1

Glass shattered, and two figures spilled out onto the street. It was a cybershop storefront, busy during the rush hour of the late night, and the street was lit neon by flashing signs in vibrant colors.

A man stood from the glass, groaned, and held the gash on his head.

Before him stood not a thief or a robber or a robo-bounty hunter. It was a gimp.

Arms bound to its back by straps of black leather, its mouth held open by a ball gag, its eyes blinded by a fetish mask.

The man screamed.

The gimp groaned as if a zombie and took wide, wild steps to crunch over the broken glass--ignoring the shrieks and shouts of people nearby--and over to the man.

The man clasped his mouth shut. He stared in fear and shock.

The gimp stood unmoving. Its head twitched at any hint of a sound.

An electric hovercar flew past.

The gimp braced over with a grunt.

A far door hissed open.

The gimp snapped over to stare.

The man tried to crawl back, away from this terror. His foot pressed on a shard of glass, and it cracked.

The gimp bent back in a sexual war cry, muffled by the gag, and it stomped down to the man and thrust, no, attacked the man with its leathered ass. It would at first appear as a dance, an animalistic mating ritual, but to all who knew the threat of the gimps, knew that this would be the death of that man.

Few have survived the reverse pelvic thrust of a gimp.

The gimp’s ass slammed against the man, crushing bones and ripping skin, pinning him to the asphalt and pushing him away, past his own screams, further into the dark.

He screamed.

I roared. "Unhand him, you filthy degenerate!"

The terrified bystanders snapped over to me, and the gimp paused, eased his head back to look, and saw my massive, muscular, sexual frame pound over. Even without sight, he could feel the strength of my mighty forearms as I reared back the Whip of Submission--

--and cracked it against the gimp's rear.

It howled in pleasure and pain.

Some bystanders began to cheer at me once they realized. My own black leather outfit told them of my experience, but not of a simple household gimp, no. I was a gimp hunter. A Dominator.

The gimp, enraged and confused, shook as if electrified, and charged headlong at me.

I reached for the hilt of my most trusted weapon--

The Black Orchie.

It was a rubber dick. About 12 inches long, thick, the cyberfibers made it as hard as it was squishy and meat-like. The perfect weapon to take down a mere wandering gimp.

The gimp spun and thrust his ass.

I dodged and crossed him with the Black Orchie. It smacked him hard across his chest, audibly knocking the air right out of his lungs, and he toppled over.

Unconscious.

I rested my foot on his back and stood proud in the chilled night air of Cybercity, basking in the glow of the neon lights, listening to the busy sounds of a city safe from the gimp menace.

"Th-thank you," said the wounded shopkeeper. He may have been scarred from the experience, but he was no less grateful. "But I must ask. Why did you not just kill him?"

I looked at him as a proud, noble warrior would. "I simply punish the gimps," I said. "They do not consent to death, so I do not kill them, but because you did not consent to their degenerate shenanigans, I put this one in its place."

"Ah," said the shopkeeper. "I... suppose I understand. Th-thank you." He offered a half-bow, then crunched over the broken glass and back into his shop.

The crowds began to disperse, some still filming with their cyberphones, others flashing pictures, some even clapping. I was well-known, after all.

Since the coming of those mysterious, zombie-like gimps, few had the power to fight back against such a menace. I was one of those few. A dominator by trade, it was as though I was born and bred for such a cause. Perhaps it was fate. Perhaps it was destiny that I had come here at this hour and at this time to save just one more innocent man, and maybe it was written by the soul of the world for me to feel the hum of cyberguns aimed at my back.

I turned carefully.

Several newcomers aimed their weapons at me, but when my face bore down at them, they faltered and lowered their guns. They wore black and gold uniforms, private security and contractors that the aristocrats typically hired. This was a common occurrence.

"For what do I owe the pleasure?" I said to them.

"Victus Dominator?" asked the lead man. He seemed unnerved by my domineering presence.

I looked down at him. "Yes."

"I, uh, have a job for you," the security officer said.

"Oh? You require a master?" I crossed my arms. "I charge 30,000 cybercredits per hour."

The officer glanced at his troops nearby. "No, sir. Not me. The Countess requires your... counsel."

This was not a request for just a regular dom, for I was not a regular dom, and the Countess not just a regular aristocrat.

My face reflected the seriousness of the matter. "Very well. Take me there."

2

The Countess's tower thrust high from the earth, modeled in the ancient contemporary fashion. Though many here in Cybercity preferred the cyberstyle of flashy curves and hard angles, it seemed the Countess preferred a classic skyscraper.

Beyond our reflections in the elevator glass was the city skyline shrinking beneath us. The horizon stretched as we rose further, a seemingly formless dark beneath the night sky, and the city below an oasis of light in an endless black desert.

Lights blinked past as the elevator hummed skyward, almost at an alarming pace.

A private guard coughed behind me.

The elevator slowed to a stop--I felt my stomach rise from the momentum--and it dinged.

The doors behind shot open with an electric hiss.

I turned. The guards stepped aside, and I walked into a room that glittered in gold and holographic art.

The rugs lush and a tasteful red. Chandeliers of a thousand diamonds glistened above. The far wall held a long stretch of vision-glams, a hyper-realistic display of a blue sky and green plains--far removed from the world as it was now. The light of it poured into the high-ceiling room, glowing against the several couches and coffee table and solitary throne that stared out the observation wall and into the city below.

Typical of aristocrats of this type, to fill one's life with the fake to shake off the dreadful reality of the peasantry below. I would know. I was no different. Until the gimps came.

The elevator doors hissed shut behind me, and it dinged as it fled back down.

I was alone with her.

"You called for me," I said plainly.

"I did," she said plainly back.

With a mechanical whir, the throne click-click-clicked as it spun.

Long, slender legs. Dagger stilettos.

Dazzling black leather dress. Dominatrix in design.

Golden bangles and sparkling jewelry.

Long black hair, asymmetric in cut, pulled over a black masquerade mask.

Deep red lipstick.

"Countess Maria," I said. "They failed to mention it was you."

She glanced away as if annoyed. "Forgive me," she said. "This matter doesn't concern territories. This is about the impending threat, as I'm sure you're familiar."

I crossed my arms. "The gimps."

"Yes." Her throne clicked back around to face the artificial glow of the city.

I stepped around to stand a measure beside her, sharing the sight.

The city ran far, almost to the edge of the horizon. The Countess's tower stood nearly in its center, among several noble and aristocrat dwellings, and like a structural eruption of the earth, the core of skyrise buildings receded into multi-story homes and apartments for kilometers, a long stretch that settled further into the slums, which stretched further than eyes could see.

"It has been nearly a year since they've arrived," she said. "While we doms keep the peace within the inner city, we continue to lose territory in the outskirts and ghettos, all of us." She glanced at me but winced away. "I understand your fiefdom was lost to the gimps--"

"A needless reminder," I said.

"--but nonetheless, we nobles must settle our petty conflicts and tackle this strange foe as a united force." She looked at me and held her stare. "You and I are the only surviving doms who may bring these wayward gimps under heel."

I scoffed. "When the first gimp horde arrived, I petitioned for support from the other nobles, but none offered. This is the result of such vapid ignorance."

She looked back out to the city. "I know."

"And now you ask for my aid? Now that your own domain is threatened?"

"Yes."

I took in a sharp breath. It was difficult to speak to an old rival on these terms, but even so. "Have you even a plan?"

"I do," she said. "My network has traced the origin of the gimps to a tower far beyond the city, somewhere along the Radiant Coast."

I raised my eyebrow. "I know of only one such tower."

She nodded. "Caster Jones," she said, just as I thought it to myself.

"The council exiled him long ago," I said. "You suggest he is somehow behind the gimp horde?"

"Yes."

I took in a sharp breath. "And what do you suggest we do about this?" I asked, already knowing what she'd answer.

"I need you to investigate."

"Do it yourself," I said. "Someone needs to protect the streets."

"That someone should be me," she said. "It is my territory, after all."

It stung hearing that, but she was right. It was on my honor as a fellow dom that I respect her dominions. Had my own not been overrun by the gimp horde, I'd be there instead, patrolling the streets against villainous gimps.

"Very well," I said. "But in accordance with the Law of Doms, I require payment."

She nodded over to the door. A guard stood there--I hadn't heard him enter--and he held a small device.

"The Law of Doms is an antiquated custom," she said. "It will die with us, but given how predictable you are, I knew to come prepared."

I huffed a short laugh. "You know me well."

"Not all of you," she said.

3

My cyberbike roared with a deep, guttural power. Neon pinstripes pulsed with light, and the heavy tires gripped hard the pavement as I raced down the highway.

The neon storefronts of fashion and jewelry boutiques blitzed past, fading into laundromats and simple grocery corners that were packed with cyberthugs smoking their cybersmokes. The sight of me pulled stares from them as I zipped by.

And the squalor of the middle-class homes bled into the slums and the ghettos, shacks first built from concrete government projects, then fading further into sheet metal roofs and clay houses.

For hours, it was all I could see. The roads changed from carbon-asphalt mesh to concrete, cracked and pitted, and beyond--now passing the last of the slum houses--the vast and stretching trash desert.

Mounds upon mounds of garbage, almost as old as history, forming an ocean of sorts, with waves of trash cresting, ebbing and flowing, multicolored bits of plastic and torn metal. What paper had remained had long returned to the earth, decayed by the acid rain or the scorching heat of the trash desert.

The smell of mold and rot hit me hard, so I donned my Dominator mask and continued on. The road now a patchwork of ancient pavement and dirt, and my cyberbike thumped and rattled over the rugged terrain.

Some lived out here, the poorest of the poor. The invalids, the destitute, the cybersqualors. Those who were unfit for the cyberutopia, or those of lower than common birth. Hearing the deep gurgling roar of my motorcycle, some ventured out from their trash-built homes and stared slack-jawed. Someone of my ilk hadn't been out this far in perhaps decades, and they knew if they hadn't drunk in the majestic sight of me, that they'd never have this chance again.

The trip took hours. Hours of an ocean of trash that finally resided like waves on a shore into the real desert. A land where grass once rooted throughout the vast plains, filled with trees and plants and flora, fauna, and the bounty of a healthy world, but that was so long ago, it might've just been a fairytale. All that remained here was the far and featureless desert, the blurry heat distortion, the gusts of hot breath wind that pulled sand and dust into eddies.

Traction was low. My tires ripped through the sand but struggled to drag through. With a pull of a lever, treads clacked out and formed over my cyberbike wheels, pulling into terrain mode. It worked--I had never done it before--and I continued on.

The heat was unbearable. My forehead sweat and soaked into my black leathers, and the scorching rushing wind offered no favors.

Another hour passed until I noticed it.

A figure standing out in the desert. Alone. Black and unmoving like a statue.

I slid to a stop, casting a wave of sand, and I stared, squinted my eyes against the blinding sun and through the blurry heat distortion. I couldn't see what it was. A person? A statue? A mirage?

I pulled out my cyberbinoculars and looked through the heads-up display, little numbers and symbols to identify what it was.

It was unknown. No match to anything in any database. Not a criminal, not a citizen, perhaps not even a person.

And that alone gave me my answer.

I tucked the binoculars away and revved my engine.

It was a gimp.

Its head yanked over to the sound of me, then--unexpected--it turned on its heels to sprint away.

How?

I had never seen a gimp show such... intelligence, but beyond that, it was fast!

It ran over a dune and disappeared on the other side.

My cyberbike, even with the all-terrain mode activated, wouldn't be able to hand the loose sand of those dunes, so I went around.

And I found nothing but the endless bluish-green waters of the sea--the Radiant Coast.

I had made it.

The water glistened in the sunlight, and faintly--yes, I could hear it--the waves crashed on the shore. It drew an emotion out of me, something I hadn't felt in so very long, perhaps something from my childhood, or from a past life far removed from a dying earth. My deepest human instinct demanded that I go out to that water, to wade my bare feet in its cold embrace to fight against the heat of the day, to splash in the water, and to make little sandcastles on the strand.

But such a thing was impossible. It would be a death sentence. The water there, the entire ocean, was hostile to all life, and no such living thing could survive near it for long.

Except one--that old mage Caster Jones.

Now was the perfect time to use the Countess's gift. I pulled out the sensing device, flipped open the visor, and scanned the shoreline. The gimp I had been chasing was no issue, as he would die in this desert regardless, the poor, lost thing. The device fit around my wrist like a watch, but the targeting visor aimed as I pointed, beeping slowly, then like an alarm as I played hot-cold with it.

The beeping hits its climax--there, to the right--and I took off toward it.

The tower was hidden beyond a crowd of dunes, a leaning, haphazardly built thing, with a conical roof and awnings propped by scavenged materials from the trash ocean.

It was quiet, but I was on guard.

If Caster Jones was behind the gimp invasion, he would not take kindly to my presence, regardless of our fruitful past.

I parked the cyberbike a stone's throw from the tower, and I gazed up the height of it. A wonderous structure, and I questioned how it could stay erect in such a way. That forbidden magic, surely. His alleged use of such black spells and hexes and curses had brought him here, exiled to such a place. None among the nobles expected him to thrive, however.

Armed with the Black Orchie, I kicked the door open, ready to attack.

Dust swirled into the darkness, caught by the glow of the sun pouring in behind me.

The tower was empty.

I held my breath.

The tower was silent.

I stood alone in a dusty, abandoned room. Spider webs along the ceiling, a dirty couch and a coffee table with layers of dust. Old magazines were left there, dug out from the trash ocean, probably, the covers sporting some ancient celebrities once-respected centuries ago. It was, in essence, a simple living room.

I stepped further in. The floorboards creaked and groaned beneath me. It smelled like mildew and old wood. I looked back out the door. The desert stared back. The ocean waves outside crashed on the shore. I gripped hard the Black Orchie, and carefully, slowly, eased up the winding staircase.

The steps groaned so hard, I felt they would snap. Stealth was no option here. If he was home, he would've known I was coming. Instead, I focused intently on the sounds of the tower, listening for the faintest breath or cloth rubbing against cloth. If I'd hear it, I'd pounce.

But the tower was silent.

I stepped into the floor above, and I deflated at the sight. I sheathed my weaponized rubber dick and stepped into what appeared to be a laboratory. Desks filled with papers scribbled with designs and equations long forgotten. The floor grit with sand and dirt. Candles burnt to the base. Strange cybermachine prototypes piled carelessly in the corner. On the far wall, a large circle built by sections of thick metal tubes linked by devices that would seem to emit light, but the glass eyes were darkened.

It seemed the Countess's suspicions may have been right, that this could be a type of portal device, and that the gimps--as our sensors had indicated--were not originally of this world. The late Caster Jones had brought them here.

I looked over at his carcass.

He strung from the ceiling, wrapped up as if a spider had left him there, but he was bound by leather and ball gags, his body now aged and shriveled and mummified by fetishist leather.

I shook my head sadly at him. Maybe he enjoyed his final moments. Maybe the gimps did this. Maybe--my heart paused at the thought--his dominator left him there.

I stared in silence and in thought.

And something snapped at the floor below.

I ripped out the Black Orchie and pounded down the stairs.

An elongated shadow flickered past the doorway, and I eased to the living room, peered out the door, and laughed darkly at the sight before me.

An army of gimps, a forest of them, blackened by leather and gags, standing dutifully as soldiers, all led by a single person.

Countess Maria.

4

"Countess Maria," I said with crossed arms and a stance of powerful defiance. "For what do I owe this betrayal?"

She clasped on her leather mask. Only her sharp eyes and deep red lips peered through. "I always come prepared."

I smirked. "You think highly enough of me to have brought an army." I clicked my tongue and shook my head. "But gimps? It must've taken you ages to bring that many under heel."

She scoffed loudly. "Enough of this dribble." She thrust her hand at me. "Gimpslaves! Attack!"

They rushed around her and at me.

I darted out of the tower, pumping my legs through the loose sand, leaping far into a roll to put distance between us. The tower was cramped. I needed an open area.

I drew out my whip, and it sparked with an electric blue glow. It hummed with power, crackled and snapped with the electricity, and the fire of it lit my eyes and soul.

I was a dominator. Known and respected.

They would know my power.

The wave of gimps rushed over, stumbling in their sprints, a mass of fetishist animals seeking only pleasure and pain.

And that I would give them.

I lashed my whip in a wide arc.

It popped and roared as lightning, shocking the gimps into submission. They shook with the power, cried out in agony and ecstasy, and fell to their knees from the stun.

Yet that was just the front row. There were still dozens, now climbing over the defeated gimps and still at me.

It was child's play. Countess Maria had never seen my work firsthand, and as she watched--her feet stepping back in awe at me--she knew the power I could wield. The raw, pure, dominant power.

My whip lashed and curled and lashed again, my hand moving faster than the eye could see. Each pop and crack of the whip was another gimp or two or three forced into submission, and before long, I had dozens writhing in the sand in post-orgasm bliss.

I snapped the whip to the side of me in a victory pose, my muscles now bulging from my leather binds, ready to burst.

The hot wind came and left, pulling a layer of sand into dust and toward the crashing sea.

Sweat dripped and soaked into the earth.

Maria stood behind the mass of writhing gimps, motionless and unamused.

I huffed. "Draw your weapon," I said. "I demand a duel of honor."

She grinned. "I need not waste my time with such petty acts."

"You-you don't consent to an honor duel?" I shook back. "That's... blasphemy of dom-kind!"

She burst into laughter. "Oh, you poor, stupid, backwards fool." She slid off her mask and tossed it into the sand. That, too, was blasphemy, as a dom's mask was as respected as a crown.

I looked at her in disgust.

She continued, "The golden era of the doms is fading. We stand on the precipice of a new age. The age of the gimps!"

"A folly!" I snapped. "No gimp in this world could rule with the same might and respect as we."

"There needs be but one ruler," she said. "That is... the gimp queen!"

I felt a burst of wind, no, power from her. It pulsed through me, nearly knocking me back. It was something I had only felt once before, from my late mentor. It was the power of a dom nearing self-actualization! A dom enlightenment! Impossible!

This was unacceptable. If her form of self-actualization was to betray the core tenants of dom-ism, especially the tenant of consent, then she was styling herself into a tyrant, a villain. Such a thing cannot go unchallenged.

"Because you have attacked me without my consent," I said, "then, according to dom-law CM6-9, it weighs upon me to punish you." I raked out my Black Orchie from its scabbard, and it flopped and wobbled as I aimed it true. "Prepare yourself, Countess Maria!"

She glared, but her demon's smile shot daggers into me.

I charged with a war cry. My dildo-weapon hummed with power.

Her smile flashed into a grin.

And I felt it.

Raw electric power. It came from my wrist!

My eyes snapped over in a blur--it was the sensing device she gifted me--I've been had!

I grunted in pain, felt my consciousness fade, and I roared against the shock.

But it was no use. This wasn't an ordinary electric shock for taming gimps. It was a peacekeeper-grade of power to stop wizards. I was no match for it.

I dropped into the sand as a limp ragdoll.

Feet crunched through the sand toward me.

The wind blew.

A layer of dust pulled away.

The waves crashed on the shore.

I could smell burning leather, the sting of sweat, the hint of ash.

Her feet stopped beside me, but I couldn't pull my eyes from her stiletto heels.

"Oh, Victus," she said. "How pathetic you are. How pathetic you will become." She giggled. "The dawn of the gimps has arrived, and as noble and patient as I am, I've seen fit to invite you to the soiree." Her laugh rose to a crescendo, an unchained howl of villainous laughter, and it beat down at me, pounded at my senses until those, too, faded.

The dark welcomed me.

And I had lost control.

5

I woke with a start and felt immediately the pain of leather straps digging into my arms, my legs, my ribs, and my mouth. No, it was a gag!

I dangled from the ceiling, swaying gently in the frigid, stale air. The floorboards stared back. My arms were bound tight on my back, my legs locked by rope, and I grunted against it, struggled to break free.

But my power, my near-endless well of power felt...

Dry.

I didn't consent to this.

This wasn't acceptable.

I grunted against the binds just to turn my head a fraction to the side, and what I saw horrified me.

I was in a dungeon. Sex swings dangled from the ceilings like a spider's den of webs, and caught in them, some dozens of gimps hanging at various heights, swaying gentling with a passing draft, offering the faintest moans.

Were they gimps, or were they people forced to become gimps? Was this a gimp factory? A gimp conversion zone? Was the countess trying to turn me into a gimp?

Impossible. I was much too strong, much too dominant to be forced into submission.

A door clacked open and slammed shut.

Feet tapped across the wood floor, casting a hollow echo throughout the room.

They tapped closer, then stopped right beside me.

As I dangled, I could recognize the stiletto heels. It was the countess.

"Finally awake?" she said. Her voice was soft, as if not to awaken the nearby gimps.

I tried to speak, but only muffled grunts came forth. I tried to look into her eyes to spit into her soul, but I could do nothing but stare at her feet.

"There, there," she soothed. "I'm sure you'll enjoy this lifestyle far more than that vapid existence you had prior."

I felt small hands slide across my bound body, an electrifying touch, a... dominant touch! No! I refuse to be dominated by a heretic wench!

She chuckled at me, watching me writhe and struggle and flex to break free--but I couldn't.

I could feel the poisonous, sugary smile in her voice. "You can thank Caster Jones for all his hard work," she said. "With his research, we now have the power to turn even the mightiest dom into the most submissive masochist slut."

Her words were knives that dug into my skin and hearing her made me want to scream.

I didn't consent to this.

I didn't want this.

This wasn't me!

Whap!

I groaned in shock and pain. She whipped my ass! I was bare-assed! And she whipped it!

It stung like fire and--oh no, no, no--I... fuckin' liked it!

Whap!

Impossible. This couldn't be happening. I was Victus the Oppressor. Known throughout the fiefdoms as the one true dom. I couldn't be a gimp! I couldn't be a sub! I was pure! Powerful! Respected!

Whap!

I felt--by the gods--my body coming alive. It was arousing! I was getting aroused by this!

Whap!

Fuck yes.

Whap!

More.

Whap!

Punish me more.

Whap!

I need more!

Whap-whap-whap.

Waves of submissive euphoria coursed through me.

I fought it, I fought it as strong and as valiantly as a true warrior would, knowing that if I had faltered, I would be forced into submission for all eternity.

Not like this.

I couldn't let it end like this.

But it felt--

Whap.

--It felt so good.

She grunted in soft moans. Sensual. Erotic. Nearly climaxing at my shredded and ripped and reddened body as she punished me for the dirt that I was, and I loved it.

My spirit deflated. My fighting spirit fled. My consciousness, my ego, my sense of self melted away into a blank slate in which this devil dominatrix poured in a new identity.

Whap-whap-whap-whap.

And as it came, as my new sense of being, as my new sense of self came to me, so did I.

There was no longer a question. There was no longer a sense of self.

The days of Victus the Oppressor had gone.

For now, I was but a gimp.

6

It felt a century had passed before I sensed my feet pounding on familiar asphalt, crunching over familiar glass, feeling the sounds and cool air of a familiar city.

I wasn't myself.

Body heat radiated nearby. Others grunted and moaned around me, and we marched and stomped and swayed with every step toward wherever we were headed, wherever we were told to head, and we did so with utter submission.

I wasn't myself. This wasn't me.

My eyes struggled to open. Pitch black. A mask covered my face.

My mouth opened to shout, to rage against this torture, but nothing came out but muffled groans.

I wasn't me.

We moved as if one mind, a roaming pack of gimps, and someone barked an order--mistress!--and we halted. She spoke something not to us, but to the world around, with authority, with lashing, domineering might, and my knees trembled at her sound, and I wasn't me, I wasn't into this, I didn't want this, but as her voice echoed across the Cybercity storefronts and streets and into the hearts of those innocent citizens, the deepest part of me wanted this.

No! I'm not a gimp! I'm not a degenerate! I'm a dom!

Try as I might to yell out my demands to the world, that final gasp of my dom-hood, it didn't sway my most raw instinct, my most desperate eagerness to charge at an innocent man and hope he hits me with a baseball bat or a claw hammer--and if not--that I would grind my rock-hard ass cheeks on him until death.

Someone screamed--a woman's voice.

With eyes blinded by a leather mask, I snapped over to the sound, along with the countless other gimps around me.

And as one unit, one horde, one hive-minded pack of gimps, we sprinted.

I burst through glass and felt my body topple over shelves and grocery endcaps, sliding far across smooth tiles--and when I heard the screams, I came alive with masochist lust.

I rolled to my feet and charged the nearest one.

A man stood there in horror, muttering to himself in fear, then falling into a full-frontal shriek as my powerful legs propelled me far in a majestic leap--

--and landing over him.

My head snapped around at the sounds nearby. Rushing feet. Crunching glass. Distant screams. Sirens wailing from afar. Whimpering beneath me.

He was here.

My hand gripped his neck.

"N-no," he begged.

I aimed my weaponized ass cheeks to his face.

"P-please," he grunted.

This would kill him. I had trained my ass to do such things.

"I-I don't--I don't want this," he gurgled. "I don't... consent."

I froze.

Those words echoed far into my mind, into the landscape of my psyche, reaching, desperately reaching for that ego of myself, that castaway identity that was so close and yet so far, and when that lonesome me heard the call, I felt it.

I felt the rage bubble up inside me, simmering, boiling.

I didn't consent to this form of masochist degeneracy, and forcing myself upon others without their consent was the most villainous, most shameful act.

It was unbearable, and as much as the deepest, rawest part of me wanted this, an even deeper part of my very soul rejected it.

Perhaps my body had agreed to that. That maybe nonconsenting actions on others was unforgivable, and as enjoyable submissive masochism was, it could never reach its fullest potential without the golden rule of consent.

There was light to this darkness.

My eyes opened slightly.

And I felt a wind of power, a storm begin to brew inside me.

Was this it? Was I on the edge? Was this the path to sexual enlightenment?

My eyes opened further.

I released my grip on the innocent man. My hands shook, my veins bulged across my body, my muscles bulged with power.

This entire time, I had fought against it. I had locked myself in a castle of domination, but I didn't realize--

--that I was just a princess in a tower.

Fwoom.

A golden wind burst from me, knocking over lamps and desks and shelves and anyone nearby. It was power, raw and pure, and it flowed through me freely, breaking chain after chain on my ego.

This was the light to the darkness. The darkness to the light. One cannot exist without the other, for there can be no doms if there are no subs, and without subs, no doms. There is an equilibrium, a steady-state, a give and take power transaction that must exist between parties, and within the torrent, within the storm, within the hurricane that raged within my soul, a synthesis of light and dark. Of dom and sub. Of sadist and masochist.

"I'm not a gimp," I growled.

I flexed my body. The leather binds shattered off me.

My eyes opened to a grocery store torn apart, and a hundred faces staring in awe.

"I'm not a dom," I shouted.

The winds pulsed with power. It pushed away the innocent man beneath me, and he slammed against a far wall. Loose paper and debris caught up in the wind of me, and a vortex formed.

I roared, "I'm a switch!"

The grocery store exploded in golden light.

And it emanated from me as an electric mist.

I opened my eyes to a city at war with a gimp invasion.

My wolf's grin stretched across my face.

On this blessed day, we all deserved to be punished.

7

I felt the stares of a thousand eyes lock on to me. Faces frozen in shock and fear. Gimps paused from their thrusting. Citizens halted from their sprints. Guards lowered their weapons.

In the city square, Countess Maria stared from atop her cyberhorse.

I stood before them as a god, with golden glowing eyes and flowing hair, my stance mighty, my aura impenetrable, my body completely nude save for the lacy thong that wrapped my manhood.

Maria seemed wounded by the sight of me, but her resolve unwavered. She tugged the reins of her cyberhorse, and its metallic hooves clacked over in my direction. "You've self-actualized..." she said through her teeth.

"More than such a thing," I said. My voice rumbled. Windows rattled. Debris shook. "I have... transcended."

"Of course, you would find self-actualization in submission." She laughed darkly. "You fit right in with the rest of these degenerates."

I crunched over broken glass and into the city square. Between us, the aftermath of a brawl. Debris scattered, some citizens already pounded into unconsciousness, and startled gimps backing away.

"They are not degenerates," I said. "They are regenerates!"

A gust of my power pulsed out like a ripple in water, and it knocked over a few potted plants that shattered in the distance.

"I've seen it," I said. "in the darkness of such blind, such wanton submission, I had borne witness to the truth of their existence, the truth to this supposed threat."

She said nothing. Her eyes widened.

"They are cocoons!" I shouted. "They are but leather masochist fetishists now, but once they, themselves, reach self-actualization, they, too, will become noble warriors, forces of nature, gods."

"You've gone insane." She thrust her hand to me. "Gimpslaves! Grind your asses and nipples and dicks upon this poor fool until he dies!"

Silence.

The gimps stood motionless.

Her cyberhorse shook its head and neighed and stepped back. She looked around hopelessly at an army without a leader.

But they did have a leader.

My voice thundered throughout the city. "My brethren, my brothers, my comrades in lust--gimps!--kneel before your rightful master!"

"Impossible," spat Countess Maria.

The crisp night air filled with the sound of leather brushing against leather as a hundred thousand gimps throughout the city knelt at my command.

"Impossible!" she snapped. "They're gimps, for gods' sake! They need a dom!"

"No," I rumbled. "They need not just a dom, nor a fellow sub. They need a switch!"

Her cyberhorse bucked, and she ripped out her weapon from its scabbard--a long and wobbly purple dick, as much a whip as it was a blunt weapon.

I held out my hands, and light manifested into physicality. It snapped into existence, revealing a golden rod. Veins throbbed along its shaft, and it glowed with power.

I snatched it. "Vindicator XL! Consent to my wielding, and may we bring forth victory!"

Maria galloped over for the killing strike.

I swung out the weapon, a shockwave erupted beside me, destroying cars and glass storefronts, and just as she made contact, just as I could see the mad, wild anger in her eyes, and just as I could feel the grin of delight stretch across my face--

I swung hard the Vindicator.

And the city square erupted in light.

8

Shockwaves ripped through skyscrapers, towers, and shopping malls.

I burst through a glass wall.

A blur of her raced up the stairs in the tower's atrium. I had her on the run, and as she hurried back to her own dominion, to the safety of her own tower, her personal guards fired cyberguns at me--plinking off--and some challenged me with batons--I relished the pain.

I had just finished spanking another guard into submission when I caught a glimpse of her running on the balcony above.

I drew in the power around me, poured it into my legs, and pounced high--landing right in front her.

She halted, slashed at me.

I parried.

Our rubber dick weapons collided with rushing air and arcs of static electricity. Deep cuts flashed into the nearby walls, ripping through doors and railings and hanging potted plants--aftershocks of our powerful swings--and when I stepped hard toward her and aimed my killing strike, she backflipped--cut through the ceiling with her weapon--and launched above.

I chased after.

Just as I breeched the hole in the ceiling and into what seemed like a palace garden--fit inside a tower, no less--my powerful dom instincts guarded my rear. A trap! I spun mid-air to see her chambered strike, her meter-long rubber dick swelling with power, glowing blue, and it flashed! A visible beam of light zipped over, sharp as diamond--and I lowered my guard--her eyes widened--and I welcomed the strike right across my dick. My real dick.

The light slash slammed against me, then popped, crackled, fizzed away like fireworks throughout the garden, and the force of it tossed me back and almost out the far wall glass.

My dick: unscathed.

Her face reddened when she saw the untold might of my manhood. It wasn't even that I had become a sexual god; my dick was always just that hard.

I smirked.

She stomped and threw a tantrum.

"You think you're special?" she hissed. "You think just because you've attained some pointless sexual enlightenment that you can defeat me?" She barked out a laugh, and it echoed across the high-ceiling garden. "Ha! No amount of self-actualization can arm you with the power to rule an entire world." She waved out her hand to the city below. "You're no match for a queen!"

I chambered my strike and filled it with power. "We'll just see about that," I said. My body hummed, the entirety of me, and the Vindicator XL took on an eerie white glow.

A pulse of wind radiated from her, and I felt her fighting spirit come alive, flare up in power. She channeled her ultimate dom ability, and I readied myself--

--and just as she erupted in blue light, I swung my attack.

And it sparked off her roaring aura.

Incredible.

And she charged at me with furious glowing eyes, and I countered against her strike.

It shot out a shockwave that shattered the glass of the room, ruining the gardens, and throwing me high into the air and through the ceiling.

She was strong, stronger, incredibly powerful!

I landed in the executive room, an area of lush carpet and aristocrat paintings. She followed and attacked.

I dodged--missed--countered--missed--overcommitted--and she came across my chest with a heavy, downward strike.

I slammed against the floor.

Her heel slammed me further, and I felt its sharp point digging into my chest.

I opened my eyes to see her in her most dominant dominatrix form. Her mask, her red lips, her arm rearing her weapon back like a whip, its shaft glowing blue with vicious, punishing power, and in a flash, faster than my eyes could follow, she struck me over and over and over, each slap against me punishing, and strike crushing me into the dirt beneath her heel--

And I roared in sexual victory. I roared into euphoric laughter.

She jolted back and stood on guard. Her face reddened further.

"Fool," I said. "Punishing me only makes me stronger!"

I swung.

She rolled back.

The far wall erupted out in debris, and the city skyline stared back through the cloud of dust.

She darted up the stairs to the roof, threw slashes at me to slow me down, and yelled back, "Then I must deliver to you the ultimate punishment."

I grinned and followed, bounding up the stairs, deflecting her slashes with my own that erupted into firework sparks, and burst through the door to the tower rooftop.

The wind howled. Sirens wailed in the distance, and it seemed the city was on fire. The night was cold and lit with the glows of lights beneath us.

She crouched beside a large container wrapped in tarp, and when she felt my presence, she spun around.

Her hair caught the wind, and it flowed beautifully. Blood trickled over her eye, and she panted.

"Your ultimate dom ability taxes your body," I said. "It's over. Submit to me and let us be done with this charade."

"Have you considered it?" she asked. "The future of our world?"

"The status quo is stable," I said. "There is no need for a tyrant to rule over us."

She grinned. "You poor thing. You poor, stupid thing. You never knew what Caster Jones had been researching." She gripped her weapon and aimed it. "There are worlds beyond our own, worlds ripe for the taking, worlds begging to be dominated by a just and righteous dominator."

"I care not for such dreams," I said. "Conquering worlds without their consent is as much a sin to dom-kind as conquering a single citizen."

She smiled darkly. "There is but untold power in non-con domination, yet you are blind to it."

"No," I said. "It is you who have become seduced by power." I crouched into a battle stance. The Vindicator hummed and glowed. "Then prepare yourself, Maria the Pretender. Let us finish this here and now."

She sheathed her weapon, no, an ultimate stance! She meant to settle this with one last attack.

The wind howled through us.

Chills ran up my arms.

Our bodies hummed together, a rising crescendo of sexual power, and when it hit its climax, we flashed to the other side of one another.

I stood on the ledge of the tower roof, unmoving, my body frozen in a post-strike stance.

And I felt her presence do the same behind me.

Deep gashes slammed against a distant skyscraper.

A communications tower fell in the distance, metal creaking and groaning and snapping, falling far into the streets below.

I grunted in pain, a sharp stabbing throb in my side, and I fell to my knee. The pain was delicious.

I looked over my shoulder.

Countess Maria's leather outfit shredded and unraveled, and she fell limp against the rooftop floor.

Completely naked.

And her dildo-weapon flopped wetly beside her.

9

She gripped the tarp of the container to pull herself to her feet.

"It's over," I boomed. "It is time for your submission to me, to your greater power, to the one who has mastered you."

"You're too late for that." She began to laugh, low and weak at first, then rising to a mad crescendo. She spun around to face me. "If I can't have this world--" She ripped off the tarp. It caught the wind and fluttered away. "--then no one can."

It wasn't just a container. It was a nuclear bomb from the post-fall era!

"You've gone mad!" I shouted.

She punched buttons on its interface.

I struggled over, against the throbbing pain, my legs weak, my arms limp, and just before I could stop her--

The nuke began to sing with electric beeps and blips.

She barked out a laugh, then with one final burst of power, she kicked it over.

It rolled--I dove for it--and tumbled off the roof.

There was no time.

I dove after.

The chilly wind rushed past my face in the fall, the busy streets below racing near, and I flexed hard my body to crash into the cyber-asphalt, shattering it--before the nuke could land--and I raised my hands.

"My gimp brethren!" I bellowed. "Lend me your strength!"

Those gimps within earshot, those gimps whose souls had been linked to mine, sprinted over not just with submission, but with duty.

The nuke howled closer.

A crowd of us raised our hands to catch it, a hundred pairs of hands, two hundred, growing, more, a thousand. I summoned within me my greatest dom strength, channeled my submission energies into it, and the nuke slammed into us, its momentum crushing through, pulsing quakes that ripped the earth and sent shockwaves around.

Yet we held firm!

The nuke beeped faster.

Innocent citizens stared in fear and awe, frozen, unsure to run or if there was even a point. Anyone could tell it was a nuke; it was shaped like one.

Sweat poured from me. I stared at its interface, at its control panel for some way to deactivate it. Surely there was a way. There had to be.

It beeped even faster.

Its clock counted. 10, 9, 8...

There wasn't time.

I glanced around at all the people who watched and stared and hoped against hope that their world wouldn't end, that somehow we could stop this threat of threats.

7, 6, 5…

There was no other option. There was no other hope.

I had to use my most ultimate ability.

My voice like gravel and fire, a not just a cyberspell, but a wish, a demand to the universe. "Brutal Dominion!"

A globe of light shot out from me, encompassing my gimp comrades, growing, blossoming out in gold and blue light, consuming us and the nuke.

It was the ultimate protection spell, a gift from my late mentor. Nothing could enter; nothing could leave.

A small sacrifice for the sake of the people, for the sake of the city, the future.

4, 3, 2…

As the adrenaline coursed through me, as my strength began to wane, as my submission and domination coalesced into a god of a man, to a warrior, noble and strong, as the people shouted and cheered--

I laughed. I laughed hard, I laughed strong, I laughed forward. Into the light. Into the dark.

1--

And the world flashed white.

And faded into black.

10

The world was a formless dark, lit only by a single lamp, lighting a single desk, and there, working, sat a single middle-aged male. He stared tiredly at the computer screen--he clicked the mouse--and he breathed a sad, deep breath--clicked again--and drew in another.

From the darkness, the shuffling of feet. A cacophony of stomps, marching, swaying, stumbling over to the sound of him.

"I'm just trying to figure out," he said. The mouse clicked. "How is it that you are all here, all at once, while we specifically coded in the gene for only the tiniest fraction of people." He chuckled to himself. "Less than one percent. Way less."

I felt the light of him warm my face, and I stood across the desk with my arms crossed, my head held high, my muscles bulging with raw, sexual power. Behind me, an army of my gimp brethren, a thousand strong. "Greetings," I rumbled. "We appear to be lost."

He squinted his eyes at me. "Yes. Yes, you are."

I stared, waiting for an answer.

His expression didn't change. "You're dead."

"I see." I looked around the darkness. There was nothing of note. "Shall I make myself comfortable here?"

"No." He looked back at his terminal. It looked like a retro-design computer, but at closer inspection, it was a genuine piece from centuries ago. A boxy monitor that hummed faintly with a bulging screen. He clicked his mouse--so ancient and primitive--and pulled out a spreadsheet. He clicked around, input some data, then wiped his forehead.

"Shall I begin to make camp?" I asked.

He turned in his seat. "I'm sending you to another world in a different time."

I stared. "I don't understand."

"And I don't have the patience to explain it," he said. "I'm sending you to," he glanced back the computer for the name, then back to me. "Everybody-speaks-the-same-language World."

"Did I not just come from there?"

"No, you came from Cyberpunk World."

I nodded to myself. It would explain a great many things.

He continued, "When you die, you'll return here, so please try to die at different times so I won't have so many to deal with at once."

I looked down at him. "We live as one. We die as one."

He rolled his eyes. "Just... just have fun." With a smirk, he waved his hand and the world flashed.

It was blinding.

And I opened my eyes to a bright blue sky, a field of green, and a metropolis city under siege.

The world rocked with thunder and flashes--medieval cannons!--and the mighty walls of the city erupted yet held firm.

I looked back to my kin. Their heads vibrated and shook at the bombardment of noise, but they stood with duty, in a formation befitting a squadron, a regiment.

A tan-faced man atop a horse strode over a nearby hill and stopped when he noticed us, stared for a moment, then shook back with disgust. "Who are you?" he demanded. "Are you mercenaries?" He squinted his eyes as he studied me.

I looked back at my gimp brothers and sisters. "Perhaps we are."

He stared.

I stared back. "What is this region?" I asked. "I am from a distant place."

"Anatolia," he said.

I grinned madly. I had heard of this place, and I had recognized his uniform.

I walked past him, up the small hill, and surveyed the battlefield. An army of green and red flags bearing stars and crescents.

The year was 1453, a millennium in the past, and the Turks sieged the city of world's desire: Constantinople.

I chuckled to myself. My gimps were spirits sleeping, hungering, little seedlings of sexual degeneracy that were destined to blossom, destined to awaken into true gimp warriors. The only requirement: time.

I looked back to the tan-skinned man. "Did the Byzantines consent to being conquered?"

He lifted an eyebrow. "I suppose they did not."

I clicked my tongue and shook my head. "Then it sounds like we have a bad boy in our midst."

He shook back, insulted.

I gave him a wolf's grin. "And as the King of the Gimps, I demand punishment."

His eyes widened with fear. The shaking heads of my gimps locked onto him, and as I pointed my finger in his direction, as his horse bucked to turn and escape, they charged, consumed him with their leathered bodies and assless chaps.

And I laughed. I laughed far, forward, and toward the heavens.

The Gimp King has risen, and we have but just begun.