heavily. "And realistically there's a good chance that sooner or later both of you are going to join this party, so we need to stay on good terms." He gave an awkwardly frumpled smile.

The blond ninja looked like she'd just found half a worm in her apple. "What? You want us to sit around waiting for one of your team mates to fucking die?! That's your pitch? When one of your girlfriends croaks, you want us to be available for a post funeral fuck?" She snarled it out in such a manner as to make it obvious that she did not approve of the hypothetical fuck.

Max put his hands out placatingly. "No. Nothing like that. It's just, they want me to add a party member because I can take a seventh hunter into the dungeon. But... that ability is still green. After I level up, I'll eventually be able to take an eighth hunter into the dungeon." Chloe and Alice blinked at him dumbfoundedly, which Max mistook as the hunters needing additional explanation. "Right now I can store one of my linked party members and bring her into the dungeon without her needing to touch one of the columns, so filling the party requires one extra hunter." He gestured at the two potential newcomers. "But soon I'll be able to store and transport two hunters, which means that filling the party will require two extra hunters." His gesture expanded so it was clear that it was an and rather than an or.

"That's insane," Chloe objected, "your class is literally just two whole extra hunters? Plus other stuff?" She did the math. "You're A-tier. Maybe beyond A-tier. In your gate slot, you could literally bring two A-tier hunters! What the hell are you doing talking to me for?" She glanced around the room, as if searching for a hidden camera or a bunch of people ready to leap out and laugh at her.

Max deflated. "So people keep predicting, but it's really not like that. The seals only go on women, at least for now. And the rituals to progress the seals are... some of them are humiliating. They don't have to be sexual, but a certain amount of humiliation is baked in. Sophie puts up with this because she's my girlfriend, but Baba Iva or whoever is not going to do this. Right now the recruitment pool is limited to the twenty-three women in our crop, but even when that recruitment pool opens up on the next tour, there aren't going to be a lot of women who would join." He shrugged.

To the extent that he'd hoped that would soften their demeanor, it failed. Alice crossed her arms over her modest breasts. "So what? You think we'd humble ourselves to get into your party because we aren't good enough to get into any of the other high end parties?" Max actually did think that, but he knew enough to not say it.

"No," he wasn't entirely sure which part of her statement he was saying No to, possibly just the framing, but he carried on, "I think that we'd like to have the uncovered roles in our team, and you two are literally the highest rank hunters available in our crop." He let the import of that statement hang in the air.

The Hoplite balked. "That can't be... true..." But of course it was. Max's party didn't have a flanker or a defender, and a majority of both roles were men. Danny was higher rank than Chloe, Oscar higher rank than Alice, but neither of those men were meaningful options for Max's seventh or eighth party slot because they were men. If not Chloe the D-tier Hoplite, then Gorgra the E-tier Shieldbearer was the only female defender left in the entire crop. The brown haired defender's eyes grew wide as she realized that an A-tier hunter wanted to team up with her because she was genuinely the most powerful option. It sounded like a scenario from the dungeon romance novels she read while she was in high-school. Or the ones she still read, for that matter.

The Ninja balked for a completely different reason. "So you want us as your temporary fuck dolls? Women who will be your sex slaves until next tour or the tour after that when we can be replaced by better slaves?" It was obvious that she had discussed his class and its functions with Kaitlin. "Jessica from the previous crop is a Paladin, and a C-tier defender who can replace Chloe here in your party and in your bed once we come back from the February recess."

Max shook his head. "My seals grow over time. My main support function is permanently improving hunter skills. It takes a lot of time to get the most out of my class, and so it doesn't make sense to change party members all the time. Or at all." He sighed. "Look, I know everyone's playing fantasy football where they have me assemble dream teams that could never get together without me because I violate rules we thought were unbreakable and that excites people. But the reality is that Fa Ying and Kalu aren't on the same team now, and the ability to have even more cats to herd isn't going to change that." He looked at them both with sincerity. "We're not going to be fighting Calamity Lords, we're not cherry picking the best of the best. Our team doesn't even have most of the C-tier women right now. We have Chaeryn instead of Kaitlin because Kaitlin doesn't want to be in. Yalena and Glyffildir aren't in for obvious reasons." That reason being that they shared a role with Max and Sophie respectively. Which wasn't the unbreakable hurdle they had previously thought, but the two of them were still doing fine in their own parties and Max couldn't imagine either of them wanting to call him Master.

"As for being sexual partners," he continued, "that really is up to you. The seals require a certain amount of intimacy, and a certain amount of frankly humiliating behavior. The women in the party right now have decided that they want to have sexual relationships as part of that, but it's not a strict requirement of the class." He had a bit of a haunted look. "I currently have five nearly insatiable hunters in my party that I'm trying to satisfy sexually. I want you to know that if you don't want that from me, that is absolutely fine." His expression changed and became more resolute, or perhaps simply resigned. To Alice and Chloe, he suddenly seemed more mature. "But also I want you to know that if you join the party you wouldn't be a lesser team member or something. If you need me to be there for you sexually in the same way that the other party members do, I will try to be there for you as well. And you should know that this is not a one time offer and that it's not something you can't take back. If you decide that you don't want to have sex with me or the other party members anymore, you can withdraw your consent and we'll respect that." He felt he had to address the Rosalita and Thelenia situation, so he added. "If you ever decide that you want to leave the party, we'll respect that too. The changes to your appearance don't seem to go away and any skill enhancements you've accumulated are yours to keep. The bonuses from seals seem to go down by about ninety percent, but you'd still keep some of them. We're looking for hunters who will stay in the party long term, but if you decide that you want out, that door is always open. Thelenia and Rosalita took it, and I'm not mad at them at all."

That declaration was met with a pfft from the blond Ninja. "Fine. We'll put it in the newspaper that you aren't mad."

Max chuckled. "Yes, I suppose I deserve that. Rather than have me try to sell you on my class, it probably makes more sense to talk to women who are already in." Facing the door, he shouted: "Chaeryn! Fiona!" The two of them entered the room so quickly that he would bet actual money that they'd been eavesdropping. "These two are D-tiers, and probably can answer your questions about what it's like to be in the party a lot better than I can." He got up from his chair. "I'm going to leave. Ask them anything you want to ask them. Literally anything. And then you should take time to think. But I guess not too much time because we'll want to train seals before we go into a dungeon. So can we talk again after dinner?" The women agreed that they could.

Once Max had left the room, the white haired elf and black haired human turned completely business-like. "OK," Fiona said icily, "you probably have a bunch of questions you think are relevant like 'Is Max going to treat me like a pain pig?' or 'What horrible thing happens if I defy Max?' and the answers to questions like that are 'No' and 'Nothing,' but the real answer is that those aren't the questions you should be asking. The question you should be asking," the Night Caller paused for dramatic effect, "is 'How can I convince Max to train my holes to pleasure him and take his Essence.'" She paused again, to allow time for the uproar.

The wait for the uproar wasn't long. "What the fuck?!" It was a question both Alice and Chloe shouted out, but the Ninja was more forceful about it, and the Hoplite deferred to the blond to continue the tirade. "Is this some Stepford bullshit? Are you a fucking robot now?" The brown haired woman crossed her arms and nodded along.

Fiona waved her off. "Max will never make you do anything he doesn't think you want to do. He's very loyal, and he won't abandon you. He's also very invested in the idea of consent, and he will let you leave at any time. His class will absolutely turn you into his fuck slave, and the faster you figure that out and let it happen, the better off you'll be." Both of the candidates looked apprehensive, while Fiona looked like she was prepared to give a Hollywood speech. "It works by positive reinforcement, giving you both pleasure and power the more of a whore slave you become." Maybe more of a West Hollywood speech.

"Max has a great destiny," Chaeryn concurred, "and for a time, we can be part of it. The more we allow him to own us through sex, the more we can fight the monsters for him. For as long as we stay in his harem he can dig us to greatness." She made a hand gesture that was like pointing downward with a finger from each hand. Like most other alien hand gestures, its exact meaning was lost on the humans present. "It is our task to convince Max to train us as much as possible for as long as we are allowed to be with him."

It was hard to tell in her helmet, but Chloe's brow was furrowed. "Aside from the crazy vibe you are both giving, didn't you say he wouldn't kick us out? Why're you talking about allowed time?"

Fiona closed her eyes and took a deep breath, like she was about to deliver a terrible truth. "Max is loyal, he won't kick us out. But he's like, loyal. When orders come from the Planetary Defense Force to take us out of the party, he'll do it."

There were several heartbeats of no response at all. Alice blinked first. "You think that your party is going to be broken up... by the United Nations?" She said it like she expected the next words out of Fiona's mouth to be something about fluoride and cattle mutilations.

The Vietnamese American's rejoinder was much saner sounding than expected. "Max doesn't think he's going to fight Calamity Lords, but he definitely is. The next time there's a black gate, no one is going to want to wait for it to open on Cairo or New York, they're going to want us to fight them there. And that means assembling the most all star line up that the Alliance can put together. And however good a team you can put together with six, it's going to be better with eight or more, right? Once the brass confirms just how ridiculous Max is, he's going into that party." She made a display of counting fingers. "So while Max will let us continue to sleep with him forever, we're only going to be allowed to stay in his party until the SDRF makes him reorganize. We need to squeeze all the jizz and magical power out of him while we still can." It was unclear to Alice and Chloe whether Fiona was conning Max or conning them. It didn't necessarily matter a great deal which it was.

####

The door opened and Max stood in front of three other hunters. Katherine Davis was used to people freaking out when they saw her. She was used to people trying to buffalo her into contracts. She was used to people trying to get into her pants. When the stupid internet countdown to her eighteenth birthday completed, she'd gotten so many unsolicited dick pics that she'd just had to mass block every message she got for two days. What she was not used to was people recognizing her and then saying "Hello, I'm Max." like they were co-workers at an amusement park. He wasn't awed by her, wasn't desperate for her, and his combination of friendliness and indifference made him intriguing. The beautiful women he was with seemed to flock to him for the power he offered, but she had to admit he was handsome.

When they had come in and the door had been secured, Katherine confided that she had prepared for such an eventuality. "I brought things from Earth. You know, in case I needed 'em." As a USO performer, she'd been allowed quite a bit more luggage than the guardians or hunters were. She needed sound equipment, costumes, musical instruments, and makeup - all things hunters wouldn't be expected to be able to use on their raids. And with that luggage capacity, she'd brought a small trunk filled with leather and steel. She hadn't been expecting to need any of it, but she was going to a planet filled with guardians and hunters who were young, strong, isolated, and horny. The idea that she might find someone who she'd be willing to fuck was something that she'd considered plausible enough that she'd come prepared.

The four hunters looked at the open chest, noting how it contained so many more items than the chests they found in dungeons typically did. Some of the objects were things Max could immediately identify, even if he didn't especially want to touch some of them. Some were even similar in design to dungeon equipment he used on a regular basis. Others were to his eyes simply tangles of black straps and steel studs that he thought might make sense once actually wrapped around some part of a human body. "She brought the toys, for the girls and the boys." Monique Jackson explained. Katherine blushed at the mocking assessment, and the other performer giggled at her predicament.

Shrugging, Max dismissed the trunk and its contents. "Possibly later," he gestured to the tallest member of his group, "right now it's Ulzhari's turn." All eyes looked to the orc, and she opened her bathrobe.

Her nakedness on display, the Berserker appeared powerful rather than vulnerable. Perhaps she would look even more intimidation wearing some of Sidewinder Kate's leather clothing, but she was plenty imposing as she was. She put her mighty hand on Sidewinder Kate's shoulder. "Cat," she said firmly, "get naked." The singer shuddered in her powerful grasp, but then she dropped her gaze and began unbuttoning her blouse. Katherine Davis had gotten surgical modification to make her breasts larger, rounder, and stand up more. She could put her 'round up' just by lying on her back. She could hold a pencil in her cleavage without needing a compressive bra. And yet, her breasts felt small and weak when she was eye level with the orc woman's chest mountains. It was overwhelming just to have her shoulder held by the larger and stronger woman. Katherine Davis whimpered, then she began the arduous process of extricating herself from her Daisy Dukes. She had been blessed by genetics to have a significantly smaller measurement at her waist than at her hips, at least if she maintained a high calorie diet and an intensive exercise regimen, and this made passing the waistband of her micro jean shorts over her hips a difficult process in either direction. It was an awkward dance of hip shaking and cloth pulling, but it got the job done. Not a strip tease by any means, but it was sexy in its own way. "Now Cat, suck." Ulzhari offered one of her boobs.

Katherine's lips parted immediately, and her face drifted toward the orcish nipple. Everyone could see how aroused she was, how thirsty she was to suck at Ulzhari's teat. When her mouth was less than a hand's breadth from its target, she stopped. Looking up into the Berserker's mouth, she adopted a defiant and pouty expression. "I don't have to do what you say! You're not my mom!" Her sudden backtalk was said in a sarcastic singsong voice, her hands migrating to her hips to adopt a sassy posture.

Ulzhari's confusion lasted only a moment. "Ah," she said without rancor or haste, "you are bratty now, Cat. You need me spanking you." Katherine's eyes filled with fear and hope. Ulzhari grabbed the woman under the arms and lifted her as one might lift a puppy or a kitten. Katherine went limp in her grasp, and whimpered as she was carried toward the couch on arms as thick as her legs.

Shaking with anticipation, Katherine was laid face down across Ulzhari's exposed lap, exposing the roundness of her own rump to whatever the orc decided to subject it to. It was Miriam whose voice broke the silence. "I'm going to give you the benefit of stone skin," she said, while brandishing her goblet to do exactly that, "it will make you stronger, though obviously nowhere near strong enough to compete against Ulzhari. More importantly, it will give you durability. Like we have. That means that Ulzhari can hit you as hard as you need to be hit without causing permanent damage. You'll experience the sting, but not the sore." The magic took effect, and Katherine felt it invigorate her in a way she had never been in her life. Her eyes widened, but as much from the realization as to how hard she was about to be smacked as from the wonderment of receiving the benefits of that kind of sorcery. She didn't have to wait long, the hand came down almost the moment the Berserker saw the magic take effect. Thump!

Katherine squealed. She'd never taken a blow that hard. Her entire butt exploded into pain. But then... it put itself back together. Almost as quickly as her mind registered the sheer extent of the agony it had already resolved. Even with what the Geomancer had told her, she simply could not bring herself to expect the pain to just... go away. Her mind reeled as her brain searched for the missing agony, and then... Thump! It was there all over again as the orcish hand struck her bottom again. Katherine Howled. The pain was nothing but a memory before her howl was even finished, and that sudden change of seasons was more pleasurable than she was prepared to handle.

"It is time you count, Cat." Ulzhari dictated. "I hit. You count." Thump! Katherine squealed. "That squeal is not number, Cat. You count now." Thump! It was a world of pain, and then it was abruptly gone. Endorphins rushed through her body, madly searching for injuries that Miriam's magic had prevented from ever taking root.

The juxtaposition of pain and nothingness was scrambling her brain. She'd never experienced a hunter's durability before, and her nervous system had problems processing it. The blows hurt, but they left no damage. There was no bruise, no throb of ache. Ulzhari's hand announced its presence with a lightning strike of jagged agony, but when it had departed there was no thunderous grumble to say it had ever been there. Katherine regretted its absence, and her pussy flooded with need. She raised her butt and lowered her head. "One." She said breathily. Thump! "Two." There was certainly a part of her mind that was worried that by following that command she was committing herself to much more submission in the future. Thump! "Three." An increasingly loud voice within her hoped for nothing less. Thump! "Four." Tears had begun flowing down her face and she hadn't noticed when they had started. She didn't know if she was crying because of the pain or because her needy pussy was so very empty. Thump! "Five." She wasn't sure what she was counting to. Thump! "Six." Ulzhari was in complete control. She could do nothing but count the spankings, knowing that the orc had choices and that she did not. Thump! "Seven." It wasn't that the blows had stopped hurting, it was that she had accepted the pain. She craved the next blow, each one pounding the hunter's ownership into the performer's buttocks.

Observing the pair closely, Max came to a conclusion. "You were right," he admitted to Sophie, "she does want to be treated like this. Even without any seals." It was a lot to think about.

Smiling at her boyfriend, Sophie concurred. "Of course she does. And the seals will make her want it even more." She imagined her own self subjected to such treatment at Max's hands, and she smiled again.

By the time Katherine had counted to twelve, her face was plastered with an erotic smile. Max nodded to Ulzhari and she oinked happily. "Cat. You were brat. You be good now?" A defeated and delighted Cat agreed that she would be. "You are good girl. Good girls can cum for their owners. I make your pussy cum." Ulzhari's fingers found Cat's slippery pussy and began stimulating it. Schlick. Schlick. Schlick. Some part of Katherine had expected the orc's fingers to end in claws like a monster or a beast, but of course Ulzhari was a woman who worked with her hands, and her fingernails were trimmed short. Cat was treated to fingers that entered her smoothly and inexorably pushed her to an orgasm. When it came, when she came, it was the most intense orgasm she'd ever had. "When your owner lets you cum, what do you say?"

Cat closed her eyes and smiled. "Thank you, Mistress." It was just, the only thing to say at that point. It was the first time she'd ever called anyone by that name, but it just felt so good, so right to say it to the woman who had just allowed her to cum.

"Very good, Cat." Ulzhari manipulated the smaller human's body such that she was sitting in the orc's lap rather than lying across it. Cat winced prematurely, still expecting her bottom to be a minefield of soreness. It was nothing of the sort, and she soon leaned herself back into Ulzhari's immense breasts. "You've been so good, Cat." The powerful hand gently petted Cat's silken hair. "Such good girl." While she was strong enough to rip the human woman's head right off, her caress was gentle and made Cat feel safe, cared for, and completely owned.

Purring, Sidewinder Kate, AKA Katherine Davis, and now AKA Cat, nearly drifted to sleep in the comforting embrace of the alien woman who had so recently been smacking her. "Mmmmm. Thank you, Mistress."

Petting the human's hair, and petting the human's breasts, Ulzhari had another proposition. "You're going to be good girl again, aren't you Cat?" Cat nodded and purred. "You're going to submit to my master, aren't you Cat?" Cat nodded and purred.

Sophie squeezed Max's hand. Leaning into him, she whispered into his ear. "Just as you want to be needed, Sidewinder Kate needs to be wanted. She gets some of that fulfillment from singing for others, but she really needs to be dominated in the way only you can." She gave his hand another squeeze and gently encouraged him to go forward.

Max looked down at the seated women, Sidewinder Kate looking so small when ensconced in Ulzhari's lap. "Cat, are you going to be my slave now?" One of Ulzhari's hands gave Cat's tit an encouraging pat, and the human woman nodded. Max bent down and Ulzhari guided Katherine Davis' head up into receiving his kiss on her lips. He made the selection to offer her slave status and her eyes bulged as she received a hunter's message for the first time in her life. Her expression left no doubt that she could not read the Ancient text, not that the simple yes or no question it offered had remotely prepared Sophie when it had been shown to her. "It's asking you if you want to be a slave. My slave. If you concentrate on the message and agree, your claiming seal will appear." Her eyes crossed as she tried to make her selection.

"Aaaaaagh!" It was the first time any of the women had reacted to the seal with a gargled cry of pain, and it surprised everyone in the room. Max had seen seals go onto seven previous women, and none of them had prepared him for what had happened when the red heart appeared on Sidewinder Kate's butt. He reached out and held her convulsing shoulder, searching for an explanation, trying to find something he could do to make things better. His answer came as Sidewinder Kate's breasts cracked open like eggs on the edge of a mixing bowl. Plastic bags filled with clear jelly escaped the tattered holes, and then the breast flesh knitted itself back together over boobs that seemed if anything larger and fuller than they had been with the implants in place. Katherine panted, her body covered with sweat. "What... what happened?"

Grabbing her tit, Max demonstrated the wonderful and addictive feeling she now received when her claiming seal progressed. "I think your new breasts expelled your old breasts. The other seals shouldn't be as painful to put on." The first was the envy seal, where Cat was made to watch Max kissing Ulzhari. A circle of green serpent appeared on her other butt cheek. Then she watched as the orc who had so effortlessly dominated her sank to her own knees and unzipped Max's pants.

Sidewinder Kate and Peppa Grinda had both had many dick pics sent to them. Almost all of them were not ones that they had given any hint that they might be interested in seeing. And while a few had been nice enough looking that they were deposited into the spank bank, most had been somewhere between unwelcome and actually disgusting. They'd both seen more than their fair share of dick in the flesh as well, and they were simply overqualified to rate cocks. They'd both seen larger penises, of course. They'd seen penises that had been surgically modified to be disgustingly large, they'd seen penises that were photo edited to be comically disproportionate, and they'd even just seen cocks that were far off on the edge of the bell curve such that they could only appear in pornography or collections of medical oddities. And against all that, Max's penis was pretty OK. It was pretty big, but not some kind of monstrosity. Cat could definitely imagine Max's cock going into her body. She wanted that to happen. She saw his rod go into Ulzhari's waiting mouth, and her seal of envy seared itself on her butt cheek. She imagined herself on her knees, taking her mistress' place. She imagined being allowed to cum with her mistress' mouth. Her breath became ragged, she wanted to be allowed to cum again.

Withdrawing his spit-slick penis from his party member's mouth, Max turned to Sidewinder Kate. "Cat," he said, as if he had just finished a complex deliberation, "let's go to your toy box and get you your binding seal." He walked over to the chest, his dick bobbing in front of him and his new slave shuffling behind. He reached in and took a set of black leather manacles connected with a few steel chains. "These will do. I'm going to put these on your wrists, and then you'll have your third and final seal." Click. Clack. Clink. The spiderweb appeared on the small of Cat's back, and she whimpered with need. Reaching back into the box, he retrieved a dog collar. "This is the collar of a pet, isn't it Cat?" She nodded. "I'm going to put this on you because you are our pet now, isn't that right, Cat?" She nodded again, rubbing her thighs together in anticipation. He'd put several collars on several different women, but previously it had always been with the goal of activating dungeon equipment. When he buckled the collar onto Cat, he was doing absolutely nothing except establishing his own sexual dominance over the woman. Her sigh signaled how much she enjoyed the treatment, but he was surprised and a little worried about how much he enjoyed treating her that way. He smacked her butt just to watch the seals ripple. Both smiled.

He opened her status and considered the advancement options he had with her. There wasn't much for him to spend capitulation on. She didn't have a class, she had no skills. She didn't even have a full set of stats as far as he could see. The physical and magical strength, the tenacity and vigor, and the agility and mettle were the stats she had bonuses to from the seals. Those were the only ones he could buy up with Capitulation, and he couldn't buy them up very much. It looked to him like Sidewinder Kate now had some super-human abilities, and presumably a submissive urge triggered by the Capitulation he had just spent.

Collared and shackled, Cat looked over her shoulder with lust-filled eyes. "Master," she pleaded, "will you please fuck my pussy and allow me to cum?" It was such a reasonable request, how could he refuse?

She had a smooth pussy, like Fiona in that way. She'd had a shaven pussy before, but the process of aesthetic preference hadn't given her a patch of pubic hair the way it had for Chaeryn's bald pubic area. Wondering why that was briefly distracted him from the task at hand, though the presence of a shackled and horny pop-country star did snap him out of his reverie of introspection. He lowered her onto the couch, his own supernaturally enhanced strength more than plenty to manhandle Cat despite being so dramatically less than what front liners like Ulzhari had. Or Ramon. He pushed that thought away, focusing on sucking Katherine's clit. She bucked and squirmed. "You can cum, Cat." He murmured between nibbles. Permission granted, she screamed as she came.

Katherine Davis lay on the couch like a discarded doll, but Max was not inclined to allow the sex addled woman any respite. He lifted first one ankle and then the other over his shoulders and lined up his own cock with her sopping pussy. He plunged in, and Cat felt dominated in a completely new way. Both Ulzhari and Max had stimulated her pussy, pushed it over the edge while taking complete control. But it was different with Max was filling it up, shaping her insides to accommodate his shape. His size. His ownership. She moaned as he humped into her, impaling her with his magical hunter's weapon.

Sophie leaned down, putting her face to Cat's ear, she whispered a suggestion. "Tell him that you're a worthless fuck pet and that you will cum at your master's command." The singer complied, and the Valkyrie grinned.

His thrusts came faster and faster as he neared his own orgasm. "Alright Slave Cat, when I fill you with my Essence, you cum!" He sprayed gobs of semen into her hole, and she orgasmed as she had been commanded to. Doing so completed her six acts of seal progression, which in turn triggered a surge of pleasure from her seals that was like a bolt of lightning from her pussy to her brain. At that moment she realized that she wanted, no that she needed Max to own her pussy forever.

####

Many eyes were upon them in the mess hall. It wasn't an everyday event that famous singers would come and eat with the hunters. And their choice to sit and eat with Max's party specifically was bound to spread speculation and rumors. Speculation that wouldn't be entirely off base, as it happened. It was a pizza day, and so Max was gesturing with the slice in his hand while he laid out his understanding of the situation. "We're going on a dungeon raid shortly. That will let you feel what it's like for me to be on a different planet from you. It'll make the magic enhancement from the seals smaller, and I think you'll have the same experience when you go back to Earth and we stay here. If you don't think it's worth it to have the seals at the reduced level, then I can release you when we come back." He made an equivocal gesture with the pepperoni. "On the other hand, if you want to keep the seals, we can do some more training after we finish the dungeon raid and before you return to Earth." His proclamation was intended to allay Katherine's fears, but it was clear from her expression that he had not succeeded.

Monique Jackson left her pizza on her plate when she talked. "You scratched her itch, made her your subby bitch. Now she's super strong, 'cuz she took your dong. But only time will tell, if she is sick or well." Having made a light poem out of it, she pulled out her phone and made some notes.

Being mocked by her friend allowed Katherine Davis to relax into a familiar routine of gentle ribbing with the other singer. "I can't say I like yer tone, butcha ain't wrong." To Max she was a bit more cautious. "Are you saying that you want me to choose whether you throw me away or not? Can I choose the option where you don't throw me away?"

Her portrayal of the question made Max wince. "You should make your own choices. That's why... that's why you should decide whether to keep progressing the seals while I'm away. When my power over is you is weakest, and I can't force you to change your mind." Whether the table was set for there to be any more back and forth at that dinner, it was all put on hold by the arrival of Alice and Chloe with pizza of their own.

"Can we sit?" Alice asked, and when there was general agreement that they could, the two D-tier hunters sat at their table. It seemed that she was about to ask a question when she did a double take and then asked a completely different question. "Wait... is Peppa Grinda here?"

A powerful hand slapped the table. "Yes," Sophie answered curtly, "Peppa Grinda and Sidewinder Kate are here." Alice looked at the other woman, first incredulously and then with something closer to awe. That reaction turned back to incredulity as the Valkyrie continued to explain. "Sidewinder Kate has decided to try life as Max's slave, and Peppa Grinda has decided to watch her friend's descent into a life of sex slavery to decide whether it's something she wants for herself."

"Really?" "Yes." "Really?" "Really." "No, but Really?" "Yes." "But like, for reals?" "Yes, Really." Technically there were many mouths speaking, but since hardly any information was exchanged it could as easily have been the roars of beasts as the speech of human tongues.

Max put his pizza down entirely. "Shut. Up." He looked around the table. "Stop talking about Sidewinder Kate. She's going to decide whether to remain as my slave, and I'm going to respect her decision." He gestured to Chloe and Alice. "You two didn't come to talk about Cat. You came to talk about yourselves. You two are going to make decisions, and I'm going to respect those decisions." His expression told them that he was waiting almost as patiently as possible for them to tell him what they were.

It was Chloe that spoke first. She brought a well loved paper back out of her purse and put it on the table. The cover had two attractive people in hunter gear in a pose suggestive that they might be about to have a steamy make out session. Or perhaps even more. "In Amber's Gate," Chloe began earnestly, "Amber, she's the party's storm by the way, she's a total ice queen. In fact, she's literally a Winter Witch, which in this series is like a special B-tier class that's like A-tier during the right season, but she's also an ice queen because she doesn't think she needs love. And Zach, he's the party vanguard, he ravishes her and when he does she realizes that she does need love after all. And you have sex magic, and I want to know if you can make that happen."

The gears in Max's head turned as he unraveled what the Hoplite had requested. "So wait... you want Sophie to ravish Fiona?" He had gotten as far as identifying his own party's vanguard and storm.

"I'll do it." Sophie supplied helpfully. The Vietnamese American woman shrugged.

"No," Chloe protested, "in the book, Amber doesn't want to love or be loved. And then, Zach forces her to take his love. And even though she refused him, when he ravishes her and takes her as a lover, she truly loves him."

Sidewinder Kate whistled. "Wow. That's so hot." The brown haired Hoplite was relieved that there was at least one person who got where she was coming from.

Max was not such a person. "So let me get this straight... the character Amber does not want the character Zach to be her lover, right?" Chloe nodded that he got that part correctly. "And then, despite her not wanting it, he ravishes her and takes her as a lover by force, right?" She again signaled her agreement. "So... Zach rapes Amber, and this is something you want me to do?"

Shaking her head, the Hoplite rejected his reality and substituted one of her own. "No. I mean, yes this is something I want you to do to me. But like, no, it's not rape. See, Amber thought she didn't want to make love to Zach, but then he forced her into intimacy and made love to her and then she realized that she loved him back and wanted him to make love. So, I'm asking if your sex magic can do that. Make me want to be your lover by ravishing me over my protest." Throughout her explanation, she was embarrassed, but never insincere. Reactions ranged from horrified to sadly sympathetic.

It looked like Miriam was about to launch into an extended diatribe about how consent worked outside the dungeon romance genre when a tall blond man came to loom over the end of their table. "You're sitting with the V I Ps," Alex remarked to Max specifically, "are you trying to get your weird pervert funk on these ladies?" He gestured to Peppa Grinda and Sidewinder Kate. "These women need a real man, not some freak who plays with butt toys. I'd better not find out that you're-" His threat was interrupted.

Sophie had smacked her hands together with more than enough force to make a thunderous noise. "Or you'll what?" Standing up from the table, the furious Valkyrie was a terrifying sight. Knowing how physically powerful she was certainly reinforced that reaction. It was like the shock of meeting an outraged snake on a mountain path only to realize that the snake in question actually was a lethally venomous variety.

Outmatched like a scavenger faced down by a predator over a kill, the Executioner mumbled something about hiding behind girlfriends, and slunk away.

### End Chapter 14###

Wow, this chapter took practically a month to come out, sorry about that. Chapter 15 will be a much shorter wait, and will be submitted in late May. Some of the delay has been that as chapters keep getting longer, they naturally take longer to write. These chapters are twice the length of the original chapters, so they are coming out twice a month instead of every week. But also the next chapter should be a bit easier for me to tackle because I don't have any more seventy hour work weeks this month.

Next chapter we are actually going back into the dungeon. And if you aren't into that sort of thing, consider yourself warned about Chloe's adventures with consent-play.