Interview the Master

"What a minute!" Syn suddenly shouted out, looking over at Nymeera, the gorgeous redhead looking positively blustered. "You're Nina?" she said, glancing back up at the, now completely black, screen. Nymeera just laughed at her, causing Syn to glower irritably.

"Duh..." Gabriella said quickly, trying to tamper down the urge to smirk. Syn glared over at her, "Literally everyone figured that out by the end of the interview. Even SUKI figured that out. Looks like you're not nearly as smart as you think."

"Well, I didn't really figure it out or anything..." Suki said quickly, her big dark chocolate eyes widening as she noticed Syn getting angry at Gabriella. "I just noticed that Nina...Nymeera, wasn't as nice as she was pretending to be..."

"Now that's unkind Suki sweetie!" Nymeera said in mock hurt, "I didn't say anything that wasn't true, and I think that, given what I could've done, I was VERY nice to you," Nymeera said, licking those bright red ruby lips of hers. Suki wilted a little, trying to draw in on herself, but with a body like hers she was never not going to be noticed. The other girls looked away from her respectfully, remembering her interview and how Nymeera had tricked her into giving a show... "But, just to prove I'm an equal opportunity hostess, we have one more interview to conduct..." Nymeera's red eyes landed on Damien and she got a very...hungry look to her eyes.

"Me?" Damien asked, trying to meet her gaze with a stern one of his own. "Well, I guess that's fair. Are you going to pull me into...whatever that room was then?" Damien asked, he didn't really like the idea of Nymeera speaking to him in a way that made his inner thoughts and feelings easy to read for whoever was watching, but the girls all had to go through it...he could suffer through as well for their sake. Especially poor Crystal, who was still breathing hard and letting Summer dote on her concernedly.

"Yeah what was that?" Dana asked, adjusting her glasses from when Nymeera touched her earlier. "I clearly remember watching the interviews before mine...but when I was being interviewed it was like I was the first one. How does that work?"

"Magic..." Nymeera whispered sensually, in a way that made Dana's heart skip a beat... She really hoped no one could tell how excited that answer made her. "So, let's turn our attention back to the screen..." The black screen flickered back on to show Nymeera, as Nina, sitting down across from Damien, who was looking rather handsome now that his body had been de-aged to his prime, and there was definitely some muscles showing under his professional button up shirt and khakis. Even his glasses looked more attractive, now on a more handsome face.

Damien

Damien didn't know when he'd arrived in the interview room, one moment he was at a...his? desk in the lecture hall, and the next he was looking at the woman who, from his perspective, had been an assistant professor for his university for more than a year before he found out who she really was... Which led to a few questions. Did she replace the real Nina? Did his memories of Nina come from Nymeera, Nina having never existed in the first place...or did she actually pretend to be a kind assistant professor for over a year just to set him up for this Harem Hotel insanity?

"So Damien," Nina said, purposefully unbuttoning a button on her blouse and leaning forward to show off an expanse of milky white cleavage. "Tell us about yourself..." Damien rolled his eyes, looking her in the face.

"I'm Damien Carter. I'm the Master of this harem," he growled, leaning into his role. Nymeera's eyes flashed with delight. "I'm taking it upon myself to bring these women into my charge, and as such protecting them from you."

"From me?" Nymeera licked her lips provocatively, "Perhaps you misunderstand. My role isn't to harm them, it's to make them into your perfect harem. Ready to fulfill all your fantasies and desires. Is that really so wrong?"

"Yes!" Damien shouted, exasperatedly. "Of course it is! You're changing these girls against their will. I can't believe you think...do you have any empathy? How would you feel if someone did this to you?"

"How would I feel if someone made me younger, sexier, and took away all negative aspects of my body?" Nymeera chuckled darkly. "Should've known an interview with an Ethics professor would turn into a lecture on morality. Well fine Mr. Professor, you wanna save them by lecturing me on the evils of my ways... Let's deep dive. You say it's wrong of me to change these girls against their will...well what if I change them so that they WANT to be who I change them into? If changing them against their will is so wrong, wouldn't it be equally wrong to change them back?" Damien frowned, he saw what she was getting at, but the order of events negated her point.

"No, because they only feel that way because of who you made them into, you've taken away their will, their autonomy. Who they originally were takes precedent!" Nymeera just rolled her eyes, her faux human appearance melting into that of the purple haired fox woman.

"You think so small...and so linearly," she sighed, raising up her hand and curling her tails around it. A small black mass formed in her hand before expanding, filling up no more than a volleyball's mass. The inside of the black mass started to expand and lights like galaxies and cosmic dust began to form within. "You think any decisions you make are free? You think you have free will in the first place? Decisions are just the result of upbringing, environment, genetics, and interactions with other people or things. Let's take you in this universe for example..." Damien's heart stopped beating for a moment as the black mass appeared to move, like a screen zooming in, and he saw himself, not quite as handsome or toned as his body was now, but young...and looking over papers. The mass played like video footage, showing him looking up in surprise, then smiling wickedly as Syn approached, dressed to kill in a slutty black schoolgirl outfit. The two of them kissed passionately, then without hesitation he swept the papers off his desk and threw her onto it. She giggled at his roughness, lust in her eye as her dark red hair splayed out behind her. There was no sound, but Damien could almost hear the way her breathing started to deepen needfully, her prominent breasts heaving as she let her legs spread, and all the while Damien himself, at least this version, was all too happy to give her what she wanted.

"Stop!" Damien said, tearing his eyes from the scene. Nymeera laughed sinisterly, and the Damien and Syn in the mass stopped their debauched dance to look up, confused, almost right at him...suddenly their faces alit with fear and a dark shadow passed over their faces. Nymeera's fingers closed around the mass, crushing it in her fist. Damien felt sick...what was that at the end? Did Nymeera really just make...and kill an entire UNIVERSE of living breathing people, just to make a fucking point!? Surely not...surely it was just a trick, some kind of special effect to make it LOOK that way...but with everything she'd done already...could he be sure?

"You see?" the purple haired fox said softly, almost threateningly. "You may have had to be goaded and seduced into taking your lovely blushing student's mmm...deal, but that didn't have to be the case. Under different conditions you take her willingly, even have a relationship with her. I COULD just make those conditions happen right now. I could snap my fingers and..."

*click*

Damien winced despite himself at the sound of fingers snapping. Nymeera just smiled, those bright red lips standing out so prominently against her pale skin...like her deep red eyes. "You would all be a nice, fuck happy harem willing to do whatever I wanted you to be willing to do. Free will isn't a factor here, the only morality you need to be thinking about...is Divine Command Theory. It is good, because I SAY it's good." Damien felt out of breath... A part of him wanted to submit right away...after all what could he possibly do against that? He raised a hand up and saw it shaking... He was scared, no he was terrified. How many people lived and died in that universe just to show him a naughty sex scene between himself and Syn? What could anyone do against that sort of reality defining power?

"Why don't you?" he asked, trying to cover his terror by appealing to his intellectual curiosity. "Why not just snap your fingers and make it all...happen?" Nymeera giggled mirthfully.

"Because that would be boring! What, you think the audience wants to watch you all just transform and fuck and that's the end of the season folks hope you had a good time be sure to like and subscribe!" Nymeera rolled her eyes. "Remember, we're putting on a show. That's all life is anyway, and if it's all just a show...you might as well make it a good one." This was just a game to her...she didn't care about them, just in appeasing some audience he couldn't even see or imagine! Their lives were just toys to her...toys she posed and played with and showed off for her friends. All that power...and she just played with toys?

"You didn't answer my question before..." Mr. Carter said, trying to summon some of the courage Crystal showed during her interview, where she basically spit in God's eye. "Do you feel empathy? Can you really say that you would be okay with ALL of the transformations you have planned for these girls, were they turned on you instead?"

"Goodness you're really on about that... Fine, it doesn't really matter anyway but this is a good chance to shut down any theories that 'maybe Nymeera will end up in the harem.' As if. Yes, I have empathy, but you aren't on the same level I am. You're like...a puppy. I want to dress you up and nuzzle you and put you on a leash and teach you all sorts of tricks. I wouldn't want to switch our positions anymore than you'd want to switch positions with a household pet."

"But we aren't just puppies," Damien said, leaning forward intently. "We're people. You can do all those things to a puppy because they don't have the same level of understanding people have. We are different, and so we suffer and benefit differently. Taking these girls away from their homes, away from their families and loved ones and forcing them to play this game...it's wrong."

"Check your Divine Command Theory. It isn't wrong if I say it isn't."

"Why then? Why are you doing this? What do you get out of it?"

"Oh come now, surely you can at least figure THAT out!" Nymeera giggled. "If you guess correctly I'll give you something nice..." Nymeera batted her eye lashes and Damien had to question whether he'd really enjoy this 'something nice' or not... He started to think.

"You called this a game show...or reality show. Whatever it is it's like a tv show, and it has an audience that you want to keep appeased... Typically that would mean you want financial success but...somehow I don't think money matters to you."

"Good thinking," Nymeera laughed sharply, raising her tails and causing the ceiling to crack, splitting apart as hundreds of thousands of bills fell from the sky like snow.

"Your biggest priority seems to be pleasing the audience... Is there something you get out of that? Making the audience happy gets you something?"

"Eh," Nymeera shrugged, "Honestly the audience is less important than even they think. That's very close to a guess...I'll give you another chance, but the next thing you say better be your guess." Damien still wasn't sure that he wanted to get this reward, but he was even more sure that he didn't want to somehow get punished for choosing wrong. She didn't need money, fame, or power... What does someone who has everything want? What COULD they want? If Damien had all the power Nymeera did he'd be bored out of his...

"Fun," he said slowly, staring at Nymeera almost in shock. "You're just in this for a laugh..."

"Mmm close enough," Nymeera giggled. "It isn't JUST a laugh, it's for the experience. What ELSE am I going to do? Make a whole universe dedicated to kissing my ass and let them worship me every day of their lives? I'd die of boredom before they did! But this...pulling them out of their lives and making a show of changing them...it's the whole experience. The humor, the tears, the sex...and there's more. If I do a good enough job here, I can get promoted, there are levels of godhood, as I said before, and while I'm not exactly in a hurry to ascend I'm not ignoring it. Also, the power I have is...conditional. I'm not saying to treat me like some victim of the system, I very much enjoy what I do, but if I were to turn over a new leaf, try to go and cure cancer or whatever, my hostess powers would dwindle to nothing and I'd be just as helpless as the rest of you to whatever punishment the higher ups demand of me. But yes, this is fun for me. Creating a whole world just for you and your harem. Selecting the perfect group of people to twist and manipulate into forming genuine bonds with each other, because this just doesn't work if I merely make you all fall in love. No I want that to happen on its own. I want you to fall in love with your harem, and for you harem to love you back. Anyone who can't do that gets eliminated."

"So you...just want us to love each other?" Damien blinked, his head spinning. That seemed to fly in the face of...everything that she was doing!

"Of course I do! That's the end goal, so buck up, there's a happy ending planned for you all...it just might take some twisting into the right shape to get there, but I'm not worried, you'll all be there for each other. I'll make sure of it."

"And...how will you do that?"

"Well that's just writing 101! Common causes make for quick bedfellows, and what better and more common cause is there, than a common foe? Yes, the role I've crafted for myself this season, is that of villain. Now, all you have to do is be a good little hero, and I promise you'll get the girls," Nymeera winked.

"No." Damien's voice sounded far more confident than he felt. Nymeera let out an exasperated sigh.

"Come on now... You can't really be planning to resist every step of the way? I chose you to be the Master of this season because you have a strong moral character, but you don't let it get in the way of having fun. You proved it when you fucked Syn despite reservations, and you proved it again when you fucked me when I pretended to have a husband. Don't you dare try to play the moral high ground anymore, it's gotten stale, and I'm still running a show."

"I won't pretend that I don't have parts of me that want this..." very loud parts at times, "But I'm not just going to let you get your way. You want drama? You want a show? I'll give you a show..." Damien growled, his confidence rising by the second. "The girls are going to get transformed no matter what? Fine, I'll ensure their transformations are kind and gentle. I won't let you ruin them!"

"Me?" Nymeera put a hand to her chest in mock surprise. "Oh no, I don't choose which transformations get applied, that honor goes to the audience. I just put up the options..."

"Well then...I want to put up my own options!" Nymeera's eyebrow raised up slowly.

"Oh really?" she said, her voice filled with poisonous glee. "You don't even know how the process works yet. You don't have a path, or any upgrades, or even a clue. The results are already in...we're going to transformations right after this, and you want to get in on the action at the 11th...no at the 12th hour? The audacity... I love it."

"I...what?"

"Very well, as your reward I'll let you pick one additional path per girl, but seeing as how you're woefully unprepared, tsk tsk professor, I'll have to...help you craft your transformations." Damien did NOT like the sound of that! That was basically the opposite of what he wanted! "Now now, unclutch your pearls. I'll just be helping to...refine them, make sure their up to industry standard. You'll come up with the base idea yourself. I'm VERY curious as to what you'll come up with as a way to 'save' your harem, and if it works out this could just indebt them to you, making it easier to forge you together by the end. Mmmm I love it. I don't think we've had a season where the Master has come up with transformations before! It could be big...or it could flop. Yes, you'll definitely need my guidance, at the very least to start out. Tell me then, what do you think of our lovely contestants vying for an enviable position in your harem? What comes to mind when you think of them?"

"I... Well I don't know them too well yet," Damien said, painfully aware that his big, putting his foot down moment placed him squarely into a pitfall Nymeera hadn't even intended for him to fall into.

"Well let's just go down the list. One word to describe Gabriella is..."

Damien really didn't want to play this game, but if there was a chance it could work...wasn't it better than doing nothing? What could he describe about Gabriella that was positive...not sexual at all. "She's a leader."

"Mm, and what about Patika?"

"Uh...her fitness?" That sounded like it could be twisted to sound sexual, but he honestly didn't know her well and he didn't want to comment on how submissive she seemed to be...

"Fun! I'm starting to get into this now, how about Summer? One word that describes something about her you admire? Maybe her hot buns?"

"Her optimism," Damien said, refusing to rise to the bait.

"I can work with that...how about her sister Crystal?"

"Her strong will, obviously." Nymeera laughed out loud at that one.

"Ohoho! I'm sorry, it's just funny because...well you don't know yet. Hmmm, why don't we rephrase that to her character, alright moving on. Suki, surely there's at least two things about her you like?" Nymeera asked with a wink.

"Her purity." Damien said, he was ready now. Suki was a pure soul, and there was no way Nymeera could sexualize...why was she smiling so wide?

"Yes...her innocence. VERY good, oh we can work with that!"

"That was NOT what I said!"

"Oh it's too late now. How about Dana?"

"If you're going to engage in bad faith then-"

"I won't overstep. Pure and innocent are synonyms, if you don't want one, don't say the other. Think carefully. Now...Dana."

"Her...chil- err her love of magic. I found that to be a little inspiring."

"Her child-like qualities, got it."

"Okay hang on!"

"Hahaha! Kidding, kidding! Love of magic, engaging in good faith. I might be the villain but I'm not a monster...well, not in that sense. How about Lauren?"

"She's a mother, there's nothing more admi-"

"Nope. Sorry I already have that path locked down, try again."

"You...what?"

"I already have that path, you can't just be a duplicate of my paths, otherwise the transformations will get redundant, and that's both boring AND ill advised. Why not wife?"

"Huh?" Damien was still confused. Nymeera was already thinking about enhancing her motherly attributes? Did that mean she wanted her to be doting and motherly toward the other members of the harem? No...it was probably something to do with breast feeding. "Uh, fine, wife then..." Damien was NOT happy with taking Nymeera's suggestion, but what could he do? He was most proud of her choice to be a mother, and that was being sexualized and used against her...was any of this even worth it?

"Stay with me big guy...two left. Synthia, what do you think about HER in just one word? Fuckbuddy perhaps? Seductress? Mistress?" Nymeera waggled her eyebrows.

"I...she's my student. Err, was... She doesn't need to be anything more..."

"Mmm student, VERY good choice." Damien groaned, he could already see how THAT one was going to be used against him...but he was the one in charge at the end of the day right? Nymeera said she'd be working in good faith! Feh...he didn't even believe that himself.

"Victoria. Now this one might be a little tricky so strain you-"

"Repentant," Damien said without hesitation. "She's trying to better herself, she's clearly sorry for what she's done and...even if she still has feelings that aren't going away, she's found a way to keep herself in check. That's admirable, I'd admire that in anyone."

"Well, we'll see how admirable she is after 30 days. Perhaps she'll be the best of all of you, if the audience picks your paths...but in the event that they don't. YOU will have to suffer the consequences."

"Excuse me?" Damien asked, blinking.

"Having the Master come up with transformations is certainly interesting, but if no one picks them because they're too tame that'll get boring. So here's the deal, you get to pick them, and I'll even help you out, but if NONE of your transformations get picked, then YOU get a transformation to help you get more in line with the audience's thinking. That way next round's options are more likely to be picked...unless the audience decides they don't like you and just want to keep giving you transformations, but hey at least they'll be engaged."

"I..." Damien suddenly wanted to back out. What the HELL was he thinking? He thought he was going to come in on a white horse and save these girls? He didn't know anything about what was going on any better than they did! The smart thing would be to back out, to change his mind and not give Nymeera the extra bullet to end him with...and yet... "I accept those terms." Nymeera blinked, clearly she didn't expect him to say that...hell Damien didn't expect him to say that! And yet...the girls would be going through transformations no matter what he did, their minds and bodies changed at the flick of a tail while he was spared... If they were going to go through that for the sake of the ridiculous harem, he might as well share in the risk.

"I see... Well then, a deal is struck. You don't get a wish so I won't bother asking. Instead I'll just say..."

"The results are in!" Nymeera announced, now back in the lecture hall with Damien at his desk looking over at the 9 beautiful women his fate was now inexorably tied to...if indeed it ever wasn't. On his desk he found a single sheet of paper, and a old fashioned quill pen, complete with pot of ink. The paper was simply a list of 9 familiar names, and next to each name...

Gabriella: [Leader]

Patika: [Gym Rat]

Summer: [Optimist]

Crystal: [Paragon]

Suki: [Innocent]

Dana: [Mage]

Lauren: [Wife]

Synthia: [Student]

Victoria: [Christian]

The fate he had laid out for them.

"So let's see who our audience connected with the most!" Nymeera's tails flicked and a large scoreboard appeared in the air above them listing the girls' names. Votes started to come in and bars appeared next to each name, increasing in length as votes added to the tally. Names swapped positions as their bars climbed higher faster, or slower, than those around them. Every eye in the lecture hall was fixed on the scoreboard, wondering what the results would be...