Banished Pt. 07

"Who?" I asked, genuinely curious, and she looked around again, before whispering the answer into my ear.

"Casey."

I snickered a little, letdown by the anti-climactic revelation.

"But, wasn't she herself hypnotized in the first place?"

"Oh, I'm sure that's what she wants you to think; but that's just some clever acting on her part. See, she's manipulating this whole scheme. She pretends that she's one of the supposed victims, while pulling the strings herself. It's foolproof!"

"But, what does she gain from making the girls fall for me?" I asked.

"She can't make them all fall for her, can she? Well, maybe apart from the redhead, cuz she's definitely giving off some 'lesbo' vibes. Anyway, get this; instead, she draws them to you, who she has some control over since she's basically your main advisor. Until I came along, at least," she added, winking as she did, and I snickered again.

"There's just one flaw in your theory," I said, and she frowned.

"What?"

"The hypnosis is temporary, and wears off pretty quickly. So, she couldn't exactly be the one pulling off the hypnosis all day when she was stuck in that cart, could she?"

"Fuck. I didn't know about that... I might need some more time to figure this out," she said, and I ruffled her hair as I did.

"No, I think you've done enough," I said. "That was basically a test, anyway."

"A test?"

"Yup."

"Did I pass?" she asked, and I quickly nodded.

"With flying colors. Now there actually is something I want you to do for me, but its only if you really want to do it."

"What is it?" she asked, her curiosity piqued.

"I should warn you. It's dangerous," I warned, and she began to hop back and forth.

"Is it important?"

"Extremely. I mean, there's literally no-one else I could even think about asking this of."

She began to gnaw at her fingernails.

"I'll do it. Just tell me what it is!"

"I don't want you to agree until you know what you're getting into," I said, and she frowned.

"I'm literally agreeing no matter what it is!" she shot back excitedly, and I chuckled a little, as I guided her over to the supply cart, where four Kobalt guards stood by, keeping watch on our supplies.

I greeted them in German, as we walked past them to the supply cart where our weapons were stashed, and I rummaged around a bit, then produced one of the daggers from our weapon cache.

"Are you giving me a weapon?" she asked excitedly, and I shook my head disapprovingly.

"Sort of; now you'll be using this for your task, but only under my supervision."

She pouted a little, as I continued.

"What do you know about our weapons?" I asked, and she shrugged.

"I dunno much about them. Vanessa never let me use them either."

"Hm. Well, they're special; unlike ordinary weapons, they can cut through basically anything without much effort."

"Really?"

As I passed the weapon to her, she withdrew the dagger from its case, and after examining the blade a little, she shot the supply cart a quick look, then without a second thought, she swung, and the cart fell down with an unceremonious clatter, lopsidedly, as one of the wheels on which it stood had been sliced along the length, and a piece of wheel now lay beside it on the floor.

A few gazes shot in our direction, and I gulped.

Fuck! Hopefully that can be fixed, right?

"You might wanna be a little more careful with that," I warned, and she blushed.

"Sorry~," she said, with a dopey kind of grin that I couldn't help but notice looked particularly cute on her.

I patted her on the head, and she smiled sheepishly as I led her away from the cart, to a little pile of rocks that was lying around within the camp boundaries.

"Here. Try these," I offered, and she shot her blade a slightly doubtful look, as she studied the stones.

"Even stone?" she asked, and I nodded.

"Go ahead. Test it for yourself," I offered, and she stuck her tongue out a little, as she raised the blade, then swung with all her might at the rocks.

But as the blade sliced cleanly through the stones, the lack of resistance caught her off guard, and she teetered off balance for a bit, before toppling over, a little dangerously, towards the ground.

I reached out and caught her just before she landed, and she smiled as I scooped her up, and brought her back to her feet.

"Did I miss?" she asked, and I shook my head, as I leaned down to inspect the damage.

I picked up one of the stone pieces, and showed her how it had been cleanly sliced along its profile, and she studied the object with interest.

"Well would you look at that. Anyone can be a danger with these things... ooh, that's how Emily killed Candace!" she suddenly declared, before frowning. "Are we sure we want one of these in everyone's hands? It seems kinda dangerous."

I chuckled a little.

"Well, putting one in Emily's hands was certainly a mistake. And you're banned from keeping one yourself, 'Mrs. former minion of Vanessa'," I said, and she put her hands on her hips.

"I have literally no argument to make against that," she said, letting her hands fall away, and I chuckled at her again.

"Try to keep your balance this time," I said, gesturing to the rocks, and she nodded; but instead of gearing up for a mighty swing, she stooped down in front of the rocks, then made a quick, small slash, cutting the rocks just as efficiently as she had with her first, big swing.

"Easy peasy," she declared, and I smiled.

"Okay. Now for the experiment-y part. Keep doing that until the blade stops cutting," I said, and she frowned.

"They stop cutting?" she asked, and I nodded.

"I've never seen it myself, but apparently they do... which is what we're testing out."

Bianca pouted a little.

"Heey~, I thought this was something super special important," she complained, and I nodded.

"It actually is," I replied, as I stooped down to join her, while withdrawing one of the energy cores from my satchel. "See this?"

"Whoa. Is that the core thingy?"

I nodded.

"We have one of these inside of us too. It's what powers things like these weapons, and when we use the weapons, it depletes the energy inside."

"Oh, I see. Wait- I won't die if it depletes, will I?"

"No, no; you might get really sleepy, and sleep for a long time, but you won't die."

"Hnn~. And why are we doing that?"

"Because every time your core depletes completely; it regenerates to a higher capacity than what it originally had."

"Ohh. I see~. So, we're doing this to make me stronger... but not muscle stronger, but energy core stronger. I think I like this. I kind of wanted to fight, but I don't wanna look all athletic and trim like the cute, brown haired girl. So~, will I be a fighter if I do this?"

"The best one I have; a super soldier, basically," I replied, and she smiled happily.

She approached the stones, sticking her tongue out of the side of the mouth as that determined look appeared on her face again, and she began to slice at the stones again and again in quick repeated succession.

Every time, the blade sliced through the stones, and as she sliced repeatedly, eventually the little pile was reduced to nothing more than dust and rubble, and Bianca winced, as she rotated her slicing arm gingerly.

"Jeez~. How many slices will it take for this thing to run out?" she complained.

I rubbed my chin, as I considered the predicament.

If this mechanism works the way I think it should, then the resistance offered by the material being sliced probably affects how much energy is being used when slicing, right?

So, she probably needed to cut something that offered more resistance... but short of metal, what could she cut that offered more resistance than rocks?

I was still thinking about it, when I suddenly remembered that our armor actually resisted the cutting effect.

Of course, the reason why it did that was due to using the same kind of energy and technology that the knife used, but if Bianca tried to cut armor that was being worn, that would probably drain her energy faster, wouldn't it?

Come to think of it, in my battle with Raul, didn't my blows against his armor seem to drain my energy faster than doing anything else?

I moved back to the supply cart, and withdrew one of the spare chest armor pieces.

Would it be better for her to stab someone wearing it, or for her to wear it herself, and be stabbed?

Given that I was the only person around, and it was probably a bad idea for me to deplete my own core's power on a whim, I decided to let her wear the piece.

"Ugh. It's like, really big and bulky," she began, but as I fastened the straps, and the armor began to reconfigure itself to her form, her eyes lit up, and I noted with some interest, that the armor's new form seemed to accentuate her shape, most notably her breasts, in a way that was quite unlike the plain shape that Francesca's armor had taken.

I studied the development with some amusement, as I knew full well that there was no functional use for breast-shaped armor.

Maybe the wearer had a part to play in deciding what form the armor would take? I thought.

Bianca studied the armor with a wide-eyed amazement.

"Damn. I make this armor look good," she noted, shooting me a cheeky grin. "Don't I?"

I rubbed the back of my head, as I nodded.

"So, what now?" she asked, and as I withdrew my halberd, she studied me. "Wait... are you gonna hit me with that?"

"Yup," I replied, and a panic look crossed her face.

"What if you cut me in two?"

"The armor protects you," I replied, and as she frowned, I tapped my own breastplate. "Here. Try stabbing me right here."

She took the dagger in her hand, then made a stabbing motion, and she gasped as the blade deflected off of my armor with a sharp, metallic clang.

As she stowed away her blade, however, she began to gnaw at her fingernails nervously.

"Don't hit me hard, okay?"

"I won't," I promised, as I instructed her to keep her hands clear, and taking my halberd, I made a slashing cut across the front of the breastplate, and while she frowned as the strike knocked her a few steps back, she studied the area where I'd struck with some interest.

"Wow. Not even a scratch!"

She held her hands up again, and readied herself as I made a few more strikes, and it didn't take long before her armor let out that blue pulse, and she frowned, as the thing basically came apart, with some help from me, at the straps.

"That's not very sturdy," she said, and I snickered at her.

"Only when the bond has been broken; otherwise it's basically perma-sealed. Try this now," I said, indicating her knife, but as I directed her to another pile of rocks, she slashed at it, and once again, the blade sliced through without a hint of resistance.

"My core still has some juice then, huh," she noted, and I frowned.

I retrieved the piece of armor from the ground, then studied it.

This was the tier one piece, wasn't it?

Casey did say that they sheared off more easily that the higher-level stuff, but I guess that capacity had nothing to do with the capacity of our energy cores, huh...

I tried to put the armor back onto Bianca, but even as I fastened the straps and tightened them, it didn't seem to activate, and I was still studying the problem when Casey called out to me.

"What're you two doing?" she asked, and I turned to spot her walking over dressed in the toga style robes that usually indicated one's status as a councilmember.

"Well, look at you, councilwoman," I replied, and she blushed a little, before turning back to Bianca.

"What's this about?" she asked again, and I frowned.

"After armor's been sheared off, how do you get it back on?" I asked.

"Just give it a minute," she said, and sure enough, as we spoke, the little pulse of light that indicated its activation flashed, and Bianca tugged at it, making sure that it'd truly bonded in place.

"Seems solid," she said, tapping herself on the chest.

"If I'm trying to deplete Bianca's core; is it more efficient to let her do it by stabbing someone with armor, or by wearing armor and having it sheared off?"

Casey studied me.

"Stabbing will be faster, unless the armor is a high enough tier to not keep shearing off constantly," she replied, studying me warily. "Why are you depleting Bianca's core, though?"

"Nate is making me into a super soldier!" Bianca declared proudly, and Casey shot me a really sharp glare.

"Um... could we have a word, Nathan?" Casey asked, and Bianca giggled at me.

"Uh-oh; she used your full name," Bianca teased.

"Haha, very funny; now hand over the weapon, you," I chided, and she pouted, before handing me the dagger, and sticking her tongue out at me as I left with Casey.

"There are not enough words in fucking existence to explain in sufficient detail how astronomically bad an idea this is," Casey shot, and I frowned.

"Oh, relax. It's fine. She's basically my slave, and she's one of the only otherworlders who we can reliably deplete on a constant basis, since she's not really on watch, or doing anything else that we can't spare."

"Fucking hell, Nate. She's unstable. The group barely trusts her; and I'm not sure many of us can stand her either. What the fuck are you thinking here?"

"I need to know what a properly developed core is capable of. She's perfect for this."

Casey let out another exasperated groan, as I pulled her closer to me.

"Look; worse case scenario, we end up with a super soldier who serves no real purpose except doing miscellaneous tasks, right? Unless there's something about an increased core capacity that I need to know about."

Casey bit her lip, then frowned.

"As your advisor, I'm against this because of who Bianca is; in practical terms, the biggest worry you have is that she'll develop some ability, like hypnosis or something else that can manipulate large portions of the group, and end up being uncontrollable."

"And the chances of that are?"

"Highly improbable," Casey answered, sighing as she did. "Look; just, be careful, okay. And try to get her to keep that super soldier thing to herself. The group isn't gonna like this if they hear about it... especially like that."

"Agreed," I said, as we walked over to where Bianca stood, waiting.

"Hey, I had an idea," she said, as I approached her.

"What?"

"Can't we use prisoner guy as the punching bag? For me to do the slashy slashy?"

She made a slashing motion with her hand, and I rubbed the back of my head, as Casey shot me a warning look.

"If you use this to kill him, we'll probably execute you," Casey said, and Bianca frowned.

"Heey; I'm not a murderer like Emily."

She shot me a look, and I bit my lip nervously.

"He did almost murder you," I said, and she folded her arms.

"Ugh; I so don't care about that. If he hadn't done that, we would have never gotten close like this, now would we? As far as I'm concerned, he did me a favor," she replied, and I shot Casey a 'lets give it a chance' look, as she threw up her hands in exasperation.

"I give up. Do what you want!" she exclaimed, as she moved over to the cart, only to notice the damage that Bianca's first swing had done. "What the fuck happened to the cart?"

"Uh..."

"It was an accident, I swear!" Bianca cried out, and Casey sighed again.

She stomped off towards Gisela's sleeping area, presumably to let them know about the damage, and I bit my lip nervously, as Bianca shot me a wink.

"Well? She didn't say no~," she sang, and I snickered a little, before handing her the knife.

We headed over to where Raul was, and after explaining what we wanted to do, he raised an eyebrow at me.

"Is this my penance for almost killing her?" he asked, and I shrugged.

"It's more like, you're being conveniently used," I replied.

He complied nonetheless, and I strapped on the armor to his body, as he kneeled before Bianca, with his arms tied behind his back.

"Bet ya didn't see this coming, huh," she said, her tone a little more teasing than I'd expected, and the man sighed, as he answered.

"Just get it over with. I've had enough of this world already, anyway."

Bianca walked up to the man, then drew her dagger and stabbed at his armor over where his stomach was several times in quick succession.

"Where's my money, bitch? Huh? Where's my money!"

Raul shot Bianca an incredulous look, before glancing at me.

"Is she for real?" he asked, and I snickered a little, as Bianca put her hands on her hip angrily.

"I'm not done with you yet!" she yelled, as she began to stab him repeatedly again. "Get shanked, bitch!"

I snickered at her, as Raul shook his head, disapprovingly.

"Where do you get these crazy bitches from?" he asked, and Bianca paused her stabbing, studying Raul for a second, before raising her free hand and delivering a cracking backhanded slap to Raul, right across his face.

"Watch who you're calling bitch, bitch!" she said, and Raul seemed momentarily stunned by the slap.

"That was surprisingly well delivered," I said, laughing, as Raul shook his head.

"I'll begrudgingly admit that it was," he said, turning to Bianca, and I noted that he seemed to be studying the scarred area around her neck.

"I'm sorry... for that, I mean," he said, nodding at her neck, and she folded her hands, and shook her head.

"Not as sorry as you will be," she said, as she began to stab at his armor again, and soon enough, the piece deactivated, and fell to the floor with a thud.

As I reattached the piece, and waited for it to reactivate, Bianca headed off to slash at some rocks, and Raul glanced after her.

"She's... something, huh?"

"She can be a bit much, but I find it quite endearing, personally."

He raised an eyebrow at me, before letting out a sigh.

"You're pretty brave to step foot into a place like this," he said, before adding, "or stupid."

I turned to study him.

"Elaborate."

"This is a monster spawn zone... you might think its great for hunting them, but the more you kill, the stronger the monsters that'll start coming after you... until you attract the originator itself."

"Originator?"

He shrugged.

"I didn't come up with the word, but they're not to be messed with."

"What are they?" I asked, and he shot me a curious look.

"Doesn't Mrs. 'I work for these people' know all about these things?"

I shrugged.

"She was just an employee; that doesn't mean she knows everything."

He sighed.

"Originators are the ones who produce the monsters in a place like this," he said. "There are legends. I've heard people say that they're the fallen souls of otherworlders who died, but whose souls refused to move on to... wherever souls go when their bodies die."

"Sounds like a myth. Have you ever met one?"

He laughed.

"They aren't the kind of things that you 'meet'. If you encountered one and lived to tell the tale, then you have a story for the ages; that is, if you didn't cash in on the core and buy your ticket home first."

"Their cores are worth that much?"

"Supposedly," he answered, and I frowned.

"What happened to the whole 'worth garbage' thing?"

"I was talking about things that we could realistically kill," he replied, and I rubbed my chin as I processed the new information.

Did Casey really not know about any of this?

I wasn't sure if the knowledge was reliable, but it was more than what we had going into this place, and in any case, we had already planned to move through this zone as quickly and cautiously as was realistically possible.

As his armor bonded back into place, I called Bianca over, and she resumed her stabbing, but this time, her movements seemed to be quite fatigued, and I noted that she seemed to be a little unsteady on her feet.

"Whoa there," I said, as she almost toppled over, and she shook her head, as she studied me.