Edge Pt. 10

Still, she found it difficult to completely shake the feeling of total submission she'd felt toward the Enforcer as he'd looked down on her like some kind of god. She'd been completely at his mercy, totally enthralled, like her entire existence rested on his approval of her.

The second item, a simple, silver tiara made her look a bit like a fantasy novel princess, in her opinion. This one, though, the Crown of Clarity, was the antithesis of the first item, protecting her from the effects of the Siren's Song. She donned the two of them in preparation. Her deadline loomed.

***

With Kara at her side, Jenna drove the EV away from the city, then sent a message to Harder.

"I'm ready," it read, followed by a location.

Kara held her hand and said, "We're not alone anymore."

Jenna's eyes flicked toward the rearview mirror, where she saw another car, and then another behind, following. As they continued, more vehicles fell in behind and Jenna felt a surge of giddy excitement. She was not alone. The line of vehicles pulled into an empty lot, the memory of the place still fresh in Jenna's mind but seeming as though it had happened a lifetime ago. This is where they'd taken her, that first time. She'd been alone, then, frightened, uncertain. No more.

The long line of cars pulled in next to her own, each of them filled with the girls she'd rescued, the others, like her, that had been forced in, afraid. Now, they were banded together in a common cause, each of them protecting and helping one another. In her Haloes, she watched Harder's progress as he got closer. Her friends gathered around her, Jenna waited, checking over her equipment, her inventory, ready for a fight. The Siren's Song glinted in the light, her trump card.

Through a cloud of dust, Jenna spotted a black van, with two dark sedans behind, flanked by motorcycles. She swallowed her fear, feeling sweat trickle down the back of her neck as Harder's crew pulled into the lot, the dark vehicles fanning out as they came to a stop. The doors opened. Harder was the first out of the van, followed by three more grisly, nightmarish beasts. More of them piled out of the cars and dismounted the motorcycles. The men fell in by their leader. Harder stepped forward.

"Brought all your sluts to witness your submission?" Harder asked, his dripping jowls quirking up into a snarl.

"No. They're here for yours," Jenna shot back, with more courage than she felt.

Harder scoffed and said, "That would be a neat trick."

"Here are my terms," Jenna declared, "You can walk away now, agree to play by the rules, and start working on your trust score. Oh, and you'll back out of the slave trade. If you do that, we'll leave you alone."

"Why would I do that?" Harder asked, obviously confused.

"Because, if you don't, I'm going to push you to make mistake, after mistake, and I'll file every complaint and penalty against you, until you're back to rank zero, bankrupt, and begging to sell yourself to a Domme bitch so cruel that you'll be lucky if she doesn't castrate you and make you wear your severed nuts around your neck, to remind you what a twat you are."

There was utter silence at that, as Harder's men all looked at each other in shock. Then, Harder laughed.

"I'm going to enjoy you," he said and took a step forward.

Jenna snapped her fingers, drew a rune from her inventory, and flung it toward Harder. In everyone's Halo vision, a glowing, blue rune sailed through the air to land at his feet. When it struck the ground, it exploded in a wave of neon light, washing over Harder's crew. The beastly forms they wore melted away, showing them for the men they were. At the same time, Jenna pulled another item, tossed it over her shoulder, and the gathered spectators shielded their eyes from a blinding flash of pure white light.

When the light faded, there were murmurs from the other girls as Jenna took a step forward. Her own illusion had changed her. Where, before, there was a girl in a tight tube top and mini skirt, now there stood a radiant, white figure, looking for all the world like the sluttiest angel imaginable.

A pair of white, feathered wings curled from her back, and she wore a defiant grin beneath her golden halo. Harder's men took a step back. They all knew, consciously, that it was only a Halo illusion, but what the mind knew, and the eyes saw, never truly reconciled with one another.

"Cute trick," Harder said, sounding unimpressed.

He came forward, raising his hand. Jenna saw, on his palm, a Gauntlet of the Gale and raised her own hand, meeting Harder's gale with her own and causing a tremendous crack as the two opposing blasts struck one another. Quickly, Jenna stepped to the side, waved her hand, and the EV behind her leaped forward, accelerating toward Harder. As it passed by, she could hear the alarms going off inside as the sensors tried to warn her that there were obstructions in the way.

Harder grunted and dove to the side as the car barreled past him.

His goons scattered out of the way as the EV, alarms screaming, rocketed onward until it crashed into Harder's black van in a boom of twisting metal. Pieces of both vehicles careened through the air, sending Harder's men diving to the ground and behind their other cars for protection. Jenna was on the dazed Harder in a flash, sticking a Lock of Subjugation to his chest, then darting away. She smiled as she thought of the irony. Her Courier challenge, provided by Harder himself, had gotten her that little piece of Edge tech.

Harder stumbled to his feet, reaching for the thing to pull it free, but Jenna activated it, watching in satisfaction as the thing sent a paralyzing shock through his nervous system, dropping him back to his knees, then onto his face in the dirt as his body seized up. For a few seconds, he lay, drooling on the ground as his muscles twitched, until the effect faded. A wild cheer went up from the assembled girls as one of Harder's men ran forward and helped his boss to his feet.

Stunned, Harder staggered upwards, shaking his head, face red with fury. He spit dirt as Jenna hit him, and his minion, with a Writhing Dark just for spite. Harder cursed, wasted a dispel on the blindness, then flicked his wrist toward Jenna. Kara shoved her, sending Jenna sprawling, and a little dart embedded itself in Kara's back. She crumpled to the ground. Harder pushed his cohort away and charged forward as Jenna pushed herself off of the ground. The big man wrapped a hand around Jenna's throat, jerking her to her knees and drawing back his fist, while Leanna knelt next to Kara.

Harder's fist slammed into Jenna's face, and she saw stars, but then Harder suddenly found himself being torn from his feet by a screaming mob of scantily clad women, who began kicking at him as he curled up to protect himself. Jenna, her head spinning, struggled to her feet and wiped at her nose, her hand coming away bloody. She spared a quick glance for Kara, caught a thumbs-up from Leanna, and then took a step back as Harder's crew ran into the fray.

The situation was about to become violent, Jenna knew, and though she'd wanted to put Harder down without revealing her Ace, she couldn't stand by and let this thing devolve into an outright brawl. She touched the Siren's Song. The strange hum vibrated through the heads of everyone in the lot, friend and foe alike.

The humming changed to the song that Jenna still remembered in her dreams, stopping everyone at once. Man and woman alike paused, slowed, and then fell to their knees, staring at her worshipfully. The Angel was now their goddess, a figure that they averted their eyes from, overcome with a sense of desire so profound that they began to weep.

Jenna hated that the effect had caught up her own friends, but it had to be done. She approached Harder and laid her hand on his head. The man trembled, groaned, and Jenna watched with a measure of satisfaction that made her bloody nose worth it, as Harder came in his pants at her touch.

There were tears on his cheeks, falling freely, and she knew that feeling of utter devotion and worthlessness that he was going through. The Enforcer had been able to compel her to do anything, and in his presence, she was certain she would have obeyed without question. Could she do the same? Would it last?

"You're going to leave the slave trade," Jenna commanded.

Harder nodded, eagerly, happily.

"From now on, whenever you think about the trade, or about hurting one of the girls, you'll want to vomit, and your pathetic cock will refuse to get hard."

Harder nodded again, brushing tears of joy from his face.

Jenna beckoned Leashya forward. The girl crawled across the dirt, enrapt, to kneel at her feet.

"This is your new mistress," Jenna instructed, "You'll be a very obedient pet for her, won't you?"

Harder nodded again.

"Your pet needs a cage and a leash," Jenna said to the girl.

Leashya removed a cock cage and a collar from her little bag of Edge tricks, as befitted her class. She pushed Harder onto his back and undid his pants, sliding them down to reveal his spent, cum-covered cock. With practiced ease, she slid the chastity cage over it, locked it into place, and affixed the collar and leash around his neck.

Happy with this new start to their relationship, Jenna reached up and clicked off the Siren's Song. The song ended abruptly, leaving everyone writhing on the ground, in a fetal position, as their minds clawed their way out of the worshipful fog they'd spent the last few minutes in. Jenna waited, kneeling next to Kara, for everyone else to recover from the stupor.

Kara breathed evenly, dead to the world from whatever had been in the dart. Jenna felt her pulse, slow and steady. She knew, from her own experience, that it would be nearly an hour before the depressed crowd of men and women were able to stitch their minds back together enough to pull themselves from the horrific funk that they were lost in. Kara came around, while the others were still writhing on the ground.

"You alright?" Jenna asked, helping her to stand, then sitting her in the back seat of one of the cars.

"I think so," she said, groggily, "My fucking head. What happened?"

"Sleep dart," Jenna explained, "Thank you."

Kara cradled her aching head in her hands and gave a lazy nod.

"Stay here," Jenna instructed.

Kara did not attempt to argue. Jenna walked back toward the crowd, who were now dusting themselves off and shaking their heads, trying to dispel the memory of the song. First, Jenna went to Leashya.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"Like everything I love in the world just died," the girl said, "What the fuck was that?"

"Edge tech," Jenna replied, "Do you remember what happened?"

Leashya looked down at the leash in her hand, and the groveling, caged Harder kneeling at her feet, staring submissively at the ground, and said, "Yeah. Perfectly. I'd probably be pretty excited at having this fucking maggot as a pet, but right now I just want to sleep for a week."

She kicked Harder with a booted foot, and he moaned pathetically.

"Fucktwat," she snapped at him, "Who owns your pin-dick?"

"You do, miss," he sniveled, bending further to kiss her dirty, booted foot.

"Good boy," she said.

Jenna milled through the crowd of girls, helping a few to stand, then faced Harder's men, her wings flapping in their Halo vision, a shining, radiant, celestial figure.

"Take a look," she said, pointing to Harder, "That's what comes of being in WAT. Who wants to join him?"

The men looked at one another, horrified, and took a step back.

"Consider yourselves banned from Edge. Permanently. If I ever hear that you're after one of my girls, or any girl, remember that you don't have to be a player to wind up in one of Leashya's cages. And I've got a dozen more dominant bitches that need a pet, right here."

She accessed each of their player profiles in her admin menu, registered egregious violations against them, and watched them all go pale as their Haloes were deactivated. The last thing they'd see from Edge was the message, "Your access has been terminated."

"You may go," she said, dismissively.

The men quickly piled into their vehicles and fled. Jenna turned to find Kara nearby. They held hands and watched the cloud of dust vanishing into the distance.

"Was that a good idea? Terminating their access? It might draw suspicion," Kara said.

"As long as Edge is online, and as long as DomCo is out there, changing the world, none of us is safe. Our families, our friends, no one."

"What now?" Kara asked, nodding.

"We play the game," Jenna said, "but we do it on our terms, and build up what we need."

"Need for what?" Kara asked.

"The fight. Do you remember what you said? About them making us all slaves?" Jenna asked.

Kara nodded.

"Angela saw it. On the other side. Someone stopped them over there, before they could make it happen. Someone has to do it here, too. We already have friends. We need more. A lot more."

The assembled girls surrounded her, expectant looks on their faces. They wanted to know that they'd be safe, that they would still be watching out for one another. They wanted to hear it from The Angel. Jenna dropped the pretentious costume. She was one of them, just another girl, caught up in the game, still uncertain, still afraid. As she looked around at the faces of each of them, though, she saw, mirrored, the same thing in all of them that had changed in herself. She saw hope.

***

Thanks for reading this installment of the series, and I hope you'll stick around for the final books. The plan is to have this series completed in 2023.