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Dark Lord Substitute

Chapter 17

By Draconicon

Once the ambush was taken care of, the rest of the capital city fell quickly. The majority of the Deep Den forces had been focused on taking out the Dark Lord, and when it failed, their morale, such as it was, rapidly declined. Those that maintained the will to fight were forced into a fighting retreat, while a majority of the forces on the street laid down their arms, knowing that there was little point in taking it further.

The fact that this was a shift from the script that he had encountered so far was not lost on Bertram. Something had changed in this battle, something that seemed against the will of the universe as displayed thus far. It had started with Zelda, and it had continued with the other side being allowed the chance to surrender in the first place.

Things were changing, but whether they were changing for the better, he didn't know, and he doubted that he would get any answers on that until much, much later.

He returned to the Indomitable. With Data still in his ear, he was filled in on the situation on the ground.

All enemy command centers have been captured. Admiral Tardak is sweeping the atmosphere as we speak for any possible evacuation vehicles.

"Make sure that he has everything that he needs to ensure that nothing gets through," the ram said. "I don't want anything getting out and starting this war up again."

Understood and taken care of.

"Data?"

Yes, sir?

"...Thank you for saving my life."

You are the Dark Lord. That is my responsibility.

"Is that all?"

...I am unsure, sir.

"That's fine. I think we all are."

He sighed as the elevator came to a stop, the doors opening at the Indoctrination labs. Data went silent as he stepped out, joining the other techs and looking down at the lab. Only one person occupied the floors inside, and she was, well, furious. As expected, he supposed; Zelda had surrendered herself into custody, but she was not at peace with what had happened. Or rather, with what hadn't happened.

He hadn't died.

She hadn't gotten what she wanted.

He hadn't killed her in revenge.

Bertram glanced sideways. Without his suit, he felt...off. For all that he had hated the helmet among the men, he had become almost used to it, finding an odd sort of comfort in the myth that the helmet and the power that the suit gave him. Lacking that, he felt like he was just...just like one of them. Admittedly, that was something that he wanted to encourage, but it was odd to feel that right then.

"How long has she been exposed to the signal?" he asked.

"About two hours, sir," the rat tapping the holograms on the console said. "She's not shown much in the way of brainwave deviations yet."

"No, she wouldn't have. Too strong-willed. Too angry."

"We're thinking of shifting up the tonal frequencies, seeing if we can keep her distracted enough to let the Indoctrination in."

"No." The ram shook his head. "She's going to be like this until she gets her say. Might as well let her have it."

"Sir?"

"I'll be going in."

"...General Twist recommended against it. He wanted -"

"He is not Dark Lord of the Void. Nor was he the one stabbed in the back."

"...Yes, sir."

"I'm going in. Unlock the lab."

"Yes, sir."

The rat tapped a few points on the hologram while Bertram took the lift the rest of the way down. He took a deep breath in, then let it out just as slowly.

There were those in the armies of the Void of the opinion that he should have Zelda executed. If it wasn't for the fact that there were too many dangers for the army moving forward, and the fact that they were only just finishing off one war and getting ready for another, he would have considered it. As it stood, there were not sufficient officers for all fronts, and he didn't dare start something without the correct number of personnel.

More than that, she had been one of those that stood with him from the start. For all that she had lost her faith in him, for all that she had turned on him, there was still something there. He wanted to see if it could be recovered. And if not...

If not, she had done enough to earn life rather than death. Indoctrination would, at least, be a better punishment than taking her out and shooting her in the head.

The lift stopped, the doors opened, and the misty floor of the Indoctrination lab loomed before him. Bertram paused, reaching to his belt and tossing a credit chit forward. It flew forward -

Crack.

And then got slapped to the ground. He grabbed Zelda by the wrist, stepping inside while maintaining his restraining grip.

"One would think that you had learned by now," he said.

"Let go of me."

"No."

He tightened his grip, holding her wrist until she winced. It was not strength, but rather a simple application of pressure to the proper point, sufficient to keep her from trying to bring her other limbs to bear. For all that he was the Dark Lord and she wasn't supposed to be allowed to take him down - as her lack of ability to shoot him before had shown - he wasn't about to trust his life to that sort of thing. The world had changed; he couldn't take things for granted to the same degree anymore.

Backing her away from the door, he took a moment to look her up and down. Like all the prisoners that were put into the Indoctrination labs, she had been stripped of all clothing. Gray-brown fur greeted him, as well as a somewhat significant swell in her chest. A slightly larger-than-average clit stuck out from between her legs, and while he could not smell much in the way of pheromones, he was aware that they were there, a factor despite the way that they didn't have any effect on him. She was...curvaceous, he supposed, though there was a great deal of muscle around her hips and core, as well.

She gritted her teeth as he continued holding her hand, and finally grunted against the pain.

"Are you going to...mmph...are you just going to torture me?" she asked.

"No. I'm going to ask you something."

"Mmph...let me guess. Why?"

"Yes."

"Heh...because...because you're not...a real dark lord."

"This...is in any way surprising?" he asked, arching an eyebrow.

"Fuck...fuck..."

"I would suggest answering me, Zelda. I am not in a patient mood, and there are many things that need doing."

"Nnngh...you want the..." She huffed softly, gritting her teeth again. "You want the truth? Fine. I wanted you gone...wanted you gone because you...you're not doing...what you're supposed to do."

"I am here to be the Dark Lord. Against my will."

"Fucking - you're supposed to take over. To fight. To break everyone. Not...nnngh...not give things away!"

"Is that your problem? That I am giving things away?"

"I'm your fucking General! I was fucking first! Why the hell...why do I have to...to share?! Why are my officers...why should they...nnngh!"

She went to her knees, and he realized that his grip had only gotten firmer the longer that she talked and the more venom she had to spray. Bertram slowly eased up on the pressure, not completely, but enough to allow her to breathe. As she recovered, however, he had his own thoughts to sort through.

She wanted me dead, merely because I was not leaving her at the top? A pathetic reason...

But one that was useful enough to know. It was...oddly enough, a realistic reason. Many politicians had been toppled by those immediately under them, just because they felt they weren't getting the rewards that they deserved, that the politician was giving away the status that they felt belonged to them to those that hadn't earned it.

Bertram knew the Rules for Rulers. There were those that acted as your keys to power, your people that did what was needed. If they were happy, then you were secure. If they were not, then you were not. No matter how happy the people were, there were only so many of them, and so many ways that they could stand up and work for him. By ignoring that, by just having faith in his own invincibility, he had opened the door to allow dissatisfaction to enter his ranks, and through that, to allow her to see his removal as the only way for her to be satisfied again.

Raising someone too high was as bad as not raising someone enough. They were not prepared for the rank that they achieved, the rewards and treats that they had.

Zelda looked up at him, her eyes still full of hate, but that fire was slowly disappearing. She had said what she'd been harboring, and by saying it, feeling it, she was losing her grip. It was the way of things; it took far more effort to keep things the same once you acknowledged your feelings on something than it took to change it.

"I see," Bertram said. "I believe I understand, now..."

"Hmmph...we'd have been better off -"

"If you had summoned anyone other than me, you would be dead. And your brother, if he was lucky, would be in prison."

Her jaws dropped. Before she could respond, he looked up at the viewing deck.

"Begin Indoctrination. Program Z-Z-8-1."

"What...what is that?" Zelda grunted.

"A program that I wrote for you after the failed attempt to shoot me."

"You...you..."

"I had hoped that you would see sense. That hope, I see now, was misplaced." He knelt down, looking her in the eye. "I wanted things to be better, Zelda. I hoped that you, perhaps, would the pragmatism to see that there are things that have to be changed. That things can't stay the same."

"..."

"The Allied Systems have locked out all change. They have written the script that makes it so that we have to be 'the bad guys', because we bring change. Because we want things to shift from the way that they have always been."

"And you're just - you're making them the same. You're treating them like...like..."

"Like allies?" Bertram chuckled. "Hardly. I'm just treating them like people. They are still being Indoctrinated. They are still being brought into the fold the same way that the Dark Lord has, apparently, always done. But they are being brought in with a chance. I have seen the histories. I have read them. And if I do what other Dark Lords have done, I will die. I cannot afford to have a bias. I cannot afford to do things stupidly, selfishly, angrily. I have to do everything as pragmatically and practically as possible.

"For instance. The selfish part of me would like to see you executed for your crimes." Her eyes widened. "But I will not. I don't have so many officers that I can completely get rid of one. But I have sufficient numbers to put one on the bench. To remove you from duty as a punishment, and make you into something else."

"You...no...no! Don't do this to me!" she screamed, grabbing his arms. "You - nnngh!"

It had already started. She slumped to her knees, holding the sides of her head as the Indoctrination signal hit her. He could see that it was already taking effect, making her pant harder, her cheeks burning, her brainwaves and body chemistry shifting to make her run hotter. Lines of clear fluid began to run along her thighs, and her nipples started popping out through her fur. He reached down, tilting her head back, making her look up at him.

"I am the Dark Lord. I choose what happens to those under my command. And I have chosen to punish you with indignity. Death would not make you learn; it would merely make you into something akin to a martyr, a tale that would strengthen the enemy. I give you the chance to learn...and the punishment that you hate."

"Nnngh...mmmph..."

"Until I am satisfied that you have learned your lesson, I am removing you from command...and I am putting you under mine...and those that I name," Bertram said, taking her hands from his arms, leaving her sagging down on her knees. Her eyes tried to glare, but she was too much in the grip of her needs.

His program had been simple. He knew how much she hated the idea of being a slave. He had no need for labor, so he had programmed her Indoctrination to turn her into something sensual, something running too hot and horny to be able to think of things that would hurt him. Indignation, embarrassment, humiliation would add to that consuming fire, and she would slowly be brought lower and lower, reminded of what she had once been, and of what he was turning her into.

You hate it...and you love it. You rose high, higher than you ever imagined once you pretended that you were nothing but a soldier. And now, I'm taking that from you...

She would hate him, probably. If she could feel much beneath the commands even now settling into her brain, she would hate him. And he wouldn't blame her.

But he had to show her that he would not tolerate her stupidity. And if it meant breaking her down and building her back up again...then that was what he'd have to do.

The program was already doing everything that he had asked of it, judging by the scent in the air. He gripped her by the back of the neck, forcing her to look him in the eye. That fiery fury was slowly dying down, drifting away as the Indoctrination signal filtered through her skull and started putting the screws to her angry, previous sense of self.

"I will see you...either made better...or made useful. One or the other, Zelda. And it will be up to you which you let it be."

"Ah...ah..."

"You're already feeling it, hmm?"

"Nnngh...I...ah..."

She was hot and wet, alright. Her clit was throbbing, her pussy juicing down to her feet. She wanted something, wanted anything that she could get. She started to reach for his pants, and he stopped her, letting go of her neck to grip her hands. The hyena groaned in utter agony, thrusting her hips against nothing, trying to get herself any closer to him to get what she could get.

And he was having none of it.

Pushing her back, he stepped away, leaving her in the labs. She screamed after him, but the doors closed, shutting out the sound. He went up a level, coming out in the control room, only to find Mark waiting for him.

The other Twist sibling looked down at his sister, shaking his head. The hyena looked shattered, hurt, and even angry...and it took Bertram a moment to realize that the other General was angry at his sibling, not at what the ram had done to correct it. Even so, he walked over to the other man slowly, giving him space. Mark didn't turn away.

"I'm sorry that this ended up being necessary," Bertram said.

"I can't believe she ended up like this..."

I can, he thought, but didn't say it.

"She always...she wanted it better for us."

"Most do. They don't realize that there is space for most people...if the top isn't too high."

"I...I don't know." Mark shook his head. "I always thought..."

"What? That the entirety of the hyena species would be brought to the height of society?"

"...When you say it that way..."

"Society can function in tiers, or it can be a single level," he said, turning to the screen again, looking at the various parts of the program that he'd written. "And I do not mean in terms of authority. There will need to be those that have a final say, or there will not be anything done. No, I mean in terms of how much each person has. And the greater the difference between the tiers, the more that you have to shove individuals to the bottom. Our resources, the space we have for individuals, the claims on resources that each tier takes, means that our finite existence requires that any high, overly-privileged upper tier create a lower tier of massively suffering individuals.

"To uplift an entire species to lord over the rest of the universe, to give that sort of life, would require a massive, suffering underclass. You literally cannot achieve this by any other way."

"...I thought we were supposed to be the bad guys, but that sounds awful..."

"And it is not dissimilar to what the Allied Systems have already done. Their hierarchy, their system of setting one species over another, works only because the upper species have a means of enforcing it, and a more plentiful lower species to fund it. Without that, it would have fallen apart long ago. What I am doing is ripping that down, bit by bit."

"And leaving yourself as the Dark Lord?"

Mark said it jokingly, but it was something that Bertram was still considering. The privileges of his station were quite enjoyable, something that he was glad to have, but they were hardly the driving force of his existence. Life was. Staying alive was.

But once that was achieved? Well...that opened up the door to different possibilities. Until then?

"I will stay Dark Lord until this is done. And after...it will depend on what still has to be done."

Mark didn't say anything. Instead, he looked at his sister, shaking his head, his cheeks burning as the female hyena turned around, falling to all fours and desperately rubbing herself. She touched herself, teased herself, screamed in rage and nonsense at the scanners. Sometimes, she called for help. Other times, she begged for nobody to look. She changed what she was asking for every few seconds, and it never made sense for long.

"You'll...leave her like this?" Mark asked.

"For now. It is meant to be a punishment."

"For how long?"

"...For as long as it takes to find out whether she can be fixed."

"..."

"Are you okay?" the ram asked.

"I...I'm feeling...weird."

"In what way?"

"...I'm..."

"Yes?"

"I'm...curious..."

Bertram looked at the results of the Indoctrination inside the lab, then back at Mark. He looked down, saw the other man's bulge, and then looked up again.

"Not about her, I assume."

"Wha - no, no, not...not that. I was more..."

"Yes?"

"I...Well...if you could do that to her...what...what would you do to me?"

The ram smiled ever so slightly. So, it was something like that. An unspoken urge, something that had been awakened. An attraction, in its own way, something that had come out after seeing just what the Dark Lord was willing to do when it was needed.

He filed that away. It could be rather interesting later.

For now -

Beep, beep. The console for the labs caught his attention. He gestured at the blinking icon, and a hologram of Admiral Tardak appeared.

"We have some serious problems, sir," the badger said.

"Some kind of counter-attack?"

"A major one. Meet me at the bridge."

He nodded, and the icon flicked off. There was no commiserating about a lost opportunity. After all, they were both professionals. If anything, it was time to get back to work.

Further experimentation could wait.

The End

Summary: Zelda Twist is given a lesson, and Bertram shows a little more of himself, and what he plans to do.

Tags: F/solo, Nudity, Hyena, Ram, Various Species, Sci-fi, Series, Mind Control, Forced Arousal, Humiliation, Wet, Begging, Masturbation, Corruption,