Fighting Them There

The latest skill lists are linked in my bio. The domain description will be posted after Chapter 31.

### Fighting Them There ###

### Fighting Them There ###

### Chapter Twenty-Nine ###

### Chapter Twenty-Nine ###

Meesh's face appeared on his screen, and her expression was hard to read. His sister was wearing more makeup than she normally did and was wearing an off-the-shoulders dress. He'd been expecting her to contact him ever since he'd sent his family some abridged reports of what had been happening away from Earth, of how much larger their family had become. If their positions had been reversed, he didn't think he'd have believed her claims to have gotten married seven times and adopted a child. There were pictures of course, but even having personally lived through it, he sometimes thought that it was all a lie and none of it had really happened. When he'd told his harem members, Miriam had told him that he had imposter syndrome, and her prescription was for him to take off his shirt and have all of the women tickle him with their mouths. Even Kwrtzl had gotten in on the act once she'd figured out what the game was. The Tartarian had lost out on all the most ticklish targets, and ended up running her fangs lightly along his left shoulder blade. Despite being smaller than orc teeth, Max found the Scourge's fangs more threatening than Ulzhari's tusks. In a way, that made them more exciting. All those details and more were things that he had very carefully avoided mentioning inanyof his messages to his sister and parents, so he didn't think the video was going to be about that.

"Congratulations on eloping," his sister said wryly, "and eloping and eloping and eloping and eloping. Bro, I don't even know what you're supposed to call that. Is there an orc word? Anyway, Mom and Dad are pissed that you're cheating on Sophie with a half dozen other women, but they want more pictures of Luhgra. I don't know if my brother will have a seat at Thanksgiving when his conscription is finished, but my niece sure will. Good job on making sure that our parents are grandparents before they kill you." She smiled, and he hoped that meant that she was kidding. Or at leastmostlykidding.

She reached off camera and pulled out some card stock that he had no chance of reading on the screen without pause and zoom. He figured that his sister would explain what it meant, and he wasn't disappointed. "So I got tickets to a Sidewinder Kate show. I didn't buy them, they just got mailed to me. By Sidewinder Fucking Kate!" She waved the card stock around, and Max realized that they were the tickets being described. "And that's not the weirdest part. No, the weirdest part is that it came with a message that said: 'Make sure to bring your brother! Heart Heart Heart.' She didn't write the word heart three times, she actually drew little hearts." Michelle held the note up to the camera, and it did indeed look like there were some hand-drawn hearts.

Pulling the note away, Michelle's own body again became the focus of the camera. She crossed her arms under her breasts. "So what's going on? Why does a music star even know who I am, and why does she want me to bringyouback stage?" She pointed at the camera and wagged her finger. "Are you cheating on your seven women? If Sophie divorces you, she's getting me in the divorce. You're playing a dangerous game, Bro. And I am not supporting you on that."

The video shifted suddenly, as if a section had been cut out. After the jump, she seemed a lot calmer. "Bro, when you get back to New Mexico, wearegoing to that Sidewinder Kate show. So don't fuck things up with your girlfriend. Wife. Uh... wives. Concubines?" She visibly shuddered. "I'm not familiar enough with these orc marriages. But don't fuck things up with them. Any of them." She smiled at him. "Don't get too many concubines either, remember that you're givingmeseals in the summer. And bring my niece back to Earth next month. We all want to meet her." The transmission ended.

Max exhaled, only belatedly realizing that he'd been holding his breath at all. He needed to make a video where he explained the situation with Monique and Katherine. And he'd need Sophie and Fiona to be in that video, because there was absolutely no way his sister would believe any of it if the other women weren't backing him up. He still didn't understand what it meant that the two performers were marked as his non-hunter slaves, but it didn't seem like it was an option to leave her out of the loop until he figured out what it all meant.

This time, he'd need a script. And he'd need to run that script by all the women in his harem before they started filming. Even Kwrtzl. They all deserved to have a say in how their relationships were described to Michelle. They were family now. He wanted Michelle to get along with all of them. HeneededMichelle to get along with all of them, she was going to be a part of everything they did. In eight months, she'd be living at Camp Acheron and there would no possibility of any peace if they weren't all on good terms.

He didn't really want to tell Michelle about his sex life, but he needed to tell hersomething.

####

"You want permission forwhat?" Every time Lieutenant Cortes spoke to or about Hunter Mitchell, she had regrets.

Max sighed. He knew he was going to get pushback, but he had to try. "Quirky is going to be part of the raid. Or at least, wethinkshe will. I'm going in with two hunters in storage, and we'll be putting Quirky on the column, see if she'll go through the gate that way. I think she will. But if we're taking her into battle, she needs to be equipped like one of us. Real weapons and armor so she doesn't just get killed the first time we take on a hunter-equivalent invader. So we need permission to check out silver-weapons." He was so earnest about it, like he wasn't requesting that they allow an invader from a Nemesis World to arm itself with hard-won Alliance equipment.

There was that regret she had been expecting. Any possible answer she gave would result in being inundated with orders and suggestions. "Hunter Mitchell... Surely you understand that chests are controlled. Chests need to be checked out to specific hunters and be paid back through chest debt. Howexactlydo you propose to do this for Kah-wurtzel?" It was a simple delaying tactic, one which she was well aware would not get her out of the conversation.

He'd kind of prepared for such a question. "Quirky identified a bunch of equipment on Nurn. And Chloe turned in her old spear because she is going to be using the ranseur from Mictlan. So getting Quirky some basic armor and some hand axes should be doable." From a tactical standpoint, he was correct. And from a teenager's perspective, it certainly sounded fair.

Lieutenant Cortes scrunched up her eyes. "That's not... Look, I'm aware that your Tartarian has provided the Alliance with usable equipment, but every hunter's chest debt is their own, and a Tartarian can't have any because they aren't a hunter in the normal sense." As soon as the words had left her mouth, she had an idea. "Of course, you are a hunter, and this Tartarian is your captive. So if you wanted to take on chest debt on their behalf..." She allowed the implications to imply themselves.

On the face of it, it was an absurd offer. Of course it was. Chest debt for starting hunters was structured in such a way that hunters would be expected to pay it off by the end of their fourth tour. It was an accounting gimmick that allowed the Space Force to have enough weapons and chests in reserve for every new crop to be outfitted before being sent into danger. A single hunter wouldn't be expected to be able to pay offtwohunters worth of chest debt without committing to reenlistment. Even that was selling the difficulty of the scenario short, because the Tartarian not only belonged to noclassthat they had any chests for, but was a member of norolethat they had any chests for. The Scourge class was a member of the rampager role. And since the Space Force had not been aware of that fact prior to Kwrtzl's capture, only true omni-chests were available for a Scourge to potentially open. That increased the potential chest debt even more.

Somehow, Lieutenant Cortes did not think Hunter Max Mitchell would struggle with paying it off, but she could easily imagine fending off angry emails from Earth by suggesting that she had secured the hunter's reenlistment after his mandatory tours were finished.

For his part, Max seemed thrilled by the idea. "Of course," he agreed instantly, "Quirky is my responsibility, so naturally her chest debt would go to me. It's my duty as her... commander." It seemed that he'd about to call himself something else, which was probably sexual, and she let it slide without remark.

The Lieutenant wasn't certain whether his apparent confidence was because he understood how much chest debt he was taking on or because he didn't. From her perspective it was a relief, because once the chests had been opened they couldn't be unopened. The science hippies would have a field day finding out whether and how the equipment that came out of a chest given to a Tartarian was different from something opened in a chest by an Alliance hunter. Doctor Kwok would doubtless have various imaging she wanted to do. Many nastygrams would be sent from various desk-holders of far higher rank, but at least they couldn't give her contradictory orders.

"Yes," she said, "I'll authorize you to open some chests with Kah-wurtzel." Lieutenant Cortes looked down at her pad. These were orders that could not be rescinded, and because of it, she would not be left in a limbo of contradictory demands from her own superiors. She might get court martialed though, and almost certainly would if something terrible happened with the armed Tartarian.

The order was given. "The die is cast," she said, "the Rubicon is crossed." Hunter Mitchell looked at her without comprehension. "That means you should go to the armory and get your equipment." That was the problem with how they were teaching hunters. They spent all that time learning about ancient fencing and battlecraft, but no time at all studying the logistics and military campaigns that made those battles possible. The kid probably only knew Caesar as a salad dressing.

Even with the approval granted, there was still quite a bit of work to be done. She couldn't just send a request to the armory and have them figure it out, it wasn't standard. She had to manually assign all the equipment authorizations and then transfer all the debt to Hunter Mitchell. Without a template, even conceptually simple orders involved a lot of work. It would be almost thirty hours before any message from Earth could come back to tell her that she shouldn't have done it. Plenty of time to get the raid sent off if she started all the accounting right away.

####

"Supplication time!" Miriam suggested, much to Max's consternation. The redhead was all smiles, and she looked from one harem member to another for support. Ulzhari was the first to throw in her approval, making a supportive hand gesture before she remembered to nod her head as was the human custom.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Max reluctantly began the argument. "We are definitelynotdoing that with Luhgra around. I'd rather you ladies do any other training in front of her.Anyother training." There were shocked and disbelieving stares, but he held his ground. "I'm serious. I think that you doing that kind of training would send a really bad message. Luhgra is too young to process that kind of thing." He didn't look very happy.

The child in question didn't fully agree with his assessment. "Luhgra {strong! I can train like mommies!} Rar!" She waved her hands over her head to demonstrate and perhaps exaggerate how large she had become.

Max glowered at Miriam, and then forced himself to soften his expression while he tried to explain things to his child. "I'm sorry, your mommies have training where they have to say things that aren't true." He thought Luhgra looked concerned, but perhaps he was projecting.Hecertainly felt concerned. "It's unpleasant for them, and it's embarrassing for me to watch them do that. Your mothers are good people, and I don't want you to have to watch them have to do that to themselves. It makes them look bad, and if they had different seals they wouldn't have to do that." Luhgra waved her hands like claws. "Iknowyou want to train so that you can fight monsters like your mommies, but we won't know how to train your rune until we can see what it is. Everybody's rune trains differently. Hopefully your rune will let you train in a nicer way." He shot Miriam a grumpy look, making it clear that he didn't like being in the position he had found himself in.

Sophie, on the other hand, looked like she was having a great time. "Well," she mouthed the word 'MASTER,' "it sounds like you'll need to do somedifferenttraining with Miriam. Maybe some chastisement training." The blond's eyes twinkled with mirth.

"Urgh. Sophie, you are not helping." Max said with unfeigned exasperation.

Luhgra had an idea. "{I could do all the training, and be strong like all the mommies!}"

After retrieving his face from his palms, Max tried again. "Luhgra Sweety, there is training you can do to get big and strong, and then there's magic training to make your rune more powerful. Until your rune turns on, we don't know what magic will help. Doing the wrong magic might be bad. Uh... like pizza is good, and ice cream is good. But if you made ice cream hot or you made pizza cold, that wouldn't be good. Using the wrong magic is like that, I guess." By the end of it, he felt that he had completely lost control of his metaphor.

"{I'm going to make ice cream pizza!}" Luhgra announced. Just like that, Max's face was back in his hands.

Fiona decided to come to the rescue. "I guesssomeonehas to be the responsible mommy," she said with a roll of her dark eyes, "how about I take Luhgra to go do some magic training, and you take care of the other mommies?" The Vietnamese American smirked at Max, her expression making it abundantly clear that she expected to be taken care of herself at some point. Turning to the child, her face was a mask of innocence. "Well Luhgra, we're going to practice making fire!"

Max was worried that taking a small child to watch magical fireballs be created by a Beacon Wizard might be irresponsible, but he was grateful enough to escape the conversation he'd been in that he let it slide. From the orcish girl's expression, he figured that she only understood half or less of what had come out of Fiona's mouth. "Luhgra, Mommy Fiona is going to show you how she makes big fires with magic." He put his hands over his head in a hand gesture that he had learned implied bigness.

"{I'm going to make big fire too!} Rar!" Max couldn't help but agree.

Once the two of them were out, Miriam made good on her earlier threat. "I'm such a bad girl, Master. Putting you in such an awkward situation with our child. I really deserve punishment." A quick poll indicated that not only did the other women agree that Miriam deserved to be punished, but that the other women also deserved punishment. Max wasn't really sure what the pretense was supposed to be for Chloe or Chaeryn to be punished, but they were adamant that they deserved it.

Completely outnumbered, Max relented. "OK, we can do ten minutes of self deprecation, and then all of you get a spanking. OK?" The focus group decided that the proposed itinerary was indeed satisfactory. The women got onto their knees and once he'd tied their wrists started happily insulting themselves. Max squirmed in his chair. He hated that part. Spanking grown women on the bottom was a guilty pleasure, but at least itwaspleasurable. Watching his women say horrible things about themselves wasn't even erotic to him, just something that made him want to fight for their honor. If someone said something so insulting about Sophie, he'd want to punch them in the face. The fact that it literally was Sophie saying it made things much more awkward. And so: he squirmed in his chair until the allotted time was up and he could tell them to stop.

While Max got nothing out of the supplication sessions, the same could very much not be said about the women disparaging themselves. The ribbons around their wrists and cruel words around their tongues made their binding seals and envy seals glitter and shimmer. The dual progression was delicious and arousing. By the time their time was up, every one of them was squirming as well. Squirming with liquid fire in their pussies, their final self-directed insults panted out incoherently with near orgasmic frenzy.

"I know you have to say these things about yourselves," he told them seriously, "but I can't agree with your conclusions. You're all wonderful people, and I'm so lucky to have you in my life."

Licking her lips, Sophie cut to the chase. "But Master, we can still suck your dick, right?" Chaeryn and Ulzhari murmured their support for the proposition.

Max smiled. "Of course you can," he opened up his pants, revealing his hardening member to a very appreciative audience, "alright slaves, start kissing your master's cock." His order was met with squeals of delight, and then with Sophie's lips on his cockhead. This was a part of the training that he genuinely enjoyed. He grabbed Chaeryn by her white hair and pulled her in until her mouth was next to his shaft. The Assassin looked up at him lustily with her purple eyes and began dutifully licking the length of his cock.

####

"Class?" the man asked curtly. It wasn't a time of year that the armory normally had to do basic equipment supplies, so it wasn't weird that he was annoyed. Of course, he'd been annoyed every other time that Max had met the logistics specialist, so perhaps that was just his permanent sense of being.

While Kwrtzl had picked up quite a bit of English language, she was still nowhere near sufficiently proficient to answer such technical questions, so Max answered for her. "Um... she is aScourge, which is from therampagerrole, so she'll only be able to open chests which are completely unrestricted." He sighed. "And I'm aware that that means the chest debt I'm taking on for her will be higher."

The annoyed man's expression soured even more. "Don't tell me how to do my job." He insisted on photographing Kwrtzl's rune and then comparing it to the database. Only after he confirmed that no matches were in the inventory did he agree to continue the processing her equipment requisitions. It seemed like a waste of time to Max, but he didn't think that anything good could possibly come from getting into an argument about it.

Measurements were taken, and unsurprisingly there were no shoes or pieces of upper body armor that would fit the Tartarian. Considering that Kwrtzl had wings and a tail, Max would have been completely shocked if such a thing had been available. There simply weren't that many humans, elves, or orcs who had a pair of leathery bat wings sticking out of their backs, and no chain mail or breast plate would be expected to make allowances for such things. They were able to find a leather belt and a set of layered leather tassets that fit her hips and thighs, and for her arms they were able to secure a pair of lace-up fingerless gloves that could be made to fit over most of her forearms.

Based on her preference for using two one-handed weapons, she was given an ax and a mace. Kwrtzl's eyes bulged as she tried out the new weaponry. Like most weaponry that the Space Force distributed, they had come from silver-sigiled chests, and were far and away superior to the kamas that she had wielded in battle during their first meeting. The two weapons weren't perfectly balanced by any means, but between the Scourge's magically augmented strength and the magical nature of the weapons themselves she had no difficulty wielding them in tandem. She experimented on a log made from a local tree-like organism, and she shattered it with both weapons. Both Max and Kwrtzl were impressed.