Guilty x Creatures Ch. 45

"People, just, like, you..." continued Fiona "Cute, little, kiochi's... Who have been bad little girls..."

Swallowing a lump in her throat, Mica went stiff as she pressed her lips together into a thin line.

"Naughty little kiochi's... Who get captured..." whispered Kianna around a smile "And who can't escape... Or teleport away..."

"Trapped, little kiochi's..." breathed Fiona as she let her teeth just barely graze the edge of Mica's pointed ear "Squeezable... Pinchable... Spankable... Little, kiochi's..."

"Kiochi's, who are just, like, you!" teased Kianna "One's that are small, soft and helpless!"

Blinking, Mica's expression hardened as she stared down at the water in front of her and listened to the dark elves mirthful snickering.

"Soft, and helpless..." she growled as she tightened her eyes into a glare "Who do you think you're calling soft and helpless..."

The dark elves were instantly silenced as they felt an unexpected flurry of motion take place around them. Glancing at each other in uncertainty, they both shifted their eyes forward as a long, thin shape began to move about in the water in front of them.

Rising into the air in a manner that was reminiscent of an angry cobra, Mica's coiled tail broke through the surface of the water and arched upwards until her bladed spade came into view.

The dark elves eyes went wide as they both locked onto the tip of the spearhead-like spade and watched as it slowly twirled in a circle as it rose above them.

"Well!?" grumbled Mica as she flexed the muscles around the base of her spade so that her barbs would bloom out in a threatening manner "You were saying something about soft and helpless!?"

Staring up at the menacing display, the dark elves watched as Mica's curved barbs began to curl inwards and then spread back out in time with each of her breaths. Narrowing their eyes, they glanced back at each other before slowly loosening their hold on the kiochi and easing themselves away from her.

"Heh! That's what I thou-Ugh!" exclaimed Mica as Fiona and Kianna both planted their hands on the back of her shoulders and violently shoved her forward.

"Humph. Moody little ninja-bitch." mumbled Fiona as she and Kianna both moved back and away from the staggering kiochi "You're no fun anymore."

"What are you talking about? This little bitch was never fun..." said Kianna as she planted her foot against Mica's back and shoved her again, this time hard enough to force her head underwater.

Once the panicked kiochi quickly recovered herself, she whorled around and glared at the two dark elves while arching her tail up high over her head and pointing its bladed tip at them.

Moving to the other side of the tub, Fiona and Kianna sat together with their backs resting against the sidewall as they gazed icily at the angry kiochi.

"If you think we're going to be scared of you or that little toothpick you have at the end of your tail, then you're wrong, sister!" said Fiona "You aren't intimidating anybody."

"You better get all this viciousness out of your system now, Mica." said Kianna as she narrowed her eyes in warning "Because you will not be threatening us again."

A silent standoff between the three women thus commenced and lasted for nearly a full minute until with a dismissive huff, the two dark elves stretched out their legs, let their heads lull back onto the edge of the tub and closed their eyes before starting to doze.

Unnerved by their apparent indifference to her, Mica tentatively lowered her tail before glancing over at Anton. She stiffened in unease as she found him staring right back at her with a keenly thoughtful expression on his face. Looking away from him, she scooted herself back until she nearly hit her own section of the tub's sidewall and hunkered herself down by pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her folded legs.

Having positioned herself in such a way that she could move just her eyes to see either the dark elves or Anton, Mica watched the dark elves do nothing as Anton went back to looking at his phone. Settling in to focus on her own recovery, she kept her silent vigil on her enemies as she tried to figure out a way to escape from them. After a moment of contemplation, she reached up to her neck and began to lightly pull on the ring of steel and inlaid silver that kept her pool of mana locked away from her. As she sat there thinking, she once again became acutely aware of the sharp pains that still plagued the muscles throughout her body. And so, in search of relief, she began to stretch out said muscles as covertly as she could.

To say the very least, Anton had found the exchange that had just taken place between the dark elves and Mica to be more than intriguing. Though he hadn't intervened in any way, he had certainly been ready to. His hesitation to get involved, though difficult for him to maintain, was at this point very important, as it had now become necessary for him to look at things in a broader scope. Where as before, Mica had merely been a problem that once resolved would then be completely over and done with. The end result being that she would be gone, and everyone involved in this fiasco could simply move on with their lives. Now however, this was no longer the case. The shinoccubus wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. And this meant that this situation had to be handled far differently from here on out. And Anton knew that the first step that needed to be taken, was to change his own mentality.

It was unfortunate that hindsight was such a cruel mistress, as had he known that things would have eventually led to this outcome, he would have made vastly different decisions early on. As it sat, in an effort to make her second guess any idea she may have had of attempting to harm either himself or the dark elves, he had been working towards establishing a sense of fear and dread in the shinoccubus. In other words, he had gone down the path of attempting to control her by forcing her to surrender.

This had been a mistake. And had he known better he wouldn't have allowed her to be treated so brutally and would have instead been working towards establishing a level of trust between her, himself and the dark elves. And this, despite being set back as far as they now were, was his new goal.

Now, it wasn't necessarily the worse thing that Mica had been subjected to such harsh punishments, as she would now understand that any consequences she was threatened with would be quite real, and she knew by now that she could believe him and what he said, even if she didn't like it. This was far from the foundation of trust that Anton would have preferred to have built with her, but it was at least something he could work with. It was also helpful to know exactly where he and the shinoccubus currently stood in regards to each other. They were enemies, plain and simple. This was something that they both understood, and something that he did intend to fix.

Now, Mica's relationship with the dark elves however... that was a bit more complicated.

On the surface it would appear that they all had every reason to see each other as enemies as well. Strangely though, this didn't seem to be the case. For reasons that he still didn't fully understand, the dark elves had felt compelled to speak out in defense of Mica, and she in turn had elected to defend them physically. This was quite the shift in attitudes all around. And he did intend to further question the dark elves about this as soon as he had a chance to be alone with them.

Fiona in particular seemed to be more inclined to be amicable towards the shinoccubus, or at least she wasn't quite as aggressive towards her as she could be, and he was beginning to think that this was due to the fact that Fiona had found Mica and her situation relatable to herself and her own past decisions. That she somehow saw a bit of herself in the headstrong and overly eager shinoccubus. This would certainly be interesting if true, as it would mean that he should begin to regard Fiona as a person with far more depth than he had previously thought.

Kianna, on the other hand, was clearly of the complete opposite mindset. And, surprisingly, was at this point the bigger problem between the two dark elves. As she had no issue with making it known that she had no intention of ever being on friendly terms with Mica. And was instead far more interested in making the kiochi as miserable as possible. This cruelty was in stark contrast to Kianna's normal demeanor, and Anton couldn't help but to feel that this was more of a false projection than anything else. One that she would possibly drop if given a good enough reason, he simply needed to find that reason...

And in the meantime, he would also need to keep an eye out for any opportunities to shift the current mentality the dark elves seemed to have in regards to the shinoccubus, as they had made it fairly clear that in their view, she was going to be treated as a pet, and this was something that was definitely not going to work.

In his time among the dark elves, Anton had seen first hand exactly how the different types of slaves would each be treated. With servants, lovers, thralls, etc and etc, all being shown different levels of respect, freedom and dignity. And among these levels, a "pet" was far from the top. To the dark elves, a "pet" meant something very specific. Essentially, a pet was given little to no autonomy whatsoever. They were not given a choice in hardly anything they did and were instead treated in the same manner that one would treat a small breed of dog or even a doll. And what was down right uncanny was how easily the dark elves seemed to be able to suppress an individuals sapience down to the point that they would become indistinguishable from said dogs or dolls. The beings subjected to this fate would become literal pets, completely tame, willingly obedient and fully dependent to the point of obsession with their given master or mistress.

Now, although it would certainly be interesting to watch and see whether or not Fiona and Kianna could, through some form of instinctual process, successfully tame Mica down and turn her into their pet, this, unfortunately, just couldn't be allowed to happen.

Mica had a job to do. And in order to do this job successfully, she would need to maintain a level of independence and not be reduced to a harmless, quivering mess who was forever craving the touch and attention of her mistresses.

The dark elves would need to see her as something other than a potential pet. Now what that something should be was still to be determined. There were options to be considered of course. And even just now, Fiona's recent quip did offer a new and interesting alternative that Anton hadn't thought of before...

One problem at a time though, as on the other side of this battle-line was the more glaring issue of Mica herself...

Anton's thoughts were interrupted as Mica suddenly let out a small sneeze which caused him to glance over at her. Gazing at her for a moment, he turned back to stare idly at his phone as he let one new plan after another begin to slowly form in his mind.