Chapter 14 : Noon
Although he, himself had put forward the idea of enslaving the shinoccubus, Anton did harbor some reservations about going down that route. As even though Mica did require a measure of control to be had over her, she was still the daughter of friends. And despite the circumstances, and the fact that binding curses weren't necessarily permanent, enslaving the daughter of your friends was, to say the least, still poor etiquette. So with this being the case, he was more than willing to explore other alternatives.
Unfortunately, Mica was neither harmless nor trustworthy, and her natural abilities would make it all too easy for her to literally disappear the moment she was given any amount of freedom. Keeping her manabound and restrained indefinitely certainly was possible, but wouldn't be practical. Especially if she was to be expected to preform in her new role as a bodyguard.
Her built-in loyalty oath ability was of course another option, and although he wasn't overly familiar with how that particular ability worked, it did seem to be a better alternative to outright slavery, at least on the surface. Unfortunately, it was, as far as he knew, something that she would have to willingly invoke herself. And so at this point his working plan was to see if it would be possible to convince her to do so. This would of course still entail illustrating to her that the alternative would be her enslavement, which although an ugly premise, was nonetheless the truth.
And so, with the mindset of pursuing this goal, Anton had taken the calculated risk of allowing Mica a level of freedom by releasing her tail. This would hopefully help in establishing a foundation of, and maybe even building some tiny amount of, trust between them. It would also give him an opportunity to see just how aggressive she was likely to be if given the chance.
And interestingly enough, despite a confrontation taking place almost immediately, the shinoccubus had done nothing more than make idle threats. Even when physically pushed she had refrained from retaliating with violence, which for an Infernal like her, reacting with a slash of her spade would normally have been an almost automatic response.
The fact that Mica had instead hesitated to attack was a solid indication that she had a strong sense of control over herself and her instincts, which was a very, very good sign.
With his eyes sitting idle on his phone and his mind continuing to shift through his thoughts, Anton's attention was suddenly caught by movement taking place in his peripherals. Turning his head, he found that Mica's tail was slowly slicing a path through the water as she looped it around herself several times.
Intrigued, he watched silently as Mica reached out and began to tenderly massage her tail by rolling sections of its length through her fingers. Preoccupied with her task, the shinoccubus seemed oblivious to her audience as she gently kneaded out the knots that had formed in the thin ribbons of tightly wrapped musculature that ran down the length of her tail. As she worked her way along, stretching and loosening up the muscles of her limb, the natural elasticity of her tail began to become more and more apparent and its true length began to appear.
Not that this was a surprise to him, but it did become quite clear to Anton that Mica had positioned herself so that if she wanted to, she could, from right where she was sitting, easily stretch her tail out far enough that her spade would be able to reach both himself and the dark elves. And although she seemed to be content to remain quiet and unassuming at the moment, there was no way of knowing how long this peaceful mood would last, and he was not so inclined to just let her have the first strike.
"...Hm, you know, Mica. It's actually really nice to see that you seem to have a decent level of control over yourself." said Anton as he turned off his phone "Not everyone who is born with natural weapons like yours will always hesitate to use them in the way that you just did."
Mica's fingers went still as she shifted her eyes up to him. Though her face itself showed nothing to her emotions, her quickly thinning snake-like pupils were still a good indication that her thoughts were far from friendly.
"...I'm going to guess that growing up in a city and attending school was enough to condition you to not let violence be your first response. That's a trait that I can certainly appreciate." continued Anton as he gave her a thin, but genuine grin "It would be a real annoyance for me if I to had to keep your tail locked away at all times. So it truly is nice to see that, hopefully, at least, that won't be necessary."
Keeping her eyes locked to his, Mica remained silent as she pressed her lips into a thin line and shifted her tail around her body until her spade was on her opposite side and partially hidden behind her back.
"Heh. Hard to imagine little Mica being in school." chuckled Fiona from her place on the other side of the tub "Not her being little, of course. That parts easy to imagine."
Blinking, Mica's eyes darted over to the dark elf the moment she started to speak.
"Hard parts imagining her not trying to stab everybody. Or choking people with her tail." continued Fiona "Like an angry little monkey!"
Narrowing her eyes, Mica's face hardened as both of the dark elves began to chuckle.
"You know she probably got bullied, right?" quipped Kianna as a condescending smile spread across her face "Imagine little Mica trying to act all tough and then instantly getting thrown in a trash can or shoved in a locker. You just know it happened!"
As both of the dark elves began to laugh, Mica's tail started to undulate angrily in the water until several of its coils finally breached the surface and her spade rose up high enough for its tip to point down at the sisters.
With their heads laid back and their eyes still closed, the dark elves remained completely oblivious as the incensed kiochi moved her tail into position to strike down at them.
"Mica. Put your tail away and stop threatening the dark elves. Your job is to protect them. Not to endanger them." said Anton as he slipped his phone into his pocket "And girls! You're being rude. Stop bullying your bodyguard."
Mica's tail froze right where it hung in the air as she clenched her jaw and turned to Anton with rage in her eyes.
"Sorry!" sang the dark elves as they continued to chuckle quietly.
"I am not their bodyguard! And I don't have a fucking job!" declared Mica as she pulled her tail back in to herself and pointed her spade at Anton "I don't work for you! Or anybody! And I ain't protecting shit!"
"You do have a job, Mica. One that you will do. You don't have a choice." said Anton in a calm but stern tone as he glanced at her spade and then looked right at her "I also want you to understand that the freedom that I've given you right now is a test run to see how well you can behave yourself. It is a privilege, and you're putting it at risk. I'm going to be very disappointed if you make me have to lock your tail away again."
"You just try it!" growled Mica as she raised her tail back up into the air and flexed out the barbs at the base of her spade "Touch me, and I'll slit your throat and bury my spade in your heart!"
Grinning broadly, the two dark elves both lifted their heads up to watch the coming show.
Anton was still for a moment as he stared down at the seething kiochi.
"Mica." he said as he kept his eyes locked to her's "Do you understand why you were punished as severely as you were today?"
"You! Oh! Of fucking course I do! It was so some sadistic asshole could get his rocks off!" snarled Mica "Obviously!"
"Colorful. But no, I'm afraid that isn't the reason." said Anton as he continued to stare at her "Would you like to try and guess again?"
"...It was because I tried to kill you!" snapped Mica as she arched her tail even higher "You poor, poor fucking baby!"
"No, that did annoy me. But that isn't the specific reason either. You're enslavement will cover that transgression." said Anton as he ignored the spade bobbing above his head "Would you like to try one more time?"
Unnerved by the fact that he was disregarding her threats, Mica went silent as she glared back him.
"...No? Very well. Let me just explain it to you then. You see, Mica, the reason that you were so overtly punished today is because I needed to diminish some of the... overwhelming, amount of animosity that I felt towards you." stated Anton as the kiochi's glare deepened into a full scowl "Now, petty as that reason may be. It was still very important. Because I am about to dedicate a lot of my time, effort and resources into you and your development. And I know myself well enough to know that unfortunately, if I didn't take care of my issues with you right away. Then chances are I would be constantly setting things back by giving in to the urge to make you suffer far more than I actually needed to. And as we don't have the time to waste on waiting for you to be forever recovering from unnecessary injuries. I felt it was best to just take care of the situation now and be done with it... Is all of this making sense to you?"
"Oh, yeah! I think I get what you're saying loud and clear." growled Mica as she began to speak through her clenched teeth "You're saying the reason I got strapped down to a table, waterlogged and had a fucking iceberg shoved up my ass! Was all so that you could get over some shit grudge. Right!?"
"Yes, exactly." nodded Anton.
"And how exactly does that not make you an evil, pathetic, disgusting, fucking little crybaby asshole!" demanded Mica.
"Simple. Because the person I did it to wasn't some innocent little teenager that I snagged off the street. It was you, Mica." said Anton as he narrowed his eyes into a glare "It was a wannabe little assassin who's very first act upon meeting me was to try to cut my head off."
"Yeah, and it's too bad that I missed on that too!" snapped Mica "Next time I won't!"
Anton was still for a moment before he leaned over the arm of his chair and stared down the kiochi.
"You need to understand that generally speaking, I don't have a lot of patience for people that try to kill me, Mica. And I don't normally like to let such people live." declared Anton "You have been a special case from the very beginning. In fact, the only reason I didn't kill you immediately last night was because I was using you as an object lesson for the dark elves. And during said lesson, when I figured out that you had no idea what you were even doing. I decided to take pity on you. And even went so far as to give you opportunities to surrender and leave. But no, you just had to keep going. You had to keep pushing things till the end. And now look at where all your efforts have gotten you. Beaten and bound. I didn't want this. I told you to leave, but you wouldn't. And now you want to sit there and call me evil. Well, fine! I won't argue with you on that. But don't you dare try to blame me for the direction your life has suddenly gone. Because my decisions didn't put you here, Mica. Yours did."
"Fuck off!" cried Mica "Seriously, stop acting like you're some poor, pitiful victim! You're not! You wanted this to happen, you said so yourself when you said you were planning to give me to your bitch ass elves so they could tie me up and torture me and shit! You're a sick fuck! You're evil, all of you are! You disgusting fucks have literally done nothing but torture me this whole time, and I don't deserve any of this crap! The twisted shit that you've all done to me has been insane!"
"You don't deserve this?" repeated Anton as an incredulous expression spread across his face "Mica, how exactly do you not deserve this when you came here specifically to kill someone!?...You can't honestly think that since you failed in your intention to kill, that you're somehow innocent now and you don't deserve to be punished. Because that is not how it works. You are not innocent, and you never will be again. You've earned everything that has been done to you. Everything. And I find it very rich of you to try and accuse me of acting like a victim when that's all you've been doing this entire time. So far you've yet to own up to anything that you've done. Not a single thing. You act like you didn't have a choice in any of this when no one brought you here, Mica. You invaded. No one forced you to attack. You jumped in yourself. And when you were told, multiple times, to leave. You were the one who kept fighting. It was all you, Mica. It was your decisions, and your decisions alone that lead you here. You do deserve all of this. And you need to accept that."
