There were plenty of horror stories one heard from the survivors of Titan captivity. Plenty of former prisoners generally spoke at length for the capacity for disregard and cruelty toward those smaller than them. An endless conga line of dehumanizing torment. Aron, so far, could see flashes of it in how the Titans conducted themselves. On the surface a lot of their talk was normal soldier stuff. However there were always reminders that these women weren't human any longer and didn't consider themselves so.

Not that he had much time to reflect on that as he was working himself into exhaustion through a good deal of pain to knead at the well worn sole before him. The blonde officer woman had turned her foot onto its side idly at some point as he worked. Aside from the humiliating work there wasn't much attention brought to him yet. Which was something he was hoping would continue until they slept.

"So, after the Republic falls. Who do you think the First Citizen is gonna target next, Captain?" Asked one of the gals as she lifted a squirming and screaming woman over her maw. There were no crunching noises that followed her being dropped in her mouth. Just a single loud swallowing noise that chilled Aron to his core.

The captain scratched her chin. "Good question. Smart money is on the Imperials. Supposedly they've got Titans of their own. So would actually be a pretty decent fight. They've been saber rattling anyway since we took the Union. Not sure why they are all bent out of shape, they've done the same shit." She said.

Suddenly she shifted her feet around and Aron found both soles on either side of him. He let out a yelp before they pressed together, not enough to crush him but enough to pin him firmly and cause a good deal of pain. The captain idly started rolling him between her feet in a sort of fidget as she spoke. It was hard to make out her words as the pilot found himself utterly pinned and trapped between two walls of flesh. His world was spinning around him as he was forcibly jerked around.

The motion made him feel ill, the pressure was also pretty awful as it caused his bones to creak dangerously a couple of times. Eventually he found himself ending up under the row of her toes on her left foot. She idly curled the digits around him, pressing them into him none too gently. He couldn't keep the strangled cry of pain from escaping his lungs. All the while she carried on whatever conversation she was having.

Eventually she released him and he fell to his knees, gasping and panting. "Tired after just a little rough play? Must be some injuries you took on the way down." She remarked. "Don't forget to get between the toes, also I felt your weak ass rubbing. Got a better idea for how you should work."

She splayed her toes in front of him, smirking down from on high. The way the light of their camp caught her glasses made the glare obscure her eyes. "Lick."

Aron blinked at the command. "What?" He hesitated as the command sounded absurd.

"Wow, you Reps are really shitty at following simple commands some times." She rolled her eyes. "Natalie, why don't you have one of your slaves give him a fuckin' visual?"

One of the Titans, a dark haired woman with a scar on her cheek smirked as she reached over and plucked up a rather terrible looking man from away from the camp. She set him in front of her foot and... without prompting he crawled on all fours toward her toes. His tongue extended and he started to lick at the webbing between the digits, looking rather like a dog as he did the work. Aron felt a bit sick looking at it.

"By the time I'm done with your ass, you'll be *just* like that one. I won't even have to say a word, you'll just know." The blonde boomed and it caused his heart rate to heighten. "What? Did you somehow think you were gonna get away? And go fuckin' where?"

Her fingers reached down and tore the box of emergency equipment from his back. "W-wait, stop! Give that back!" He reached up, grasping for the lifeline but it was already far beyond his hands.

There was a faint crunch as the captain idly squeezed her fingers together, causing the box and everything in it to crumple, flattening it with zero effort. Aron fell slack as he watched her tear away his lifeline with the ease one might have in squashing a flea. She flicked the flattened piece of metal away and looked down at the pilot. "The fight on this planet is a formality, Rep. We've got the numbers in orbit, the boots on the ground on the planet. Let's say you did get away with your little beacon or whatever. Wouldn't have mattered anyway." She said with a shrug. "You scrambled and fought and survived your little crash for pretty much nothing."

She said it so easily and casually that Aron sank to his knees as the booming words of the blonde tore into him. He'd struggled his way through the city, dodging and ducking getting crushed or discovered. Striving to get away on the hope he could get back at these women later, when he had a mech back. And with a pinch of her fingers, the blonde had crushed it easily and effortlessly.

"You people aren't human." He breathed, shaking his head and running his fingers through his hair.

She smirked. "You're right. We were before. We're better now. We're bigger, will live endlessly unless we get killed by something, and stronger than any human could hope to be. You. The rest of the humans we trample. You're just the old humanity that gets left behind, trampled by the new humanity. Kept around and under heel perhaps, but ultimately objectively inferior." The woman said, looking around the camp. "Look around, all of these women here. Every Titan. If you lived a long life, you'd still be old, weak, frail and grey while we're all the same as you see now. That, Rep, is why we don't really feel bad about trampling our enemies. Would be like feeling bad about crushing ants."

Aron had never actually spoken to a Titan before. Oh there was plenty of propaganda that the Titans were the worst things. That they were evil. That they were just born cruel and merciless. Listening to the blonde and internalizing what she was saying. In a way he could see it. He could see why they wouldn't care. Because they really weren't humans anymore. They lacked any empathy toward what they had been before because humans were so inferior it was like trying to relate to a bug.

He heard a chuckle from on high. "Now, Rep, be a good ant and get on your knees. Crawl forward. And lick between the toes of your betters. Once you've done mine, you'll do the rest of the gals. Then, I'll toss you in my boot and you can come to terms with reality." She said with a sadistic gleam in her eyes.

There was a time where Aron would have said that he would have argued and fought against a Titan to the very end. Just an hour or two ago he would have said that really. Now. Now he didn't feel that way. After looking at the ones they had broken. After she had crushed his only lifeline. After she had broken down why trying to escape was futile anyway. After learning how these Titans really thought. The dark haired man bowed his head. He crawled bent forward, moving toward the slightly dirty webbing between her big and second toes. His mind was numb as his tongue extended and he dragged it along for a slightly salty lick.

The booming chuckle on high would haunt him probably forever, as would the next words she spoke. "Good boy. Also, if you're searching for terms for me. Mistress. That's the word you're looking for." She said as a chorus of chuckles from her fellow Titans boomed in his head eternally.

Suddenly one of the other Titans reached down and plucked him up by the leg. "Now Captain, that just won't do."

There was a vain hope in Aron's heart that ignited that this woman, a rather youthful looking tan skinned thing with her hair cut short, was a potential savior. She held him and had a stern look on her face.

"He's all injured and everything. Work him too hard and he'll kick it before breaking." She finished, snuffing out any of those hopes just as they had started to form.

The blonde scratched her cheek. "Whoops. Got all caught up working myself up." She responded with a sheepish look.

"This is why you *always* end up with dead slaves in like a week. Too rough. Gotta let them rest. They are super pathetic after all. We might not need sleep but they do still." The woman said as she was rummaging around in her pack with her free hand before pulling something out.

Tape. It was a very oversized tape dispenser. Aron blinked at the sight of the thing, not really comprehending what it was used for. At least until she walked over to a rather large boot and it became very apparent. That was when Aron started struggling and flailing and squirming in her hand as he found some kind of fight return to him. "Let me go! Stop! This isn't right, stop!" He shouted as he kicked at the finger holding him with his free leg.

"Eyyy, he does have some fight in him still. Lucky you, Captain." The woman laughed as she lowered him down into the boot and started messing with the tape.

He twisted and turned and tried to avoid the clear piece of sticky plastic being applied to him, screaming and struggling all the while but it was no use. The fingers of the Titan were far stronger than him. He felt the tape adhere to his skin and glue itself to the part of her boot where the arch of her foot would fall. Seemed like it, rather horrifically, had a bit of space allocated in case of prisoners. No doubt a standard design for the Confederation Titans.

He struggled at the tape, trying to free himself and all he did was get the woman laughing at him above through the opening of the boot. "Wow. That is fucking pathetic. Can't even fight their way out of a little tape." She rolled her eyes and set the boot back down. "All ready for ya tomorrow, Captain." She said as her steps receded.

Aron struggled and strained against the tape, trying to push it off but the pain that flared up was making it hard. He was also making zero progress there. He was trapped. Trapped inside the well worn boot. The faint scent of sweat and aged leather was strong enough that he coughed for a moment before falling slack. This was it then. This was pretty much the end of the line. He remembered those pitiful figures that had been slaving away outside. That would be him. At some point it would happen and he'd be like that.

In the end, there was no escape. There was no running. There was being under the heel of the future conquerors of the Republic and that was it. He wasn't sure what broke him more, the helplessness. Or the fact that nothing he could have done would have mattered in the slightest. In the end, like everything else he could have done. It didn't matter.