The sparring arena of the Fire Gym was a large open space with a padded floor marked by white boundary lines. Faint trails of steam would rise up from seams in the floor, and there was plenty of water on hand, either from the natural hot springs or the plumbing. The room smelled of sweat, rubber, and smoldering embers.

It was the safest place for fire-types like me to spar, even if I wasn’t about to use those flames on my current opponent, Mochi.

Mochi was tall and soft, curvy in all the best places, and glistening with a healthy glow. She radiated a maternal instinct and a carnal hunger that had tempted me more than once since I’d acquired her after the match with Terri.

The 6’4 woman also weighed much, much, much more than she looked, just north of a thousand pounds, and escaping from a pin was an exercise in futility.

{“Get off!”} I sent out the psychic command narrow and focused. My face was buried in her sweaty cleavage, so our minds were close enough to almost touch.

“Nuh uh.” Mochi replied with a giggle.

{“Roll over!”}

“Sure you’re not confusing me for someone else?” The thought of Helen flitted through her head. The two had bonded quite a bit in the past four weeks.

{“Move!”}

Mochi did move. She started grinding her hips, her whole body jiggling on top of me.

“Damn it. Uncle, uncle, alright?” I finally gasped out. She was making it hard to breathe.

“I’m getting pretty good at it, huh, Master?” Mochi didn’t get off. Instead, she reached back and undid the side-ties on her navy blue bikini bottoms, then lifted her hips and started pulling my gym shorts and underwear down.

“You’re a lot more clever than you look,” I admitted as my cock popped free.

Mochi immediately backed her titanic ass against it while leaning down, bringing our faces closer. “Only because you’re doing such a good job taming me. It’s been ages since I’ve had so much energy.”

I’d learned a little more about Corruption since then too. It expressed itself in different ways, some more dangerous than others. The various Natures were divided into three groups. Lina had the most dangerous form of Corruption, S-rank, reverting to a succubus that was just as intelligent while interested in lethally draining out the vitality of men. Helen was in the next tier down at A-rank, a hell hound that even at maximum corruption had the temperment between a wild wolf and domesticated golden retriever.

Mochi was far below that, way down at C-rank, the least dangerous of all, which is why Terri had been allowed to keep her even without properly taming her. Even though Mochi kept her intelligence regardless of what her Corruption level was, and even though she was more powerful than the average pokegirl, it was only her human side that could hypothetically be dangerous to people. Because the more Corrupted Mochi became… the more she just wanted to sleep all day.

Since I’d taken over from Terri, Mochi had gone from 18 hours a day to 12, and when she was awake, she was more alert too. As the strongest pokegirl in my collection—much as Lina and Yang hated to admit it—she was also the one I was doing most of my training with.

Sabrina had told me to practice the basics of psychic combat, and every week she said I was getting better, but Mochi was learning countermeasures faster than I was improving.

“It’s like I said. It’s much easier to refuse to do something when I’m just focused on staying still.” Mochi said as she reached back and grabbed at my shaft, angling it back so I could feel the steaming hot pussy waiting for it. “Those commands are distracting, but if I know what you’re going to make me do, it’s just a matter of pushing back. If you could catch me by surprise, it’d be way easier to trip me up, Master.”

“Easier said than done. You’re… fuck…” I let out a hiss of air as Mochi raised herself up into the cowgirl position, her hips lowering down and her velvet walls swallowing my cock. She might weigh a thousand pounds, but the girl had an hourglass figure the envy of the harem. The cute bit of excess in her slight muffin top only made her hotter. “You’re a bit much.”

Faster, stronger, and with a fighting IQ that made her more my teacher than student.

“Try and mix it up.” Mochi’s hands went to grab her genuinely watermelon sized breasts and squeezed, mauling them for my pleasure as much as hers while she rolled her hips. “Make it…oooo… harder to catch you.”

“What do you think I… fuck, that move is good…” Mochi’s walls would clench down while she was taking my cock to the base, then she’d lift her body up and drop it, repeating the move four or five times in a few seconds. The kind of move that made it hard not to orgasm right then and there. “I’ve been trying.”

I’d use one trick after another on Mochi. Mental hallucinations to confuse my position. Sharp commands in the middle of her movement to send her off balance. Straight up manipulation. That last one had proved effective when I was simply telling her to “sleep” over and over, but even that had stopped working after a half-dozen or so attempts as she got used to it.

“Look on the bright side, Master—”

“Mochi, get on all fours.”

“Ooo, yes, Master!” The pokegirl leaned forward and crawled right off of me, legs spread, one hand reaching back to spread open her dripping pussy lips. I sat back up and pushed right inside of her in one stroke. The way she’d cushion the impact with her ass as I drove myself deep inside was addictive. “So deep! So rough, so big, Terri was never—”

I gave her a meaty slap on that thick ass and the moan she gave me told me she was already close. “You were saying, the bright side?”

“O-oh right…! All those tr-truuu…tricks! They might not work on muh… meee! But unless someone has experience with it, it’s really, really… so fucking… good… hard… to deal with.” Mochi’s voice was melting as I picked up the pace.

“Mm. That’s how I beat you, right?”

“Mhm! Knocked me into the water and made me your submissive little pet! Your sweaty little sex kitten! Your sleepy fuckbuddy! Your… your… your pokegirl slut is cumming!!!”

Mochi used that move from before, her body shaking as she pulled on my cock hard enough to uproot a tree, and I held onto her hips as I filled her womb up.

“Thanks for… the sparring, Mochi.” She always left me winded.

“Uh huh…” Her legs gave out and she toppled forward, resting her face on her own breasts like they were pillows. Her mind had been absolutely full of horny thoughts of sex and submission just seconds ago, but the pokegirl had already dozed off to sleep.

Just once, I’d like to cuddle that body of hers after sex without her snoring.

I returned Mochi to her pokeball and worked on getting my shorts back on while Flannary came over.

“I keep telling you, Ben, you need to focus more on body conditioning. Doesn’t matter how tough you are if you can’t move.”

“I know. I know. The gym is just a bit… intense.” I answered, only just slightly embarrassed to be shoving my cock back under my clothes in front of a teacher.

“Nothing you can’t handle. Speaking of, nicely done with the bakeneko.” Flannary slapped me on the shoulder. “Cat-type pokegirls are the worst at following orders, as you’d expect, but you had her eating out of the palm of your hand.”

“Thanks. Mochi isn’t bad though. She just, ah… does things at her own pace.”

“Sure. But you’re the first trainer she’s really listened to. Keep it up, okay?”

I nodded, then headed back towards my dorm. Covered in sweat, and the inside of my shorts was a real wet mess. I needed a shower desperately. I would have used the Fire Gym’s showers, but like everything else at this bizarre campus, it seemed geared towards encouraging sex among the students as much as everything else, with no stalls and being completely co-ed. Two months ago the idea of showering with a bunch of hot girls who were all into me would have been at the top of my list of sexual fantasies, but now…

Now I just wanted to avoid the drama.

So I made the short walk back to the dorm on my own. The cold morning air froze the sweat against my skin, and I was looking forward to warming back up. I’d tried using my own fire to dry the sweat off before, and it’d worked… kind of. It left a grimy, itchy feeling all over my skin, plus all of those volatile body odors getting vaporized at once let out what Yang described as a “stink bomb”.

As I got near the door, I could hear the thoughts of someone new inside.

<Hmmm… six-letter word, a dock for boats. Oh, a marina! Which would make seven down be… citing? Oh ho… well, this puzzle sure is ex-CITING, isn’t it?>

Whoever it was, they seemed to be in the middle of a crossword puzzle, and they were so engrossed in it that there wasn’t even an idle thought of why they were in my room. Bracing for the worst, I opened the door to greet this stranger.

“Oh. You’re up early,” I said as the only one I saw inside was Helen. My simple-minded doggirl pokegirl who liked crawling on all fours and speaking in the third person. Not too bright, but fiercely loyal and eager for attention, as you’d expect of a dog in the form of a hot girl. Only, she was sitting on the couch wearing my clothes while solving the newspaper’s crossword puzzle.

Helen just froze, looking at me, eyes wide. And that’s when I remembered: Helen didn’t get up early. She didn’t leave her pokeball unless I summoned her.

Helen also didn’t wear clothing, but she was wearing one of my white t-shirts that hung loosely over her small frame, her relatively large breasts pushing the front forward enough to show she was also wearing a pair of my boxers underneath.

Helen also didn’t sit on furniture, not unless I was already sitting, and only then to snuggle up or rest her head in my lap. And she didn’t read the newspaper either; I don’t think she could read.

Most of all, Helen’s mind was simple, always broadcasting to me thoughts like <hungry> or <master so nice> or <want bellyrubs>. But as soon as she’d seen me, that stranger’s thoughts had completely snuffed out, and Helen’s weren’t coming through at all either.

“Helen…? What’s going on?” I asked.

“Helen… not know?” she answered, slowly crawling off the couch and padding towards me. That long furry tail of hers pushed up the t-shirt enough to show off the small of her back.

“Really?” I folded my arms and looked down at her. “You can solve the weekly crossword without googling the answers, but can’t figure out what I’ve just walked in on?”

“You saw… oh. Right. Psychic, I forgot… uh… Helen forgot… um…” Helen put her head on the carpet and covered it with her hands. “Sorry, Master…”

She’d graduated from family pet status to a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar, and somehow looked even cuter for it. “I don’t even know what you’re supposed to be apologizing for. Come on. You can tell me in the shower.”

“Okay, Master.”

The nice thing about the two of us being attuned to fire, I could let the shower go at full blast, steaming up the bathroom immediately as it scoured away the sweat and grime I’d built up. While I relaxed under the water, Helen had stripped and was watching me from the corner of the walk-in shower, wearing a heart-melting pair of puppydog eyes on her face, while her mind was still closed off. I think that I could have pried it open with some effort, but I wasn’t going to do that.

“Come on. I’ll wash your hair.” I said as I brought out the plastic stools for us to sit on.

“Yes, Master…”

Helen stepped closer, her jet black tresses spilling over her back and onto my chest as she settled between my legs. I breathed in the earthy scent of her skin and ran my fingers through the inky strands, working out the tangles. After soaking it down with the spray, I squirted a good handful of shampoo into my palm and went to work building up a lather, scrubbing close to her scalp.

“So…” I asked after that first handful failed to produce suds. I rinsed it off and started again. “How long have you been doing the crosswords?”

“Not long. Maybe… two weeks?”

“Two weeks!”

“No! I mean, only twelve days, so not even… but it’s just, um…”

“I don’t get it. I think that you being smart again is a good thing, isn’t it? Why hide it?”

“Because I… Helen likes being Master’s pet,” Helen said, her furry ears drooping down low.

“You mean, like, a sex thing?” The bubbles were forming up into a thick cloud on top of her head.

“What!? No, kind of, I mean… it’s not just a sex thing, Master.” Helen leaned back, her head against my chest. “Being Master’s… being your pet, Ben, it’s easy. Simple. Uncomplicated.”

Helen told me about her past. She hadn’t come to PMU as a student. Instead, the change had happened to her on its own, living in Seattle. At first, it’d seemed like a blessing. She became stronger, faster, and healthier. The plain, dumpy housewife transformed into the toned, athletic, vivacious woman full of energy.

“Hold on. Housewife? You were married?”

“High school sweethearts. John really was too good to me. Especially when things kept changing.”

About a year after the changes, Helen started getting cravings for raw meat. She started having difficulty with her job as a software engineer, unable to focus, forgetting things she’d already learned. Once, jogging through the park, she’d gone on all fours and made a mad dashing chasing a squirrel, crushing its body with her teeth. Then the black outs started happening, waking up to messy destruction like a classic werewolf.

“I… I don’t think I ever hurt anyone. But I can’t be sure.” We’d left the shower by then and were talking together in bed. Helen was wearing another one of my shirts she’d picked out of the dirty clothes hamper, and while I sat with my back to the headboard, she was resting her head in my lap.

“Even if you did, it wouldn’t be your fault.”

“Maybe…” She didn’t sound convinced at all.

Less than two years after the changes had started, a Trainer had shown up at the door.

“They told me I’d have to leave my husband… and come here, and that part hurt… but honestly? It was just such a relief to know what was wrong with me.”

Helen had two trainers before me. Both were women, and neither partnership lasted for more than a few months. Both were only able to slow her Corruption, rather than reverse it. First came the doggy ears, then the tail. The fur along her arms and thighs. The glowing yellow eyes. Fire that would engulf her body or spew out of her mouth. All the while she could feel herself becoming less and less of a person, more of an animal.

“There’s never enough trainers. So if you’re not compatible right at the start, they aren’t going to waste their time with you. And if you’ve never been compatible with anyone… they won’t give you a chance.” Helen’s voice had gotten quiet, and even when I lightly scratched behind her ear, her tail stayed limp. “I was kept sealed until Wicke came, started doing tests on me.”

“How long were you been sealed?”

“Twenty-three years.”

“Jeez.” There was a pause between us. “Were you aware all that time, or…?”

“Partially. It’s the same as being stored in the pokeball. You become drowsy and relaxed. Sleepy, but not asleep. I couldn’t keep track of time, but when I found out how long it’d been… I felt it.”

Helen rolled over onto her back, her head still in my lap, but looking up at me now. “And then I met you.”

She said it with such love, devotion, and loyalty, my heart skipped a beat. I was dating Yang, and so far, we really liked each other. But Helen loved me the way a dog loved its Master. It was pure and wholesome and frankly, more than I deserved.

“Why keep this a secret though?”

“Because things won’t be so easy now. My Corruption is low. The school has ways of slowing it down. You’d only need to see me a few times a year maintain it. So you should… you should get another girl. Help another girl that’s been sealed up for a long time like me. It’s selfish of me to want to stay.”

“I’m not going to replace you. Believe me, I’ve already got my hands full with too many girls. I don’t want to even think about getting someone new right now. Besides…” I scratched under her chin, and the adorable pout on her face became an adorable smile. “You’re special to me.”

“Awoo…” Her left leg lightly kicked as she enjoyed the pampering, but when she opened her eyes again, there was more concern. “There’s also… ah… we need to make a record of my Corruption. And since it’s this low, my parents and husband will be notified. We’ll… have to talk.”

“Oh. Ohh…”

We stayed in bed together for the rest of the morning, then went to see Wicke, the doctor in charge of Helen’s case. Helen asked to be put back into her pokeball. “Crawling around naked in public… I think it might be too much for my heart to handle.”

“Helen… you don’t need to crawl or go nude, you know? We’ll borrow some clothes.”

“Ohh… right.”

She went with a pair of Yang’s yoga pants and a sports bra—they were too small, so her breasts were spilling out, but she didn’t seem to mind. The same old white t-shirt went over that, hanging off one shoulder. I held her hand on the walk there, and while she was looking down on the ground, nervous about people staring, I was the one grabbing people’s attention as we went. By now, I was used to it. That reversal of the knockout bombshell in a movie who’d leave men staring and whispering as she passed by. Since that first week, I’d earned a reputation of being dangerous, turning any trainers I came across into pokegirls for my harem, and it seemed to repulse and draw in other trainers in equal measure.

Frankly, it was exhausting.

I’d texted ahead to tell Wicke we were coming to the research building, so we were able to head straight into her office.

Her cheeks flushed as soon as I stepped through the door, and I could feel the powerful surge of arousal and embarrassment. “Ben! Helen! You both look… really good!”

<Does he want to take me on walkies again? Oh no, what if I’m not wearing a mask this time?! That would be terrible/amazing!!!>

“So, um, ah… Helen! She’s on two legs, wearing clothes! That’s great! How has she been doing otherwise?” Wicke tried distracting herself.

“Hi. I’m good.” Helen gave a shy wave, hand near her hip. “I can read now. Again, I mean. And I remember… everything, I think.”

“Really? Oh, that’s… that’s fast! That’s amazing! That’s…! Oh, Ben, what’s her Corruption at?”

I summoned the smartphone my mother had given me—the technomagic skill had proven way more useful than I’d thought it would be—and brought up Helen’s profile.

The arousal and embarrassment I’d felt rolling off of Wicke was completely overtaken like a tsunami washing over a city, a staggering wave of pure happiness and excitement that had her eyes watering even as she charged towards us. “Ahhh!!!”

“Fifty percent! You were over two hundred percent before, and now… that’s as low as it goes for a pokegirl!” Wicke slammed into Helen and squeezed her with the fiercest bear hug I could remember, jumping on her toes at the same time. “That’s so great! I’m so happy for you! This is great!”

“Th-thanks…” Helen was stronger than she looked, so even the vice grip of that hug wasn’t enough to distress her, but I wasn’t sure she could breathe all that well with that big, soft chest inside the sweater dress shoved in her face.. But as it stretched on, her own eyes watered up. “Th-thank you, for helping me.”

“Mmmh! You bet!” Wicke gave Helen one more squeeze before breaking off the hug, then stepped back.

“Between you and the reports I’ve received on Mochi, I can’t wait for a new round of testing to see just what it was that made the Corruption plummet so fast! If my theory is right and safely indulging in the Corruption’s nature by treating her like a pet is the way to go, then we’ll need to rethink our one-size-fits-all approach of the Master/servant dynamic between trainers and pokegirls. On the other hand, Ben, you might just be the catalyst. Either way, you’ve got a real talent for this!”

Wicke insisted on a full physical for Helen, and requested a private meeting between the two of us for when I had the time.

“Oh, and I’ll go ahead and send out the good news to your family!” Wicke said with a bright smile.

“Thanks…” Helen was fretting again. She looked up at me, tugged on my hand, and whispered. “I don’t know what to do. I loved my husband, but it’s been two decades. I look like a freak. And I’m still dangerous. I don’t think anyone from my old life would want anything to do with me… but if he did, then… Ben… Master… should I leave?”

I raised my hand, and put my palm on top of her head. Her tail slowly swished behind her as I scratched behind the ear.

She was asking me to make a decision, but it was a no-brainer.

“We’ll do whatever it takes to make you happy, alright?”

Helen gave me a rib-cracking hug, her tail wagging so furiously it was producing a breeze.

“You’re the best, Master!”

Next Time: It’s date night with Yuna and Faye. What have the two lesbians been planning for Ben? If you'd like to vote on their plan, you can find the link on my patreon or subscribestar, along with lots of exclusive content. All of my relevant links are collected over here: https://linktr.ee/griztorc