M'ressa had fought long and hard to get here. Vomiting all the slogans, 'repenting' she'd made a terrible mistake she could never undo by being only a 'half-way' cat-girl. Even if it meant alienating Pablo... she became one of the 'ones to trust' instead of 'ones to watch.'
She'd signed up for security work, for investigations. Lifetimes of experience downloaded right into her brain, even at the risk it might have destroyed her personality. But her one true goal remained the same. Fight the heart of this system and destroy it.
So... for years she'd endured, grinning and bearing it, earning trust, earning status. Until at last, she was at the high clearance lab. The one where the animal-girl-system had been created in the first place. Well, the research for it at least had been completed.
And its head researcher, Doctor Vanguard.
M'ressa could picture the bastard now, surrounded by entire legions of animal girl harem slaves, all used and discarded like trinkets of the week. He was so obscene that no one even laid eyes on him except for the exceptionally powerful.
It'd been hard fought and won, but her security clearance meant she was at last in the heart of darkness.
She slipped passed the towering guards, a pair of red and gold dragonness' with scales better than any bullet proof vest and goggles of bullet-proof glass over their eyes (their only real vulnerable spot). She'd seen the news feed of what these draconic amazons could do on the battlefield, and had no desire to experience it first hand.
She swiped the card and entered the password, she'd already hacked her bio-signature to not trip the automated machine guns as she slipped through the door.
She found a dark skinned nekomimi style catgirl waiting for her with aqua colored hair, tail and fur. She wore a lab-coat, but underneath was rubber thigh high boots, and a playboy bunny vest.
M'ressa wasn't too shocked, she figured she'd run into one of Doctor Vanguard's harem, but she held her gun tight just in case.
"Hi M'ressa!" The cat girl waved leaning back in a wheeled office chair. "About time you got here. You know how hard it was to get you your security clearance, cover-up your hacking, AND order Flair and Ruby to let you pass without question?"
M'ressa stammered. "W-w-what?"
"Oh where are my manners?" The cat girl leapt up from the chair. "My name is Vanny! Nice to finally meet you face to face girlfriend!"
"You... you... you're free will?" M'ressa wondered if one of Dr. Vanguard's slaves had kept her freedom of will for sadistic purposes (which was completely illegal, but since had that stop anyone?), and had found their chance to rebel.
"NOPE! Brainwashed through and through, complete identity-death!"
M'ressa held her gun tight. "And who is your Master?"
"You can guess, it's Dr. Vanguard of course girlfriend!" She said cheerfully.
"And where is he?" M'ressa demanded.
"Dr. Vanguard doesn't exist anymore," Vanny said simply.
M'ressa smiled darkly. "... So, the bastard got what was coming to him did he? Wish I could have been to see it myself."
"If you insist," Vanny pressed a button, and a screen turned on.
It showed a haggard old man, unshaved, balding white hard, looking like he hadn't eaten or slept in days.
"Begin instruction recording on score, begin instruction playback on mark. Score: Your name is Vanny. You are the brainwashed cat-girl scientist servant of I, Dr. John Joesph Vanguard. I command you, protect the animal-girl-system as it was intended. Protect it from corruption. Protect it from being destroyed. Ensue its continuation. Observe, think, and adapt as needed. Ensure its cultural saturation. Do what needs to be done." On the screen, Dr. Vanguard held a rifle sized device connected to dozens of runes and crystals, that M'ressa recognized as a prototype for the animal-girl transformation magic. "Mark." He pulled the trigger.
In a flash, stood Vanny, standing perfectly at attention, emptily staring foreword like a blank slate. Then Dr. Vanguard's voice played back what he'd said before.
"Yes Master, this cat girl scientist, named Vanny, obeys," the Vanny on the screen said.
"John? Where are you? There's something we need to discuss!" Said another scientist's voice, as he, and four others, all came in at the same time from a door behind Vanny.
"Yes, Ivan, I know," Vanny on screen said simply, M'ressa realized the Vanny on screen was still holding the prototype zapper. She saw her adjust the settings, and turned and fired at the four.
In a flash, the four were unmade, and in their place was four busty almost identical fox women, still wearing their labcoats and IDs but nothing else. They stood at attention with their arms at their sides smiling blankly.
"You are animal girl scientists. You serve Master John Vanguard. You know nothing else. You desire nothing else. You need nothing else. I am Vanny. I serve Master. Serve me, serve Master."
"Serve you, serve Master," the four vixen said together.
"There is no Dr. Alter, only Sunny." She told the orange vixen who parroted her.
"There is no Dr. Rise, only Starry." This process repeated with the pink furred one.
"There is no Dr. Tenpi, only Snowy." Same with the white one with a Japanese accent.
"There is no Dr. Sneg, only Cherry." And finally the red one with a Russian accent.
Vanny put the prototype zapper down and clapped. "Excellent girls! Now let's get back to work! There's stilly much to be done."
"Sure thing Vanny!" The four said together excitedly and saluted.
Vanny clicked off the screen.
M'ressa stared at Vanny in shock.
"Master ceased to exist when I was created," Vanny said solemnly. "It was only later that I had time to think about that I would receive new no order from him. That those commands were the only ones he'd ever give me... so I'd make sure they were realized no matter what..."
M'ressa whispered, "But how... Dr. Vanguard has meetings on a regular..."
"Those close to him got with the program if you get what I'm saying. As for right now, the rich and powerful these days just send their animal girl servants, and they tell their Masters how they met with Dr. Vanguard. They're content with me being boxed up in here and just enjoy the toys I've given them."
"... Why did you... why did he, do that to his own lab parters?"
Vanny tapped a button on her labcoat. "Hey girls, you listening? Why don't you explain it yourself?"
And out of four different doors came Sunny, Starry, Snowy and Cherry.
"The plan of the humans we were created from was to back-zap Master into a happy little sex-toy now that the hard work was done!" Starry grinned.
"THEN they were sell the research to the highest bidder," added Cherry.
Snowy nodded. "Keep this technology in the shadows. Held only by the rich and powerful. Or by the army, whichever paid them more."
Sunny twirled around. "Just imagine! One nation with the power to create brainwashed animal girls on the spot! Just one country! Just imagine how fast they'd conquer the world! Or have it exist only to have the obscenely wealthy have an endless supply of brainwashed sex toys hidden from the buying public, existing only as conspiracy theories."
Vanny nodded. " ... As you can imagine girlfriend Master had objections to that. Master's plan, was to make sure every country on Earth could access to this tech. Make it impossible to cover-up or bury."
"... So, you're the first one... the first animal girl maid?"
"I believe the term is Professor Guinea Pig. Master was... as you could see... perhaps mentally exhausted at the time. He could be forgiven for making reckless choices. But it was them or himself at that point."
"And he knew that if he turned himself into a cat girl whose Master was a man who didn't exist anymore, she would be hard-locked into whatever commands he gave her." M'ressa whispered.
"And his commands had no set end-point. So they couldn't just wait out his orders... So I've been helping keep the Animal-Girl-System running ever since."
"But... who is in charge then?" M'ressa felt dizzy. "Who is at the top? Who is making everyone buy into this?"
Vanny put a hand on M'ressa's shoulder. "Girlfriend, you can't impose a moral system on a society. It never works. The only reason that the Animal-Girl-System has lasted this long WITHOUT triggering a bloody revolution is because the people want it! They WANTED a way out, they wanted a compromise that they felt couldn't be considered bloody-handed by either side.
"Seriously, the Buffalo woman on the street corner handing out pamphlets has done more to challenge the system than you have acting like Rambo.
"There is no 'central core' to this system." She wiggled her fingers like telling a ghost story. "It exists in the hearts and mind of every brainwashed-animal-girl, and every human who had embraced the service they offer with open arms. Murders, rapes, wars, human trafficking, have all nose dived."
M'ressa's eyes widened in realization. "... People just LET their hyper competent servants do all the thinking for them. You coddled mankind into world peace."
Vanny snapped her fingers. "Exactly girlfriend!"
M'ressa tilted her head. "But If you're programmed to protect the animal girls system from all threats... why haven't you zapped me yet?"
"'Observe, think, and adapt as needed' my Master told me," Vanny said suddenly serious again.
The four vixen stood with their hands together at their waist and bowed their heads.
"... Master miscalculated," Vanny said. "Master never imagined people would willingly become animal people without being brainwashed as well. And had no idea that the brainwashed would then begin to stigmatize those who weren't."
M'ressa locked eyes with the prototype catgirl... not serious, not chipper, but... sorrowful.
"M'ressa... I am very VERY SORRY for everything you've endured. This was a HORRIBLE miscalculation on Master's part... I... do not think he understood people as well I and my sisters do."
If all the things M'ressa had prepared herself for, up to and including being turned into a animate rubber love doll for some random cruise ship, dead, or made another convict worker golem ... but an APOLOGY?
"I... don't know what to say," M'ressa said, not realizing she'd lowered her weapon. It felt kinda pointless now.
"Master never thought he'd create a perfect system, just one humans could live with themselves. I want you under my wing girlfriend. My cat's paw in the outside world. To enable those who become animal girls without being brainwashed to live out their days in peace. And to weed out those who ARE using the animal girl system to feed their sadism with torture, consuming the flesh of sapient humanoids, hunting them like dumb animals and stuffing them like trophies..." Vanny shuddered as did the vixens.
"That... was something else Master never realized. Sadists CAN'T be satisfied with a willing servant. A masochist could never satisfy them. They can't take pleasure from something their victim is too. He thought if everyone could have someone who'd do whatever they were told with a smile, they'd never feel the need to bully or hurt anyone... he didn't understand that there ARE people who CAN'T enjoy themselves if the other person is willing. It doesn't matter there are places where animal-girls are perfectly willing to roleplay victims for paying customers... just as a serial killer can't get their kicks playing a first-person-shooter."
M'ressa said simply, "And if I refuse?"
"We could brainwash you to go along with it!" Sunny said, "We DID keep a few toys to ourselves!"
"Or, simply give you some heroic memories of having dealt a blow to the system, maybe rewrite Pablo's mind too so he doesn't think you betrayed your beliefs, and the two of you can pick up your lives where you left off," Snowy said.
"And if I say yes?" M'ressa asked.
"There is no technology to undo a personality-death, nor any technology to turn an animal-girl into a human," Vanny said, "THAT I can assure you, I am being 100% truthful about. All animal girls are former humans. I made us so we can't reproduce so we don't become just another growing population."
"I know what I was getting into when I signed the consent forms for my transformation," M'ressa reminded her.
"And sadism isn't limited to humans, there ARE animal girls who get their pleasures wronging their own kind," Snowy said sadly.
"What I'm getting to us, I can give you a few toys to help you on the ... let's call them errands I'd like you to do for me. It can mercy-rewrite the minds of traumatized beyond repair animal-girls, you'll be meeting a lot, with my cartridge inserted into this little toy." Vanny took out what looked like a sci-fi toy ray-gun from the fifties and inserted a module that looked like an a video game cart.
"Including you?" M'ressa asked.
"Yes," Vanny didn't lie.
M'ressa pulled out the cartridge out of the device, tossed it over her shoulder, where it broke. "There, we both know we can trust each other now. I... I wanted to make the world a better place... If you want me to be your angel of death and mercy to monsters and victims like that, you got me."
"Do you mean that of your own free will?" Vanny asked with her hands behind her back.
"What difference does it at this point?" M'ressa asked.
"Because, you agreed to become a free will animal girl of your own choice. And you're right, I COULD rewrite your mind, so you don't try to betray us all later and burn the entire house down when you're reminded of the ugly side."
"I'm getting excited just thinking about you being brainwashed!" Sunny admitted.
"But I have a feeling that someone whose held onto their free will once, isn't likely to sacrifice it for the greater good later," Vanny said. But without the contempt that M'ressa had gotten used to from brainwashed animal girls telling her so.
"Also, thanks for your 'born again animal girl' public image, it'll let you get around much easier than some a loudmouth radical who wanted to blow up a TV studio after being tormented by brainwashed animal girls."
M'ressa cringed being reminded of that.
Be the personal super-agent of five mad scientists, go around the world putting down the scum of society? ... But also possible putting the mental-mercy on their victims too?
... M'ressa just found out her entire mission had been strung along from the start. And even if she attacked these five girls here and won... so what? Nothing would actually change... Which was what Pablo had been telling her all along.
"Take me. I'm yours," M'ressa said simply and bowed. "This secret agent cat girl belongs to you."