"My Master would like a taming room with a separate shower," Diane spoke at the reception desk, glancing at the monstergirl as she looked up at the Rapha.

"They're all taken," came the bored response with a slow yawn.

You remained quiet as the monstergirl glanced at you and then back at Diane. Your Rapha took a moment to lean forwards. "My Master has some fresh feral meat and a carnivore monstergirl. I'd rather we minimize the mess."

And just like that, the receptionist grimaced, nodding as she took your dex from Diane's hands and typed away on her computer. Only a minute later you were walking down the corridor towards the room to drop off the gear. "That was easier than I thought."

"All medical centers keep one of the good rooms marked as 'occupied' in case someone actually important shows up," Diane commented with a little hint of pride.

"Why not use this trick back in Cherry?"

"Because we didn't need to, the girls could get into trouble if the supervisors found out there wasn’t a decent enough reason to have put it to use." She shook her head. "The main difference between the normal taming room is that the shower isn't part of the room but a separate room on its own, and a couple of other amenities."

Nodding absently, you followed her down the corridor, trying not to pay too much attention to the monstergirls moving about. Much like how Diane had described, the room in question didn't seem all too different to the previous taming room you'd been in. Solid perfect walls, no windows, more sex and torture "toys" than you cared to count... There were two major differences. First of them being the presence of a second metal door.

"Bathroom is meant to be able to be entirely submerged without swamping the rest of the room. There's a couple of emergency drainage options but..." She paused as she watched you approach the waist-high metal box that was next to the bed. "Ah, that's the pocketpack."

"The what now?" You asked, looking at the box.

"It's just a... ah," Diane giggled, approaching the box. "It's a poketpack in a box so it can't be stolen. Poketpack is a special storage device. We'll use it with the... meat so Monica doesn't need to carry it around. Could you please release her, Master?"

"...sure." You touched Monica's device, and the feline was out in an instant, looking around as she held the white bundle of cloth against her chest tightly.

"Rick," she said, turning her chest slightly away from you, protecting her bundle from your gaze.

"Monica?" Diane gestured at herself. "Here," she motioned, and you noticed she was holding onto some sort of very short metal rod that was connected to the box with a cable. As soon as Monica had stepped close enough, Diane had tapped the bundle with the rod.

You blinked in surprise when the bundle turned into a light bluish light and vanished.

Monica's arms clenched against her chest, now devoid of the bundle. Eyes widening, she looked around, at the floor around her, above, then at Diane, then at you, then around herself and into her arms. Her pout turned into a frown as she looked at Diane. "Food," she growled.

Diane nodded. "Soon."

That was when Monica's hand snapped against the nurse's throat and tightened. "Now," she growled at the wide-eyed Diane.

"Monica!" You shot to your feet, ball drawn and ready to recall her with a squeeze of your hand.

Her ears flattened, eyes meeting yours. "Food," she said with a mewl.

"Monica, stop," you said, breathing sharply. "Now."

Your hand tightened on the sphere, your brows furrowed.

A scoff left Monica's lips.

With a growled mewl, she let go of Diane, the nurse coughing and holding her throat. Monica didn't step back, however, looking down at her. "Food," she repeated. "Food Monica."

"Monica, no," you said, stepping closer to her, finding her sharp eyes trained on yours like lasers. "Diane no hurt Monica, apologize."

"Monica food, no Diane food," she replied, arms crossed. "Monica hunt, Monica bite, Monica food."

"No." You shook your head. "Monica kill no order," you replied, hiding the grimace as you tried to parse the idea through the limited vocabulary the feline was learning. "Monica bad, I ordered Diane to take Monica food."

"Take?" She blinked.

You whirled, placing an empty capture device on Diane's hand. "Take." You then snatched it off of her hands with a fast gesture, following by offering it to her. "Give." You watched as the nurse reached out and grabbed it.

"Take bad," the feline grumbled.

"Monica hurt Diane, Monica bad," you replied. "Apologize."

A deeper pout, the feline crossed her arms, grumbling. "Take bad."

"I ordered Diane take."

"Rick bad." She tapped her foot.

"You killed. No order kill. Monica kill. Diane no hurt Monica," you answered in turn, pressing her on to the back foot.

A loud scoffing sound; she turned away, becoming quiet for a very long second. You waited her out, seeing as she tried to peek at your expression and realizing you'd not relented. After another moment, she grumbled once more, her shoulders slumped. "Monica sorry," she sighed.

You felt a wave of relief run through you. You nodded. "Diane, bring out the bundle?"

The nurse let out a long quivering sigh. "Yes Master." She fiddled with something at the top of the metal box, and in a dim flash of blue, the bundle popped into existence right in front of the rod.

Monica had stepped towards it, but stopped as soon as she saw your scowl. "Monica food," she said with a whine. "Rick no eat Monica food. Succ no eat Monica food. Diane no eat Monica food."

"And Raven?" You quirked a brow.

She grimaced. "Monica give Raven Monica food," she said this while putting her hands very close together. "Monica eat Monica food." She added while holding a lot more apart.

Inhaling, you glanced at the nurse. "Store it up please."

As soon as it was gone the feline let out a yowl, stomping her foot. "Monica eat Monica food now!" She whined, crossing her arms dejectedly and stomping again.

"Later," you said.

She frowned at you. "Later?"

"Monica good? Monica eat Monica food," you declared. "Monica bad? Monica eat chow."

"Chow bleh." She stuck her tongue out and grimaced.

"It's not that bad." Now it was Diane's turn to pout. You looked at her, and she shrugged. "It's an acquired taste."

"And would you eat anything else if we had the money for it?"

Rolling her eyes, the nurse made a shooing notion. "Shouldn't we get going, Master? We have a long day ahead."

"Chow bleh," Monica repeated. "Monica eat Monica food."

"If Monica good," you replied, gesturing for her to follow as you moved to leave the room.

The feline looked at Diane as the nurse moved away from the box. Narrowing her eyes, she stepped closer to the metal box, sniffing it twice, pouting, and then following you out of the room. "Monica eat Monica food, later," she proclaimed as she moved to leave, giving the metal box one last suspicious look before you closed the door behind her.

You shrugged, moving to leave the center. "Diane, do you know where the whole tamer fight thing is?"

"Are you considering following Kiara's... proposal?" The nurse spoke with a measured tone, looking at you over her shoulder for a moment.

"Diane, I asked a question."

She immediately straightened up. "Yes, I know how to get to the fighting pits, Master."

"Lead the way, then," you nodded, taking a deep breath and a sigh. "And to answer your question, I want to see what we're dealing with before I make a decision." That made her relax a little, nodding a bit more emphatically this time. "By the way, when you meant 'Poketpack in a box'..."

"The poketpack is portable, it's original shape is like a backpack," she said. "It allows for ease of transport for up to two hundred kilograms. Though it cannot contain any capture devices that have a monstergirl in it." A little moment of hesitation. "There's a special variant that allows for filled balls, but those drain a lot of electricity. They're the ones police put monstergirls into when holding them in stasis."

"Wait, stasis... the one they put Monica into?"

"Yes," Diane nodded. "In stasis, the monstergirl doesn't degrade into a feral state, unlike when inside a capture device. For us it is like no time passed at all."

"Huh." You scratched your chin. "And the ball preserves the monstergirl's physical state..." You tilted your head. "Could a capture device hold a monstergirl indefinitely?"

The nurse hesitated on her next step, shuddering. "Yes," she declared solemnly. "When a monstergirl does a truly heinous crime, they are sentenced to such a fate, trapped in their device, feral, forever."

"Do you know of any such case?"

Diane shook her head. "The only ones I know of were sentenced to one or several level 5s before being sold. For being trapped inside one forever... the league would likely want to make a very big example out of you."

"Well, that's a morbid line of thought," you grimaced. "How long have they been around?"

"Since the war." The nurse let out a little sigh. "Yes, sometimes some have discovered monstergirls from the war, that had gone feral inside the capture device and remained trapped for hundreds of years. Some theorize the feral state was for Sukebe to be able to keep monstergirls contained in their ball for indefinite amounts of time without fear of negative psychological consequences." She looked up to the clear blue sky. "Unfortunately, it seems that spending that much time devoid of stimulus... even while feral... does not bode well for one’s own mental health."

You had to sigh, scratching the side of your head as you touched the device on your belt. Kiara and Raven were currently stored in there, completely unable to break out. How easy might it be for you to just make sure they never came back out? Heck, you could have popped their capture device into a taming cycle in the medical center and they would've had nothing to stop you. You thought to Kiara; she had the power to quite literally fuck everyone into compliance. By the same token, you had the power to erase her mind with the click of a button or to bury her somewhere for her to go feral and spend eternity in darkness.

There were lines. If you did any of those things to any of the girls, then they'd know you could cross the line again but with them instead. If you fived a monstergirl because you didn't like her, then what would stop you from fiving any of the others for the exact same reason? Why should they avoid toeing the lines if you didn't?

Unspoken rules.

You were blind, moving around, trying to figure out where the boundaries lay. How many lines have you crossed? How many rules broken?

A little sigh.

"Don't worry, Master," Diane spoke up. "You can't be turned into a monstergirl with a loveball."

"What?" You shook your head. "No, it wasn't what I was thinking ab... wait, are there other ways?"

"Some monstergirls have poisons that can do it," she replied. "But they'd have to get over my dead body before I'd allow my Master to be turned into one."

"Sometimes I feel knowing too much is a curse too." Rubbing the bridge of your nose, you promised yourself your next reading priority would be figuring out which were these monstergirls Diane would 'put a stop to'.