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Dark Lord Substitute

Chapter 4

By Draconicon

Bertram woke the next morning just a few moments before Data beeped at him. The ram lifted his head from the pillow, glaring at the wall.

"What? What is it?"

"There is a visitor requesting entrance. One General Zelda Twist."

"Ugh...Why are you asking permission for her to come in? You let Mark in without permission yesterday."

"There was a noticeable distaste to your quarters being entered without permission. I have adjusted permissions to require you stated acceptance for another to enter your quarters."

The ram blinked, lifting his head a little higher from the pillow. Of the various possible outcomes of Data's presence in the Dark Citadel, he hadn't expected one to be that the assistant would learn what he liked and didn't like. That could end up being rather helpful, or rather problematic, depending on just how good at it Data was. He slowly sat up, shaking his head as he got comfortable.

"Clothes?"

"At once, sir."

He didn't know what that meant until the process started. The ram slept naked, but no sooner had he asked for clothes than bits and pieces of the wall started flying towards him. He jumped to his feet even as the black chips surrounded his soles, creating black boots that would have been the envy of any dominatrix. They were thick and looked like latex, giving him an additional inch and a half of height, and they clung to his feet tightly.

The material spread up, the little chips coming off the walls melting together as they hit his skin. They formed black pants that ran right up his thighs and cupped his cock, lifting it up and making it look that little bit bigger, then ran around his backside and did the same to his ass. He looked over his shoulder at it, shaking his head at the exaggeration.

By the time that it had reached all the way up to his neck, he was dressed in attire that looked like a 'civilian wear' version of the armor of the Dark Lord. While he was missing his helmet, he honestly preferred that, and the lack of shoulderpads and actual armor made him much more comfortable than he had been. He stretched his head this way and that, getting comfortable as a pair of black gloves formed over his hands.

"Well, that's convenient," the ram muttered.

"Is this acceptable, Dark Lord?"

"Yes, quite."

"Is General Zelda Twist allowed to enter?"

"Make her wait half a minute longer, then allow her."

It was a good idea to show her that there was a little backbone to him. Now that Mark had seen just what he had to offer - the hyena had been shocked by how much he'd seen and studied already, the ram knew that much - it was time for Zelda to get the same lesson. He needed his generals to be at the top of their game, and if they were still looking down on him, they would be snapped out of it today. There was no time for weakness, stupidity, or misconceptions. If they were going to help him spread the power of the Dark Lord and the Dread Star, he needed them to stop looking at him like an idiot and start helping him be the Dark Lord.

The portal whooshed softly, and the hyena woman stepped through. Like her brother, she carried her helmet at her side. She blinked as she walked in, looking him up and down, then shook her head.

"Your assistant tell you how that worked?"

"I figured it out."

"Heh, liar."

"I'm fairly certain you'll find me anything but. What do you want?"

"It's time to inspect the troops. Put on your helmet, let's get this over with, then you can go back to fucking people."

"We'll inspect them, yes," he said, getting to his feet. "But after that, I want to see a demonstration of our soldiers' skills. A few practice routines so I can see what they can do, and what they can't do."

"Impossible. We need to start -"

He clapped his hands. Just once, but loudly. The gloves were surprisingly fitting for that. Zelda blinked at the interruption.

"I said, we are going to have a demonstration."

"Just because you said so?"

"No, though that's one reason. The other is because there's doubtlessly going to be something watching, and I want them to think that we're still training. I want them to think that we're just starting up, that we aren't going to be making a move just yet. This one little planet on the edge of things obviously doesn't matter, or there would have been some sign of a counterstrike by now. Has there been?"

"...No."

"Then they're watching, waiting to see what we do next. More than likely, they'll assume that we'll strike through the galactic passage formerly staffed by you and your brother."

"How did you -"

"We won't. That's how the last Dark Lord lost, and they'll be waiting for me to make the same mistake. To make sure that I don't, I need to see what our ground forces are capable of, what the tech can do, and what our weapons can punch through. So, we will have a few hours of training, and I will...observe."

The hyena woman stared at him as if he was speaking some other language. For all he knew, he might have been. He didn't know how they were talking the same language to begin with, save for the fact that whatever called him here seemed to have fucked with his brain enough to allow it. Bertram cocked his head to the side.

"Do you understand?"

"I do. I'm just...surprised."

"Well, get ready for more of those. I'm not done yet."

"What the hell do you have planned, you little shit?"

"Little shit?" He cocked his head to the side. "Zelda, do you want to go down this road? You are an officer, but I am your superior officer. By the very codes that you're attempting to push, I'm the one in charge."

"Yeah, but you don't know what you're doing."

"And obviously, neither do you."

"You think you can just walk over me?"

"Let's find out. Zelda. Kneel."

Mark had said that he was more than just the Dark Lord; he was the master of all the slaves, and all the soldier-slaves. That meant that he could command them, ostensibly. He just hadn't done so.

As soon as the words left his mouth, Zelda's opened, ready for an obvious retort, only for her to freeze. Her eyes went wide as one of her knees bent, slowly dragging her forward. She grabbed for the edge of the portal, trying to fight the kneeling motion, only for her body to take her the rest of the way. In short order, she was on both knees in front of him, staring around herself.

"How...what..."

"I found this out last night," he said, crossing one leg over the other. "I am the Dark Lord. Regardless of what I do and don't know, that's what I am. It's what I was made to be, apparently. And that gives me power over every individual under my banner. I can make you do anything. Anything. Do you understand me?"

"Let me go, you asshole! I am your General, and you -"

"Will walk right out of here and leave you locked up for later if you don't listen to me."

"You wouldn't dare."

Bertram shrugged, getting to his feet. As soon as he did, he held out his arms.

"Data. Armor."

"Yes, sir."

The request was followed by an additional layer of the black stuff, running over his head and along the back of his shoulders. It ran down like a cape as it formed a helmet as well, thickening up the different layers of clothing that he already had until it was the same as the armor that he'd worn the day before. Zelda's shouting and screaming slowly came to an end as his helmet muffled any sound that he chose not to hear.

" Then you can stay here, then. I will return later."

"You son of a bitch! You think you can just -"

" Stay."

The word was all that needed saying. No sooner had it passed his lips than Zelda stiffened up, holding her position on her knees and staring straight ahead at the wall opposite. He stepped through the portal, and she didn't follow.

#

The troops were assembled in the courtyard of the Dark Citadel, or at least, the main body that was there to be inspected was. As he had seen in the data last night, they were mostly rodents, with a few other species sprinkled through them. He looked over mice and rats, each of them outfitted in something that looked vaguely like metal or latex, shining like either but looking too firm to be the latter and too soft to be the former. Some futuristic material, he imagined, just like the rifles that they carried were probably more than just rifles.

He walked up to the edge of the raised staircase that led from the courtyard to the front door of the Dark Citadel, crossing his arms behind his back. The ram had never been one for speeches, but he'd attended enough of them to know that the crowd was waiting for one before he began his inspection.

What do you say to that? he thought, slowly tilting his head to the sky.

Something passed through the dark heavens, something that glittered. A satellite, probably, or perhaps a spy drone. Perhaps something of the enemy, watching them.

As soon as he thought that, his arms moved of their own accord. They thrust outwards, sending his cape flying out and back with a flapping sound. The crowd silenced themselves as he stepped forward, the words coming to him as his mouth moved on its own beneath the helmet.

" My warriors, my bloodthirsty followers of the Dread Star. The time is upon us to make ready for war," he called out, speaking in a way that he had never spoken before. The compulsion was surprisingly strong, and in fact, completely irresistible. He was aware that this wasn't him, but at the same time, he couldn't stop it. "**The Federation believes in their superiority over us, believes that their freedoms give them strength. They believe that their freedoms, their society, will grant them the inevitable victory against us. They believe, as if in destiny, that they are fated to succeed against the 'darkness' that we represent.

"I say that they are wrong. Our armies will sweep them from the stars, and in their place, we will raise a new order. Our order. The order of the Dark Lord, and the Dread Star.**

"

"For the Dread Star! For the Dark Lord!" the crowd shouted as one, and he wondered if it was a genuine reaction or if they were under the same compulsion as he was. He imagined that it was more the latter; nobody could cheer something that stupid.

"**In a few short days, we will move on. This pacified planet will be our stepping stone into the Federation. They will look upon our ships and tremble in fear. They will see our space stations circling their planets, and know that their people have chosen a new ruler. They will see us, and tremble as their fears come to life before their very eyes.

"We bring order. We bring structure. We bring the light of the Dread Star, and -**

"

And just like that, the satellite that had been staring down on them drifted out of sight, and the compulsion faded away. The words that had been spilling from his mouth stopped, and, as Bertram hadn't been thinking about what he wanted to say, silence took hold. The ram blinked behind his mask, dropping his arms back to his sides. The soldiers stared at him, waiting for him to continue.

" ...Now that I seem to be done chewing the scenery, let's move on to what we actually have to do," he said.

The soldiers laughed at that. It seemed the right thing to say, because they relaxed and settled in, waiting for further orders. Bertram gestured at one of the officers in the front row, calling him forward, and ordered the rat to take him to one of the ranges. He wanted to see just what sort of weapons that the soldiers were outfitted with.

It turned out that the soldiers were each equipped with two base weapons, though different specialists had different weapons. However, the equipment loadout always seemed to follow the pattern of a main weapon, a secondary weapon, an explosive, and something based on the idea of Indoctrination.

The core soldier of the army - almost always a mouse or a rat - carried something that he could only compare to an assault rifle back on Earth. However, rather than firing bullets or lasers, it had something similar to the walls of the Dark Citadel making up the actual construction of the weapon. Once the base of the rifle was pressed against something, it would convert whatever that happened to be into ammo, and that, in turn, turned into an explosion whenever it hit what it was aimed at. Someone tried to explain how it worked - something about the ammo being naturally highly unstable and wanting to rip itself apart - but all he understood was that it made a one-foot-square explosion wherever it hit, and it could run off of damn near anything.

Scary, really.

As for the secondary weapon, the mice and rats carried a pistol with similar capability, but rather horrifyingly twisted. If it was pressed to something organic, not only did it create ammunition the way that the standard rifle did, but the bullets homed in on anything that bore the same genetic base. Something of the same species would immediately become a target, and the homing design meant that they'd never be able to escape. The only 'downside' was that the pistol was more unstable than the rifle, and couldn't handle organic material for more than a few dozen shots, at most. He shivered at the thought of that kind of carnage, and wondered just how horrible this war could become.

When it came to explosives, he wondered what could be worse than an assault rifle that could literally create explosive bullets out of dirt, but the army found a way to answer that. Rather than grenades or rockets like on earth, the army used atomic destabilizers. At first, he thought that meant pocket nukes, and he wasn't as far off as he thought. Once attached to something - and the damn things were sticky as hell, so all you had to do was throw them and hit something - they started breaking things down at the atomic level, leading to an acidic effect that turned explosive between three to six seconds later, depending on just what they hit. The explosion itself was comparable to large air strikes from his time, and he wondered, rather fearfully, just what they were going to be fighting that they needed something this powerful for.

By the time they reached the Indoctrination weapons, he was almost ready to faint from self-induced anxiety, but the standard infantry weapon wasn't as bad as the others. He supposed that was because they were more suited for running in and securing situations rather than fucking with the people that were in them. They were equipped with a one-use emitter attached to their belts, which effectively released a short-range blast of Indoctrination frequencies. It wouldn't be enough to break the mind of the average soldier, but it would leave them shaken, less likely to fight at full capability, and essentially ensure that they weren't a problem going forward. Sort of a get-out-of-a-jam piece of equipment rather than anything else.

If this is what we're giving basic infantry, just what the hell does the enemy have that requires it?

Bertram didn't know, but he had a feeling that he, Mark, and Zelda were going to have a lot of long talks to catch him up on the situation.

He wanted to feel better about the situation, to think that these weapons meant that they had a good shot at success, but the previous Dark Lords had all come in with similar changes. Unless they were all an unbroken line of morons, he couldn't see how someone could have all this and keep losing unless the other side had equally strong, if not better, weaponry. The fact that his soldiers seemed competent should have been a morale booster, but again, past experience said that he shouldn't rely on that.

But...at least he knew what the basic capabilities of the infantry were. That was something.

" Show me the rest. Land vehicles, atmospheric craft, the works."

And so they did.

Bertram's mind was reeling by the time that he finished seeing all the different bits of material and vehicles and everything else that was part of his new military. The ram had to take a break from it all and go back to the Dark Citadel once he had confirmed with his officers that he had covered all the basics, and all that was left were the specialty craft. He'd come back to that later, once he had everything else settled.

That was going to take a while, he was sure. That said, he had figured out some of the biggest problems that the Dark Lord's force actually had, and it was going to take a while to sort that one out.

No aircraft.

That was going to be a big problem to overcome. While they had plenty of ground vehicles, the only atmospheric craft that they had for flight were landing shuttles and cargo carriers, things to bring soldiers down from orbit, getting them back up, and carry them from continent to continent. All 'fighters' were suitable for space and outer atmosphere only, and risked blowing themselves up from drag once they dropped to the lower atmosphere.

Considering they were going to be invading planets, that meant that they would be in a horrible position for actually advancing once battle-lines met. They could establish a number of positions with orbital bombardments, but now that he understood the situation, he knew that would be a necessity rather than an option. Without air support on the planet, the enemy could start launching fighters to take out their ground vehicles without warning and without opposition.

There's ways around that, he told himself. Not good ways, but ways. Particularly on planets where the cities are more clustered. Urban warfare will force them to keep close, hold back with their aircraft. Anything out of the flat lands like deserts and plains will let us use infantry and armor...

There were ways around it, yes, but they'd depend heavily on how the different planets of the allied systems were set up, and that meant doing a lot of recon work. Ideally, he'd start with sending out probes to all nearby planets, gathering as much information as he could, but Bertram didn't know if he had that sort of time. The compulsion that he had felt while giving the speech could return at any moment, pushing him to act, and he needed to be ready for whatever the compulsion demanded him to do.

The ram shook his head as he approached the Dark Citadel, opening the portal and stepping through. Zelda was still waiting for him in his chambers, still kneeling at the foot of his bed. She looked up at him, the hyena panting.

" Are you done screaming?" he asked.

"..." She nodded.

" You may stand, and speak."

The hyena general groaned, nodding as she slowly dragged herself upright. She was obviously upset with herself, and he braced himself for a barrage of complaints. They didn't come.

Instead, she shook her head.

"Wherever they got you from, they picked someone with a brain, at least."

" I'm kind of surprised you're not trying to hit me."

"What am I gonna do? Slap your armor around until you paralyze me again?"

" I half-expected that, honestly."

"Yeah, well, next time you might not be so nice. I'll take the easy way out this time, thank you very much."

She shook her head, stretching her arms and legs. Each time she did, something went crack, or pop, or something along those lines. She had been stiff and still for some time, obviously, but he hadn't thought it had been that long.

"So, what happened?"

" A speech that was as stupid as it was cliched, as well as a weapons check. If we have that much, I'm concerned about what the enemy has."

"Similar stuff, just less lethal."

" ...How is it similar and less lethal at the same time?"

"Their average rifle basically shuts down the nervous system on contact with a body. If it hits something inorganic, it stiffens up the material until it can't move."

" How?"

"Fuck me if I get the science. Something about pulling all the atoms together and compressing them until movement's impossible."

" ..."

"Yeah, there were a lot of fuck-ups with someone's armor compressing them right out of existence before they figured out how to stabilize that one."

Fascinating. The weaponry that the Dread Star's army used was basically there to break the bonds that held the atoms together, while the enemy's weaponry basically froze, shut down, and bound them together. It was an interesting reversal, he supposed.

"So, what the hell are you going to do about the whole situation?" Zelda asked, sitting on the bed. "If you're not pulling an attack down the weak spot, where are we going?"

" That depends on what you can tell me about the allied systems."

"Heh, what, you don't know everything?"

" Obviously not."

"Well, at least I'm still good for something."

"Sir. General Mark Twist is requesting permission to enter."

" Show him in, Data." Bertram sighed. " This is going to be a long night..."

With the two hyenas in the same room, he told them what he needed. Thankfully, they were able to give it to him.

The End

Summary: A short worldbuilding story to show just what kind of weaponry we're focusing on for the story, a little bit more of the compulsion that the Dark Lord is under, and some consideration for the future.

Tags: No sex, body control, hyena, mouse, ram, weapons, sci-fi, series, patreon, worldbuilding,