"Again!? Hold him down!"

"Yes!"

Inside the central church of the capital city of Kingsted a mind shattering scream howled out from a demonkin strapped to a bed. In response to the sudden scream Dax commanded a nun to hold him down as he stabbed the demonkin with a syringe that made him pa.s.s out.

"I am not trained for this.."

"Me neither, but they need our help.. ICI any recommendations?"

[CLa.s.s 15 HEAVY MENTAL TRAUMA DETECTED. RECOMMEND FULL MENTAL RESET AND REPAIR.]

"What the h.e.l.l is 'full mental reset'?"

Hearing the words 'mental' and 'repair' coming from an artificial construct that had recently recommended simply killing her patients the nun was undersadebly worried.

"A last ditch emergency repair function that replaces the patients memories and ego with a backup done prior to entering active service. It's only possible to do if there is a backup, which there isn't in this case… I guess the only thing to do is a gradual and slow recovery."

A bit over a week ago Dax had raided multiple underground criminal organizations that handled multiple illegal and banned goods. The worst of those goods were the several types of slavery collars that forcefully took control of their host by overriding their central nervous system and hijacking motor functions, turning whoever wears them into puppets. The arguably worst part of such a device was that the victim is fully aware doing control, and therefore felt and saw everything their 'master' commanded them to do, with no input of their own ever able to stop it. The former slaves Dax had rescued were mostly okay, as they had only been tortured by such measures for no more than a year, so they were given medical treatment and a psychological a.s.sessment before being returned to their loved ones. The problem were the ones that had been under for considerably longer periods of time. The ones that had been under the effect of slavery collars for over a year were mostly demonkin, having been captured and turned into slaves before being smuggled to Kingsted where they were traded as commodities and made to fight, maim, a.s.sault and kill their own kin for the entertainment of their 'masters'. Enduring such treatment for years their psyches had understandably deteriaded, and Dax had been at a loss about what to do with them ever since. Whenever they regained conscious they usually started screaming and/or self harming so they had been restrained and sedated while Dax tried to figure out what to do with them.

"Go sleep if you need to, I got it till the s.h.i.+ft change."

"Okay, I'll be next door so shout if you need help."

As she yawned to herself the nun left the room, leaving Dax alone with all the sedated demonkin.

"This is a f.u.c.king grade mess…."

Dax, being a qiton, a race of the most resilient creatures known in the Galactic Empire had extremely limited knowledge of medical procedures, as he was part of a race could self heal anything that was not immediately lethal. Dax's knowledge of mental health where even worse than his medical one, as he had no issues doing outright horrific things to the enemy, and the entire field of study was only confusing to him.

"Access deep storage drive and pull up doc.u.ments containing medical procedures for extreme PTSD and catatonia."

[CONFIRMED, ALLOCATING ALL PROCESSORS FOR DECRYPTION OF EMERGENCY ENCYCLOPEDIA…. COMPLETE: NOW SCANNING 562 PETABYTES OF RAW DATA, PLEASE HOLD ALL REQUESTS UNTIL COMPLETION.]

With ICI accessing the emergency encyclopedia operated into his spine by a over worried avoxaian Dax sat down in an empty chair and breathed a deep sigh before closing his eyes as he started to hum quietly.

"Ermm Mr. Dax?"

"Yeah, what's up?"

"I'm here to replace you."

"I noticed, I'll be here tonight again to take the night s.h.i.+ft."

"There's no need for th"

"There is. You and your colleagues need to sleep, I don't. End of discussion."

"O-okay…"

Having silenced the nun Dax stood up to stretch and left the room while thinking about his current issue.

(I still can't get myself to abandon them huh.. ICI you there?)

[ENCYCLOPEDIA SEARCH IN PROGRESS…]

(I can tell by the warmth on my back yeah.. What's the current progress?)

[45.3%. PLEASE HOLD FURTHER REQUESTS, ICI OS TASKED TO CAPACITY.]

(So another 4 hours…)

"HELP!"

Suddenly Dax heard the nun he had just said goodbye to scream for help, followed by something heavy braking.

"s.h.i.+t! ICI what's going-"

[PLEASE HOLD FURTHER REQUESTS, ICI OS TASKED TO CAPACITY.]

"f.u.c.k me, and f.u.c.k this!"

Not being able to confirm the situation inside without ICI managing his cybernetics, Dax decided to take a slight shortcut. Running straight towards the improvised hospital wing, Dax burst right through a brick wall and made it back in record time. Reaching the door Dax tore it open and reflectively drew his pistol like he were cleaning the room as his brain went into overdrive. Inside he instantly identified the treat, a demonkin had woken and torn off her restraints and were currently banging her head repeatedly into one of the brick walls with a large amount of blood flowing from her face. The nun, and two others were trying to restain the demonkin, one of them were even using strengthening magic, but without effect.

The demonkin had ash white skin she looked to be 20 years of age, with completely black eyes and 1 meter long eagle like wings at her center of ma.s.s and 2 pairs of slightly chipped 10 centimeter long white horns extending upwards were her almost completely cut down hair meet her forehead. She were the one Terra had saved, and so far she had just slept, but apparently she woke up from some kind of extreme nightmare.

"Get out of the way!"

Preparing a syringe Dax charged the demonkin and stabbed her in the neck with it, or so he thought.

"What the fu- AW! Stop that!"

As Dax had tried to incapacitate the demonkin the syringe had hit some sort of magical armor that covered the her body, the demonkin had noticed that, and determined that Dax where a treat, and proceeded to punch him in the face with a surprising amount of force that made Dax fall over.

"It's defensive magic, she's properly using it on instinct!"

"Ku! And strengthening magic too, I can't hold her down!"

"I got her!"

Jumping to his feet Dax quickly went behind the tras.h.i.+ng demonkin and grabbed her arms before kicking her lightly in the pit of her knees and made her fall over before he mounted the demonkin's back to hold her in place.

"AAARRRAARGHAWAR*****!!!!!"

In response the suddenly getting dropped to the floor the demonkin started kicking Dax with her heels.

"AW!AW!AW! Stop that! Hold her legs down!"

With newly arrived nuns and a few church guards the finally managed to pin her down.

"AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGG!!!"

"Well ain't you lively… Hope you guys have nothing better to do, this is gonna take a while."

…

..

.

After 2 hours the demonkin finally started to tire herself out slightly, and eventually only Dax were need to hold her down.

"Are you done yet?"

"AAAARRRRRRRRRG!!!-"

"That is some impressive stamina."

"-GGARHAARRG!!!"

Besides having turned slightly hoa.r.s.e the demonkin were apparently still pretty energetic as she kept screaming at the top of her lungs.

(Guess not… I'll need to take her somewhere else.)

"Can I get some help?"

"Yes Mr. Dax, what is it?"

With a nun responding to his call Dax s.h.i.+fted himself on top of the tras.h.i.+ng demonkin so he could get eye contact with the nun.

"Can you prepare a carriage, oh and a gag too."

"Eh?"

Having determined that the demonkin were a detriment the the other patients improvement, Dax decided to have her relocated. With a bit more fuss Dax got the now gagged demonkin into a carriage, coursing quite the disturbance he were witnessed by a town guard carrying a gagged and restrained woman into a carriage. After a somewhat unpleasant carriage ride and some scratching of his face Dax introduced Alice and Terra to their new (unwilling) sleepover.

"Are you serious?"

"No I brought this fussing lady here as she scratched my face and tried to bite me just for fun."

"Okay… But this is your replaceability alone, I'm not gonna fall for the 'this is training' thing again."

"Oh you finally figured that one out."

"..."

"Any objections Alice?"

"None."

"Good, she'll take the room to the left of me."

Hauling the still fuzzy demonkin into a empty room with a bed she freaked out even more, until Dax simply just put her down on the bed and left her there.

"Play nice."

Leaving with those words she finally seemed to calm down, and when Dax opened the door a few minutes later she simply sat in the corner furthest from the door and watched him in silence.

[ICI ONLINE, 47369851 MATCHES FOUND FOR 'PTSD' AND CATATONIA.]

"Ah, it's already this time huh… Sync me the data later."

[AFFIRMATIVE.]

"Dax I'm hungry and the drones are not listening to me!"

"That's a odd name change Alice, I'll whip something together."

"Yay!~"

Having responded to Alice's shout Dax stopped to facepalm while breathing a deep sigh as he mumbled to himself.

"She's my own employee right? Then why do I feel like I've become a maid lately…"

With Alice and the drones let by ICI Dax had been fairly free over the last few days, so he had started doing house work out of boredom, occasionally indulging in his hoppy and making food for Terra and Alice.

"I guess I'll use some of the pasta I made yesterday as an experiment.. ICI get the smoker running and toss some bacon in there."

[ROGER.]

Facing reality Dax once more sighed to himself as he started to put together a meal in his head.

---

(What the h.e.l.l is going on?)

Sitting dumbfounded in what appeared to be her new room, Rei finally realized she no longer wore a slavery collar. After waking from a terrible nightmare she found herself with a head splitting headache with her mind suddenly clear she remembered every single thing that had happened since she had been caught by slave traders over 7 years ago. She had killed her own kin, been used to do horrific things, and made a plaything for s.a.d.i.s.tic people until she was once more sold and used as a bodyguard for some sort of merchant where she had finally been released. The sudden influx of painful memories, shame and guilt had made her briefly insane. when her santy had started to return she had found herself restrained, which caused her to panic even more, and then she were gagged and stuffed into a carriage by some demonkin she didn't recognise. Fearing she had been captured once more just after she had realized she had been freed from the slavery collar by a humankin about the same age as herself. She completely lost all hope when the demonkin took her to a room which only contained a single bed and a small window, suddenly her deepest repressed nightmares resurfaced and she started flailing desperately as she cried and screamed for help. What she had feared did not happen however, 'play nice.' the demonkin simply told her as he left, and when he returned a minute later he appeared relieved she had calmed down. After that it had perhaps been an hour, and no matter how much she feared it no one ever came to torment her.

*Guuuuuuu*

Feeling herself calming down just a bit, Rai suddenly realized it must have been months since she had a proper meal.

"Food.."

Slowly leaving her calming corner she reached the middle of the small room before hearing footsteps closing in.

(This is my chance…)

Confirming that the slow footsteps were indeed hedding for her, Rai crouched down on all four and prepared to pounce when the door was opened.

(Come on.. NOW)

As the door started to open she charged it, but her plan did not work out. The door opened faster than she had expected, revealing the demonkin that brought her to the room in the first place.

(s.h.i.+t.)

What remained of her foggy memory told her that he was strong, but that didn't stop her.

(Almost…. FREE!)

Coming closer to freedom than she had been for G.o.d knows how many years, she filled her body with mana and prepared for a tackle carrying all her might. But as she reached the demonkin he crouched down and hit her with his shoulder in the gut, before grabbing her with a single arm and carried her back to the bed as she frailed desperately.

"So energetic~ Now you must be hungry, I brought you food."

Laying her gently down on the bed the demonkin revealed his spare hand, were he carried some sort of meal that made her stomach grumble loudly.

"Have some food before you leave."

Leaving that comment and the food, the demonkin once more left the room.

"Leave?"

"Yeah, you're free to leave, when you've recovered completely, not a second before that."

Closing the door, the strange demonkin left the utterly confused Rai to herself as she froze up dumbfounded.

"I can just leave?"

*Guuuuu*