{Alex}

The next morning, I woke before the girls and went to work. It was nice having others in the house. Something felt right. Only time would tell if they developed feelings for me. Boss was waiting for me on the floor and smiled as he stood next to a large male orc. This guy was huge with long tusks poking from his lower jaw. His dark green skin was covered by a simple shirt and pants, bare feet showed off long clawed toes. A slave collar jingled as he looked at me “Runt, this is Gorloth, he is your new battery.” I smiled at him, and he nodded to me.

“Master Runt.” He growled down to me.

“I like him. I still plan to use Battery to get more done. Gorloth, I hope we can be friends.” Gorloth smiled. I took him over to the worst of the damage and had him put a hand on my shoulder as I worked to fix it. With him here, the amount of work I could get done doubled if not more. The big guy was very talkative and happy. Some of the others were looking at us oddly though.

“Runt why be friends with Gorloth?” He seemed to struggle with common. I shrugged at his question.

“Why not?” He laughed and slapped me on the shoulder. It hurt, but not too bad.

“Gorloth is orc. Runt is human, maybe?” I laughed, a real one. He joined me. “Maybe not human. Still look mostly human. Humans, orcs fight.”

“Why would I fight someone who is helping me?” He nodded.

“I no want fight Runt.”

“I don’t want to fight anyone. I want to live a peaceful life building these things.” He nodded. The sun was starting to set and with his help I was able to fix up one of the Knights. It was a gleaming green with an ornate head. I would have to build a doll of it tonight or maybe just the head. It was the only real interesting part. “Good night friend Gorloth.” he slapped my shoulder. If he kept doing that, I may need to wear armor to work. That may impact mana flow though.

“Good night, friend Runt.” It was a nice walk home; the air was clear and slightly warm. On entering I had hoped for dinner to be ready, sadly no. Both women were sitting at the table bored looks on their faces. The house was clean, but past that little else.

“How was your day?” I asked. Lily jumped up and ran to hide behind Orga who just looked at me blankly. I was starving as I had forgotten to eat today. “Did you two have a good lunch?”

“No, you didn’t tell us we could eat.” I started yelling at them. It was a bad call with Lily as she cowered.

“You two are required to eat three meals a day. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. With or without me.” Their collars started to glow, and both nodded. Orga started cooking. “Orga please make a large meal for us as I forgot to eat today too.” She looked at me with her one good eye. Suddenly she walked closer to me sniffing. “Oh, we got a new worker. His name is Gorloth and he is an orc.” She looked at me puzzled and nodded before returning. I went to my desk and started crafting the head I had seen earlier. I would need to get sorting drawers for the parts if I kept this up. My stomach roared its displeasure when the smell of cooking food came to me. I stopped again when I heard Lily knock. Dinner was amazing and the girls joined me without complaint this time. It felt like we were a family, a bit strange, but nice. After dinner I washed up in the bathroom and went to bed.

{Lily Cottentail}

Lily heard Master lock his door again. “I now see what you mean by him being cold, but good.” Orga nodded. “Why didn’t he choose again?” Orga shrugged. “Do you think he doesn’t like us?”

“He likes you.” Orga looked away a bit dejected. Lily blushed and hopped into her own bed.

“No. If he liked me, he would choose me.” She hated that she liked the way he took care of them. The way he pretended to care. Was it pretending? It had to be. All men were evil. All humans were evil. She closed her eyes rolling over. The memory of her sister filling her heart and mind as she cried softly in her sleep. Orga had trouble sleeping thinking of the scent of the male orc on Master.

{Alex}

The next two days passed with much the same as the last one. The only real change was Orga started bringing me lunch. It was nice and I saw why once she looked at Gorloth. It seemed to be love at first sight for those two. Good for them. Why did I care? I never cared before. I thought of the other townsfolk and felt my normal cold detachment. Maybe I just didn’t like humans. All three Knights were fixed up and the caravan headed out that morning. It felt nice getting back to normal. I finished up Meathead’s Knight and weapon just before the end of the day. I walked home expecting the world to be just as peaceful as it had been the day before. I was very wrong. Walking through the door I was grabbed by a rough foul-smelling man.

“Go ahead and scream little piggy. You picked a house far away from others so we can have as much fun as we like.” his breath bad smelled and dirt clung under his nails. I saw one man holding Orga and another had a knife to Lily’s neck. “You are going to put this collar on, or we are going to rough you up until you do. Fingers can be healed. If you are lucky, we may even let you watch us have fun with these things before we return them to their proper place.” Something snapped in me. I was going to lose everything again. More than that they planned to hurt or even rape what was mine. Lily was crying as she looked at me. I smiled and she passed out. The thug tossed her dead weight aside. I relaxed my shoulders and lightly tapped the man’s hand. I felt every atom of metal in his body and sent it all to his heart and let it expand outward into spikes. Every particle of zinc, copper, and all that iron moved on my command. It looked like a sea anemone and I had it spin in place. His heart and lungs were gone in the blink of an eye. He let go falling to the floor coughing up blood. That wasn’t nice. Lily would have a hard time cleaning it up. I walked calmly to the next one who had tossed Orga aside and was running at me. A wooden club in his hand. I just stepped into his charge and lightly touched his chest. This time I sent a murder ball into his brain and let it do its deadly work. The light in his eyes just went out. He fell to the floor twitching slightly as blood leaked from his ears and eyes. That was better. Less mess. I felt cold and detached.

“What did you do to my men?” The thug with the knife demanded. I just looked at him, my eyes wide and huge evil grin on my face. I didn’t care. He screamed and came at me with the knife raised. I just stood there. The moment it touched my skin I let it turn into a liquid and snake it’s way to my hand. His hand still hit my chest and it did hurt, but not as much as the knife would. I grabbed his hand and slapped it to the table. The only reason I was able to pull this off is because of how stunned he was about his missing weapon. The ball of mostly pig iron became a spike and I slammed it down on the top of his hand letting it send out shards, pinning his hand to the table. He screamed and cried as I made sure he couldn’t leave us until I was happy. I turned to Orga.

“Go get a guard and tell them what happened.” her collar glowed, and she ran out of the house. I sent a spike up the man's hand as he screamed. “There now. I’m going to be right back so we can have a nice talk.” I picked up Lily. She shouldn’t wake up to see me torture someone. My bed was closer, so I tucked her in to it and went back to my new toy. “How many do you have outside town.” He was crying as he cursed at me.

“A lot, a whole fucking army.” I just kept smiling.

“Now I know that was a lie. Just the three of you then. Stupid, you should leave one behind just in case.” I touched the spike and let it send a shard a little higher up the man’s hand. He howled and swore.

“Just kill me already.” I laughed and this time I really felt evil, down in the core of my soul. I was the monster now that my parents feared. This was the darkness that would leak out.

“No. you are just a message my toy. I know who you work for and know what they had planned. I need you alive and suffering. If Fat Man tries anything like that again. I will do to his pecker what I am now doing to your hand. I let the metal spin slowly. He screamed. I turned to see a very worried Bullock standing in the doorway. He was followed by guard two and six. All were looking at me in shock. Bullock stepped in over the body of the first man I had killed and then over to me. He put a hand on my shoulder

“Ease up there. We got him now.” I removed the metal and went to my desk. Lily was still sleeping on my bed. I felt wrong. Detached fully from the world and even my own self. I had killed two men easily. They didn’t stand a chance. It was all just too easy. Bullock came to me and sat on the edge of the bed. He handed me a flask. “Drink up lad. You need it after that.” I took it coldly. I couldn’t put my mask on. What was wrong with me? Tilting my head back I took a good swig of it and nearly threw up. It was cheap strong whiskey. “Tommy had that on him. It’s rotgut, but it does the job. Tell me what happened.” I looked over at him feeling it hit my system. It felt warm and calming like a hot blanket fresh from the dryer on a cold day. No wonder people could get addicted to this stuff.

“They came in, wanted to enslave me. I killed them.” He nodded.

“You did right by you and yours.” he stood, and I tried to hand the flask back. “Keep it. You need the drink tonight. It will keep the shadows away.” He left and I still felt cold. I got up and saw that the guards had removed the three. Orga was cooking in the kitchen. My head was spinning from the drink, but I took more in. She looked over at me worried.

“Master. Are you okay?” I just nodded coldly. Was I okay? No. I was tired. I lay my head on the table and fingered the holes in it from the thug's hand. The blood was still damp. I was upset but couldn’t fully handle it. I felt a hand on my back and looked up into Orga’s eye. She smiled at me. “Bed.” she helped me up and pulled me to my bed. I was forgetting something. It didn’t matter though. She helped me undress and pushed me under the covers tucking me in like a small child. “I will stand guard tonight. You rest Master.” Something warm was in the bed with me and I wrapped around it. It was soft and smelled nice. I started petting it and felt it draw closer to me. The darkness lifted lightly, and I was able to sleep.

I was in grade school again. Tobby Henson had just stolen my Gundam kit. I had worked hard to get it put together and just wanted to show it off. He was laughing at me, insulting me, as he broke it. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. Why would no one help me? He was hurting my treasure.

{Lily Cottontail}

Lily woke in Master’s bed. He was holding her. She gasped and tried to pull away. The last thing she remembered was the thugs that were talking about raping her and Orga and then his smile. It felt so wrong. It was a look that haunted her deeply. He was broken. Why was she here? Did he choose her after dealing with the thugs? How did he deal with them? The room was dark, and she calmed down when she noticed that she still had her dress on, and he was sleeping. She looked down when she heard a strange sound. He was crying. Why was he crying? “Don’t… hurt… her.” he was talking in his sleep. Was it about her? It triggered something deep inside her. A motherly instinct pulled at her heart, and she pulled him close and started stroking his hair. It was sweet, it felt right, and he needed her. Something about this cold and broken man needing her. Orga was sitting in the living room, so Lily knew she was safe. She just held her master and went back to sleep.

{Alex}

Something felt and smelled nice. I must have had a woman over the night before I opened my eyes to see a mop of white and something long white and fluffy covering my eyes. It was the oversized ear of a rabbit. I know that ear. My hand squeezed something firm and round. It had to be her ass. This was bad. Had I taken advantage of the poor girl in the night. Not good. She would hate me. Why did I care if she hated me. If I moved, I would wake her. Fuck. I was rock hard and had to pee. For the first time I felt worried about what was about to happen. Her eyes fluttered and she looked at me. My hand squeezed involuntarily. She blushed and this is the part where she screams and calls me every name she can think of. That didn’t happen. She blushed and I quickly removed my hand and got up. Why was I nude. She looked at me shocked. Her eyes moved to my manhood as I turned away to find my pants. Why was I embarrassed? I’ve been nude in front of women before. This wasn’t anything new. She just lay there watching me as I ran off to the bathroom. I had a mild hangover but felt mostly normal. The darkness was still there, but not as bad as last night. I came out to find Orga sitting in the living room looking out the window. “Better Master?” I nodded. Thank you for standing watch. She stood and started breakfast.

“You can go get some rest if you need it.” she shook her head. The kitchen looked like a tornado had gone through it and I started picking things up. I had pocketed the collar and planned to take a close look at it later. There were still blood stains on the floor, and I may need someone to come fix the table. Lily came out a short while later and looked at the ground blushing madly. It didn’t feel like I had sex. Did I do something else to her? I swear drunken me cannot be trusted. Why was I so flustered? This world had better not be messing with me again. I like my mind. I like who I am, and I am no fucking white knight hero. We ate together and I couldn’t look at Lily and she refused to look at me. I would have to handle all this after work. I got ready and ran out the door.

{Lily Cottontail}

Lily didn’t know how to react. She had woken to find Master’s hand on her ass. It felt good, but it shouldn’t and then watching him get dressed. She was being a very bad bunny. He had saved her though. She could see that from the stains on the floor. Orga told her everything that had happened and about pushing a very drunken master to bed with her. “He needed you.” Orga finished. Lily blushed all the way to the tips of her ears and tried to hide a smile as she hid behind her ears. Master had needed her. Her heart raced and she just went to get changed. The blood would need to be cleaned and then laundry. She stopped when she was alone and took a deep sniff of her dress. It still smelled like him. He smelled so good. Maybe he was a good master? No, all men are evil. All humans are bad. Don’t be fooled Lily. He did look cute trying to hide how excited he was to be in bed next to her. No, bad bunny.

{Alex}

I went to work and was called into the office by Boss. He frowned at me. “Runt, you okay? I just blinked and nodded. “I’m sending Gorloth home with you for the next few days in case they try something else.” I scoffed at him.

“Only an idiot would try something after what I did.” He frowned at me blinking. “Fair point. That being said, can I start tinkering tomorrow?” He nodded and smiled.

“Just don’t blow up my shop.” I looked away. It wasn’t completely impossible that something may not blow up. “Let me make this clear Runt. Don’t blow up my shop.”

{Bocort Ges Trvost}

It was early morning in the jail cell as Bocort sat in his cell. His hand hurt like a bitch. That monster had ruined it and the guards refused to let a healer look at it. He looked up hearing the sound of a small bell. Another monster stood in front of him now. A white mask that seemed to mock and mimic that bastards face looked at him through the bars. He was dressed in a short black cloak that seemed to just barely cover his hands. His pants and shirt were black making him look like a floating mask. White gloved hands reached out to grab the bars. It was very unsettling and Bocort wet himself like a frightened little child. The assassin Shadow was here. He spoke in a voice that seemed to hold back laughter. “For the time of our meeting, you will be unable to lie. In exchange I will set you free. Do you agree?”

“Yes. Master Shadow.” Bocort said as he felt the weight of the contract settle around his neck.

“Good what happened?” Bocort started mumbling. “Speak up please. I can’t hear you.”
“We went to the house like we were told and waited for the mage to come home. We had his women and were using them as leverage like we normally do. He came in and Kenta grabbed him. He touched Kinta’s hand and he died spewing up blood.” Bocort took a breath. “Hboso tried to attack him and he touched Hboso and he died. Blood leaking from his eyes and ears.” He started crying. “Then I tried to stab him and he turned my knife into a spike. He told me he knew everything and even brought up,” Shadow put a finger to his lips.

“Let’s not say his name here in case others are listening, if you please.” Bocort just nodded.

“Right. He just tortured me and told me if we come after him again, he would do to the bosses manhood, what he had done to my hand. My hand is ruined.”

“I bet that hurts. Before I set you free, is there anything else of value you think I may need to know?” Bocort swallowed hard.

“When he did it, His face looked just like your mask.”

“Interesting.” Shadow let go of the bars and turned. “Thank you Bocort. You have been a great help. Now let me hold up my end of the bargain.” Bocort fell to one side. Shadow laughed softly. Well most of Bocort fell to one side. His head rolled to the other side of his cell. “I am a man of my word after all.” He laughed fading into the shadows. The last thing seen was his grinning mask.