Fighting Them There Ch. 17

### Fighting Them There Chapter 17 ###

Sidewinder Kate, or Slave Cat as she chose to be known at the moment, handed the riding crop to Max. On her face was a look of anticipation. Undeniable horniness warred with trepidation. He took it from her and gave it an experimental swish through the air. It wasn't completely rigid, but it wasn't flexible enough that he could make it snap the way he could the Tartarian whip. It was closer to the Mictlanian cane, but the end had a leather tongue. He didn't regard himself as especially well read on such subjects, but ever since his class had begun pushing the women in his party in the directions that it had, he'd tried to stay ahead of the game. The end of the riding crop was either a popper or a flapper, and he wasn't sure which. In any case, the purpose was to spread out the impact to make a strike noisier and less damaging.

For that matter, he wasn't entirely sure that it was technically correct to call it a riding crop at all. That was the basic name, for basic people like himself. People who were really into horse riding divided such things into jumping bats, vaulting whips, show canes, and all sorts of things. People who were really into BDSM had floggers, cane whips, scourges, and on and on. Both rabbit holes were very deep, and Max had only downloaded the shallowest of explanations to his computer. He didn't know if Cat had purchased this object from the horse whip people or the sex whip people. Given her country music persona and her predilection for kink, it could plausibly have been either. Riding crop was the default name and also a pun, as either definition of ride could be applied to a whip.

Having gotten a literal and figurative grasp on the riding crop he gestured with it at Cat and he saw her breath quicken. "Cat, you're going back to Earth tomorrow. I won't be back to Earth until February, and when I'm there I'm going to be seeing my family and friends and I simply won't be able to spend that whole month training you. You won't be able to come back to Camp Acheron until May, and again I won't be able to spend that whole time with you." Still kneeling on the floor, the woman looked terrified. "You can be one of my slaves, but you're not going to be sharing my bed every night or even every month. For the next few years at least, I'll only be giving you the sexual release you need a few times a year. Are you sure you're OK with that? Because if you're imagining a future where we live together and I give spankings to your needy little slave tushy every night, that isn't happening. Certainly not any time soon, and maybe not ever." He idly tapped the shaft of the riding crop against his other hand while awaiting her answer.

Cat stopped like someone had paused a video. Her face looked like she'd just realized she had missed a semester's worth of homework assignments or saw an overdue credit card bill. She swallowed hard and made a big decision. "Master, I realize that you will not have a lot of time for this worthless slave," her whole body jerked as if she'd just been poked in the butt, and since she'd just activated the act of supplication, she kind of had been, "but please, just for tonight, train me like a slave you'll own forever." She placed her hands under her substantial breasts and held them out in offering to her master.

Of all the people in the room, the most awkwardly out of place was Danny, though Khorog was a close second. "Um... what are you guys doing?" Danny had magically enhanced perception and a vivid imagination, so he was actually pretty sure he knew exactly what they were doing, but he was too embarrassed to say anything to that effect.

Max tapped the end of the riding crop on Cat's shoulders like he was dubbing her as a knight. "The slaves need to have training to advance their seals, Danny. There are various ways that can happen, but they've all come around to wanting that training to be sexual. Sidewinder Kate here has decided that for tonight, she wants to be Slave Cat. I'm going to beat her, and I'm going to fuck her, and she's going to beg me to let her cum. And every member of my party is going to watch me do it, and some of them are going to masturbate." There were various gasps around the room, and Max ignored them. "As for you, Danny, you can stay and watch, or you can go somewhere else. Same goes for you, Khorog." He shrugged.

The orcish berserker didn't need to think about it for long. "I being go away now," he said, his poor use of human grammar the only indication of how flustered he was, "this being strong strange now. Being go. Being go." He walked out of the room with what genuinely looked like a nonchalant dignity about him. A testament to his ability to put a brave face on a situation he was uncomfortable in.

The human Sentry was more visible about how flustered he was. "Why are you telling me this?" Danny pleaded. "Why not just do it in your room and pretend I couldn't hear?" It was a question Max had asked himself. But it would be pretend: Danny's class was the highest perception class in C-tier. The man didn't have X-Ray vision, probably, but he had senses of hearing and smell that were pretty close.

"Well, I mean, you're a Sentry, right?" Max responded, "even if we went to the next building over, you'd still hear us. We could both pretend that you didn't know about our sex training sessions, but why? We don't have anything to be ashamed of, no secrets we need to keep. At least, not from you." He turned to his own team's defender. "Chloe, come over here and tell Danny what you are."

The Hoplite staggered forward as if she had been pulled on a rope. Taking a position next to Max, she squirmed and her skin turned red. "Um... Danny? Master Max has made me into a butt slave. He um... he owns my butt now. I didn't think I wanted to be a butt slave, but Max showed me that I was wrong. He showed me that it was better to surrender and let him take ownership of my butt." She shuddered in shame, then she sighed in relief.

"Wow," Danny said, "so like, they are all your girlfriends now?" The Chinese American looked fascinated and terrified, propelled off the cliff of horror by the impetus of curiousity. Like someone about to click on a video link after they'd been told why they should not.

Scrunching up his face asymmetrically, Max demurred. "Well, Sophie is my girlfriend. The rest of them get the girlfriend experience when they need it," he glanced at Fiona, "but if they wanted to have boyfriends, I don't have the right to deny them." At his feet, Cat looked sad. His attention turned back to Danny. "So if you wanted to be Chloe's boyfriend, you could still ask her out. She's still a person, she can make her own choices. It's just that whether she's dating you or not, she'll still be my slave. I'm still going to be training her, still owning her asshole. And she'll still be a member of our team." Everyone looked at him like he'd said something insane.

Chloe's head spun so quickly that her braids went flapping around like the tails of a comet. "Master Max, Master Max!" She interjected in a panic. "Does that mean you're going to make have sex with your friends?" Chloe looked horrified. Fiona snickered.

Max sighed. "No... well, we definitely do group sex training in the party. But even so, if you don't want to have sex with someone, I won't force you to. And I wouldn't ever ask you to have sex with someone who wasn't part of all this." He waved his hands vaguely at the other party members. He sighed again, with more even more weight. "It's just... with this class I am cheating on Sophie. She's been very nice and understanding about it, but that is what's going on." Sophie herself started to object, and he held up his hand. "How ridiculous would it be for me to demand monogamy from any of you? No, I'll try to keep all of you satisfied, but I know that I can't be enough of a boyfriend for all of you. Not like you deserve. So if any of you want to date outside the party, you absolutely can." He tapped the popper (or perhaps flapper) on Cat's shoulder. "That goes for you, too. I can train you tonight, but when you get home I'm not expecting you to stay celibate. I own your submissive little pussy, but when I'm not around you can do what you like."

One person who'd been quiet until that point was Monique Jackson, also known by her stage name of Peppa Grinda. "It sounds like a deal, you make me your slave, but I'll keep it real, gonna misbehave." She walked over and knelt next to Cat. "Just one month in three, just a short pastiche, that's when you'll own me, 'til I'm off the leash." She copied Cat's hand position in offering up her bosom.

"Wait," Danny said, "you're putting seals on civilians?" His voice betrayed that he was worried in an entirely different way than he had been before. "Why? I mean, they can't go to the dungeon, what's the point of them getting seals?"

It was a good question, one that every member of the party had pondered. "You know," Max admitted, "I really don't know. The class has unlocked seals that only go on non-hunters. So far, all the weird stuff the class gives out that doesn't seem to have any purpose has turned out to be really important, so we're doing this. But it's a blind alley, we don't know where it leads." Having gotten that off his chest, he got serious with Peppa Grinda. "I know you're really proud of your rhymes, and you should be. I'm really impressed. But right now we need clarity, not poetry. So please, just say it normally. I'm going to whip Cat. She is a pain slave, and I'm going to whip her until she cums. Peppa, when you get your seals on you, what exactly do you want me to do to you?"

Despite having thought about almost nothing else for the entire time that Max's party had been in the dungeon, Monique still had to think more. There were many scenarios she had imagined, some more fantastical than others. "I thought... I thought it would just be like with the braids girl. You'd just rape me however you wanted, and your magic dick would make me enjoy it. And when we went back to Earth I would have the same kinda magic strength as Kate does. Taking dick four times a year ain't much for magic strength." Her assessment felt like a punch in the gut for Max.

"I didn't..." He mumbled, unable to form a coherent rebuttal.

"Master Max," Cat said eagerly, "I know what Monique wants! She wants to be treated just like me. She wants you to make her tits bigger. She wants you to spank her ass and whip her tits. She wants you to own her pussy and make her into a human pet. I brought a collar and leash for my own neck, and my bag has another collar and leash for her." She smiled like a student expecting praise. "We could be matched slaves. Leashed and whipped together. Taken for walks together. Servicing your cock together." It definitely sounded more like what Slave Cat wanted than what Peppa Grinda wanted, and her declaration got a lot of side eye from all around the room.

"Is she right, Peppa?" He asked the woman whose fate was being decided. "Would you like to be whipped like Slave Cat? Collared like Slave Cat? Made into a pair of dominated pets? Is that something you would like?" His demeanor was skeptical, almost harsh.

"I..." Monique Jackson had to think. Would she like that? She probably would. She'd been hearing basically nothing but gushing reports of the enslavement process from Kate. From... Cat, she reminded herself. And that naive hunter girl had taken to enslavement like a dog to a bone. But was it what she wanted? Did she want to bend over next to her friend and get spanked until her pussy got so wet that Max's monster cock could push into her with ease? Did she want to wear a dog collar and crawl between the legs of Max's powerful hunters to lick their pussies in total submission. It wouldn't have been her first choice, but it was an attractive offer. And she didn't want Cat to keep holding this over her. "I think I would like that."

Max looked down at her with feigned impatience. "You would like... what?"

She closed her eyes. She took a breath. This was a road she wasn't coming back down. "I... Monique Jackson... would like Master Max to make me his slave. I would like to suffer the spankings and whippings that Slave Cat receives, I would like to receive the collaring and humiliations that Slave Cat receives. And I would like to receive the hard fuckings that Slave Cat receives." She shivered, and her already prodigious breasts quivered in her hands. She looked up to meet his gaze, and her eyes were filled with hope and shame.

Pointing the riding crop at Cat's tits, Max had another question. "The seal makes changes to your body, makes you more beautiful to me. I can't fully control it, but I can try. Cat got bigger tits, what do you want?" He gave one of Cat's tits a light smack and she lolled her tongue out in exaggerated joy. The end of the crop that was a popper or perhaps a flapper moved back in front of Monique Jackson's face.

It was like a buffet table at a plastic surgeon, Monique was stunned into silence. Bigger tits was obvious, Kate had been rubbing those things on her all day. Kate's fake tits had been absolutely top shelf, but her magic tits were ridiculous. But there was so much more she could do. "Can I... stand up for this?" Max agreed that she could. "OK, so I want my tits bigger, obviously. And can they stay up like this?" She held them just slightly higher on her chest than they naturally sagged to. "And when they come together in the middle, I'd like them to touch, but not be completely mashed together. Incomplete touching, so it's obvious there's a dick canal in between. And my nipples aren't the same size, can they be the same size?" Max boggled, the nipples looked about the same to him, and he didn't know what she was talking about. "You can mess with the hair everywhere, right? Can you make all my hair just gone gone except the stuff on my head? Like, no bullshit hairs on my legs or armpits, nothing on my pussy? And while we're at it with my pussy, the inner lips stick out unevenly. Could you make them the same? Or better yet! Just make them small enough that they don't stick out at all? Just make my pussy smooth and cute." She turned around and showed her butt. It was a very nice butt. A famously attractive butt. "Can you take just a little bit of the fat outta my inner thighs? Just enough that you can see how smooth and cute my pussy lips are from behind while my feet are straight down. And there's that little spot of pink skin on my back shoulder, can you make that the same as everywhere else? And speaking of pigment bullshit, my palms are way too light, except for inside the creases, can that be evened out?" It was a lot.

"I'll... try to remember all that." Max pledged. Then he approached her and pulled her around into a kiss. "I'm sending you the slave offer. If you accept it, you'll get your first seal."

"Ohhhh. Wow." Monique groaned as the heart shaped claiming seal took form on her butt cheek. It was on the opposite cheek from Cat's, so they already didn't match. She had shaved herself smooth before coming to the meeting, but whether she had become naturally bereft of hair or not, she certainly didn't grow hair anywhere. The growth of her breasts however, was obvious and undeniable. They had gone up at least a cup size and rested a couple fingers higher. As soon as Max released her, she bent down and looked at her snatch. The act of doing so caused her newly enlarged to flop around. "It happened! It's so cute!" She fiddled with her smooth pussy lips. Max had been most worried about getting that part right, but she seemed to like it.

"That first seal is the seal of claiming. It makes you stronger, and it means that you've been claimed. By me. The next seal comes from watching me kiss another woman." He waved his hand and made sure he had Monique's undivided attention. Then he turned to Sophie and gave her a big theatrical kiss on the lips. She melted into his arms and he gave her a dip like they were in a twentieth century movie. Monique moaned as the green circular snake emblem etched itself into the small of her back. Max pulled his girlfriend back up to a dazed but standing position, and looked back at the two singers. "That is the envy seal. It makes you faster, and it means you accept that I own other women. Now, the last seal comes when I bind you. Cat? Get those collars you were talking about."

"Yes Master!" A gleeful Slave Cat pranced over to her bag and rooted around in it until she had acquired two dog collars and two leashes. Max fastened the first collar onto Cat's neck as a reward, and then handed the leash to Ulzhari to hold. The orc gently pet Cat's head, running her strong hand along the singer's silky hair. Cat let out a contented sigh. Ulzhari oinked with promise into Cat's ear.

When Max latched the collar onto Monique's neck, she jumped as if she'd been spanked. The silver spiderweb emblem had taken hold on the final empty place: the other butt cheek. "That final seal is the binding seal. It makes you tougher, and signifies your enslavement." He opened her status. As with Cat, there was quite a bit more Capitulation to spend than there were ways to spend it. Nothing to increase but some stats, and not very much by hunter standards. "Now that your seals are in place, I can invoke your Capitulation. That will permanently strengthen you, and cause you to feel a submissive urge. If you give in to that urge, I will own your pussy like I own Cat's pussy." He spent what Capitulation he could. Monique closed her eyes and groaned out her craving. She wasn't even trying to resist the submissive urge. "Monique? Get on your hands and knees."

As the new slave prepared to be mounted, Sophie opened Max's pants. His cock was hard enough to do what it needed to do, and the Valkyrie put her hands on Monique's backside to open up the way. The contrast between the dark smooth pussy skin and the glistening pinkness of Monique's interior was stark. And then it was replaced by a different contrast as the Max's cock filled the cunt hole to completion, her inner pink visible only while he pulled back to ready himself to slam back into her depths. "Oooooh!" She howled. "You're owning me! You're owning me!" Shtck shtck shtck. "Oh! Fuck! It's real! You own my pussy now! Ooooooh!" She howled out her orgasm and knew that it had somehow locked her into submission.

Smiling over his conquest, Max had another promise to keep. "Ulzhari? Bring Cat over to be hands and knees next to Monique. Miriam? Cast stone skin on both these slaves." Cat walked next to the orcish woman who held her leash as if she was in a trance, the leash itself nothing but a formality as she showed how good a slave she was, one careful step at a time. When Cat was positioned, Miriam toasted with her goblet and granted both Monique and Cat temporary extra strength and durability.

Smack! Smack! Smack! Max rained blows on both upturned asses. The temporary durability meant that no lasting damage remained from any touch of the riding crop. Every sting was wiped out in an instant, leaving only endorphins in its wake. Both women cried out in incoherent agony and ecstasy, their pussies juicing up and dripping down their inner thighs. With two offered pussies, Max gave a few thrusts into one and then a few thrusts into the other. Overstimulated as she was, Cat didn't take long to cry out her orgasm. Monique's second orgasm wasn't long behind. As the new slave gurgled out her pleasure and submission, Max rewarded her by painting her cervix with white sauce.

Miriam grinned at what her magic had accomplished. "She's a pain slave now. Peppa Grinda needs a slave name. Like Cat has." The Geomancer's thoughts ran free association of pepper and grinding in different languages and stumbled upon something she liked rather by accident. "Fifi! When she's in slave mode, she can be Fifi."

It seemed good enough to Max. "You hear that? When your collar is on, your name is Slave Fifi. And when I call you Fifi, you go into slave mode. And if you want to go into slave mode, just call yourself Fifi." He gave her another swat on the butt with the crop. "Do you understand, Slave Fifi?"

"Yes Master Max, Slave Fifi understands!" Having spoken so many lines with so few rhymes, Fifi was at her breaking point in another way. "Now that you have me bound and tamed, I'll shout to the world I'm not ashamed, I'll tell errybody that I'm celebrating, I'll even call my doctor while she's operating, I'll say 'hey Doc there's a surprise in store, 'cuz ya favorite patient's now a nasty whore.'" She smiled at her master. It was a pretty good rhyme.

"Um," Danny Hu stammered, "I'm going to go away now. I don't think I can watch any more of this." The Sentry staggered awkwardly out of the room, and Max pretended that he didn't know what the Sentry was doing once he had left.

Max considered the two panting women. "These two want to be matching slaves. Cat already acknowledges Ulzhari as her mistress, who wants to hold Fifi's leash?" The first woman whose hand went up was Fiona. "Sure. OK Fifi, you understand that you're a masochistic pussy-slave now, just like Cat, right?" She nodded. "See that Asian woman there? That's Fiona, and from now on, you're her pet. Now what you're gonna do is crawl over and lick her pussy while Cat does the same for Ulzhari and I spank your pain loving asses." His attention shifted to his party members. "Fiona, Ulzhari, get on the couch and spread your legs so these slaves can lick your pussies." Both women leapt to obey.

As Fifi and Cat crawled toward the pussies they were tasked with pleasuring, Cat spoke to her friend. "Fifi, we're going to be licking mistress pussy. You won't be able to speak, to rhyme. Just let yourself go into subspace. Don't think with your mind, think with your pussy. When you're in subspace there's nothing but pleasure and pain. Master and Mistress. Your pussy is in charge now Fifi." Max smacked Cat's butt and she squealed. Fifi took her slave friend's advice to heart, and Fiona's smooth pussy lips loomed larger and larger in her sight and in her mind.

Fiona looked between her thighs as the collared woman crawled between. "Wow. Fifi is a sexy pet. Thank you so much Master Max, this is the best present." Both Fifi and Cat dove in, their tongues pushing as far into the hunters' snatches as they would go. It was like they were competing, trying to pleasure their mistresses, trying to debase themselves completely into subspace. "Oh! Master, Fifi is being such a good slave bitch. Aaaah. That's so good. I'm so glad you enslaved Fifi." Fiona relaxed back into the couch, luxuriating in the feelings of having her bud sucked on by a famous singer. Meanwhile, Ulzhari gently scratched Cat's head while she licked orc pussy and purred.

True to his word, Max delivered hard spanks against both butts. The temporary durability of Miriam's magic continued to play havoc with their minds. The lack of lingering sting meant that each strike created as much relief from the pain's immediate end as it made pain in the first place. With the endorphins and the excitement generated, each spike was simply pleasurable on net, even before being passed through the triggering of their binding seals or their own submissive filters. Their pussies were becoming soppy messes, becoming the focus of their thoughts. Nothing came from their mouths but groans and grunts as they both descended eagerly into subspace. When Max's pole penetrated Fifi again, she simply rolled her eyes up as she orgasmed too hard to even remain on all fours.

Pulling out of Fifi's quivering hole, Max placed his cock at Cat's entrance. "You've been a good slave, Cat. Helping to enslave your own friend." He slid into her with ease, and Cat purred into Ulzhari's pussy. It was of course, Cat's turn to be filled with her master's cum. Max thrust into her dutifully to make sure she got the semen she was entitled to. She was so grateful to receive her master's Essence.

Katherine Davis and Monique Jackson were both leaving for Earth in just hours. None of Max's team was going to be able to see them off at the portal. There was a lot of paperwork they all had to do.

####

"Hunter Mitchell, do you know why you're here?" The silver pinwheel on her uniform indicated that she was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Space Force, but such ranks were mostly a formality for medical officers. Her plaque said Doctor Sara Arumugam, so while Max was required to salute, it didn't feel like he had caught the Eye of Sauron. Although when it came down to it, he figured that he almost certainly had. The paperwork storm had already begun.

The question itself seemed simple enough, he'd been under no illusion that he could avoid paperwork and interviews after what had happened. "Yes Ma'am. One of my party members changed from D-tier to C-tier because of my class abilities." He wondered belatedly if he was supposed to salute during or after giving his report. He decided that he was probably in a doctor-patient discussion, so it was probably fine to leave it out.

"I suppose in a first causes sort of way, that is correct." The medical officer smirked. "You were asked to write about your abilities and your feelings about your abilities; because those abilities are extraordinary and potentially important to the war effort. And you are here, because those feelings make people worried." She gestured to a comfy chair. It was impressive that there was such a chair at Camp Acheron, portal transportation wasn't free when it came to mass or volume, so most furniture the Space Force sent in was something that could collapse into a flat pack. A full size comfortable chair was the kind of thing that an officer might be able to bring in, and its presence was a reminder that despite her relaxed demeanor that the doctor was a commissioned officer rather than merely a technical specialist.

The chair was as comfortable as it appeared, having both the solidity granted by a sturdy wooden frame and enough padding in its cushions that Max could sink into it. "Some of my one-of-five reviews said that I was a danger to women. I'm sure you have access to those." The medical officer pushed a lock of straight black hair out of her eye, silently affirming his supposition with a glance. "I wish I could say that they were wrong. But... I think I may have raped Chloe. She seems... strangely OK with it, but I don't think what I did was what she was consenting to at all. I think I misunderstood her, and now she's locked in with a new fetish." He shuddered. "So if the higher ups want to take me off the board as damage control, I understand." Max swallowed.

She looked at her tablet and took a long slow breath. "Oh boy," she said with an ironic element in her voice that implied that she had a substantial task that she wasn't looking forward to, "that right there is what the Colonel is afraid of. You've got great powers and great responsibilities and you have... doubt. Which is normal and healthy and all that, but we are relying on you as an irreplaceable piece in a plan that is rapidly becoming a political thing on every Home World. So we do not want normal and healthy." Doctor Arumugam grinned like a tigress.

"But wait," Max inquired in distress and confusion, "aren't you a doctor? Isn't making your patients healthy, like, your whole thing?"

The doctor shrugged. "You know how there are sports medicine doctors who work with major teams? Do you think they tell those athletes: 'Boy, you gotta stop giving one hundred and ten percent on the field, because that's bad for you?' Of course not. Those doctors tell those athletes how to give one hundred and fifteen percent. Maybe those athletes are burning the candle at both ends, but by golly it's the doctor's job to find a third end for them to light." After such a comparison, it might have been expected for her to have a self deprecating grin or an embarrassed stretch of the neck muscles, but there was not. She continued smiling like someone who would sleep well that evening.

Having a horrible feeling that he understood where she was going with it, Max could only nod.

The errant lock of hair had fallen back down to cover one of her eyes, making the doctor look almost like a pirate or a cartoon character. "Max, do you know how many five million is?" She gave only a moment's pause for the rhetorical question to be answered. "It's so many that if you were to kill five million people fifty years ago in a single event, that would be more than killing two hundred people every day in every week of every month of every year since then. And in ten years, that statement would still be true. And do you know why I am talking about those specific numbers?" It was again a rhetorical question, but she left him space to answer it for real.

Actually learning about dungeon breaks was pretty distressing, the primary footage included some grim stuff. The monsters did not treat human bodies with respect, and that was sufficiently outside the normal experience of someone who lived in a society to evoke reactions of horror and disgust. Despite, or perhaps because of how distressing it was, it was a field of study that most hunters delved into quite deeply during their teenage years while the rune was nothing but a promise. Max had been no exception to that, and had studied monster attacks even more than the average aspiring hunter. "Um... does this have something to do with Guangzhou?" The numbers added up close enough, and it was the biggest monster-related disaster in history. If someone wanted to make a hyperbolic comparison, the Demon Lord of Guangzhou was head and shoulders more likely to be chosen than any other example.

"Very good," her ongoing war with her eye covering bangs escalated to a head toss, "so you don't need me to tell you why it is that when the higher ups find out that there's a way we might be able to defeat Tartarus, to end that part of the war altogether... the sacrifices they might be willing to make are really quite significant." She pointed at him. "And that is why they want me to give you the Krishna and Arjuna talk."

"The what?"

The doctor chuckled. "Well, the Space Force doesn't want me to literally quote scripture at you, even though they did name an entire enemy planet Patala, so you get the off the cuff version. You probably want to deal in ethical statements that are simple and easy to understand. Things like: Killing Is Wrong. Stuff like that, right?" Max nodded along. "But then we get to a specific time, a specific place, a specific event, and now there's context. So, Hunter Mitchell, the wolf is hungry and the rabbit is made of meat, is it evil when the wolf kills the rabbit?"

Feeling that he was walking into a trap, Max could do nothing but shake his head. "The wolf needs to eat. So the wolf needs to kill the rabbit. The rabbit needs to escape to survive, so neither animal is evil, no matter which wins." Doctor Arumugam was obviously pleased with his answer and this made him even more convinced that the jaws of the trap were already in motion.

She did not disappoint. "You have a plan to capture a Tartarian, right?" He gulped, and fidgeted in the chair. "Well, plan might be a strong word. But there's a method you have in mind. Care to explain it?" Her lack of apparent interest made it clear that she absolutely knew what the method was supposed to be and was asking as a rhetorical device.

"Sure, um... Chaeryn has an object called Faleryn's Arrow, and it like, makes the target fall in love. Now there's a riddle on it, but we believe it will work on a Tartarian female." He didn't delve into the logic that the answer revolved his own potential ability to impregnate a Tartarian, but the doctor waved him to continue. "And then I have an ability to kiss a woman and offer them slave seals. If they accept, which I think Faleryn's Arrow should ensure, then they will immediately gain a special currency I can spend on upgrading their hunter abilities called Capitulation. When I spend that, they will become permanently stronger, but they will also have a temporary submissive urge." He took a deep breath. "And when I have sex with someone while they are having a submissive urge, they become sexually submissive to me for an extended time." He ahemmed. "Truthfully, I don't know if it ever ends, but it should certainly last long enough for us to take a Tartarian back to our base and interrogate her. Also, when my slaves talk in languages I don't understand, I still understand what they're saying. I've never had a slave that doesn't know English, but it probably works both ways."

Doctor Arumugam gave a predatory smile that let Max know he wasn't going to like what she said next. "So you don't think Hunter Chloe Miller properly consented for the sex you had with her, and the magic of your class made her like it, and now she is your..." she ostentatiously checked her pad before continuing, "'enthusiastic anal sex slave.' And this dry run appears to have been a complete success, which naturally increases our confidence in your ability to deliver when you attempt to do the same thing to a Tartarian invader." Her dark eyes looked through Max like everything between her and his soul was made of glass. He flinched. "Let's say for the moment that what you did to Hunter Miller is rape. We're all glad that it worked, especially Hunter Miller herself. She's done very well on your team, got the shield wall skill from leveling up. She was well rated by the rest of the team, she rated you very highly. Hunter Miller was your rabbit, Hunter Mitchell, and you were the hungry wolf. You did what you needed to do, and we're proud of you. What you're expecting to do to one of the enemies doesn't sound any less like rape, does it? We're all hoping that works just as well."

Max waved his arms. "That's it? I'm just supposed to rape people and hope it works out? What if I raped someone and it doesn't work out? What if the submissive urge wears off and all these women suffer trauma for the rest of their lives? What if I raped you?"

If his outburst was supposed to shock her, she showed no sign of having been affected in that way. She maintained a slightly amused expression, and undid the top button of her uniform. "You've acquired two slaves who aren't even hunters, right? Why? They are famously attractive singers, I'm told, what do you intend to do with them?"

Whiplashed by the new questions, Max struggled to find footing. "Um... I don't know. The class has created a growing number of slots for me to put the seals on people who aren't even hunters. They get the same seals that the hunters get, but I don't know what they are for. We practiced putting the seals on Sidewinder Kate and Peppa Grinda, and that worked. But we're not any closer to figuring out how that's supposed to tie back in to how the class functions." It was a truth he didn't like to admit, but one he was sure the officers already knew.

Undoing another button, the medical officer nodded. "At some point, we expect that you will figure out what they are for. When that happens, there will presumably be people that you need to use your sex magic on, people you need to enslave." She undid another button, and and other after that. Her uniform opened and revealed her gray sports bra and part of the dark skin of her chest. There was a line at her uniform collar where the skin became lighter, but her South Asian heritage prevented it from being actually pale. As another button was undone, Max saw that while she was probably fifteen years his senior, she was still fighting fit. "Who do you think it is going to be? There are powerful clans of orcs who will want you to enslave one of their daughters. The elvish Queen's Council and the Great Tree have both already submitted lists of names." There weren't any overlaps on those lists, and Sara Arumugam was very glad she didn't have to be part of those conversations. Once the orcs got their hands on this intel, the number of suggestions was going to increase exponentially. It was one of the few times that she was grateful to be on a distant planet where people couldn't just pop in for a visit.

"I don't know." It was the honest answer. Not a good one, but it was the truth.

Doctor Arumugam acknowledged it. She undid more buttons while she talked. "No, of course you don't. None of us do. But we have to accept that just as your ability to put seals on hunters naturally led you to put seals on the hunters in your party, that your ability to put seals on non-hunters will naturally lead you to certain selections. You have choices, but the circumstances will create needs. Maybe you'll need to put seals on officers. What about Lieutenant Cortes? She's busted your balls a few times, maybe you'll turn her into your enthusiastic anal slave." With the last button undone, Sara showed off the muscular midriff that she maintained in her thirties. It was quite attractive, and she was right to be proud of it. "Maybe you'll need to enslave a medical officer, and I'll find myself enslaved to your penis." She looked down at her own modest bosom. "Some of your slaves have giant breasts, I wonder how you'd change my body. Would you give me large breasts I could wrap around your penis? Or would you turn me into a masochistic slave who begs to be whipped before begging to have your semen fill my vagina?"

Shaking his head, Max's eyes bulged. "I wouldn't..."

"Of course you would!" The medical officer moved her bangs again, her sports bra doing a much better job of keeping her boobs from becoming unruly than whatever her hair containment plan was. "If it was important, if that's what you needed to do, you'd rape me right now. And you'd use your powers to make sure I begged you to do it to me again and again." Her gaze dared him to say otherwise, he didn't dare. "We are engaging in a grand project, Hunter Mitchell, we all make sacrifices. Every one of us has a part to play, and all of us have things we need to do. If we focus too much on the small things, we can get lost questioning whether each step is good or evil. And yet, at the end of the day they only thing that matters is that we did as well as we could. Do what you need to do, Hunter Mitchell, and do it with conviction."

Max's jaw set. "You're talking about me raping someone, maybe even raping you, and turning you into a sex slave as if it was a small thing." He was angry. And slightly nauseous.

"Isn't it? One is a much smaller number than five million." Medical Officer Doctor Sara Arumugam began rebuttoning her uniform.

####

Chaeryn unbuttoned her military-issue shirt. Since Max had grown her breasts, none of the clothing she had brought from the Shelflands really fit properly. Fortunately, it seemed that the textile production of Earth could clothe her without even noticing the loss. It was a strange thing to stand before light keepers in human garb, but they had asked to see her naked chest because her bare skin was even stranger. Her hunter's mark was revealed, and despite having been warned both light keepers hard a sharp intake of breath.              

One of the light keepers, it didn't even occur to Chaeryn to put names to them, took a crystal sphere and held it in front of her veil. The Shadow Elf couldn't tell without touching it, but she assumed that it was dungeon equipment that performed some detection magic. Such objects could be quite useful outside the dungeons, and the Great Tree managed the largest armory of its kind. Just a season's turn ago, Chaeryn would not have been able to imagine a circumstance where light keepers came to Camp Acheron to investigate her with ancient relics. Under the circumstances she found herself in, she had expected nothing less.

"We can confirm that this hunter had awakened with the class Sniper, from the second scroll, and currently has the class Assassin from the third scroll." The light keeper intoned her words like she was reading out instructions for making nut bread to a class of children, but behind the crisp formality was a detectable edge of uncertainty. The crystal was placed into a crush leaf bag, and the bag was placed in a lined wooden box.

While their eyes were invisible behind their veils, Chaeryn suspected they were scrutinizing her every move. Being bare chested in front of two light keepers was something that would have very recently seemed intolerable, but Max had taught her to be comfortable with her nakedness displayed to others. The second light keeper spoke with even less confidence than her companion. "In every battle with the Nemesis Worlds, our champions have been armored throughout their lives by their hunter's mark. Their single hunter's mark. The one and only mark that they receive. Some have been much better than others, and the legends of our people are as much a tale of the fifth scroll as they are all other things. You are the first of our champions to have had two marks. Will you get a third?" The last words were rusted with envy.

A part of her wanted to object, to harken to legends like Hanniel of the Two Souls or Selendir's Second Chance. After all, if Faleryn's Arrow was real, why wouldn't those legends be true as well? But the light keepers were clearly on edge, and not in any mood to reevaluate the hidden truths of stories told to children around the hearth fires while rattlestorms raged outside. "Master Max reports that my class title remains green, though it is now much more expensive for him to advance it. I imagine that I will at some point receive a class from the fourth scroll." She originally considered herself finished, but then felt the need to add speculation to make it more practical, more real. "Death Blossom seems likely, though of course undiscovered entries on the fourth scroll, and of course the fifth scroll, remain."

"The nature of this additional cost must be investigated more thoroughly," the light keeper said, and then speculated as to what those investigations might show, "if it turns out that all of Max Mitchell's compatriots are destined for a mark from the fifth scroll, then he should be starting with the basest of clays. Hunters with marks from the first scroll would be the clearly correct choice. If hunters are eventually able to advance only twice, then all of his party members should be drawn from those initially of the third scroll." The hunger of avarice spoke through her. Though her face was covered by the veil, there could be little doubt that her eyes shone with dreams of a perfectly manicured party. Oversized and made of champions worthy of legend, a spear aimed directly at the heart of the next black gate.

The other light keeper concurred. "Chaeryn, your duty must be to ascend to the fourth scroll as quickly as possible. If your advancement is then without path, it would be best to retire from his service and allow someone like Glyffildir to take your place." Both light keepers hummed a sweet chord to indicate the sincerity and correctness of their statement. It was such a High Elf thing to do that Chaeryn suspected neither had ever placed one foot below the sea or soil.

For her part, Chaeryn pointed two fingers at the floor in acknowledgment. She couldn't imagine Max being OK with casting his party members aside after advancing their hunter's rune twice, but there was no advantage in having that conversation before it needed to be had. Loyalty was the virtue Sophie had ascribed to Max above all others, and Chaeryn had seen no reason to doubt it.

One of the light keepers switched the focus of the conversation somewhat. "Is there any new truth learned about the seals for the Unmarked?" Her whole body reoriented itself toward the Shadow Elf, making it clear even through the veil that she had the light keeper's undivided attention.

Swiping her fingers sideways in negation, Chaeryn's regretful tone answered before her words did. "As of now, the answer is No. Master Max has chosen two Unmarked musicians and they have taken his seals and accepted what advancement they could. There is no indication that they serve any purpose other than warm bodies upon which he can practice his skills." Her purple eyes stared out impassively.

The light keepers considered this information. "It may be a major honor," one mused, "or one which is minor enough that its recipient would not be mentioned in the Saga of Max Mitchell. Perhaps we should bring forth a tertiary queen candidate. Someone who would not be mourned if forgotten but would draw our people together if she became celebrated."

The other light keeper harrumphed. "Depending on whether his seals for the Unmarked are a boon or a curse, it may be that it is a position for criminals rather than royalty. But it is still almost certain that it will be of benefit to The Great Tree that Max Mitchell's Unmarked servants include daughters of the sunless sky." They were quite obviously at an impasse. The agents of The Great Tree knew they wanted elves in Max's harem, but without knowing what the non-hunter harem members were supposed to do, it was impossible to reach a decision on who it should be.

It went round and round as the light keepers talked themselves into suggesting soldiers, politicians, sages, and whores. Each plausible in their advantage to the Alliance and the elvish peoples, but only if the as-yet undiscovered utility of the slaves lined up appropriately. Except obviously for the whores, Chaeryn could see an immediate utility for bringing in a high class elvish courtesan, but the light keepers seemed to find that option distasteful. Sometimes when they got too far into speculation, Chaeryn would have to remind them that they were measuring a pit that had not been dug, which for some reason seemed to irk one of the light keepers severely.

Finally Chaeryn was allowed to leave. On her way out, one of the light keepers reminded her that she needed to put her shirt back on.

####

When the team got back together for training, it felt like it had been forever. It had actually just been most of two days, and Max wondered how they were going to handle breaking up for the entire month. He could tell everyone wanted to get tied up and insult themselves, but there were other agenda items. "First things first: Sophie and Chloe have new skills, and I have more Mastery to spend."

"Can you make an heir now?" Miriam asked, her demeanor giving away that she was looking to get a rise out of Max rather than an answer.

Calling her bluff, Max replied. "Yes." Miriam's face turned as red as her hair, and she broke his gaze. "But I think it would be more useful to increase the slave storage to two. That way we could bring Alice on the next mission as a trial member." The plan would be for her to take a regular space on the platform while two of the regular party members rode in storage. "But spending that much Mastery is going to give me a big dominant urge, so if any of you don't want me to get all rough with you, you can certainly step out for a bit." There were some confused glances, but no one took him up on the offer.

After an awkward pause, Miriam had a suggestion. "Well, if you're going to go all conquering hero on us, you should probably pass me and Chloe through slave storage first. You own our assholes, and I'd like to be cleaned off before you take me up the ass again." Chloe got a frightened and slightly disgusted look on her face, and then nodded vigorously in agreement.

Her logic was unassailable, and Max quickly agreed. "I think taking you two butt slaves up the ass is a very real possibility, and yeah we should pass both of you through storage before that comes up. But first we should talk about the new skills." He yielded his time to Sophie and Chloe.

The two women shared a look, but of course Sophie went first. "Well, the new skill I got for level six..." She didn't get to finish.

"You're level six!?" Chloe blurted out an interruption to the Valkyrie's explanation. Getting to level seven by the end of the first tour was considered very strong progress, so achieving level six so early was beyond what any of them had been expecting at the start.

Miriam's response was measured. "I'm level five now. Sophie's ahead of us because she's ridiculously powerful and kills all the monsters. If Max's class wasn't so powerful and stupid, we'd be talking about how much Sophie outclasses us all the time." It was enough to quiet the Hoplite, and she looked from the Geomancer to the Valkyrie with awe.

"Anyway," Sophie reclaimed her story stick, "it's called soul strike, and it means that when I strike a mortal wound to an enemy that they immediately die." There was more, but there was already a raised hand from one of her compatriots. "Yes, Ulzhari?"

The orc looked uneasy. "Sometimes my English no good. You said mortal wound make enemy die." She made a circular hand gesture. "Mortal wound mean enemy die. Yes? Is wrong English?" Her distress was uncomfortable to watch, but several of the humans backed her up.

Max fielded the question. "A mortal wound is one that will eventually be fatal. Once an enemy has had their durability worn down, we can start wounding them. And any wound that an enemy would not recover from on their own is mortal. But just because they will die, doesn't mean they'll die right away. And it doesn't mean they can't keep fighting. If they receive healing, they might not even actually die." His expression turned introspective. "Remember that I suffered a mortal wound during our dungeon raid against the forces of Mictlan. The one where Miriam solved the first riddle." Chloe hadn't been part of that raid, but she'd heard rumors. The rest of them had been there, and Ulzhari oinked in satisfaction as she grasped the utility of the skill immediately.

Sophie raised a finger. "It also gives me some healing and a temporary boost to physical and magical strength whenever it triggers. But I think the instant kill portion is the important part. There aren't a lot of abilities that do that, and this one doesn't even cost mana." She gestured at Chloe, indicating that the Hoplite had the floor.

Chloe might have been coming around to having her butthole fingered in front of her party members, but public speaking was still difficult for her. "Um... after the last mission, I became level four. And um... I got a skill. It protects me and nearby allies from ranged attacks. It's called shield wall. Um... thank you."

Sensing Chloe's discomfort, Max smiled at her. "Thank you for telling us. You did great." She still didn't feel like she'd done great, but the supportiveness from her party members helped lower her stress level about it. Returning his focus to the rest of the team, Max had a proposition. "So I'd like to have some simplified plays we can run. Like when Ulzhari and Chloe use their speed enhancement skills to leapfrog past each other to push enemies back and cut them down without leaving Ulzhari exposed. It would be good if we could have a single word I could call out that you could take as... that you could take as me ordering you two to do that." He felt embarrassment over describing playing calling as giving orders, but the women seemed to accept it as normal. "And some point, I should get some fencing practice in with Chaeryn. So while I'm doing that, the rest of you could break into teams and think of some basic maneuvers and formations that you want to have terms for."

There was some confusion, but Sophie at least seemed very pleased. "That's great," she beamed like she was shooting an advertisement for toothpaste, "we all want to follow Master's commands. If the commands are shorter, and easier to say and hear, then our master can command us more." Her smile got even larger as she imagined such scenarios.

Not everyone seemed to be completely on board. "Honestly," Fiona countered, "I'm concerned. I like... like, we all like to follow Master Max's commands. But isn't that dangerous? It's one thing for Master Max to to clamp my nipples and whip me like Cat and Fifi until I orgasm from the submission and pain," the Vietnamese American seemed like she had momentarily lost the thread of her argument and shook herself back into focus, "but that's for training our seals. It's not a life or death situation. What happens when Master Max makes a bad decision and we get hurt?"

Sophie gestured at her boyfriend. "Max is support! Calling formations is a traditional support job in high-end teams. Do you think anyone in Team One is saying that Yalena shouldn't be telling them what to do?" Max bit back a retort, as he could think of at least one member of Team One who probably did chafe at being told what to do by Yalena. "When I'm fighting," Sophie continued, "the monsters are like right up in my face. If my presence is needed on the other flank, I'm not going to know that unless someone from the second line lets me know. That's why in the high-end teams the leader role is usually given to support or controller hunters. It's not just that he is our Master and we need to obey him."

It looked like Fiona was about to say something heated, and Max put out his hands to signal both party members to dial it back. "You both make important points. I have noticed that everyone has been being a bit complacent about agreeing with me. During battle, it's fine to treat my ideas like the orders of commanding officers. Something that you'd follow unless you had a really good reason to believe I was wrong. But when we're exploring dungeons it would be nice to hear more of your opinions. We don't have to take the left branch just because it's my first suggestion."

Miriam sighed. "OK, then as my first act of non-combat disagreement, can we do the seal training first and the maneuver brainstorming afterward?" The room seemed evenly divided between those who wanted to hear more and those who were already convinced. "Before we get the seal training, you're going to spend Mastery and Capitulation, right? And before you do that, at least Chloe and I should be passed through slave storage. I brought some of the after-mission yogurt, and I don't want it to get all warm and gross." The after-mission yogurt had living bacteria in it, and when it got gross, it got very gross.

It was a compelling argument. "OK," Max conceded, "anyone who wants to get stored can join me in the bathroom. I guess you can have some yogurt afterward." Chloe seemed confused, and Miriam whispered an explanation. The brunette's eyes widened, and then she hastened to follow Max into the toilet. Sophie started following as well, and Max gave her a sharp look and shook his head. She dropped her eyes, and Max entered the bathroom with just the Geomancer and Hoplite with him.

When the door was closed, Sophie glared at Chaeryn. "Why aren't you in there getting cleaned out? He lets you be an anal slave." She spat out the words with undisguised jealousy.

Chaeryn was taken aback, never having considered herself to be an object of envy for Sophie of all people. It was no secret that Sophie was Master's favorite. "Having just completed an advancement of my entire class, there is no reason to expect that Master Max will have time to affirm his ownership of my butt. I expect you, Fiona, Ulzhari, and Miriam to all be owed skill advancement, which means he will trigger all of your submissive urges. Clearly he does not intend to use these urges to dominate any of us in new ways. Even Chloe is being cleaned out in preparation for butt sex because that is what she is most comfortable with." The Shadow Elf made a hand gesture that Sophie did not recognize. "I imagine he intends to use my mouth or my vagina. Or he will, once his dominant urge has taken hold and he desires to claim all of us in succession."

"... and that was so disgusting." Chloe's voice echoed out when the bathroom door opened.

"That's why they tell you to never stand closer than six meters to the gate platform." Miriam confirmed. Both women looked deliciously clean in their nakedness, no evidence of having been exposed to anything repulsive. Seeing where things were going, the other members of the party quickly divested themselves of armor and clothing. Sophie had stripped herself as fast as she ever had.

Looking at his naked party members, Max saw that even Chloe's seals were noticeably larger and more elaborate than Sophie's had been when they were first fooling around in his room back on Earth. Sophie's seals now made her butt look like an illuminated scroll. The spiderwebs from one cheek escaped onto her thigh, while the coiled serpent on her other cheek sprouted spirals and leaves creating a fractal corkscrew that likewise escaped the boundaries of her rump. He undressed himself as well, his penis already erect in anticipation of what he was about to do. "My thought is that I advance my own slave storage, and then I fuck each of you in turn while my dominant urge is going. And when it's Sophie's turn I'll progress one of her skills so that she has a submissive urge going while we have sex. And I'll do the same for Ulzhari, Fiona, and Miriam. Obviously, Chloe and Chaeryn aren't at the point where I can advance any of their skills, but we can still have sex if you want. Does that sound good to everyone?" His question had a similar effect to asking a major city if they were ready to rock.

Sophie was first. He stood before her, both unclothed. "I love you Sophie. I'm so lucky that you are my girlfriend." He opened his own status and incremented his slave storage. Two slaves at a time. "You're so beautiful Sophie. And you're mine." She smiled in anticipation, He opened her status and progressed her imposing challenge skill. It now distracted enemies that turned their back to her. He didn't know what that meant, and he didn't care.

It seemed that Sophie didn't care either. "Please Master, take me." He laid her down on one of the mats and she spread her legs without being asked. "Aaaaah..." Sophie sighed as his turgid member pierced her core. Her next words were garbled as he locked her lips into a kiss. Sophie kissed her boyfriend with passion, clinging to him with her arms and legs, moaning into his mouth. When her orgasm arrived, she mmphed into her master's mouth. When he gave her his Essence, she somehow knew that he owned her more. It wasn't something she could easily put into words, but she felt its truth. Sophie released her master, not because she wanted to part from him, but because she understood that he needed to affirm his ownership of his other slaves.

"One day," he whispered to Sophie, "I'll have the mastery for an heir. And then I won't be shooting blanks when I cum in you like that." When Max shlorped out of his girlfriend, he stood up and surveyed his other slaves. "Ulzhari," he said firmly, and she hastened over to drop to her knees before him. The orcish Berserker gave just a single oink before licking her master's cock clean of his and Sophie's combined juices. Unbidden, she enveloped his rod with her mouth, taking him to the back of her throat. Ulzhari looked up into Max's face through watery eyes as she bashed her uvula against his cockhead again and again. Max reached into her status and advanced her scent of blood ability. Briefly he noted that it allowed her to detect living creatures by scent, but he didn't have long to contemplate that as the speed and intensity, pushing his cock past the back of her throat. She swallowed again and again to take his cock farther than she ever had before. Before she managed to milk his seed into her esophagus, Max pulled her head off his dick and leaned down toward her tear-streaked face. "On your back, Ulzhari. I'm going to put my cum in your pussy."

"Of course, Master." The orc waited on her knees, gazing at her master and awaiting further instructions.

She didn't have to wait long, as Max coaxed her onto her back. Sophie crawled over and gently encouraged Ulzhari to spread her muscular thighs. Max's cock lined up with Ulzhari's labia and Sophie's hand guided into the Berserker; s soft folds. He looked from the face of his blond girlfriend to the face of his mixed-hair color slave, they both looked so happy. He started sawing into and out of Ulzhari's pussy and they looked even happier. "I'm going to breed you two," he said as he pumped away, "when I build up enough enough Mastery, I'll put an heir in both of you. You hear that Ulzhari? You're going to carry a half-human baby!" She heard loud and clear, grunting and oinking herself into orgasm. When he left a deposit of semen in her snatch it didn't impregnate her, but it came with the promise that a later deposit would do exactly that.

Ulzhari deflated back onto the mat. "Yes, Master Max will make me into mother." She looked around the room to see her fellow slaves through half-closed eyes. The ones eating yogurt, and the Vietnamese woman crawling forth to take her place. "Yes, our harem will raise our children." The orc happily drifted off into a light sleep.

Fiona crawled forward like a tiger on the prowl. Max rose to a kneeling position and opened her status and advanced her eyes of night. It now let her see through smoke and flame. She stiffened like someone had pulled her tail. "Master Max," she inquired, "are you going to impregnate me too? Am I going to get to carry one of my master's children?" She had a face that that looked like she was asking if any of the ice cream was for her, a coquettish voice that promised rewards if the answer was Yes.

"Of course, Fiona. You're mine, and you're also going to be a mother." While she was still on her hands and knees, Max mounted her like a stallion takes a mare. He thrusted into her again and again while she gasped and squealed.

Kneeling next to Fiona's face, Sophie looked up into Max's eyes. "Remember Master, Fiona has found joy in painful submission. She'd really love it if you spanked her ass while you're fucking her." The Valkyrie was so earnest, and Max relented enough to give Fiona's backside an experimental swat. The joyful cry that came from the Night Caller's throat was proof enough that Sophie had been correct. Max gave Fiona a few more smacks, with a thrust of his manhood for each one and the cries that came from her morphed into a wail of orgasm. The storm magician went limp, but Sophie held her up with the remarkable strength that came from her status as a B-tier vanguard. Max simply impaled the Vietnamese American's smooth pussy again and again until he was able to fill her with jizz.

When he walked over to Miriam and Chloe, they had already finished their yogurt. "Would you like to sit in a chair? I could ride you with my ass." Miriam's question seemed to come completely from left field until she used her produce earth magic to literally create a throne of stone for Max to sit on. He sat on it, his flagpole sticking up at full mast and glistening with the love juices of other slaves. He inspected her status and decided to advance her produce earth ability. He learned that further structures she made would be reinforced somehow. He didn't have the time or inclination to figure out what that meant, because Miriam came to sit on his lap. Bracing herself with her hands, she raised her knees out to either side to expose her moistened cunt lips to her fellow slaves and her hungry asshole to her master's cock. Max put his hands on her hips and pulled her down so her rectum sheathed his mighty sword. "Ooooooh! Master! My ass! You own my fucking ass!" Using her legs she slid herself up and down the length of his shaft, penetrating herself deeply again and again. "Oh wow! So good. My ass is trained now, trained by my Master as a slave ass. Oh. Oh Oooooh!" Slamming her ass down to grip his penis as hard as any of her magical stones, she shouted out her orgasm. "Oh Master, you won't be able to breed me back there. You'll have cum in my pussy." She didn't let up her anal milking of the fat cock that was wedged into her butthole.

Leaning close to the redhead's ear, he agreed. "When it's time to breed you, I'm going to put a load of sperm directly into your womb. Right now, I'm putting it in your slave ass." He was good as his word, and her efforts at drawing forth the bounty of his testicles bore fruit into her empty colon. She collapsed back into his chest. And and took deep breaths while simply appreciating the feeling of having her asshole spread by her master's penis. She sighed out her gratitude as he allowed the freckled woman to catch her breath.

Chloe watched the redhead disengage from Max's rod and crept forward with trepidation. "What is going to happen to me?" She asked. Sophie took her hand and brought her to the throne. Max stood and gestured at the chair. She blinked in incomprehension.

"Bend over the chair, and stick out your butt," Sophie explained, pushing gently on the Hoplite's upper back to get her into position. "Master is going to fuck your ass until he cums. You're an anal slave, so you're going to cum like crazy when he takes you up the ass." The Valkyrie's hands spread the brunette's butt cheeks, revealing the winking sphincter between them.

Placing his hands on Chloe's hips, he rubbed his cum-slick cock between her hips. Sophie's hand finger-walked its way over to the back hole and then poked the head into the waiting rosebud. "Aaaaah!" Chloe screamed, and then Max started pumping his rod into her asshole with enthusiasm. Then she screamed even more. He pounded into her roughly, and she found herself pushing her butt back to meet her master's thrusts. With each swing, her long braids flailed around like a wind chime in a storm.

Miriam surveyed her work with the creation of the throne and found it acceptable. Then she inspected Chloe's progress and found that acceptable too. "You're an anal slave now, Chloe. Master Max owns you. He owns you right through your butt, and there's nothing for you to do but submit and cum while he dominates you. Every mission is going to start just like this. Your master is going to fuck your tight little ass and you're going to beg for his Essence." There was nothing Chloe could do but groan in agreement.

Sophie concurred. "Now that he owns your butt, you should say it. Say what you are, you little anal slave!" The Valkyrie's fingers traced their way up and down Chloe's back, winding around the braids. "Say it! What are you?"

"Butt... butt slave." She gasped. Her master's cock kept filling her, dominating her. "I'm a butt slave. I'm a butt slave! Oh! Thank you for making me a butt slave! Aaaaah!" The Hoplite's eyes rolled up as she orgasmed in submission. Max had already cum five times, and it took quite a bit more sodomy before he was able to unload into Chloe's waiting hole. It occurred to him that before his hunter's rune matured, there would have been no way he could satisfy this many women in one go, but he supposed it was one of those side effects of having magically enhanced vigor that they never bothered to teach high-school students before they left Earth.

Drenched in sweat, both his own and half a dozen other women, Max drank some water. While he was gulping it down, Chaeryn approached him. "Master Max, I'm so glad you've decided that we are going to bear your children. I will be the best queen I can for you. I will crawl into a pit and birth for you, Master." Max was perplexed, but he was pleased when the coal-colored woman climbed onto his lap and wrapped her pussy lips around his cock. She was under no magically created submissive urge, but seeing her fellow slaves fucked one after another had left her canal dripping with elvish cream. She cooed in contentment. "We're all your queens," she babbled, "just one drone. Oooooh." With how horny she had gotten, Chaeryn was only able to last a few minutes of humping her hips before she shuddered in orgasm. Max finished himself off by grabbing the elf's hips and yanking her up and down his cock. She flailed like a rag doll while her body got pulled up and down on his pole again and again. He was down to inarticulate grunting by the time his semen came bubbling forth.

With seven ejaculations behind him, Max collapsed into the throne Miriam had made for him. His post nut clarity left him evaluating his own actions, and he had not done well in his own opinion. "Oh wow. Sorry guys, that dominant urge was... it was a lot. Um... so obviously no one is getting impregnated until we finish our four tours at the earliest. And like, that's not really a choice I get to unilaterally make for you. Anyone who doesn't want to go through a pregnancy won't have to bear an heir or whatever." He looked at the faces of the women in his party and couldn't read any of their expressions. "Sorry if that whole pregnancy threat scared any of you."

Fiona put her finger on his lips to shush him. "Master, stop talking, we loved it." She looked for support from the other party members and seemed to receive it. "No, the real takeaway is that now that we know you plan to breed us, you need to drop all this nonsense about us getting other boyfriends. We all belong to you. You own us. We're not dating other people."

"But that's not fair!" He sputtered. "I just had sex with all of you. I can't ask you to all wait for me like jilted prom dates."

Miriam waddled up and put her hand on his shoulder. "Maybe not, but you did just have sex with all of us. As long as you keep us all nice and fucked, we're more than happy to be your exclusive sex slaves." It was a lot of responsibility. Max needed more water, they still had to practice some formations and his throat was parched.

####

Chloe knocked and waited. She was hoping to speak directly to Alice, and her heart sank when the door was answered by Kaitlin instead. The Phantasmist glared at the solicitor. "Are you... Chloe? What happened to your hair?" The blond looked the brunette up and down. "Is this like a hair extensions thing, or like a sex slave thing?"

"I'm not..." Chloe stopped herself and sighed. "This new hair is something I got for being Max's sex slave. Is that what you wanted to hear?" She struck a coquettish pose. It sufficiently skeeved Kaitlin that she withdrew from the doorway and let the Hoplite in.

Before she'd even had a chance to knock on Alice's door, it opened and the Ninja reached out and pulled Chloe into her room like a trapdoor spider. "Is it true?" Alice demanded before the door had completely shut. "Did you guys really fuck someone into a different class tier?" She was wearing boy shorts and a tank top, her willowy frame and small breasts not exactly needing a bra at all. It revealed her flat belly and skinny legs, as well as leaving undeniable bumps on her shirt where her nipples refused to be forgotten.

Many of Chloe's clothes no longer fit, and the military issue underwear she had needed to use wasn't especially flattering. The yellow sundress she was wearing was now quite a bit tighter around the chest and hips than it had been, but she could still wear the thing. It contrasted nicely with her long dark braids. She huffed. "Alice, you don't have to be such a slut all the time!" She rolled her eyes. "But yes, there was a special place in the dungeon called a dungeon riddle, and Chaeryn and I got chained to the ceiling, and Master Max fucked us until we couldn't walk or talk straight, and then Chaeryn's class changed to Assassin and she got five silver chests to upgrade her equipment."

Alice rolled her eyes. "Now I know you're just fucking with me." Her pouty face strongly implied that she was unconvinced. "The only time anyone opens five chests at once is when the Space Force gives them to you at the start of your first tour. Dungeons don't give five chests that can be opened by one person." It wasn't strictly true that it never happened, especially as sometimes there were several wild chests that could be opened by different hunters. It was generally assumed that such chests would be shared, but it was certainly possible for one hunter to open five or more under such circumstances.

Shaking her head, Chloe insisted. "It really did! And what's more, we found the chests sigiled for the Assassin class before Chaeryn's class had advanced! So we were all staring at these chests that no one in our crop could open, and then we found out that once Max has ungraded every one of Chaeryn's skills it unlocked an improvement to her entire class. And then she became an Assassin, and she could open the chests." There was a bit of a whine in her voice as her desperation to be believed by her friend.

Sometimes incredible details make a tale sound more credible, and such it was with Chloe's story. "Wait," Alice asked in eroding disbelief, "the dungeon gave you chests that you didn't qualify for? It knew what class Chaeryn was going to have?" The causality on that was difficult to unwind.

Nodding with sincerity. "Yeah, Master Max had already unlocked Chaeryn's new class when we solved the riddle and the chests appeared. So I think at that point Chaeryn's class upgrade was already 'locked in' even though Max hadn't yet figured out how that part of his class worked." She held some of her braids and considered. "I guess that means that the dungeon can see what our hunter's marks are before they mature and become visible." It was in a sense a major claim about the way things worked in the galaxy, but also a trivial one because it didn't seem like it could be confirmed or denied through any tests.

Alice didn't respond immediately, lost as she was in thoughts of magic and its ramifications. "So, Max can upgrade more than one skill, but it takes time and he's going to be fucking you over and over again while your skills advance. When he finally upgrades all of your skills, your whole class upgrades?" Chloe nodded. "So he's going to upgrade all four of your skills, and then poof, you're a Paladin, a Sentry, a Myrmidon?" Alice said it all real slow like she was trying to extract a confession from a bank robber.

Shrugging, Chloe mostly confirmed it. "Well, I have five skills now because I went up in level. And Master Max has already made my rush to aid ability come with a targeting enhancement. It's like playing a golf game on a lower difficulty. So he'll have to advance four more skills to make me change my hunter's rune."

That revelation caused Alice to freeze as if someone had just dropped a glass on a tile floor. "The difficulty of improving hunter's marks goes up over time?!" She looked at Chloe with a mix of incredulity and horror. "So if you don't get over the line by the time you hit level eight, you're going to have a sixth skill and then it will be even longer?" The gears were turning in the blond woman's head. Chloe thought about it and nodded. Alice looked at her hands. "Fuck. Chloe, what's it like? You're still calling him Master Max all the time, so it seems like you've really taken being his butt slave to heart. But like, what is it like being his slave?"

Despite the obvious fact that they were alone, Chloe looked over her shoulder before leaning in and whispering conspiratorially. "Oh Alice, it's so good. It was really right out of the book: I thought I wasn't going to like having him enslave my butt, thought I wasn't ever going to have sex with my butt, and he forced me to see I was wrong. He took control of me through my butthole, and it was totally eye opening. I used to stroke myself while reading about hunters submitting to romance and the real thing is just so amazing. It feels like there's no more room in my ass and then he pushes even more of himself into me. My whole mind goes blank while he just... owns me. I mean, he owns my ass all the time, but when he's really using it, using me, it's beyond anything I imagined. I got to see him really dominating Miriam's butt, hers is just as submissive as mine, maybe even more, anyway, she looks so happy. Even Sophie gets jealous when she sees how much fun we're having with Master's thing in our butts. We aren't getting pregnant right now, but in a few years I'm going to have his baby. It'll be so romantic! When Max becomes your master, you should definitely beg him to dominate your butthole. I mean, I understand if you want to play hard to get. But if you find him forcing you to become his slave, make sure you give up your butthole." Perhaps realizing that she was rambling, Chloe trailed off in embarrassment.

If one were to choose a single word to describe Alice's demeanor, it would be: concerned. "Um... Chloe, is Max planning to force himself on me? Would you be allowed to tell me if he was?" She was concerned about a lot of things, she had a dangerous job. At that moment she was most concerned about her friend being a pod person and also maybe Max planning on enslaving her.

"Oh, no, not at all," Chloe admitted, "Max doesn't even have a slave slot for you right now. That unlocks later. He won't be able to put any seals on you or do any of that, but he has unlocked the ability to smuggle two of us into the dungeon through the storage system. So someone who isn't one of the slaves can come on the mission. And it could be you! You could see us try one of the riddles and watch him put his Essence up my butthole. And when Master Max builds up enough Mastery to add another slave, you'd know what you were getting into when you said yes." She hugged the Ninja. "You're going to say yes though. And when you do, make sure you entice him to conquer your butt, OK? We could be butt slaves together. And um... we could upgrade to C-tier." Not just C-tier, Max's party members had special advanced skills, so it was almost like having even more skills than that.

"You promise that there's no slave slot for me?"

####

Their next dungeon raid had already been approved. The e-mail had been terse, but he could almost smell the excitement of the officers approving it. There wasn't long before he'd have to start preparing his party members for the gateway. Miriam and Chloe were to be transported through in storage, and so he'd need to sodomize both of them so that they had Essence when they appeared in the dungeon. He still didn't have an Essence lock for Chloe, nor for Sophie or Fiona for that matter, and so that Essence wouldn't last nearly as long for the Hoplite as for the Geomancer once they started the raid; but they still wanted to hit the ground with power to every wheel. It was just an unnecessary risk to walk through the gate without every protection he could offer. Pumping Chloe's ass full of semen would make her take considerably less damage in the first part of the mission. And maybe that wasn't the only reason she asked for it, begged for it, but it was reason enough.

Alice's presence on his roster had been approved. He could easily imagine Lieutenant Cortes plotting out the willowy blond's potential advancements from Ninja into some C-tier flanker class. He wondered if the intention was for her to remain in his party or be split off and replaced by other low-tier women. He supposed that either might be logical depending on whether the women plateaued or not. Cat and Fifi kept gaining Capitulation with nothing for him to spend it on, and he didn't know whether that meant that they were already functionally capped or that he had not yet unlocked the next thing that he could buy for them. It made sense for the Space Force to hedge their bets. Letting him run experiments on D-tier rookies gave them a high upside in the case that he was successful, and a relatively low cost if it all ended in disaster.

Of course, it could all end in disaster. Even if they were advancing the class correctly, which he was certain they were not, it could still end in disaster. He'd suffered a mortal wound before, if that Mictlanian soldier's blood gem had imbued it with something like Sophie's new skill, he would have died on the spot. No, any discussion of perfecting advancement plans and maximizing outputs two or three years down the line had to be tempered with the reality that he might not survive to see tomorrow. He decided that he needed to send a message to his sister.

Recording a message wasn't difficult, but deciding what to put in it definitely was. He wrote some bullet points and decided that it would be more authentic if he just used the framework as jumping off point from which to wing it.

"Meesh! I want you to know that I love you." He scrapped it. All the thought of death and he found himself recording a final message. It genuinely could be a final message, but he decided to treat the future as something he expected to be a part of. "Meesh," he began again, "the bonuses from my class are big. Like, really big. Remember how slaves have green class names for me? That's because I can change them, improve them even bump them to a higher Tier. But um... a number of things have come to light about the way my class works that I'm afraid are going to be pretty embarrassing. Please don't share this message with anyone else. If you decide to join our party, I'm afraid that I'm going to embarrass you. There are areas in the dungeons where we... where I have sex with some of my party members. Um... we call the 'riddles,' and it turns out the rewards are pretty large. I'm not saying you have to have sex in the dungeon! But I'm afraid there won't really be a way for you to avoid hearing me have sex with some of the other party members." He sighed.

Mustering his courage, he continued. "Yeah, this isn't easy to talk about, but a lot of the means of advancing the seals require contact. And a deal that Sophie and I have worked out allows that contact to be... to be sexual for the party members that want it to be. And um... so far most of the members of the party have wanted it to be. When that's training at Camp Acheron that's something we'll be able to protect you from, but there's these dungeon riddles and Essence resets that need to happen in the dungeon, and I'm afraid the only thing you could do is plug your ears and shut your eyes." He sighed again. "So what I'm saying is: Sophie and I are going to be having sex with some of our party members." He massaged his own temples.

"So," he sighed heavily, "the reality is that I can still advance your class's skills and even advance your entire class. Chaeryn was a D-tier Sniper and now she's a C-tier Assassin! And you don't have to have sex with any of the members of my party for that to be true. But if you actually go on dungeon raids with us, I'm going to have sex with some of our team mates. It happens every time. I'm sorry about that." He sighed. "You don't have to make up your mind until September, and if you do go onto a raid with us and it doesn't suit you, you can go on raids with a different team instead. Either way, I think I can make sure you have a super charged class and you can be the star of your crop." He stopped the recording and hit send before he chickened out. It wasn't actually sent, and wouldn't be until the next time they drove something through the portal to Earth. But there was undeniably a feeling of finality in placing it onto the drive that would shortly be sent light-years away. He could still recall it. Film another one and replace it. He wouldn't do any of those things, because he wasn't going to make a better one. Even if he recorded it without the stutters, when it stopped being awkward, it would stop being real.

While he was continuing to argue himself into leaving the file on the send drive, the door to his room opened. "Hey Sophie!" He said it before even turning to look, because he knew that literally every other person would knock or announce themselves. When he did turn to look at her, she seemed upset. "Sophie! What's wrong?" He stood up immediately and took a step toward her.

Sophie winced and looked like she was about to cry. "Master! I'm so sorry. I'm jealous." She dropped to her knees and looked up at him with pleading eyes.

Looking down at his girlfriend, Max felt horrible. "It's just us here, you don't have to do that master and slave nonsense. You're just Sophie, I'm just Max. I love you, Sophie. You don't have to be jealous of anyone, and if..." he waved his hands in an all encompassing fashion, "all this is too much we can stop. Or take a break. We can cancel the dungeon raid, we're over quota. His head was already swimming with excuses they could use. Mental health. Team friction. Anything that would even potentially jeopardize the mission would buy them enough time.

"No," the Valkyrie pleaded, "we can't stop the mission. I don't want to stop the mission. But you've conquered Chaeryn so completely, I'm falling behind." Her eyes glistened in sincerity and sorrow. "You've taken her every hole, you sodomize her and put the Essence lock right in her ass, and she just submits and cums like a good little slave. We all saw her leashed and double locked while you celebrated your ownership of her by taking your pleasure from her while she silently orgasmed in total subjugation. How can I compete with that? You don't even fuck my asshole. Like you're not entitled to it." She sniffed, the water from her eyes also causing loosening of the mucous in her nostrils.

Max blinked in confusion. "Sophie, do you want me to stop having sex with Chaeryn?"

Sophie looked horrified. "No! Master, I just want to be treated like you treat her. I know that you are the Master, and I am the Slave. I know that you choose whether and how to dominate me. But I get so lonely and scared, Master Max. I need to be wanted, Max. I just hope you want me to need you."

"I always want you, Sophie." Max said with conviction. He knelt down and kissed her tear stained cheek. Then he kissed her full on the lips with passion but also tenderness. "I love you, and I want you to be happy. If you need me to do some of the more extreme training rituals with you, that's OK. I never want you to feel like you're second place. And if Chaeryn's submission ritual is making you feel that way, we can design one for you too." He kissed her again. "OK? When we get back, we can do the whole thing. We can use all the dungeon equipment. We can even put that mana conduit onto you if you want."

Sophie's face was no less wet, but it was a blast of sunshine rather than gloom. "Really? That sounds so perfect, Master! All the rest of the slaves can watch me accept complete subjugation. They'll be sooo jealous and horny." She giggled and hugged him. The spontaneity of her action left Max feeling for a fraction of a second how strong she was. There was space for his body between her arms, but he had no choice but to conform to that space. It was like he was water poured into a glass: the sides were unyielding and defined the extent of his breadth. If she decided to squeeze harder, he knew she would define the extent of his breath as well.

Returning her embrace, Max kissed her again. "Remember Sophie, no matter how weird any of this gets, I love you. I don't think of you as just a slave to fuck. You're my girlfriend and I love you. What you want is important to me, so if you want to have a binding celebration like Chaeryn had, we can do that." He gave her a squeeze. "And I don't think any less of you for this. No bondage session is going to make me love you or respect you any less."

The powerful Valkyrie rested her head on his shoulder. "I know," she said wistfully, "I love you too, Max."

####

The party was eight now, but still only six could touch a column to enter the dungeon in the normal way. Not that the party was all that normal, they'd geared up. Fiona's nipple to nipple mana conduit must surely have been a conversation piece for the gate technicians at the very least. When the blue light of the gate had faded the blue light of the will-o-wisps had taken its place. A quick look around showed that they were standing on sand with a long expanse of water on one side and a cyclopean ziggurat on the other. Above was a dark sky that had swirling, twinkling lights in it. At first Max thought they were stars, but they moved too quickly and it seemed that they were much stranger than that.

The beach, if such it was, had great blocks of stone half buried in the sand. It was as if the fortress that loomed over them had once been much larger and a portion of its walls had come tumbling down to fall where they would. The will-o-wisps seemed to be concentrated on one side of the ziggurat, such that dark shadows were cast by the tower and the lone standing and fallen stones around it. Of more concern were the loping shapes sprinting across the sand toward their position.

Two of them, and they were shaggy to the point that their shape could not be discerned even to the number of limbs. Were it not for the occasional flash of teeth and claws, one might think they were wigs or mop ends tumbling in the wind. Chaeryn concentrated on her find weakness ability, and suddenly Max could "see" that under the mountain of galumphing fur was a six legged beast. Nightmares, war beasts of Tartarus. They were fast, and their claws were sharp, but they were no match for the speed at which Chaeryn, Ulzhari, and Sophie could bring death. Max let go of Sophie's tether of restrained rare. While the nightmares were met half way by the weapons of his teammates, he withdrew Chloe and Miriam from storage.

"Well," said Max, "we're up against Tartarus again. We'll be using Faleryn's Arrow if there are any female Tartarians with hunter's runes." Everyone nodded with a mix of excitement and trepidation except Alice. Max sighed. "Alice, we have a secret mission from the Space Force and the Queens' Council and stuff. It's not for you, but I actually do have one more slave slot." The Ninja didn't look at all comforted by the revelation. "Our mission is to capture and sexually dominate a female Tartarian hunter. Well, for me to sexually dominate her. And then we are supposed to bring her back alive."

No, Alice wasn't comforted at all.

### End Chapter 17 ###