Prompt: Digital Devil Saga - Serph/Roland - Initiation - Members of the Tribe must show their obedience to the leader.
Not Your Standard Membership Application
"Roland. A moment, please."
A bit confused, Roland turned around to face Gale. A moment for what? They were a little on the clock, here... "Yeah?" It was Serph who motioned for him to follow, though, as he walked away, looking over his shoulder. Roland looked at Gale, who just nodded, so he did as asked and followed the Embryon leader to the other side of the hangar they had just entered.
Serph walked between two shelves of boxes and crate, then stopped and sat on a wooden crate at the end of the short hallway thus created and looked at Roland.
Glancing back, Roland nervously realised that Gale had followed them closely, but not Cielo or Argilla. They were a few feet from the entrance, swapping ammunition and splitting items between them, not paying any attention to... whatever this meeting was. He tried not to let it affect him - maybe Serph just wanted to talk, leader to leader, and obviously Gale was his mouthpiece so he needed to be here - but he couldn't help feeling a little uneasy. Even if Cielo had showed he could be a perfectly agreeable human being, when he wasn't stuffing his face, he'd feel much better if he wasn't the only human in the area.
"Forward," Gale instructed him as he pushed him forward lightly. Then, as Serph pointed to a spot on the ground in front of him, Gale added, "Kneel."
Roland took a few steps forward. Okay, pledging loyalty, he could do that... he did wonder why he had to do it privately, though. He tried to think of some nice and official sounding statement, but, maybe they already had some sort of little speech for him to recite? "So... what should I say?" he asked Gale over his shoulder as he reached the spot, since he didn't expect Serph to answer him.
"You won't have anything to say," Gale answered. "Serph will tell you what to do."
Raising an eyebrow, Roland turned more fully toward Gale. Do? They didn't want a speech then? He wondered what on Earth they'd want him to do to prove he was a loyal servant of Serph and, as his mind went to rather bad places, he felt even more uneasy at the knowledge that he was hidden from everyone but Serph and Gale.
Gale's answer startled him a bit, since he hadn't realised he had thought his question out loud. "We ask for physical proof of your loyalty to our leader."
"I beg your fucking PARDON?" Roland managed to say once he had regained enough mental functions to do anything but gape at Gale. Every single thing his mind was coming up with - scarring, branding, courtesy blowjobs, chopping off pinky fingers, feeding Serph's demon - Varna, right? - a pound of his own flesh - was all but appealing. And the more he thought about how the Embryon seemed to have all their body parts and perfect, scarless skin - well, to be fair, except for Argilla, but then why didn't everyone had a scar by the eye then? - the more his spinning mind was concluding these... animalistic people were aiming for a proof of submission via sex acts.
Gale didn't seem to understand Roland's outrage. Or at least, not to understand it right. "You asked to join us of your own free wil. We are simply asking for a proof of your loyalty to our leader."
Once again, Roland couldn't do anything but stare at Gale's impassive face for a moment. He honestly didn't want to know even as he asked. "Is this some sort of sick joke?"
Gale definitely did not seem to understand. "It is but a simple test."
"I gave you my word earlier! Isn't that enough?"
That did not seem to move Gale. Then again, Roland had somewhat expected as much. The AI... man seemed to have two states of mind: neutral and Not Happy. "I have faith in your words, but as you have said earlier, a man's worth can be more adequately assessed through his actions."
Roland caught himself agreeing with that reasoning, but shit, it didn't mean he wanted to get his mouth anywhere on Serph! "Do I really have to... huh..." he touched his bottom lip with the tip of a finger, briefly.
Gale's response was not open to discussion. Not to mention he was blocking the only exit. "Yes. Kneel," he said as he nodded toward Serph.
Defeated, Roland sighed and turned toward Serph, who was still sitting patiently on his crate, but he had barely taken one step when Gale stopped him.
"Wait. Your coat. Take it off," Gale said, holding his hand out to take it.
Groaning inwardly, Roland briefly considered keeping his coat to hide himself as best as he could from Gale's view, but he knew the AI could probably gut him for his leader in the blink of an eye if he so desired, so he slowly peeled it off and handed it over. He swallowed, suddenly feeling rather naked in his open black shirt, and zipped it all the way up as he walked to Serph. He then knelt before him, still wondering when exactly he had stepped on the set of a bad porn movie. But just as he was reaching to put his hands on Serph's thighs, mentally coaxing himself to get his nightmarish military hazing over with as quickly as possible - ungrateful bastard could have taken his own damn complicated pants off - Serph rose from his crate and walked around Roland to stand behind him, a hand on Roland's head.
Roland froze. If he didn't feel like sucking Serph off just to pay his respect to his leadership, he felt even less like getting fucked in the ass just so Serph could show he was the alpha male. "Hey... wait..."
But Serph didn't stop, leaning over from behind him to slowly unzip Roland's shirt and trailing two smooth but cold finger down Roland's right shoulder to uncover it. "Do you trust me as your leader?" Serph's voice in Roland's ear was more breath than sound, making him shiver.
About as far as I can throw you, and even at that, Roland was tempted to quip, but being a smartass would probably only make Serph use less lube, so he just said, "yes."
"Then show me," Serph continued. But, just as a resignated Roland was reaching for his belt buckle, Serph breathed, "Hold it in, then." And just before Roland could ask exactly what he was supposed to hold in, because this was getting very surreal, Serph sank his teeth in his bare shoulder with all his might.
Amidst the blinding pain that knocked the wind right out of his lungs, Roland understood immediately what "it" was. Indra was howling in his head, clawing his way through Roland's mental defence to get out, to defend itself, to attack, to murder, to feed on whoever dared even provoke it. Without thinking, Roland grabbed a handful of Serph's hair and pulled hard. A strangled cry escaped his throat and it only made Serph bite down harder and pull his arm farther back, nearly crushing Roland's wrist in his hand. His mantra was burning his hand like red-hot metal as he frantically tried to rein Indra in, trying to focus on anything but the pain. He let go of Serph's hair to grab onto the crate, gripping it so hard his knuckles turned white, trying to focus on something, anything that could distract him from the pain: the concrete floor hurting his knees, the roughness of the wood under his hand, the splinters prickling his fingers, the red UP arrow on the crate pointing to the floor, but Indra was not happy with any of this, he wanted Serph and he was gonna have Serph's severed head planted on the blade of his vajra if he had to KILL Roland for it. Roland snapped his jaw shut and ground his teeth together until it ache as if he could hold back the white already spilling over the edge of his vision. He could feel Indra pulling free from his grip, and the skin of the arm Serph was holding back began to harden.
He was let go of so suddenly he fell down face first on the floor, raising small clouds of yellow dust. He coughed and grabbed his painful, bloody shoulder, curling on himself. "F... son of a..." He dimly heard footsteps walking away, then others walk in closer as someone knelt by him. Gale carefully picked him up from his uninjured side and pulled him up in a sitting position, using his body to support Roland. Argilla and Cielo arrived quickly after that and knelt by him. Cielo dug into his bags to retrieve healing items and passed them on to Argilla, who went to the task of patching Roland up and cleaning him.
"Man, bro, you really went all out on the poor guy," Cielo said as he turned his head to watch Serph walk back in.
Despite the pain and his askew glasses, Roland noticed Serph had washed - or licked? - all traces of blood from his mouth. As much as he wanted to be mad at Serph for pretending he hadn't just viciously bit him for what had seemed like hours, he was happy not to see his blood on him. Judging by the way his head was buzzing and his mantra was still burning his hand, small yellow tendrils still pulsing from it, any further provocation would bring Indra roaring out of him, and he didn't feel strong enough to hold him back now.
Serph just smiled lightly and knelt at Roland's side, putting a light hand on the man's short hair. His voice was soft but clear. "Welcome to Embryon Tribe."