Miraculous.

That was the energy back on Corvis Base for Lark.

Liz being the only hag the UA nabbed that day? Miracle.

Aoi circling a prime UA asset for a minute until Lark got there? Miracle.

Lark taking a mech suit dismembering without even needing a neck brace? What a fucking miracle.

Lark felt so lucky to be walking out from another routine check up with, somehow, astoundingly, the most irritating doctor she'd ever met.

…

Yeah, fuckin’ right. At least if that fall knocked her out for a month she wouldn’t be stuck dawdling around a base of faceless troops, thumb up her ass while the real heroes go save their marketable damsel in distress.

The SHI-EN was beyond repair even if that meathead of Ina’s felt comfortable clearing a UA developed mech for duty again? Great. Not like she was scared of big bad Sierra.

But, great.

Lark didn’t have a clear enough head to help plot out Sasha’s distraction tactics to aid said damsel rescue? Fucking. 

Great.

Lark was so lucky.

It’s not like she cared about flying that much right now, anyway. The SHI-EN was a compromised waste of time against the UA now, and that reminder of the past didn’t bring her the least bit of comfort anyway.

Without the mask, there was no nostalgia or comfort there.

Just headaches…

Lark just wanted to be useful for once, and right now, injured and ‘foggy’ as she was… she was decidedly fucking worthless.

Was it nice that Sasha had grown from literal bootlicker to an effective de facto general?

Sure, whatever, probably.

Was that chess club stress ball pretty nice?

Fine, yes, whatever.

But while two of the most capable people she’d lucidly ever met aided that poster cunt’s rescue from afar, Lark was bedridden.

Then she was useless.

She was nothing.

…

As great as it would be to pace around an underground base the size of a compact city until she passed out into sweet silence on the cold floor, Lark was given a pity date with two of Sasha’s friends.

Two of Sierra’s underlings.

The two keeping the mech hangar operational while Sierra went on her upcoming suicide mission.

Far more important to this operation than Lark, right?

…

Thus, pacing away with a mind screaming at her in a million different tones wasn’t her job today. Her job was to keep Sasha’s friends entertained in their bunk.

Two terrified pigs.

Though, the animals on this base didn’t look scared of her since she was discharged. They weren’t running from her in the mess hall.

Weren’t looking away when she walked past them.

…

It was all part of some joke. UA or rebel, they were all the fucking same.

All the fucking same.

…

Ah, Lark was at her bunk already.

Sasha’s bunk more like.

Every time she went in there it became more and more obvious that only one of them seemed to actually be a person.

Possessions all over the bunk.

Outfits occupying their wardrobe.

Weird toys under the bed.

After that debacle with Bailey, all Lark had to her name was the incomplete scraps of a mask, and a new flight suit gifted to her by Sasha.

She had it on now. 

Gray and red. 

Solid, comfortable material.

It was nice…

“Maybe you want one of the guys to get something bitten off, but I don’t need the image of a bloody dick on the floor burned into my retinas, girl.” Lark’s brief moment of peace was ruined by the sound of a deceptively gentle voice delivering a perverted little aside to, assumedly, Sasha’s mutual friend of hers. “Besides, I don’t wanna overwhelm her, y’know? I feel like the two of us are already a lot…” 

Aw, how sweet, she was pretending she gave a shit.

Lark had seen this playbook before. The UA was eighty, maybe ninety percent unabashed, uncaring freaks, but the rest could pretend to care when they needed to.

Like the animals.

Like… her…

…

It was a shame Lark liked this flight suit. These two were undoubtedly going to ruin the thing when they tore it off like the filthy beasts they were. Not like they were here for Lark’s conversational talents, right?

Sasha told her this was a good idea. She was adamant it would help her feel better.

Fuck it. At least servicing these pigs like she used to might make her feel useful.

That’s what Sasha meant, right?

“Oh, sweet, you’re already here. Sasha said ya might be a minute!” The first girl to speak directly to her was a typical animal. Pale, chalky skin with some neat, tied up, hazelnut colored hair.

Her garb was nothing out of the ordinary for an off duty rebel. Simple, short-sleeved gray shirt with some black khakis.

Cheap, pleather boots. Of course. There was no accounting for taste this low on the food chain.

Decent build on her, though. Probably ouldn’t crush a rock with her bare hands like her meathead boss, but she was clearly a decently maintained soldier.

Unremarkable.

Exactly the kind of pig she’d serviced time and time again after failing to beat Sasha’s kill count on the field.

…

Exactly the kind she deserved…

“Mhm! It’s, y’know, nice to meet you, Lark. Sasha talks about you a lot!” The second girl, sweet in her speech as she was on Lark’s now peeking eyes, was rather unlike the beasts she’d been told to service before.

Lark could make an educated guess that the girl, an oak-skinned thirty-something with her plentiful head of hair predominantly braided into two parallel buns, was Sierra’s acting replacement.

A little tired looking face with a chubby, slightly defined figure beneath her tight, dark blue flight suit. Still smiling, though.

It was deceptively warm, much like her words.

But who knew the piggish rebels in need of servicing came in colors other than eggshell white? Bailey wasn’t just some kind of token fluke.

Guess that was an improvement.

“How’re you, uhm… holding up after that fight? Estelle said you got lucky, I think, buuut.” The warmer girl spat out more empty niceties to try to fill the silence Lark’s analysis of the two made, but the bird was starting to get irritated. “O-Oh, uh, I’m Neema, by the way. This is—”

“Quit it with the small talk.” Lark’s first words to the pair were blunt, quick, and interruptive. As they should be with what she viewed as nothing but hungry pigs. “Ya both know what you’re here for. Wastin’ all our fuckin’ time tryin’ to chat about it.” Lark, in an effort to give Sasha’s latest scheme a chance, tried not to sound completely enraged at the pair.

Just impatient.

They knew what they were here for. Pilots and engineers on either side were the same at heart. Animals wanting animalistic relief.

They want to use Lark guilt free and fuck off so she can clean herself up and fix whatever they broke.

Sasha thinks that’ll help? Fine.

Lark saw the warmer, shorter girl, Neema, start to flap her gums again “Well, I… We don’t just want—”

“Hey, she does have a point, Neema.” The taller girl, as unnamed as she needed to be as far as Lark was concerned, gently butt herself into the conversation, taking her side in the process. “Plenty of time to chat after. Sasha said she’d get like this too, right?” Ah. Sasha said that, huh?

Get like what, exactly?

Irritated?

Judgmental?

Eager to turn her brain off so these fucking vermin could bust their little nuts and tell her to clean herself up?

Right again, Sasha, 

You always are.

“Ya heard her. Get a fuckin’ move on and do what you’re gonna do!” As Lark’s inherent annoyance at this whole premise became clearer to all three of the women in this room, she was starting to realize why the Mask of The Devil had space to fit a gag into it…

Same reason the UA pigs were armed when they used her, too.

Typical of Sasha not to tell one of these mutts not to bring a gag or a gun and make this easier on themselves.

“I… Yeah, guess we shouldn’t beat around the bush. Sasha trusts us not to do that, right?” Neema was finally starting to show some of her true colors. Good. Lark wasn’t close to a fan of this whole goody two shoes act. “Ya’d tell us if you didn’t want this, right, Lark?” And there the act was again, gentle smile and all.

Give her a fuckin’ break.

…

Still, it left Lark with a bitter thought in the back of her head.

Did she want this? If she did, should she tell these two pigs that, and give them the ammunition?

What did Lark want?

She didn’t want to think about that right now.

A want not to want.

Maybe there were nicer ways of getting that. Some training together or a night spent watching those pirated Earth shows Aoi collects. Bullshit like that.

But this was the dissociation Lark deserved.

Sasha clearly seemed to agree…

“I ain’t a fuckin’ baby. I’ll tell ya if I don’t want somethin’!” Lark irritatedly stated, knowing deep down how much of a lie that was, whether she felt like admitting it or not.

She wanted something like this, and that was enough to get her through the inevitable, uncaring desires of these two pigs.

“You heard the girl, Neema.” The taller, less outwardly warm brunette took Lark’s words to heart, either through trust in her and Sasha both, or, more likely in Lark’s eyes, the brutish need to use her as the stress toy she was.

Ah, and like that the clothes came off. It even came with the same sloth-like laziness she expected from people like this. Some unbuttoning of the pants and a slow, lax pulling down of her combat pants to the ankles, with a pair of boxer briefs joining them a moment later.

Fine. Don’t give her a show or anything. She didn’t fuckin’ want it anyway.

Asshole.

Neema was at least technically forced to make a slight spectacle out of her undressing. The flight suit only zipped down to her waist, after all. Pulling that off at the legs meant bending down to get those cheap, middling pleather boots off, leaving Lark with a top-down look at her impressive cleavage.

Not that she was looking.

Not that she was jealous.

Fuck you. Shut up.

…

With that aside, Neema ceased her undressing at her bra, cheeks flushed a gentle red like she wasn’t the kind of degenerate Lark knew oh so well. No base of anything other than them houses Bailey Cluanaire.

The pair weren’t making any moves yet, though, giving Lark precious, unasked for seconds to leer at the two figures in front of her.

The brunette, name unknown and unimportant, was fine. She looked fine. Her dick, already starting to stand at attention from the mere act of being exposed to its prey, was passable.

Nothing next to Bailey’s, and if Sasha’s testimony was worth as much as Lark knew it was, even less compared to those Ina and Aoi chicks, but it was passable.

Not that Lark cared, as long as it was clean. Which it looked to be.

Both of these girls seemed to be, actually.

Showered and shaved for this? Did that make them more or less disgusting than the imperial pigs.

Who fucking cared? Why were these two just standing there, blinking and looking at each other like they’d just found out they could fucking breathe?

Get to what ya fuckin’ came here for and rip her nice, lovely gift off like the ghouls you obviously had to be!

“Do you… want some help?” Neema broke the awkward silence with a sweetness that ignored her near nudity and exposed, eager, puffy little cunt practically yelling at Lark to go be useful for something. Two faced flunkie. “After a fight like that it’s okay if you need a little he—”

“I was getting to it.” Lark lied to the pair with an aggravated energy in her voice. One that was matched by the harsh downward pull she gave the zip on her flight suit. “If you’re so fuckin’ impatient you coulda done it yourself…” She muttered to herself in what she at least assumed was a volume quiet enough not to be heard.

Not that she cared if it was.

Still, the act of taking her own suit off was nice. It gave her brain a moment to turn off, aided by the silence of Sasha’s piggy little friends.

Good for something, at least.

The flight suit was… wonderful, actually. Lark vaguely recalled the blurriest, haziest memories imaginable of Sasha’s handiwork in the olden days that matched this suit’s quality.

A jacket?

She seemed to remember a jacket?

…

Ugh. Stick with the fucking program, Lark!

Still, complicated as the thoughts it brought may have been, it was the nicest thing Lark had clear memories of wearing… well, ever, really.

Came off easier than Neema’s one, too, even if Lark had to fumble with the laces to her lavish, matching boots for just long enough to be embarrassed about it.

Not that she actually was. Obviously.

But she could have been.

Stupid Sasha and her stupid, loving, expert taste in ankle length, leather combat boots…

…

Absolute and total lack of embarrassment aside, the flight suit was off with decent haste and little passion. As was routine for Lark in service situations like this, and unlike the pigs in front of her, she folded it up and lightly placed it onto the floor a moment after.

She may have been teetering on the edge of doubting Sasha’s mind tonight, but something inside Lark was happy that her tailored gift would survive its second day in the world.

It was, admittedly, calming to undress herself safely in this scenario for once, but Lark wasn’t the type to half ass things. She’d been trained— programmed not to.

Before the pair could even register her comfortably disassociated flight suit removal. Lark’s basic, black tank top and matching, simple panties followed behind the flight suit, and were assimilated into the pile of carefully folded clothing. Even the socks went with them.

In a situation like this, she was supposed to bear everything.

Everything for the fucking animals…

Get a good look, pigs.

Be the monsters she knew you fucking were.

“Gods, girl. You’re gorgeous?” The first, still unnamed girl tried to break through that perception of monstrousness with a daringly sweet and sickly bit of praise.

Don’t sound so fucking shocked, piggy.

“Right? Sasha’s luckier than I thought…” Neema was similarly full of praise for the woman she was here to use and discard.

She had to be here for that. It was what Lark was fucking good for, after all.

But if that was the case, why were they both blushing like a pair of teenagers seeing their crush naked for the first time?

Though, with her bruising and scarring from SHI-EN’s fall centering all but exclusively on her back, maybe she really was some eye candy for pigs and people alike right now…

…

It was a game, Lark.

A trick.

Don’t fucking fall for it.

“Shut it. Stop buttering me up and do what ya want already!” Lark was having none of this sappy, phony crap. She didn’t believe it,

She couldn’t believe it.

“And, uhm… you want, too, right?” Neema was really testing her patience for this faux-compassionate charade.

“Yeah. What I want. Now get on with it!” Lark barked back, fangs starting to bear more and more with each passing second these two flunkies spent trying to use her the polite way.

Get.

This.

Over with.

“If we’re all sure…?” Neema didn’t sound convinced. She was hesitating.

Why the fuck was she hesitating?

Just take her already!

“Hey, I think we’ve all said we’re sure plenty, girl.” At least her friend was starting to give the damn game away, speaking with a more confident, more eager tone that failed to hide her growing, sick little hunger. Her smile was sleazy. Her eyes were… well, still a little too fond of the sight of Lark to be exactly like the UA pigs.

But she was close.

She was proof. Had to be.

“Besides, Sasha said this would be weird? Said it’d be good for us to help her relax, too, right?” The friend continued on, justifying the discomfort neither of them should have been feeling in the fuckin’ first place.

Sasha said this would be weird? Well she was fucking right!

Get on with it.

“If she didn’t want this she’d have made it clear, wouldn’t ya, Lark?” Lark read immediate, cocky, wannabe Bailey energy from chalky flunkie. Was that energy actually there?

Was that smile actually as sleazy as Lark thought?

It had to be.

“Sure. Whatever. Are we fuckin’ over this?” Lark barked again for what surely had to be the last time tonight.

Wait, was she still blushing from their lying, buttery praise of her perky, slim figure?

Gah, stop falling for bullshit!

“I guess…” Neema was finally sounding convinced to cut her stupid little act. Reluctant sounding as she was.

Then, for a slow, burning ten seconds.

Nothing.

Silence.

The two animals in front of Lark didn’t say another word, or finally get their grubby little hooves on her exposed body.

Lark didn’t say a word or take a step forward. She wasn’t supposed to, after all.

They were supposed to walk up, push her down onto the ground and get this shit over with.

“Dooo you… Did you want to do somethin’, y’know… specific?” Neema, twiddling her thumbs like she’d never seen someone naked before, broke the silence with a polite, flustered question.

Gods, at least the UA mutts knew what they wanted. Neema came here to take advantage of Lark’s body and didn’t even know what she was doing to her?

She sounded so earnest, as well…

Earnestly fucking fake, obviously!

“I…” Lark didn’t know how to answer this question. What she specifically wanted? At this point?

Ugh, she wanted to flip this around.

If these two idiots weren’t going to take control of this and use her, then maybe.

Just, maybe.

She wanted to use them for once?

…

Lark couldn’t say that, of course.

She wasn’t supposed to.

She did, however, out of a clear necessity to work around two pigs that wanted to humiliate her even more, take a few steps forward until she was a few inches away from the pair.

Close enough to smell them. To bask in the unnamed girl’s cheap, printed shampoo and slightly less cheap, likely not printed perfume.

To take in the more natural, motor oil-like scent of Neema. Typical of an engineer, yet different from the UA’s gaggle all the same.

It was… odd.

Odder still, she walked up to them silently. 

Coldly, even.

Yet they weren’t scared of the untamed monster stomping close enough to rip their throats out. Was it because they were stupid…

…or because they know Lark didn’t seem to want to do that.

…

Stupid. Obviously.

“Don’t care. The hell do you want?” The first half of Lark’s delayed, dismissive response was aimed at Neema, while the other, joined by Lark’s glare, was shot directly at the unnamed girl.

“Eh? Me?” The unnamed girl feigned the same confusion that seemed more genuine from Neema, then paused to give it some similarly genuine thought. “I mean, Sasha said that tongue was great last time we were at chess club. Feelin’ up to that, girl~?” The unnamed one questioned Lark with a growing, familiar little light in her eyes.

Lark thought it was Bailey’s for the briefest of moments. The wannabe sleazy tone of the girl was to blame for that.

No. For the briefest of moments, that little twinkle in the girl’s aqua-hued eyes reminded her of someone special.

Of Sasha.

…

But these two animals were nothing like her.

“Finally made up your damn mind? Then sure.” Lark muttered back with a roll of her eyes, not feeling quite up to glancing up at the unnamed girl’s pools of blue again for whatever reason.

The animals didn’t deserve it. That was the reason.

It took Lark a moment to actually get down on those knees of hers as reques— ordered by the brunette. She’d hid it well by now, even from herself, but taking a fall like that in the SHi-EN was going to screw up more than just your neck for a bit.

Fuckin’ miracle she walked out of that with sprained knees instead of missing legs.

But the time for miracles was over.

Lark was on her knees. Her mouth, in a rare, presumptive, and unordered move from Lark, opened calmly for the pig above her. She wasn’t going to ask, obviously.

She wanted Lark to humiliate herself, obviously.

They were getting what they wanted, and they were going to show their true colors about it. Lark knew that.

Back to the real world.

Back to normality.

Back to servicing the mutts.

“Huh… Thought the fang thing was a joke…” As was typical of beasts like this, the unnamed girl managed to throw in a dig at Lark’s appearance before defil— “Kinda cute, actually. Ya ready?” Hey, that didn’t sound like a dig… right?

Lark dispelled any doubts forming in her head before they could make it beyond her lightly flushed, warm cheeks.

It was misdirection. Get to being useful and shutting that brain off, Lark.

“Sure! Do it already, dumbass!” Lark kept up the aggressive demeanor she knew the pair wanted from her. She was amusement.

Entertainment.

A tool.

And, with her mouth wide open once again, the unnamed animal finally began to extract her desired use from it.

“F-Fuuuck…” For as much as this chalk-complexioned upstart wanted to seem like an experienced sleazebag, Lark felt that aura wash away in the warm, wet pleasure of her, admittedly, well-kept cock pushing into her maw.

The push itself was amateurish to boot. Shaky and uneven. Rushed and unprepared. By the time her, admittedly, above-average meat was pushed to the back of her throat, she was already shivering a bit.

Gods, how easy it would be to bite it off.

She’d done it before.

Her fangs weren’t just for show.

Were they actually even real, though?

Were they natural?

…

Those were exactly the kind of thoughts Lark needed to push out of her recently battered head right now.

They didn’t matter.

She didn’t matter.

What mattered was putting herself to work, and with a rock hard shaft stuffed inside her slippery beak to its hilt, she was finally in the position to do just that.

No thoughts.

Nothing around her existed.

What she wanted didn’t matter.

All Lark needed to do, given the lack of effort from the unnamed pig, was bob her head.

Nice and slow.

From the tip, then back to the base.

It was easy, steady, stable work.

“Ch-Christ… Neema she’s… So damn good…” Based on the already shaky moans from the less than experienced unnamed mutt, it was the work they wanted too.

Good.

If stability kept Lark from activating the abusive, violent reprisals or instigations these two were undoubtedly foaming at the mouth for, then good.

They were moments away from showing their true characters. Making demands. Berating her.

She could tune that out. It was nothing.

She was nothing.

Up and down.

From the tip back to the base.

Her maw coated the flunkie’s twitching, pre-leaking cock in a sticky blanket of warm, flowing saliva.

Lark couldn’t tune everything out, obviously. The taste of a girl’s recently washed meat wasn’t something to be turned to background noise like her brutish moans and idle, easily ignored chatter with Nee—

The other one.

…

“Ya… Nhh… J-Just gonna stand there… N-Neema!” The brief lapse in dissociative bliss brought the shaky, groan-heavy blathering of her unnamed dick-pleasuring client into focus again. “L-Lark… Mind giving her a… h-hand?” Phrasing a demand with one answer like a request? Barely being able to get a word out without moaning?

Clearly this rebel alliance had wannabes of Bailey in the same way the UA had disgusting wannabes of… her…

Pale imitations of better monsters, but all that mattered was getting their release over with.

“R-Right… Guess since she, y’know… She wants to?” Neema sounded unsure, yet strolled herself over to Lark’s left side.

It betrayed that obvious charade she was running. She wanted this. She was going to take it anyway…

…but, for reasons Lark could only identify as ensuring the pair were satisfied with her pathetic, obedient avoidance of reprisal, she paused her head bobbing and gave an eye roll heavy nod in Neema’s direction.

She didn’t know why she did it. Not truly. She knew it would lead to the pig in her throat striking her. Beating her.

She had to do something.

“Y-Yeah. She wants this. You can do this, Neema!”

…

That something never came. Instead, the pig in her mouth waited as close to patiently as one could with their dick dripping salty, pre-ejaculate in a girl’s mouth.

Shivering.

Drooling.

Whining a little.

But there was no aggression.

…

It was another tease. Another way to show the easy dominance Sasha’s decorated allies and suitors could hang over Lark’s head.

They didn’t need to get violent or aggressive to make Lark continue her throating of the flunkie’s slick, pulsing cock.

She did that all on her own.

She didn’t need to be bossed around.

She knew her place.

Lark knew it well enough that ‘lending Neema a hand’ didn’t even require averting her eyes from their comfortable, locked gaze onto the bunk’s floor. Her left claw found the warm, sopping wet cunt of its larger, bashful owner, and, with effort so miniscule one would think Lark was capable of robotic autopilot, her two middle fingers were delicately pushed between Neema’s puffy folds.

“Ngah… Hah… L-Lark…” The last thing Lark paid attention to beyond the taste of dick and the wetness of Neema’s soft, tight vag was said engineer’s breathy, whiny utterance of her name.

Cute?

…

No, just another fucking trick to lull Lark into a sense of security. These were not people to trust or get attached to.

They were machines putting a cog to use.

Engineers utilizing a tool.

Lark was a tool to them, and as long as she kept doing that well, she could drift into the peaceful comfort of a lack of thought.

And, for a while, it was perfect.

Disassociation that was only scarcely interrupted by the bemused moans and exchanges of animals who’d get violent if she stopped being the obedient toy in their game of false care.

“H-Hah… R-Right, Neem…?”

Beasts that would burn villages to ash to abuse another caged bird.

“Where did ya… l-learn to be so good with your h-hands…? G-Gods...”

Pigs that would throw her away and leave her to clean up their mess.

“H-Her fuckin tongue… I… Ough Christ…”

Lark was a tool to be used, thrown out, and fixed.

Nothing else.

No thoughts as she dragged her soft, flexible tongue along the sensitive, leaking tip, and pulsing, girthy shaft of the unnamed flunkie.

Only autopilot kicking in while she lightly pistoned her fingers in and out of Neema’s slippery, clingy walls, and simultaneously massaged the girl’s clit with her thumb.

Lark was almost used up. She could feel it.

The girl in her mouth was close.

The girl wrapped around her submissive fingers could buckle any second.

Lark was about to be used up and left to clean up the mess of pigs once again…

…

Except, this time, against her will, Lark hoped these two were about to prove her wrong.

“I… God, I fuckin’ can’t…”

And they just stumbled upon the perfect opportunity to change Lark’s mind in a way that couldn’t be undone.

Not that Lark could have ever seen it like that initially. Not as the pig who’d started slowly bucking her, admittedly, not unpleasant cock into the back of her throat, slammed as far as she could into the beak of the bird.

None of that was surprising. Nor was the poorly warned shot of salty, warm cum fired down her trained orifice.

It was expected.

It was routine.

Getting surprised enough by that to return truly to the land of the living would be akin to getting shocked by the mere presence of your own hand.

It was how using Lark worked.

Make a mess.

Throw her away.

Make her clean it up.

…

This time, though, a surprise had been brought for her.

“Mcph???”

Lark, brought back to the real world by a flooding sensation in her throat, coughed against the cock still halfway buried inside her filled maw.

“Mcph. Mghk!!!”

Choking on some mutt’s gunk wasn’t necessarily unheard of for Lark. People weren’t the type to warn their power drill they were about to use it. That’d be fucking stupid.

The volume, though, was what turned a bit of gagging into a full on choking fit against the unnamed flunkie’s dick. It didn’t last forever, but what shot into the back of her already struggling throat was like a brief few sprays of an especially slimy fire hose.

Was this that shit Aoi said she got from Bailey?

That bitch was a plague. She should bite her nuts off when she gets back from rescuing that hag of hers.

Bailey and her infectious presence. Sasha and her ludicrous ideas. This pig choking her out.

Lark’s thoughts darted between these three fixations for a scarce few seconds. Seconds that felt like hours.

But seconds nonetheless.

“A-Ah, shit… Shit, I’m s-sorry, girl!” The illusory, hour-long seconds betrayed how quick the pig in her throat had managed to spring into action, be it through sudden, post-orgasmic clarity, guilt, or all of the above. “I got ya. Hang on!” With a confusing declaration that she’d help out, the unnamed grunt had her cock pulled out of Lark’s mouth seconds after her clearly overpowering climax reached its climax.

Great, Lark could, assuming she didn’t choke to the point of passing out, cough the animal’s cum all over herself while she finished Neema off. The pair could stroll away after, giggling and laughing like disgusting, overjoyed monsters, and all would be good.

“Hah… Hang on, I-I’ll get some paper towels…”

That illusion of familiarity shattered when Neema, upon seeing her friend pull out from Lark, pulled away from her somehow still finger-fucking hand and jogged to the pile of her clothes sitting by the bunk’s exit.

What the fuck were they doing?

Were these euphemisms? 

Were they really going to beat Lark for choking?

They were even fucking worse than the UA. Sasha was an idi—

…

Huh?

“Here, girl. Let it out. Really sorry, ya just… I just…” The unnamed grunt had shimmied behind Lark while she wasn’t looking, chattering to the tool like she was supposed to respond while lightly, caringly smacking her back a few times. “Got carried away…” That was one fucking way of putting it, but that was the point.

They should get carried away.

They should have been threatening her.

They should have fucked off after getting what they wanted.

“Pwah…”

Lark, hands now left without the slightest activity, and senses once again aware enough to feel the irritating wetness between her legs, and the disgusting burning in her loins, did as she was told.

“Gough…”

In an act that disgusted Lark far more than asphyxiating would have, she coughed up a few stray spurts of her ally’s cum onto her perky chest and the ground below. Mixed with her own saliva, the texture was less than pleasant on her skin. Last thing she wanted was a second fucking shower today, but she should have known that was a guarantee anyway.

She just didn’t know she wouldn’t be finding that fact out after being fucked unconscious…

“I-I got ya.” Neema was next on the chopping block of confusion battering against Lark’s delicate psyche. She was on her knees moments after her clothing pile search began, cleaning up the mess they— Lark made on the floor before turning her tissue wielding attention to Lark’s chest and face.

Hesitant as Lark was, her resistance was weak, and soon after she was relatively clean of the slimy cocktail she’d been forced to hack onto herself.

What was their fucking game here?

“There. Might, uhm… Might still need a shower, but do you feel better?” Neema spoke her words with such earnest, gentle conviction that it almost made Lark go from hacking up cum to puking up her dinner.

The fuck did she care if Lark was feeling better?

What Lark was feeling was irrelevant. It’s why she hadn’t spoken a fucking word since that dick left her mouth.

Neema should just tell her to put her hand to use again! At this point Lark was tempted to just do it herself.

…

She didn’t, of course. No matter how much she may have possibly wanted that.

She wasn’t ordered to.

Instead, she kneeled in silence for another few seconds… until her patience was tested beyond what she and her raw throat could take.

“Yeah, seriously, are ya good? I didn’t mean to… Well…” Neema’s still as of yet unnamed friend blathered on and fucking on without any reprieve beyond her own failure to string words together. “Sorry. You’re not hurt? We can call it here if ya need to and—”

“Ya wanna know… what I think?” Lark cut the flunkie off, voice still hoarse from the minutes spent sucking a girl off, and the remaining time spent choking on a juice box’s worth of cum.

She shouldn’t do this.

She should shut up and let them finish.

That’s obviously where this was going anyway.

…

The pair didn’t speak. They were silent. Lark almost thought they were about to finally lose it and really ravish their newfound tool. 

But any ravishing never quite came, not as she might have expected at least.

No words.

No bruising.

All Lark saw upon moving her head up enough to glare at Neema, was a nod.

A patient one.

…

Fine.

“Shoulda let me choke… Shoulda gotten your use outta me and left me and Sasha to clean this shit up.” Lark continued her foolish tangent with their silent approval, eyes once again averting from Neema’s face the moment it began appearing concerned.

The room felt hot.

Lark felt like she was on fire.

If she’d just swallowed it down they’d have had their fun and left.

Now they were going to fucking hurt her.

Brutalize her.

May as well fucking kill her.

Good job lining this one up, Sasha.

“Would ya have, I dunno… preferred that?” The unnamed flunkie replied quicker than Lark had expected, even if it felt like every ember of silence was an hour long.

It was blunt.

It was…

Lark didn’t even know why she was asking that?

What did it mean?

“Sherry!” Neema seemed even more bewildered by the question than Lark. Enough so to reveal her friend’s nickname in the shock.

Did the names of animals matter?

Were they even animals?

Lark felt like she was on fire, yet wasn’t sweating a bead.

She felt like she was shaking, yet she could see that she wasn’t.

“Hey, I’m just saying… Sasha said she might want things that sound… weird?” Sherry gave some of the game away in her slightly defensive reply.

Sasha said that?

Of course she fucking did.

Lark knew that Sasha was smart enough to guess— no, know that Lark didn’t want that.

So, if Lark knew that Sasha obviously knew that…

…

Did Lark know that?

The embers began appearing in her vision.

She couldn’t know that.

Shut up!

“I guess…” Neema’s faint words cut through the embers like a blizzard, and didn’t just stop at a middling acceptance of her friend’s observation. “Lark… would you want that? B-Because we… we wouldn’t force that on you.” She spoke so delicately.

So full of concern.

Like a fucking therapist.

The embers were calming down.

Get the fuck out of her head.

…

Lark expected more.

She expected them to keep pushing and pushing until their word was law. Until she did want that.

It never came.

They were silent, waiting for Lark to figure out what she wanted just as much as she was.

The silence was deafening but the concern on Neema’s face, visible when Lark’s gaze returned to hers, was like a handgun being shot three inches from her eardrum.

She’d know.

The UA’s pigs did it for fun plenty.

She didn’t want that.

She didn’t want… this…?

“I…” Lark tried to speak, but in a scenario rare for her when it didn’t involve a dick in her mouth or the fear of hell itself, she was stammering.

Struggling.

But the words came anyway.

“No. I fucking wouldn’t. I want a whole lotta other shit, and none of it is that.” Lark’s voice got louder by the word until she was all but screaming at the pair, only calming her voice down before the end to avoid hurting her recovering throat. “Why the hell do you care, though? What are you getting knowing that?” As was typical of Lark, the suspicion of these two flunkies didn’t go away.

They had to be getting something.

Was Sasha paying them?

If so, then with what?

The embers grew again.

How was she supposed to feel when these two were jerking her around? Did they find it funny?

Obviously. Lark was a fucking joke.

Was that why the girl behind her was rubbing her shoulder? To tease her?

…

She hated that this was comforting.

Get out of her fucking head.

“We… We just, y’know…” Neema stammered to communicate an answer she already knew, clearly investing more than a little effort into keeping her words concise for Lark.

It was making her grind her fucking teeth together.

Until Sherry broke through…

“We want to do what you want, girl. You’re cute. Hell, Ume wouldn’t have gotten out of that mess a few weeks back without you? We owe ya big for that!” Sherry appealed to Lark’s prior usefulness, and the bird felt the embers cool ever so slightly.

Cute, though?

Fuck off.

That was a lie.

These were all lies.

Lark wasn’t cute she was a disgusting fucking traitor.

“Y-You’re not, though?” Neema responded with uncomfortable concern to the degradation Lark was confident she merely thought aggressively in her addled head. Words that escaped her spiralling thought bubble more loudly than she could have guessed.

“I…” Lark was lost again, no words to fill in the angry reply she wanted— had to give this concerned… animal?

Lark didn’t know what to think anymore, and the continued, gentle rubbing of her shoulder wasn’t aiding this fog.

They were animals.

Had to be…?

“As far as we’re concerned, you’re just a really good pilot. The pilot who saved our friend… weird as she kinda is.” Neema’s concern trailed off into a familiar, calm smile at the thought of their friend.

Sasha’s friend.

That friend Sasha wanted to be Lark’s friend, too.

Bunch of fucking preschoolers.

“You’re crazy hot, too. If that helps.” Sherry threatened to ruin every millisecond of progress made in dispelling the fire surrounding Lark’s supposedly hot body and mind.

Yet, something about it was… well, not funny, but…

A little like Sasha, annoying as that was for Lark to think.

“I, uhm… I think the fact we trust her and, y’know, don’t want to force her into anything is more important…” Neema tried her best at a save that, somehow, wasn’t entirely necessary… “And… yeah… stupidly hot…” Then tossed said save out under her breath.

Loud enough for Lark to hear.

Animals.

…

Yet, these animals weren’t doing anything.

They hadn’t started groping her, or sticking things in her mouth, or hitting her over the head with things recently stuck in her mouth.

Nobody was calling her the scum of Ansa.

A filthy fucking traitor to whatever cause she was currently in the thralls of.

There was no tall, beautiful, awful fucking woman standing in the corner, telling her she was an inferior to the great, unstoppable Valkyrie.

The beautiful, beloved Sasha.

…

What the fuck was this place?

“Home… Y’know, if you want it to be?” Neema had once again shattered the illusion that Lark was thinking to herself with a sweet, reassuring offer.

A temptation Lark was struggling to resist from what still could be animals.

It helped to dull the nagging thoughts.

The ones regarding just how much of her supposed internal monologue was external tonight…

…

Home?

Was that why Sasha did this?

To see if these two flunkies, animals or not, could prove to Lark that this wasn’t a prison of the mind?

It wasn’t a cage for the birds?

It was home?

It’s not like these two sounded like they were lying.

…

Fucking hell, she did it again.

“Sooo… If this is your home, are we putting our pants back on?” Sherry broke any tension left in Lark’s mind. All unfortunate doubt of the pair just worming their way into her psyche so they could abuse her supple figure vanishing with the awkward, sporadically aware musings of her… ally? “Assuming we’re done screwing around, obviously, If you want to just chat now, that’s cool.”

If Lark wanted?

…

Right.

Without Sasha in here, this was her bunk, wasn’t it?

These two anima— girls were just guests.

Therapists too it seemed.

It would have been a little sickening if it didn’t calm Lark down.

Hell, even with that in mind, still wasn’t entirely a fan of the hugbox she just got out of. Maybe this time, she needed it, though.

Besides, did she even want to screw around now? After all that?

…

No. She didn’t. Sure, she was wet. Couldn’t be helped. Her body was fucking annoying like that.

But that wasn’t something to address right now. Nor was the light, equally frustrating pang still present in her loins.

No, that was something she’d politely and sweetly ask Sasha to help deal with before the wonder-bird’s mission with Ina tomorrow.

Wasn’t Sierra doing that thing tomorrow, too?

Lark was short on details, but it sounded like tomorrow was about to be a breakthrough or a total disaster.

Just like the rest of the bullshit on this base.

Most of the bullshit.

Snapping herself back to reality just quickly enough to not scare the pair off, Lark began slowly standing up from her prolonged kneeling and sucking session. The only thing that sucked now was the vast stinging in her knees as she brought herself back to her feet.

“Think I’m done suckin’ you off for tonight. Thanks.” Lark spoke brashly, before cosmic punishment came in the form of a knee buckling under her, threatening to knock her to the ground.

“I-I got ya.” Said buckling, instead, only led to the minor embarrassment of being caught by a fast acting, concerned, sweaty Neema.

“...” Lark was a little thrown for how to respond when said aforementioned catch didn’t turn into a slam onto the floor or punch in the throat. “Thanks…” She settled for a less sarcastic word of appreciation, and a glance away from her knight in a gleaming lack of armor.

“Fine by me, girl. Hot as ya are, I…” Sherry butted in, more than ready to ruin the moment and grind Lark’s gratitude to dust. “...I kinda can’t get it back up again for a bit. Just me?” Sherry casually asked two women born without a dick.

At least, Lark assumed she was.

Memories were hazy there.

Fiery.

…

“Just… put your pants back on, Sherry.” Neema inadvertently snapped Lark out of another panic attack spurred on by a distinct lack of memories with a giggly, even more casual reply.

“Ass.” Sherry teased back at her friend, finally moving away from Lark’s backside and back into her vision with a small shimmy, bending down moments later to pull her combat pants back up to her waist.

Before, to Lark’s eye, appearing to notice something in her pocket.

“Crap. I almost forgot!” With an exclamation that it was, indeed, something of note, Sherry reached into her spacious right pocket and pulled something out.

It looked… strange.

A rectangle of analogue metal and plastic, painted in red and silver, clicky looking buttons populating its top side.

It was a cassette player. She wasn’t fucking stupid. She knew what they were.

Would be impossible not to learn about weird tenets of Earth’s old culture after being in the vicinity of Aoi for the months she has been.

…

But why was it being outstretched to her like a bone-shaped biscuit being offered to a dog.

“Sasha said ya liked having music on in here. Figured we might have to yell through some synth metal if we didn’t get here quick enough.” Sherry spoke of Lark’s open secret like it wasn’t worth being a secret at all, but she could forgive that this time.

She meant well.

“Sierra can be a cranky ass if a project is taking too long. Having one of these on her belt’s saved her from chewing through my arm a few times.” Sherry then just as freely shared a secret of Sierra’s to account for the forbidden knowledge Sasha gave her.

That was.

Nice, actually.

Shame she didn’t give a shit about Sierra’s proclivities, making it home to her wet cat of a girlfriend aside.

But, it was nice.

“Uh-huh! We aren’t allowed any personal communication stuff in here. Y’know, tapped networks and all that…” Neema joined in on the discussion with a tone that made her smile clear as day, even as she turned around to march towards her pile of clothes. “We, uhm… didn’t have any tapes we knew ya’d like, but Ume’s got a killer recorder. A lot safer than just neurally beaming music into your brain like she does, too!” Neema sounded a little more concerned at that last part.

Lark, meanwhile, held little concern for the base’s pink-haired computer prodigy. She was a clever girl, according to Sasha, at least.

Moreover, Lark knew just how much the human brain could endure. Neuromusic, augmented reality, and mind-absorbing virtual streaming were nothing.

Lark knew that intimately.

…

But, just for tonight, Lark could dispel those thoughts.

This was her fucking night, apparently.

Carefully…

Quietly…

Lark grabbed the cassette player from Sherry’s still outstretched hand, inspecting it like it could have exploded the moment it reached her own.

It didn’t, of course.

That would be stupid.

But it electrocuting her when it detected her fingerprints?

It releasing a personalized, poisonous gas that would knock those of her blood type unconscious?

Her simply being smacked in the face for holding it at all?

All of these were realistic.

Memories, even.

…

None of these happened, as Lark was beginning to suspect would have been the case.

She was simply allowed to ogle it. Appreciate its build.

It was… nice.

Lightweight, but heavy enough that it clearly wasn’t some cheap, rundown piece of garbage.

It already had a clip installed on the back, ready to go on the belt of her flight suit at a moment’s notice.

There was even a little compartment housing a pair of earbuds to go with it…

This meant something to someone. It wasn’t just nothing.

It wasn’t junk.

It was something important.

And now it was… hers?

…

Lark fought back the disgusting, pathetic urge to cry, looking Sherry in the eye as neutrally as she possibly could while grappling with a volcano of emotions.

“...Thank you. I…” Lark clawed back her tears with talons of pure, bitter annoyance at their very existence, and instead, let a slight smile break through to the pair. “I’ll get a lot outta this…” She couldn’t truly admit how much this meant.

A gift for her.

With kind, honest thought put into it.

From someone other than Sasha, or, in a vastly different sense of the word, Bailey.

…

Was this truly home?

“Hey, don’t mention it. Would be a waste of Sierra’s skills not to give these to people that mattered, eh?” Sherry replied with a revelation that almost pissed Lark off enough to make her bite the gift in her hand. All while she stood at the door oh, so casually.

There were shades of Bailey in these two

…

Even more shades of Sasha, too…

“Right… Guess ya got a point.” Lark growled quietly, battling the mixed emotions regarding their missing engineer and her possible thoughtfulness.

Did Sierra know they were doing this?

Lark wanted to ask, but the words didn’t form.

Did it matter?

…

Sickeningly enough, it truly did.

“Ya waiting on somethin’ or what? Thought you were fuckin’ leavin’!” The innate aggression returned to Lark’s voice when she noticed the pair of flunk— engineers dawdling at her front door.

Sherry lazily redressed.

Neema still half-naked.

Whispering to each other.

“Well, uhm…” Neema didn’t seem to feel the need to articulate a perfect response, interrupting the silence quickly before clearing her throat and smiling. “If we’re not… doing anything else tonight, we need to make sure Robin and Kashmir are ready for tomorrow…” She stopped herself again, turning around to face Lark proper and opening her mouth again. “Sierra gave us the go-ahead to work on a new mech for you before she left, y’know…” Then, silence.

Silence that lasted barely two seconds before Sherry turned around to face Lark, too.

“Wanna tag along and start working her out tonight? You don’t have to, but—”

“Yeah. Fuck it.” Lark cut Sherry off with a quiet, vaguely neutral tone trying to fight the excitement in her voice. “I’d… like to, sure.” The excitement won, that slight smile perking up on her face for seconds before being replaced by her preferred expression of neutral composure.

Only a teeny bit of rage still in her eyes.

This wasn’t a trap.

Lark was confident in that now.

But the rage wasn’t going anywhere yet, no matter how much these two were worming their sickly way into her heart.

No matter how quickly they finished that…

“Cool. We’ll let ya get dressed up, then. We’ll be in the mech hangar!” Sherry’s final reply was her most casual yet, spoken as she began walking out the door and off towards her spoken destination.

“A-Actually, uhm.” Neema didn’t join her friend immediately, still holding a ball of clothes as she shyly glanced towards Lark’s eyes, and one or two other places. “Could you maybe give me ten—” She cut herself off, looking down and blushing a crimson red when her eyes returned to Lark’s. “F-Five. Five minutes… b-before you head in there?” Neema sounded like she was about to burst.

Given she only needed five minutes to handle herself, that may very well have been the case.

“Yeah, sure… Whatever, Neema.” Lark was dismissive by design, but slipped in Neema’s name by what felt like accident.

Or maybe she was just getting comfortable with the girl.

Maybe she’d help finish her little orgasm next time.

“Th-Thanks. See you in a f-few…” Before Neema had wrapped up speaking, she was already dashing out of the room and in the direction of her friend, likely to finish herself off in an environment she found bizarre, exposing comfort in. Like most of the heathens she’d met here.

Like Lark herself…

Next time.

…

With that, Lark was on her own again.

Left to her own thoughts.

But not for long.

…

Sasha was right again. Far more right than she was last time, even.

Bailey was a help. She couldn’t deny that. She tried.

She’d always try.

But that annoying bitch seemed to do the trick.

The Devil didn’t have control over her now. Not to an extent that paralyzed her anymore.

She could fight it, and that was unfortunately because of Bailey.

Tonight, though.

That was all her, Sasha, those two stupidly chummy engineers, and Sierra.

A chick that wasn’t even here, and yet she’d seemingly been looking out for Lark while she was recovering…

…

Lark didn’t know what tomorrow would bring.

If Sasha and Ina would nail another distraction tactic.

If Sierra would come home after whatever mess she was involved in tomorrow.

She didn’t need to get lost in pondering tomorrow’s busy day while she put her clothes back on and strapped her cassette player to her suit.

It wasn’t her day, and she had a night spent making sure her next mech would never fall to a UA bird again…

…

But, for the first time, she was hoping tomorrow would be nothing but rebel good news. The UA falling for it again, and Sierra being able to get back safe and sound.

The latter was obviously so the hulking behemoth of an engineer could build her more reliable mech suit. She wasn’t giving out sympathy for fucking charity.

…

But Lark was lucky tonight.

A miracle did happen.

Maybe, just maybe, while she began walking out of her bunk and off to the hangar bay… she was hoping Ina and Sierra could have their miracle, too.

That chess girl clearly fucking needed it after the two weeks she’d had…