Between us Girls

Cindy, despite her appearance, had never really been someone all that interested in sex. The only man she was supposed to sleep with was Kusai, and the less said about that the better. Other women were pleasant enough, but she didn’t really feel any particular urge to get intimate with them. When she did decide she needed some release, she generally managed it herself, even if she and Marion were officially “girlfriends.”

There was something about Rose in the starlight, though. Sure, she was the enemy. Sure, Cindy needed to watch herself around the other woman. That didn’t mean Cindy was blind, though, and it also didn’t mean they couldn’t just… talk, right?

“So, did you choose that outfit or did your owner?” Rose asked, coming over to lay near Cindy. “It looks pretty nice on you, so I honestly can't tell.”

“This ol’ thing?” Cindy asked, looking down at her bikini top, short shorts, and jacket. “I was wearing this when I showed up. Yer right that he seems to like it, but He tends to just let everyone dress themselves as long as we try to look good. What about you?”

Rose raised one eyebrow, and looked down at her own outfit. A high cut leotard and sheer tights.

“Let’s just say I wouldn’t be wearing this if I had a lot of options.” She said, smiling ruefully. “Gil gives us a long leash, but some things are non negotiable. Dress appropriately, and go where he says to go. Given that he drags half of us to a new world every week or so, that’s not small.”

“Oh, I know how that feels.” Cindy said, "Always throwing you into some insane situation and expecting you to just handle it? It’s probably for the best I’m just a mechanic. The other girls… he swaps between them a lot.”

Cindy’s Lord always said “one mistake, and you’re out.” Of course in practice he’d bring anyone who was powerful enough back fairly soon. He didn’t have anywhere near enough really high tier girls to actually discard them.

“Sounds about right.” Rose said. “Gil has a pretty big team, but he only brought me this time. Something about a bounty. Do you know anything about that?”

Cindy shrugged.

“I don’t rightly know much about that.” She said. “I know he only brought along Marion an’ Emily in case somethin bad happened and he needed to hand something over. He says a few… well, a few extra girls are worth less than the credits he’d lose.”

In actual fact, he’d said that he preferred to fork over a few useless sluts, a category that Cindy’s lord included her in. Whatever he meant by “paying off his drawbacks,” apparently he needed to do it all in one go, and he was set back pretty severely whenever he lost credits during one of these invasions. She only even knew that much because he ranted about it one time after she’d failed to pretend to find him attractive.

“I see.” Rose said with a sigh. “I suppose it makes sense. He doesn’t seem to have any trouble finding companionship, at least not compared to Gil. This dragon almost killed us before we could catch it, you know.”

Rose gestured vaguely at the giant serpent wrapped like a fence around their little camp.

“Dragon?” Cindy asked. “Honey, this is a naga, or maybe some kinda lamia? Definitely not any dragon I’ve ever seen.”

“Oh, expert on dragons are we?” Rose said, giving Cindy a teasing smile that made her heart flutter.

The other woman leaned in, putting her full, kissable lips only a few inches away from Cindy’s. The mechanic wanted to slip away for some routine maintenance, but it was either stay here in an enclosed space with a few other women and the enemy Lord, or go out beyond the naga’s circle to see four angry men who would no doubt be even less gentle with her than her Lord. So she resigned herself to just endure the slick sensation between her legs for the foreseeable future.

Then, to Cindy’s shock, Rose kissed her. She didn’t do anything else, just smiled at her. Cindy couldn’t help herself, she pounced onto the dark haired woman.

“I don’t normally do this kind of thing.” Cindy said breathlessly between kisses. “I don’t…”

“Shh,” Rose replied, a playful smile on her lips, “Just relax and do what comes natural. If you’d really like, I can show you…”

What followed was fairly different from anything Cindy had ever done before. No toys, for one thing, and no penetration. For the longest time she didn’t even touch Cindy between the legs, just playing with her nipples and kissing her. She wasn’t even entirely sure this counted as sex, but if it didn’t it was dramatically superior to it. Of course, she only slept with the other girls when ordered to. Her Lord would pair off the immunes all the time, trying to get them to bond. Most of them tried to avoid getting attached, since sometimes when something did form the girls would lose their immunity for whatever reason.

Rose was almost as direct and commanding as Cindy’s Lord, but calmer. She did everything efficiently, with that damnable, beautiful, intoxicating little smile.

“My, my, aren’t we sensitive.” Rose said playfully. “Do I even need to take your clothes off? You’re already shaking.”

“How… how do you know…”

“It’s called competence, dear.” Rose said. “It comes from practice. Once I’m done, It’ll be time for you to get some practice of your own…”

••••••••••

“That was… amazing.” Cindy said more than an hour later.

“Yes, I know.” Rose said with a sleepy smile. “You weren’t bad yourself.”

The two women, mostly naked, lay huddled against one another for warmth. Both were exhausted, unfortunately, so not a lot of talking got done. Not exactly surprising given that Cindy had an eventful night after an eventful day, but still disappointing.

Rose had insisted they get dressed before going to sleep, for the sake of secrecy. Cindy wasn’t sure how the others in the enclosure could have possibly missed what they were doing, but Rose seemed to think that plausible deniability was important. She was only in her shorts and bikini top, but that was enough to cover the sensitive bits.

She was dragged onto the horse with Rose while Gil lashed himself to the giant snake woman. She was mildly amused to see that the horse was also a part of Gil’s retinue, by the name of Bayard, and was absolutely delighted when Rose deliberately lagged behind so they could speak.

“Is the horse a… person?” Cindy asked, after several seconds of trying to come up with a more delicate way of asking.

“Hmm? No, he’s just a very good boy.” Rose said, patting Bayard on the neck. “We picked him up after we got here. I’m fairly sure Gil only caught him because it made logistics a bit easier.”

“But why a horse?”

“I get the impression every player has their limitations.” Rose said. “You don’t pry into mine and I won’t pry into yours, eh? That way we can talk.”

“Right, right.” Cindy said, embarrassed. “That does seem like the only way this can work.”

“So, where are you from?” Rose asked. “I mean, I know you just popped into existence, but I assume you do things when you’re not out and about?”

“Oh, yeah.” She said, “We all live somewhere called Republic City. He took it over a while back, I think. I work for a place called Future industries that’s ruled by one of His girls. We make machines, mostly. That ship your lamia damaged was actually the third or fourth copy of the Red Wings we made.”

“Very nice.” Rose said. “Sounds like interesting work.”

“Yeah, it’s the best part of this whole thing.” Cindy said. “A whole bunch of girls all working together to make incredible stuff, only shame most of it ends up busted up after one outing.”

“Really?” Rose asked, “All girls?”

“Well I mean the guys back home mostly refuse to work for him and I guess he doesn’t want to buy men.” She said. “It gets kinda weird, though. Like, there are three girls all named Rose Teeko? I guess now I know why, at least. All copies of the same woman.”

“So if there are three of them and one of you, why are you here?” Rose asked. “Not that I’m complaining. It would have been confusing, if nothing else.”

“Because I’m the best… well, I’m the best of the girls that don’t like sleeping with him.” Cindy said.

“I suppose that makes sense.” Rose said. “I think Gil said something about Kusai only being able to purchase T3 and lower, so anyone more impressive than you would need to enjoy his company.”

“How do you know that?” Cindy asked, suddenly on guard.

“I sat through his… recruitment pitch.” Rose said, rolling her eyes. “I already know how it works, Cindy. Don’t be difficult.”

“Fine. Fine,” Cindy said warily. “Can we change topics, though?”

“Of course!” Rose said, “But what… hmm. Well, I’ve been working in a place called Brockton Bay as part of a group called the Wards. We are a team of law enforcement officers with unusual powers. Unfortunately, it seems like some of my powers don’t work properly here.”

“Oh? Which ones?” Cindy asked, probing.

“Mostly an ability I have to charge weapons with energy.” Rose said, “The short version is that it can run away from me in this world and make the weapon explode. That was… very bad the first time it happened.”

“Oh, I think ah might know that one!” Cindy said, “There might be more magic here’n you’re used to. Ah know Rosa takes a lot longer to recover after a scrap in some worlds than others.”

“You know, that might be it.” Rose said thoughtfully, “How has your group compensated for that in the past?”

“Well, see, she holds magic like a car holds gas, an’ she needs to have a quick lie down to fill up the tank.” Cindy explained.

“Oh! That sounds like something from my homeworld!” Rose said cheerfully, “We would prepare a few spells at the beginning of the day, then could channel our energy as we pleased.”

“Oh, that sounds like Jaheira!” Cindy said, “Except she can’t change her spells when she’s in most worlds. Not enough magic.”

“That sounds terribly inconvenient.” Rose said. “She’s probably put a lot of thoughts into a list that lets her be ready for anything.”

“Yeah…” Cindy said, realizing that yet again she’d said more than she should.

The blonde stayed quiet for half an hour after that, but Rose didn’t push. She’d already teased out quite a lot. Poor girl must be lonely. What a shame she couldn’t be simply poached. She was cute.

••••••••••

Kusai’s build (speculative)

Base 5 - Freemium Tier: the minimum price point, intended for those wishing to dabble in what the company has to offer. Comes with 5 credits worth of in-game currency, one Basic tier binding of your choice, Green and Red Orb access to the PVP system, and access to the drawbacks system. Credits gained in-game may only be used for bronze-star tier purchases such as Resistance tier defenses, lures, and T1-3 companions/powers.

Note: PvP invasions are enabled by default after a 30 day grace period unless you formally decline the complimentary red orb provided and pay a small surcharge to be removed from the system within 30 company standard days. This is mostly for the explicit purpose of giving guys like this asshole targets who aren’t ready for PvP.

Binding

Empty Hands - you have no binding, and instead gain 20 credits worth of in-game currency that can be spent on purchases of up to Silver Star tier. Warning: bindings can only be purchased later with premium currency.

General Drawbacks

Only familiars +5 - Removes the emotional component of the standard loyalty package applied to all captured or purchased Companions. Retinue members will be consistently loyal even unto death, but have no obligation to love or even like the player.

The fact that Cindy is capable of disliking him implies at least this is in place. The fact that she’s still loyal while immune to his lures implies it’s not the more extreme “no loyalty” drawback Gil has been saddled with.

Fat +1: the player will have a persistent weight problem. Any body they inhabit will have a minimum BMI of 30, the minimum to qualify as obese, due to “dummy” fat reserves that cannot actually be consumed by the body regardless of lifestyle or hunger. This has mild but manageable health effects, and stacks with any actual fat reserves or developed muscles they may have.

Fat II +4: As the standard Fat drawback, but the baseline BMI is instead 40, well into the area of morbid obesity. Again, this is before factoring in actual muscle or functional fat reserves. Carries over to any alternative forms or bodies you may adopt. Incompatible with: Body Tuneup

Ugly 1: Your genetics do not favor you. Your baseline physical appearance, including things like complexion and facial structure, contains a meaningful number of traits which render you visually unappealing to those of the opposite sex. This includes a propensity towards various secondary traits like bad breath and a grating voice. This can be compensated for through cosmetics, excellent hygiene, fashion choices, or even simple social graces, but will ensure a poor first impression.

Ugly II +4: You are not merely unattractive, you are actively hideous in ways that shine through regardless of any efforts on your part, visually, auditory, and olfactory. No level of cosmetics, even magical solutions such as shapeshifting or illusions, can hide your visage for long, as your inner ugliness bleeds into and corrupts any body that you inhabit. Mutually exclusive: Potpurri, Alluring Whisper

(Possible) Restricted Stacking II +20: bans him from using his credits to stack multiple power sets onto one person without replacing their existing power set. It would be a stupid thing to do, losing him the ability to cover his high value girls asses with multiple T3 templates stacked on, or to turn his favorite T1-2 girls into hybrid chimeras. Cindy doesn’t seem to have much going for her beyond technical skills and fat tits so he either can’t enhance her or doesn’t think she’s worth the trouble.

40 credits to spend, 20 of which may be spent on silver tier purchases. Another 20 bronze tier credits if he is a shortsighted idiot.

Origin:

Drop in - appear as yourself, with any appropriate changes per drawbacks or perks purchased.

Silver Tier Race Swap - Saiyan -20 credits

Origin Drawback

+1 Naked Truth - You drop into your new life with literally nothing except for your company access device.

Might not be relevant but guys like him tend to just treat this kind of start as a trivial problem which makes it hilarious when they get detained or killed by local law enforcement.

Setting:

Republic City- sounds vaguely steampunk.

(AN: Avatar, Legend of Korra)

Binding Drawbacks: provide a discount to any bindings or lures that they apply to. Maximum discount is 80%

Continue the Bloodline: Bindings and Lures only apply to those who you could plausibly reproduce with using conventional reproduction. This generally includes most people of your own and compatible species of the opposite sex, but not all due to infertility, age, etc. 20% discount on all lures

One of the more popular 20% discounts. Restricting it to female presenting targets is only worth 10% discount. He might have a few more other drawbacks instead but this is the popular option.

Nominal Importance: Bindings and Lures only apply to targets of at least the “minor name” tier of prominence. They must have a canonical name and appearance in their source material. 10% Discount on all lures

Treated as free points by a lot of the fantasy-brained folks who are customers here, as the most prominent and powerful individuals in a setting tend to be at least small names.

High Standards: Bindings and lures only apply against targets that the player personally desires to have sex with. This desire may be mild or fleeting, but must be at least abstractly true. 10% Discount on all lures

Again, treated as free points since the most desirable targets are desirable for multiple reasons, and a capture strategy based around sexual contact is easier with someone you want to bang.

Good Girls: Bindings and Lures only apply against targets with the “Good” morality tag. (Note: the Good morality tag primarily indicates an above average adherence to the moral standards set out by the source world with input from trained professional testers. Complaints about the application of Morality tags are not bugs and reporting them as such is considered an abuse of the customer support hotline.) 20% discount on all lures

Just a shot in the dark but all of the girls sound like they are either mind broken fuckslaves or genuinely pleasant individuals to work with. I can think of multiple reasons to restrict one’s retinue to decent people even if one’s own plans are anything but decent.

Taken: Bindings and Lures only apply against targets who are engaged in an ongoing and acknowledged romantic or sexual relationship, or whose most recent satisfying sexual encounter was with the player. 20% discount on all lures.

Lures

5/1 Sticky Fingers: You know all the points that make a waifu melt. You can play her like a piano. Your very touch is electrifying. You are also a sexual savant. Keep a waifu on the edge long enough, and she’ll promise anything to make it stop. With your skills, she’ll be sure to keep that promise. This lure cannot affect targets who lack a sense of touch.

For a build like his probably is? This goes without saying. 1 point to make sure the sex is always good for her no matter what you do, and active effort is mind breakingly good? For one point? It would be shocking if he didn’t have this.

20/4 Love Spot: Choose one part of your body. That body part will fascinate anyone of your preferred gender(s) and cause them to become infatuated with you on the spot.

The charm effect relies on line-of-sight: it may be blocked by covering up the alluring asset, but not turned off. The effect intensifies with exposure. This lure may be reduced or nullified if the target has enough magic resistance. It will never affect targets who lack a sense of sight.

20/4 Your Wings are Beautiful: breaking line of sight will no longer simply serve to interrupt the effects of Love Spot. Instead, when it is unobserved, energy will accumulate in the selected body part, magnifying the effects for a few minutes after it is revealed. At maximum charge, after about a week seen only by yourself and your own committed sexual partners, the effect will be enough to stun someone, even in an active combat situation.

A charged Love Spot may pierce even powerful magical resistances, but its effectiveness will still be reduced. Repeated exposure will diminish the potency of this perk’s aftereffects while the immediate impacts remain unchanged.

It’s the only company sponsored version of this I know of. There are non-company based versions of dicknosis out there in the multiverse, but it’s a pain in the ass to actually get your hands on them unless you have unrestricted access to the shop.

20/4 Zenryoku Zenkai: Targets you defeat in combat or another contest, whether physical, mental, or social in nature, will fall for you all the harder. You’ll be at the forefront of all their thoughts as their wish to meet you again to even the score twists itself into a more romantic or sexual yearning. The more decisive and dramatic your victory, and the higher the perceived stakes for each of you, the stronger this lure’s effect. Defeating a target in a training spar will have only negligible results, but stopping a villainess in a life-or-death battle for the fate of a universe will add her to your harem practically the moment she wakes up.

This lure is optimized for symmetric 1v1 duels in the target’s specialty field. The contest must be initiated or otherwise freely accepted by the target, even implicitly. This lure drops in effectiveness the more you rely on equal teammates; in contests of leadership ability, from team sports to military command, any unit who follows your instructions or plans will not count as a teammate. If your target catches you cheating in a match that has strict rules, this lure will not apply to the result even if you nominally win. If you catch your opponent cheating in such a match, this lure will still apply to the result even if you nominally lose.

It’s only decent, but it’s a prerequisite.

20/4 Tsundere Service: While this lure is active, any aggression towards you by someone you find sexually appealing, regardless of the original cause, will be twisted into the aggressor just being tsun-tsun towards you. Once the aggressor is alone, their pendulum will swing back to create an equal amount of dere-dere (lovey-dovey) feelings, causing a permanent shift in their emotional landscape. This lure is stronger with deliberate provocation or if the target was already a tsundere, and stacks with the effects of its prerequisites. Requires Alluring Whisper OR Zenryoku Zenkai

If he’s just being an ass for the love of the game that’s fine, but this seems likely.

Talents:

Unknown. Has not displayed signs of competence in any field. Most 10 credit or higher talents hardly ever show up in the free to play shop.

Defenses:

Unknown, but includes Trace Defense (resistant but not immune to precognitive visions) and can not include Body Defense (immunity to disease and poison)

Unlikely to include any true Immunity perks as those are only available with premium credits.

Other Perks

2 Expanded Catalogue - Gain a full, detailed list of all Company Recognized characters in all worlds you have access to. Each character will have a short profile detailing personality, relationships, place of residence, etc. This perk includes a robust set of filters, allowing the player to sort characters by tier, tags, world, and whether they are compatible with any drawbacks you may have.

He might not have this, but if he doesn’t he seems to have something else that is letting him easily identify targets.

2 Sexual Calibration - The little inconveniences that can make sex less fun no longer apply to you. Your partners will always be as clean as needed and smell just as you like. If you have a refractory period, it is removed. Any unintentional or incidental damage that your sexual sessions might cause simply doesn’t take place. This includes unwanted pregnancy and any complications of pregnancy; note that this perk cannot guarantee a desired pregnancy. Exhaustion will not be an issue for any participant in your sexual sessions until at least you are satisfied.

He’s got super strength and no impulse control. He probably needs this just to not murder his girls when he gets freaky, unless he just adores laying back and getting serviced.

Retinue in the field, based on field observation and information Cindy let slip over the rest of that day.

T6

Rosa Farrell - Primarily a healer but also capable of extreme offensive spellcasting, also somehow involved in how he navigates and finds targets. She’s always in any PvP team.

T5

Jaheira - nearly as powerful as Rosa but with substantially less stamina. Focuses on summoning and acts as a backup healer. Also an extremely effective melee fighter and used for interrogation based on stray comment around Rose.

Hinata - extremely fast, extremely deadly melee combatant with some kind of super senses and fantastic reflexes. Extreme threat, proceed with caution.

Ginny - Cindy doesn’t know much about her other than that she’s typically surrounded by bodyguards and can be used to help break new recruits. Missing, and Kusai isn’t happy about it.

T4

Opal Bei Fong - some kind of agile wind mage capable of flight. Offensive capacity is moderate, evasive capacity substantial vs melee or projectile attacks. High priority as few to no local assets are likely to have a counter to her but seems to be a near-baseline level of fragile.

T3

Fiona - dead at last inspection. Agile martial artist. Bodyguard for Ginny.

Kim Possible - agile martial artist. Bodyguard for Ginny.

Jessica Rabbit - “toon” biology. Apparently some kind of entity that runs off of slapstick cartoon logic. Highly durable, near impossible to kill, but fairly easy to hurt/disable. Used as a bodyguard for Rosa due to her being extremely easy to heal. Borderline between T3 and T4, potentially a bug.

Cindy Aurum - resident mechanic trained in magitech aeronautics. Minimal professed or displayed combat abilities.

T2

Marion Lavorre - likely purchased. Red skinned horned woman. Used primarily as a sex toy and personal maid, even more than any of the other girls on the ship.

Isolde - local recruit. Apparently among the finest doctors in this setting, trained in poisons and herbs. Captured quickly.

T1

Aurora - in a permanent coma due to a curse that took effect after initial capture. Brought along mostly as trade fodder and to be sacrificed instead of Credits in case he loses.

Enid, Blanchfleur, Clarissant - local girls that broke relatively quickly. Still shell shocked by the process of capture, few if any combat relevant skills. Clarissant is apparently Gawain’s sister, so there may be drama there.

••••••••••

No poll this chapter, but a call to action:

Feel free to propose strategies for Gil, or for Kusai, including (if you like) weird twists or ideas for additional perks or powers he might have. I have a broad idea for how this arc will finish out, but more ideas are always fun/welcome.