Kaiju Slaying For Death And Profit Ch 28

Howdy y'all, hope you're having a good weekend.

I got so much done! Feels good to finish a bit earlier than usual!

I wrote a solid third of this during the week during lunch at work. And then had to throw that third away and rewrite it yesterday, because this went a direction I wasn't fully expecting.

Still, in the interest of 'it's Evangelion' it's introspective and kinda fucky. Though a little less concentration on 'woe is I and all things around me' and more 'this is why this guy is warped the way he is, but hey, at least he's trying.' Kinda thing.

Essentially, the way I prefer my fucky introspection scenes.

If nothing else, I hope you lot find it entertaining. I have a feeling it's not for everyone, but I tried. Also, this chapter is almost 5800 words. It's kinda a lot. XD

Lemme know in a comment if you liked or didn't.

Or don't, I remain not the boss of you.

Have a good weekend, and if you're on the US (which the bulk of y'all are) have a good Memorial Day. And stay safe.

=][=

Maya sighed and straightened up the infirmary room, Mister Shinji’s eyes roaming about as he continued to stare at everything in the room with childlike fascination.

She absently wiped a line of drool that had leaked down his chin and wished there were more people who could approach Mister Shinji without causing a violent reaction.

To date, that list consisted of Maya herself, Rei, Asuka, some of the younger nurses, and one of the male nurses. Most of the doctors had learned not to ignore his wordless warning growls when one of them had to undergo reconstructive surgery to fix his shattered cheekbone.

Mister Shinji was terrifyingly strong, there were some theories that he had myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy on top of his tricho-dento-osseous syndrome. His current condition making it obvious in retrospect exactly how much the boy held back and controlled himself on a day-to-day basis. Even so, all of the nurses and most of the doctors braved the likelihood of bodily harm to treat him. They had to. He was simply too important.

Maya was pretty sure that Horaki would be fine to approach too, but the girl was in a fragile state, and it did not seem like a good idea to risk her seeing what had become of Mister Shinji.

After all, they’d effectively lost their star pilot because she cried for his help specifically.

“Any improvement on his condition?” Major Katusagi asked from the door, she shuddered as Mister Shinji’s eyes focused on her like targeting lasers the moment she made a noise. She decidedly did not meet his stare, and did not look directly at Maya.

Another lesson that had been learned the hard way by an unfortunate doctor.

Maya sighed. “I don’t know, ma’am. I want to say yes, but that could just be me being optimistic.” She absently wiped drool away again. “He seems more directly aware than last week. And he’s had less violent episodes, which could mean healing of his cognitive centers…”

“Or it could mean that we’ve learned how to work around what sets him off.” Major Katusagi muttered.

“Exactly.” Maya sighed.

“What about his condition?” The Major asked after a thoughtful silence.

Maya shook her head. “As best as we can tell, the pressure in his brain from the multiple brain hemorrhages he suffered battling the Angel have stabilized. Unfortunately, the areas damaged were not the ones responsible for motor control, those we could fix quickly. The damage is, unfortunately, concentrated on the regions of the brain we do not know much about.”

“Meaning, no change.” Major Katusagi surmised.

“Right.” Maya said. “Since his condition is stable, there have been talks about moving him to his apartment. The hope is that the familiar environment might shake something loose in there.”

The Major sighed but nodded. “Keep me appraised.”

Her order given, she stepped back carefully and slowly, and making no sudden movements, left the room.

Yet another painful lesson learned by an unfortunate member of the medical staff.

Maya smiled at Mister Shinji, absently wiping drool again, his eyes snapping to her face. “You’ll be alright, Mister Shinji.” She said.

He did not vocalize, but he took hold of her wrist in a gentle grip, then stared in fascination at her hand.

She wasn’t worried, he’d yet to hurt her except accidentally. Which, to her, meant that the Miracle Child was still in there, doing his best to come back to them. To finish what he’d started, and save mankind.

And he would.

Somehow.

Still, as he placed one of her fingers in his mouth and absently sucked on it, she couldn’t help but wonder: what was going on in there?

=][=

Zero zero zero, zero zero zero, zero zero zero, zero zero zero, two three five.

000,000,000,000,235.

------------CCXXXV.

Strange, that the most hated number was the only anchor I could find.

I remember the searing pain as It tried to burrow into my mind, as It tried to extract my secrets. I remember the agony of struggle, biting the reaching hands and probing fingers.

I remember my mind bending under the strain.

I felt myself spiral, I reached for who I was, what I was, where I was, but always only one thing answered my probing.

------------CCXXXV.

The utter certainty, that I was not the First.

The absolute knowledge that there were at least two-hundred-and-thirty-three versions of me, running around the multiverse. And One from whom we had all been copied.

For a decade and a half, I hated that number. Even as grateful as I was to it.

Prime Me knowing Himself well enough to understand, that not knowing for certain would destroy Us.

We were homogenous, far more alike to each other than we were unique.

It made sense, we were the same person. Decanted from clone vats with copied memories. Our responses to said memories modified, negative memories muted, the satisfaction of just retribution heightened.

Just enough so we’d be the same person, but with a negligible chance of having the Prime’s suicidal tendencies.

All of Us accepted the work deal. That didn’t happen often, even with exact copies of an individual, make enough attempts, the clones will eventually make a different choice. Choosing impulsive and reckless immediate satisfaction instead of a decade and a half of grueling work as an investment for the future.

It was a Statistical Anomaly, that one-hundred-percent acceptance of the work deal. To trade away fifteen years of life for a leg-up on the exam, and if not used, a bonus to one’s start as an Agent.

That was noted on Our files.

000,000,000,000,235.

Fifteen years of work in the Slutlife Engineering Mechanics Electricians and Nano-machinist division, yes there was a Geas involved, no, even the Geas’ removal did not make it easy to only think ‘engineering division,’ it was that ingrained in all who worked in SEMEN.

We could all look up what We all got up to.

Very few of Us died at work, say what you will about Slutlife, but they guarded their assets jealously. Individuals learned in mechanical engineering were not as easily discarded as janitorial staff.

Fair? No.

Did that stop me from taking advantage of being a ‘High Priority Asset for retrieval and rescue’ whenever the facility I was in was attacked? Absolutely not.

One learned not to become friends with those who weren’t HPAs, it wasn’t worth the heartbreak.

There was a very good reason why piloting a Slutlife Construction Vehicle gave hazard pay, and it wasn’t the suit’s design.

Completely unrelated, while the mining and construction tools installed into the SCVs were subpar for combat, the things they could do to even a heavily augmented humanoid body were truly horrific.

Zero zero zero, zero zero zero, zero zero zero, zero zero zero, two three five.

I floated through a sea of shattered cells of information. Synapse spasms buffeting what little cognition I could coalesce around the Number.

I flinched as Johnathan’s severed finger splatted against my cheek, staining my beard red with his blood, he looked at his hand where his careless handling of a power tool had removed it.

“Goddamn it Johnathan! Again!?” I snarled, turning off my own tool, setting the safeties, removing the power source, and locking it to my harness. Only then picking up the severed finger.

“You know, the worst thing is it doesn’t hurt.” Johnathan said, wiggling the bleeding appendage.

“Turn your shit off, dumbass!” I shouted, using my HUD and admin privileges to remotely shut down his adamantine saw, the most cost-effective way to cut through a Titan’s plasteel armor plates while minimizing the need for personal protective equipment.

“Oh right, thanks Alex.” He said, still not doing anything to staunch the bleeding.

“Shut the fuck up and engage your safeties! Then fuck off to the healers! We’ve got a quota to meet and I’m not doing your share again!” I shouted.

I didn’t hear Johnathan’s response, drifting away through the sea of shattered bits of me. That information node felt important, but not enough to fight to keep hold of it. I needed something else.

Something fundamental, something that could serve as a foundation.

Alex, a chosen name. It wasn’t my name, my name was S-000,000,000,000,235. But ‘Alex’ was the name my entire clone line chose as their own.

There was one other name we all considered, but none of us had felt worthy of it. We knew the Prime took that name, and we all, seemingly collectively, agreed to leave it to him.

More alike than different, our clone line is.

It makes sense, we are literally copies of the same person.

Zero zero zero, zero zero zero, zero zero zero, zero zero zero, two three five.

I strode through the office, projecting confidence and contempt.

The former far more difficult than the latter.

I held on to the information, to the memory, it felt solid.

No, it felt Important.

It was easy to hold tight. The synapse pathways well-trodden.

Part of the Foundation of whoever was ‘me.’

I delved greedily, desperately, into the memory.

I strode through the office, projecting confidence and contempt.

The former far more difficult than the latter.

I shipped out to Boot tomorrow, after that, I would survive the exam, I would become a full Agent.

I had already put in a request to leave Class A, and it had been accepted, a privilege that not many are granted.

But a Legacy Contract? That made for a hell of a bargaining chip.

Class A could not take Boot away from me. If they even made the attempt, I could bring untold levels of hell down on them.

And worse, at least in their eyes, they would be forced to compensate me for the trouble.

Fucking Class A.

I reached the office marked on my HUD and slammed the door open. “The hell do you want?”

Inside the office was an entirely normal looking human man, his black hair perfectly coifed, his black business suit immaculate, his chin covered by just enough stubble to accentuate the line of his jaw. His ice blue eyes cold, calculating, unsurprised, looking dispassionately down at my boots where I stood on top of his rug.

His rug, of Alderaanian make if I wasn’t mistaken, was a warm peach color, and looked sinfully soft and fluffy.

I had tracked mud and engine oil onto it.

Did I seriously walk all the way here barefoot so I could put my dirty boots on right outside to force someone to clean the mess and in the hopes of ruining someone’s immaculate, expensive, and irreplaceable rug?

No, I obviously did not. Who would ever be that petty?

The soles of my feet always had those bruises and cuts due to gravel, thank you very much.

“Prospective Agent, welcome. May I call you Alex?” He asked, his voice soft, high for a man, perfectly polite.

“No.” I snarled. “What do you want? I need to pack my shit and leave.”

He smiled, his perfectly straight white teeth barely visible through the perfectly genuine looking gesture. “Of course, Prospective Agent, thank you for coming.”

“What. The Hell. Do you want?” I repeated, grinding the soles of my boots into the rug.

I wasn’t out of Class A yet, but for all intents and purposes, I was out, these fuckers had no power over me lest I change my mind and chose to stay, so I felt I could let loose fifteen years of resentment.

In small, petty ways, sure. But those were the most annoying. The knowledge that someone went needlessly out of their way to make your day slightly worse.

Would I get far more satisfaction out of building a shotgun and punching some holes through these ‘people’ with it?

Yes, yes I would. This is Class A, anyone that chose to stay here had it coming.

But it wouldn’t be enough, it wasn’t worth it. I couldn’t do anything more than minor petty acts without either dying, or far worse, giving them the excuse they needed to keep me in Class A. And fuck Class A in particular.

If he cared about my defacing of his rug, he didn’t show it.

“Very well, I’ll cut to the chase. I want you to accompany me for a short tour. Through this tour, I will attempt to convince you to stay in Class A. It shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes.”

“No. I’m leaving.” I said, turned around, and walked straight into an invisible force field.

“I’m sorry to say, that your choices are to give me about thirty minutes of your time, or to wait in this office for thirty days.”

I turned around, snarling. “You can’t hold me! I have Boot tomorrow, and I prepared an audit to be begun if I miss it!”

“You won’t!” He said happily. “The moment you stepped through that door, a time dilation field was put in place. Once those thirty subjective days have ended, you may leave, your day will only have advanced by thirty seconds.”

“I want it in writing.” I snarled.

He provided a contract. It was very short and to the point, no legalese or any other issues or ‘gotcha!’ clauses, a rarity for anyone dealing with the Company, and Class A specifically.

I agreed to spend less than one hour listening to his proposal. In return, I would be given seven times the requisition slips I would normally receive for a month of work. It very stringently stipulated that there was no other service being bargained for by the agreement on the contract.

Knowing these fucks were up to something, I strongly considered parking my ass on this fucker’s rug and waiting out the full thirty days.

But while I was willing to be very petty, I wasn’t willing to subject myself to a month of pissing and shitting on this guy’s rug if I’d have to live in this office for a subjective month. So I signed.

“Excellent!” He said, waving a hand, the contract vanishing in a burst of flame. “Come with me.”

He walked toward the door of his office and stepped through.

Reluctantly, I followed.

We stepped out onto a sealed platform with art-deco style architecture and decorations, one entire wall a single unblemished panel of glass. Through that glass, I saw something that made my mouth drop open.

I saw a world.

I saw my world.

Mine in every sense of the word.

As I pressed my hand against the cool glass, I felt my mind connect with the nearest Electro-Noospheric Node, it recognized me, welcoming its Master home.

My mind opened slowly, greedily, limited omniscience unfolding through my cognition.

It wasn’t just a planet, it was an entire solar system.

The star was encased in a Dyson Sphere, every unit of the awe-inspiring power it produced captured and flawlessly harvested, processed, and utilized.

In this system, materials were mined, refined, shipped, worked, forged, assembled.

Tools from the humble knife, to the Sonic Screwdriver.

Weapons from the humble bayonet, to Matter Annihilators.

Vehicles from tricycles to star ships.

Tanks, Armored Personnel Carriers, War Jacks, Mechs, Titans, Colossi, Gargantuans.

Flak Jackets, plate carriers, powered armors, personal shield units, planetary shield units.

Bolt action rifles, semi auto weapons, fully automatic smart guns, arc weapons, plasma guns, lasrifles, particle projector cannons.

And not just weapons.

Ovens, microwaves, flashlights, tablets, laptops, Personal Computers, Implants, Prosthetics.

Mining and manufacturing equipment, forklifts, seed ships, cloning vats.

A mothership that could take a colony of thousands to a new world, land safely to act as a new world capital, and the ability to be dismantled into several cities or a singular arcology with full manufacturing capacity, everything necessary to create a new civilization.

Every city in this solar system was an arcology, every arcology was simultaneously a manufacturing center and had nature parks where the ecosystem that had existed on that region of the planet was immaculately preserved.

Quadrillions of citizens, trillions of soldiers, uncountable tons of materials shipped in every second, even more materiel and goods shipped out.

And it was hardened against a siege. If all materials being shipped in were to halt right this instant, there was enough material, foodstuffs, and water in each arcology to not only maintain the same pace of manufacture to meet orders for three years, but to triple the production to create new machines for the defense of the system.

I needed only to think, and I could see each individual worker or soldier in my system, gauge their health, what they were doing. I could dole out encouragement and punishment at my whim.

Or I could see the entirety of the system, see the vassal systems that paid tithe to this beating heart of manufacture, each of those vassal systems having been made to be independent, but without access to certain optional goods that many others could provide, but only I provided at-cost to those who were my vassals and paid their tithe, aside from the guarantees of protection.

An armada consisting of one mothership, fifteen ships of the line, fifty-five capital ships, one-hundred-and-fifty destroyers, and five hundred supply ships jumped into apparent FTL through their Alcubierre Drives, but I knew they could also use Hyperspace Drives to navigate there, or use Warp Drives to dive into the Immaterium, itself becalmed, this universe’s equivalent of the Chaos Gods chained, enslaved, and bent to my will, forced to create or undo warp storms at my demand, to propel my ships faster, or to destroy incoming armadas.

That armada was on its way to one of the most distant vassal systems. To repel an invasion by…something that could obstruct even my Sight. That’s why I was sending enough firepower to level entire planetary systems.

I could feel Me in the Noosphere, I knew I was here, there was amusement there, an acknowledgement from an elder to a younger sibling he hadn’t seen in decades.

Or perhaps centuries.

“What is this?” I found myself whispering in awe.

“This is your system.” The A-hole said neutrally, but I could see the envy in his gaze as he looked at the planet we gazed down upon.

We were in a ring, a ring of steel that surrounded the world, its anchors down to the surface doubling as space elevators.

“This entire system is yours, or perhaps it is more accurate to say it will be yours.” He continued. “This is what happens if you stay with us, with Class A. You build this, in a decade. Well, not all of it, but the seed of it. That’s what we want, we want you to stay with us and build this.”

I worked my jaw. “Why do you need me?” I wanted to demand but barely managed to whisper. “Even if this is a pocket dimension to gaze into a potential future, you can use the step-by-step guide, you wouldn’t need me to stay in Class-A, you could just copy my work.”

“We tried!” He said amusedly, with an undercurrent of rage. “But you from the future planned for that, we can only see up to a point where we could do this ourselves, and the ‘now.’ For this,” he waved past the glassteel viewport. “We need you, you, with the Legacy Contract. We need someone who so thoroughly embodies not one, but two of the Big Seven, one with the rare will to bend those Vises to his betterment. In short…we need you, to be you.”

This is why he brought me here, why I was treated with kid gloves as far as coercion, hell, this is probably why I was an HPA.

They couldn’t coerce me too badly, anyone who built this could literally walk away from the Company, even the White Hats would forgive nearly anything for this level of manufacturing capability.

If I was, indeed, the one who built this, then they needed me to hold them in high enough esteem that I wouldn’t just walk away. They couldn’t shit on me too badly until they knew whether or not I was or wasn’t the one that made this.

I felt ‘My’ amusement grow, and knew that this, too, was intentional. The only reason ‘I’ hadn’t left the Company, cast off their shackles, the only reason why ‘I’ maintained a cordial relationship was because it amused Me to see Class-A bring younger versions of Myself here, to try and tempt us into staying.

And I knew, right then, that I was made part of a truly awe-inspiring prank.

They saw a slave world, vassals, quadrillions of wage-slaves that could be thrown at a problem, moved from one spreadsheet to the other to make up numbers as needed.

I saw Susan who studied technical manuals while she took a break from her primary occupation as a homemaker, wife of Albert, who was working his shift at the factory to support his family, he and Susan had talked about it, and he was picking up extra shifts to fund not only Susan’s education, but to buy shares into a colony ship that would be launched later in the year, as they were launched every year. He was a father of three, and he did not dream of once owning a plot of land to call his own, he knew he would have it.

A simple setup, a simple story, but variations of it were repeated over and over, trillions of times. People working for betterment, their own and that of their children.

Homelessness was outlawed. If you had a hard enough downturn that you lost your property, you were sent to an arcology, you were provided a room, nutri-paste that tasted like clean air but would sustain you, and opportunity would be made available to you. If you did not find work after an allotted length of time, work would be found for you.

Councils and representatives were formed into governing bodies, but only those who had been in the military could run for office, and only those that served with dedication, honor, and distinction could hold positions of actual power.

The quadrillions of people all prayed to their guardian deity, their benefactor who created and ran their civilization. Who they had tangible historical record of taking to the field and wielding the power only a God could wield directly in their defense.

They venerated his Wives, living saints who acted as go-betweens and curved His rages, for though He tried to be a just God, He was not infallible.

It was a protectorate, a theocratic military autocracy. One built, ran, operated, managed and ultimately owned by a benevolent dictator who was not shy about using His power for the betterment of His people.

It was a system, no, a civilization set up with the express purpose of minimizing suffering while allowing people the chance to grow and strive for greater things, and have the opportunity to achieve said greater things.

Class-A would never be able to comprehend this. They saw only the manufacturing capacity, and the quadrillions of people happy to be enslaved. They did not see the armada that left as the fulfilment of obligation, but that it was being sent out purely to guard ‘My’ investment.

They coveted this place, this result, but were incapable of understanding how it could be achieved. So they chose the only option available to them.

Wait.

Wait until they found which of my Clone Line would finally agree to build this for them.

And I knew, beyond the shadow of all doubt, that this version of Future Me had chosen to involve me in the absolute greatest practical joke. One that spanned literal millennia, and several dozen realities.

Because He shared His serial number with me, and He and I were not the same.

And the moment He saw His younger self, then His Time Loop would be completed, the one weakness that He had made sure not to counter. The one weakness he let Class A think he’d forgotten to cover.

The moment His Time Loop was closed, and His Younger Self reached a certain level of advancement, He would activate that defense and sever his connection with Class A and the Company. Robbing them of the vast riches He had cultivated and grown over the eons. Leaving them without the feather in their cap, without the shining jewel in their collection.

He did not need to tell me this. It’s exactly what I would have done.

It was difficult not to cackle in delight. An effort successful only thanks to my sympathetic connection to Older Me, who cackled in delight for me.

“Yeah well.” I whispered, feigning rage and spite. I cleared my throat, glared over my shoulder at the Corporate Devil and stated. “I refuse.”

The mask he called a smiling face gained a crack. “Please, reconsider.” He said, his voice still smooth and professional. “Would you truly throw this away, purely to spite us? The Class who brought you to life?”

I grinned. “Nothing brings me greater joy than standing in front of puffed up, moronic, lazy, worthless A-holes like you, who come to me and beg for scraps in an attempt to ride my coat-tails into greatness and telling them…‘No!’” My grin became a fairly convincing snarl, Older Me laughed even harder, beating his heels against the floor like a child not only at the elation I transmitted to him, but at my flawless insertion of a reference. “Now pay me, and get the fuck out of my way, I need to prep for Boot and my exam.”

Powerless to change my mind, incapable of getting the result his superiors likely had demanded of him, he gestured to the portal behind him. “It’s a shame that you’d rather wallow in your petty hatred than to take your rightful place of prominence. So be it.”

“Yeah fuck off.” I said, walking through the portal back to his office, and grinding my still quite dirty boots on a clean section of his rug, then off to Boot, and then, my well-deserved Adventure.

000,000,000,000,235.

I held on to the memory. It was vast, weighty, strong.

Foundational.

It gave me a starting point, something to use as a more powerful anchor than the Hated Number. The memory gave me the ability to piece my shattered cognition into a ‘before’ and ‘after.’

Long shifts at Titan Maintenance happened ‘before’, grueling work meant to weld a disparate group into a cohesive whole went ‘after.’

Tirelessly, I worked, assembling the jigsaw puzzle that slowly became my cognition. The more I pieced together, the faster it came.

Waifu’s Pride, a Titan, pitted and scarred from fighting, deemed too far gone, its cognitive pathways and cogitator cores too damaged to bother repairing, the work order was to disassemble the mighty mechanical beast for parts, scrap the rest.

It had come near the end of the shift, so it received a stay of execution.

I had stayed, and worked over the next sixteen hours, tiredly but unceasingly, refusing to leave the beast to such an undeserved ignominious fate.

Before.

I watched helplessly as Stacy, the stupid bitch demanded to see a draft officer’s manager. The man, exasperated and thoroughly done with any shit, waved. Anabelle was cut down due to her proximity to the flag bearer, bringing my squad from five, to two, in seconds. Alan was soon separated from me.

After.

I held Rei’s svelte, trembling body, she ground her hot clothed sex against my covered groin as she clumsily but desperately kissed me.

After.

I lay on the ground, the rest of my ‘team’ sleeping. I considered summoning a sandwich but decided not to risk it. The drill sergeant might decide to be more of an asshole than strictly necessary and punish my midnight snacking.

Was I tired? Yes I was exhausted, but I’d worked enough triple-shifts at SEMEN for physical exhaustion to not be enough to drag me under when thinking about uncomfortable things.

If I succeeded, if I became an Agent…I’d be a slaver. Not much of a choice, really, that was the whole thing about Slutlife.

Yeah, it’d be nice to be the Big Damn Hero, but I wasn’t Superman or Captain America. I had a measure of tenacity, but I wanted more than a ‘thank you’ for a job well done. And the Stamp…the Stamp was too powerful not to use. Either as a weapon…or to take what I wanted.

If I wasn’t careful…I’d become the thing I hated, an unfeeling jackass with a menagerie of beautiful but brainless slave women who he doesn’t even see as people. I’d seen enough of those to last me a lifetime, no need to have one staring at me from the other side of a mirror.

So, I made a promise, if only to myself. I’d only use the Stamp as a weapon, to be rid of a threat I couldn’t otherwise defeat, to turn an agent against a threat I otherwise cannot deal with…and if I used it on someone, then it would fall to me to make it worth it for them. I took their everything, so I’d have to give them everything, all they could ever want or need to live a happy, fulfilling life.

It would be my duty, my responsibility, the repayment for taking them and making them mine. And just like Prime Me, I was loath to shirk my responsibilities.

My mind made up, I was finally able to sink into an exhausted sleep.

After

I hung from the safety harness, throwing a middle finger at the guys as they laughed at my misfortune. It wasn’t even my fault! It’s not my job to do maintenance on the gantries! Fucking hell, it would be hours before I could be extracted. I felt my soul try to leave my body as the Warlord Titan, Waifu’s Pride activated even though it was currently unmanned. It reached out with its Plasma Annihilator and, gentle as I would be picking up a bird, nudged me up onto the gantry. “I uhh…Thanks.” I said lamely.

Its warhorn was deafening as it vibrated my marrow, but I took it in the spirit it was meant. Besides, a little tinnitus never hurt anyone.

Before.

I looked down at Maximus with a smile and ran the cheese grater down his arm again. “These collars really are a marvel, you know? Complete immobilization, protection from shock, and forces the wearer to remain awake?” I picked up a handful of salt and rubbed it into the wounds. His breathing remained artificially steady. “I mean, joke’s on me, right? The title of the class is enhanced interrogation, why the hell would I think that it’d be anything other than a torture fest? Fuck me, right?”

I ran the cheese grater down his leg until the skin was fully peeled, then rubbed in the salt. “I mean, can you blame me?” I asked conversationally and received no answer. “I thought Boot was supposed to be about learning and shit. How the hell was I supposed to know that it would be ‘torture innocent people to death or drop out of Boot, the class’? False advertisement I tell you.”

He did not answer as I ran the cheese grater down his stomach. “I mean, at least I noticed the clause in the syllabus, that we ‘could only torture the innocent until the final hour of the final night’ but the class ends in the morning after the final night, you know? So I took me a gamble Maximus, I did do me a gamble. And hey, considering that nobody’s stopped me, I guess it paid off!”

His eyes bulged as I very carefully ran the cheese grater along his dick until I’d removed the skin and cut into the organ, then nearly popped out of his skull when I rubbed in the salt.

“Though I’ve gotta say, what you did to those poor women? Oof, and let me tell you, I’ve seen some shit, Maximus, I’ve seen some shit. But that perverse mind of yours takes the cake, way to live up to the stereotype you alt-Rome fuckwad. I mean, yeah, I could do something worse. But come on. You’re actually staying in Class A!” I held up the cheese grater. “If you recover and become a full Agent? You’ll never live this down, Maximus, you’ll always be cheese grater dick! Cheese grater dick! Not only that, but I’m making you literally salty about it! Oh, oh I am a comedy genius, don’t you agree, Maximus?”

My only response was his artificially even breathing, and the dripping of his blood.

“Don’t worry! Salt’s a coagulant…probably.” I said, rubbing more salt into his wounds. “Anyways, I’m pretty sure I’ve done enough to pass, so I just want you to know.” I peeled his eyelid open and grinned down at him while holding a fistful of salt. “From here on? It’s personal.”

After.

On and on it went, the cognitive synaptic spasm I called ‘me’ growing stronger by the memory. Working faster and more efficiently with each puzzle piece set in its rightful place. Until, with a triumphant growl, I emerged from the fog of my thoughts and thrust deeply into Maya’s welcoming cunt, blowing my load against her deepest point as she gasped in ecstasy, her legs trembling as I held them too tightly in a mating press, her body covered in scratches and bite marks, and the occasional bruise.

I blinked, looking around, I saw we were in my apartment, my and Rei’s room to be precise.

“Uhhh.” I said as Maya relaxed into a pile of well-fucked goo beneath me. Next to her lay Rei, her sweaty body flushed, equally scratched, bit, and bruised, and leaking my come out of the puffy lips of her quim.

…huh?

“I love you Mister Shinji.” Maya mumbled absently, her hands running idly over my shoulders and back. My HUD dinged and informed me I’d captured Ibuki Maya through love confession.

While I was grappling with how guilty I should feel about that, and thinking of exactly what I’d need to do to make sure Maya lived a long, happy, fulfilling life, Rei looked up, smiled, and spoke through her ragged, gasping pants. “Hello Shinji…I’m glad to see, you’re thinking again.”

“Uhhh.” I said eloquently, quite sensibly confused as all hell.

Maya giggled, seemingly uncaring of the rather awkward and uncomfortable position she was in, the walls of her channel lovingly squeezing my still hard dick.

“Rei.”

“Yes?”