Governments are a necessity for humans to thrive, and I've always hated that weakness. While a few users have become an island unto themselves, most users can't thrive without some form of order. While we did change, we became more of ourselves with time; even as we gained mind-bending Skills and Parameters, our core selves didn't change.
We are our memories; our birth and environment built the foundation of how we move forward. Those who are reliant on the government need some form of it for their own happiness. Some couldn't handle free time and needed a 6 to 5 job to keep themselves sane.
At the end of the day, a Union was merely a form of government. They are a collection of people collecting taxes and directed to seek their member's interests. At their inception, those systems seemed benign if not helpful, and where there is no competition for employment, they are a godsend. For example, the MLB, there was only one pro baseball league, Screen Actors Guild, there was only one Hollywood, and NBPA, there was only one NBA.
I know that there are exceptions to every rule, and in some cases, Unions can be helpful. Still, most Unions are the rule than the exception. So, for someone who witnessed the over-regulation of the old world, I must resist.
…
The noise from various conversations in the pub filled the silence left behind by my question. I sipped the drink supplied by the pretty red-headed barmaid. The spicy taste of cinnamon chased a tingling sensation as the drink went down. I felt a buzz that lasted a few seconds before wearing away slowly.
My question had put Linda into a stupor of sorts; it was a little worrying. Did they refrain from events, or were they taboo? If so, they were missing out, and the next time they ran into a user who partook, he'd steamroll them. It was a shame; despite being a Union dog, the bitch wasn't bad on the eyes.
"I've read the event, and the board deliberated on the merit of joining in an event. We aren't barbarians invading another world to burn their resources is evil." Linda said.
I shook my head. This woman wasn't adjusting well to this world after all. Maybe she did focus entirely on charisma, and this was all she accomplished. Nia matched her easily. Either Nia was a succubus prodigy, or Linda wasn't very good at her class. Was her role as a recruiter not enough to gain many parameters? As a succubus, she could drain the life force from others to bolster her parameters or something like that. The absence of such an ability or a will to use it made her feel ironically less human. To want to make use of power was human nature. Either she faked her limit, had a moral hang-up, or was terrible at using her own power. I guessed the latter two options in this case.
"There is more to the situation than meets the eye. In their planet's depths, there is a threat to all inhabited worlds a planet eater. I found it on the event's second stage. Perhaps the reason behind to event is to preserve life by ending the threat. It could take thousands of powerful users to fight it." I said.
She shook her head. "All the more reason not to poke the hornet's nest. The event is optional and even offers prizes for murdering aliens. You must feel something wrong with that. Its condition training users like dogs. It's starting with something seemingly necessary, and like a slow-boiling pot, you'll kill ever less guilty enemies until you're killing innocents." Linda said.
"Innocents die all the time. One of us, a former friend of mine, was driven mad by his own power. Even when he found a way to escape it, he couldn't let it go. Flank town may never recover from the lives lost in that confrontation. And if I didn't fight in the event, I wouldn't have been strong enough to fight him. Maybe if I had focused on the event more, I would have been strong enough to save him. But I was wary of it and the power it gave so easily. That same power that stopped King drove me to return to the event to slaughter until it was satisfied. Soon, I will have to return there or risk turning my bloodlust on Bridle's populace." I said.
Linda's eyes were wide as saucers from my words, and for a moment, I thought she would break. I'd told her a hidden truth of the system. The bloodlust was something I didn't feel comfortable with, but others had to know even if I didn't trust her. Users couldn't be allowed to prey on the populace, or we'd soon become enemies of the world itself. The last thing we needed at the moment was a witch hunt.
My mind flew to images of mushroom clouds in the distance as the battle against the world caused users to evolve quickly and out of control. We'd become beasts more than humans slaughtering millions in events just to slake our bloodthirst for a few weeks. That wasn't what I wanted for us, but neither did I want the slavery of government.
"So, if we indulge in certain skills, then we can become dangers to ourselves and society. What are these skills that cause these addictions? If we can identify them, then we can ban users with them from entering the city without observation." Linda said.
I took another sip. "Why would I tell you that. Are we friends? Thanks for the drink, but I won't help you 1984 our people. Most Skills are practically harmless. Very few require death to fulfill their bloodthirst." She raised an eyebrow. "That is the only hint I'll give you," I said.
"Friends, huh, well, I'm not one to establish policy drunk." She wrote her number down before handing it to me.
"Even if we disagree about everything, I don't think we're enemies. We both want the same thing but how we go about it is different." Linda said.
I took the number and saved it on my phone. Linda wasn't what I expected, and I could only conclude that it was an effect of her charisma. My guard felt unusually down, and I had blabbered more than usual. Did prolonged contact with users with the charisma Parameter cause stackable debuff? What about my drink? Was it poisoned? The Union as an organization had shown me several sides of itself.
One was a hard-ass who readily took hostages, while the other was an agreeable succubus who wanted the best for everyone. If I wasn't aware of the world or the old world, this might have worked on me. I could have seen them as different people instead of a group entity with a goal in mind and several pieces in motion. First, the Union wanted control of users but was too weak to overtly wield its power for now. The second, it gained enough members that would be different.
When Smit took Kale, hostage, they made an enemy of me, and no amount of succubus ass could change my mind. I had tempted them with knowledge to bait my trap to see her reaction. Her first reaction was to label those afflicted as enemies and imprison them.
I hope that wouldn't bite me in the ass. Maybe the Union wouldn't force me to kill them all.
This organization needed to be destroyed, but not overtly; I didn't want to depopulate another city. But, for the best results, I should get out of this city before something crazy happens. Memories of towering flesh monsters from Flank town were still fresh in my mind.
My options, fortunately, weren't limited by overt actions like tossing fireballs. I could assassinate their leadership, but that wouldn't do anything. Unions were like corrupt democracies; the problem wasn't the leadership but the people themselves. Well, how do you beat the stupid out of a populate without outright beating them?
I might have done something stupid like a direct attack if I was a young buck fresh out of high school. Or even assassinated their leaders only to see them replaced by equally corrupt individuals. Neither action would give me what I wanted. Instead, they would mark me like a madman and blasted it all over Reddit or Twitter. But, in an age of omniversal communication with no limit to the flow of information, another option was available.
We had a truly borderless ability to trade goods inventory to inventory. No government could put a tariff on any of the goods traded. But the Union would try that would destroy them. To put it bluntly, we would destroy them with economics by buying materials from the cheapest possible supplier to craft our products. Then, with a stronger overhead and time, I'd teach the Union's populace the pain of economic depression and starve the stupid out of them.
A smile crept across my face, much to Linda's enjoyment. The succubus wasn't an evil woman for a pawn. She shifted, and her breasts bounced in her little orange cardigan. Her smile grasped at his will, twisting and pulling like a dog nipping at his heels. Succubi were dangerous creatures, even the weak ones.
"Why don't we get out of here and have some fun together? I have my own room in the pleasure house across the street." She chuckled. "All succubi live in the pleasure houses; you could say it is where we feel the most comfortable.
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"I should really get back to Kale and the girls." I raised an eyebrow. "Besides, I know better than to feed a succubus," I said.
Linda raised an eyebrow. "Oh, you're worried about your soul. Don't be we have rules; we wouldn't have lasted this long without them. A succubus must ask and give their prey a chance to escape before taking it. But you're so strong I doubt I could take it anyway." I felt her aura flash and the sensation of warm breasts pressed against me. Even with my own aura solidly kept protecting me, it was difficult to resist.
I felt as if I'd been worn down after days of being awake, the meeting, and finally, the entire bar conversation. My will that had survived until now finally began to crumble. That and the bouncing mouthwatering tits bouncing hypnotically in Linda's cardigan had suddenly become convincing.
We left the bar and found our way inside the pleasure house. Pink light radiated within the house, pulsing against my aura with husky whispers full of promises. On the wall was a painting of a vast woman that towered over houses. To my eyes, she seemed to shift and flow with various colors until her pupils shrunk.
A hand covered my eyes. "Don't look too deeply at it, or your soul might be drawn in; this place is dangerous for mortals. I guess even you big bad, dangerous types are no match for lust." Linda said.
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"What is that painting?" I asked.
"You could call it a doorway to a dream. It's a wish of many of my sisters, one I don't share." Linda said.
I rolled my eyes. Sure, she didn't, so it was basically an event or maybe a hint of a future plot point. However, a giant succubus sounded like a bad idea, and as I looked closer at the painting, I saw the giantess was made of hundreds of thousands of smaller succubi.
"We don't even have the key to start such a collective anyway. So anyway, don't look at it for too long, or you might fall in, and that would be bad." Linda said.
As we moved through the pleasure house, the sounds of moaning, slapping, and slurping echoed all around us. We moved deeper into the pleasure house, and I soon realized that the house was bigger on the inside than the outside. We had already passed by hundreds of rooms and rose hundreds of steps. Finally, I turned to look behind me to see a pink-lit hallway with seemingly no end.
When I turned back, Linda was gone.
Then I heard crying behind a white door.
The sound drove me forward until I found a chained door. I reached towards the chains only for divine energy to blast my hand. Pain shot up my arm, and I stared down at the slightly charred appendage. The seals hadn't done me any permanent harm, but the pain was noticeable.
My eyes narrowed, and I summoned nameless. A black halo appeared over the blade's tip, charged with demonic power. It seemed that this place fed the demonically aligned blade. I slashed, cutting through the chain bindings before reaching for the door.
Inside, the room was covered with glowing red runes on blackened, almost burnt walls. Kneeling over a bed was a woman with broken white wings dyed black on the ends. She was naked from showing off a perky lily-white rear with the nub of a succubus tail poking out.
"Hello, I heard that you were crying, so I came in to check on you." The door slammed shut as a wave of pink and white aura crashed against me. I could sense a clash within the two powers and even indecisiveness.
The woman saw me and threw herself against a wall. "How did you get past the seals? No demon or human should have been able to get through. My sister placed them there to protect me until the magical girls came to rescue me." The fallen angel turned her head to the side and shook her golden hair. "Are you a mercenary they hired?"
"I'm afraid not." The woman shook. I watched her soft pink areolas flush and her nipples hardened. Finally, she stood to her feet, flashing me with a small golden patch of hair between her legs with a darkening red flush between her legs. Her wings gently raised, stretching and popping as she took a tentative step forward.
Her innocent blue eyes hardened, and a lust-filled smile crept over her face. "So, I am abandoned and given a choice. Feed or go mad, did you know what it meant to enter this room?" She licked her lips as her aura increased in intensity. The pink mixed with the gold, and her feathers began to change colors. Instead of turning black, they shifted to a swirling mix of pink and gold.
The angel fell to her knees in front of me and cried. From my aura, I felt unending gratitude and hope. "Thank you for this meal." She grabbed ahold of the hardening meat between my legs and popped it into her mouth.
An explosion of pleasure blasted from her warm slippery tongue down to my balls as she lapped and slurped on my head. Tears continued to fall from her eyes, and she moved forward, driving me down her throat. She swallowed but didn't choke.
"You don't have a gag reflex." She swallowed again at my words, blasting me with the pleasure of her tight throat and her warm dancing tongue. There was a loving softness to the way her tongue moved contrasted with the brutal way her throat tried to suck my member down. It was incredible.
I pushed my hands through her golden hair and rubbed the little horn bumps on her head. Two tiny wings stretched over her brow with the softest feathers I'd ever touched. My hands gently found their way to the woman's ears, and I rubbed behind her pointed ears as she sucked away.
Soon, I felt the pinprick of fangs bite into my member, but instead of feeling pain, I felt raw pleasure seep into my balls and stir them up. "The succubus venom, I didn't think you had it, or did this act make you grow the fangs?"
The harsh suctioning of her throat let up, and she pulled away. Her wings wrapped around me as she stood up and jumped. The angel's tiny hands gripped my shoulders desperately as she found purchase with her feet on my hips. She poked her tongue out and to the side as she angled her bottom to fit her tiny slit against my meat.
When our sexes aligned, our eyes met, and her lips quivered. "I don't want to take your soul like this," she placed her hand on my face. Only the archangel should be allowed to consume human souls and only those most devout. I know I'm a poor substitute, but I'll devour your soul as gently as I can."
She took hold of my hand and brought it to the pink mark above her woman. It was a heart with a succubus tail and on its sides were a pair of golden and pink angel wings. "This will be your new home; you'll become a part of something greater than human." The angel tapped my nose. "You will melt into me." Her face scrunched up, and she pushed down.
Before the succubus venom clouded my mind completely, I put the pieces together. Linda led me here to kill me to make it easier to corrupt the girl scouts. Well, I knew that from the beginning, but I thought she'd do it herself. If I made it out of here, I'd show that slut such a time.
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