Banished Pt. 11

'Forgive me, my throne! I failed in the performance of my task. I grew weary with my journey to the ends of time, and I allowed this voice to convince me that I should return to thee.'

"A loud rumbling sound echoed from the throne, and the being cowered.

'Your transgression is grave, but alas; you speak in earnest of your misdeed. Your conscience is clean; but to make amends, the being of space thou must now seek! Go forth, my being, and seek thee the ends of space.'

"Thus it came to be, that time moved forward along the plane set forward by space, one forever seeking the other; and when time finally catches up to space, all things will again cease to be.

"To be continued," I whispered, as Miriam let out a soft, gentle exhalation.

She was fast asleep, and I found myself giving in to my own core-strained exhaustion as well.

I settled in beside her then drifted off to a dreamless sleep, and I must have slept for some time as the next time I awoke, it was to a darkening night sky.

The caravan had come to a halt, and Miriam was stirring beside me.

She rubbed sleepily at her eyes, then smiled as she noted that I had remained by her side.

Your presence is a comfort I never knew I needed until now, she said into my mind, and I smiled, as she moved in and nuzzled me affectionately.

As I climbed out of the cart, however, I caught sight of Bianca shooting daggers out of her eyes at me, but before I could properly process anything, another wave of nausea came over me, and I turned to the side of the cart just as I began to heave and retch, roughly spewing out more of that thick, green sludge.

What the fuck am I even throwing up? I thought, as I wiped at my eyes.

The taste in my mouth was bitter; worse than any medicine or any taste, even, that I could remember.

My mind felt hazy, and I heard the princess cry out something just as I felt myself being supported by another.

I tried to make out who it was, but I was falling into unconsciousness fast, and as I went down, I did so with the hope that whoever it was would be able to support my weight.

***

I woke up to a familiar but curious sensation of breasts pressed up against my chest.

Wait, where was my armor?

I felt a slight moment of panic, as my armor had basically become my second skin over the past few days, but a different kind of panic set in as I realized that the breasts pressed up against my chest weren't the only ones in contact with my body.

I opened my eyes slowly, trying to figure out what was going on.

"Nate, are you waking up?"

The voice was Cameron's and it came from somewhere behind me; wait, my head was resting against something soft.

What the...?

As my eyes fluttered open, I found myself in an almost surreal scene.

Bianca was on top of me, hence the breasts that were pressed into my chest, but curled up under my right arm was Molly, and under my left was Leanna; with both girls pressing themselves quite closely to me on either side, and as I turned my head, I spotted Cameron, grinning at me with a curious expression.

"I actually died back there, didn't I?" I asked, more to myself really even as I said it out loud, and Bianca giggled at me.

"Hey, if he thinks he's dead, then can we do some dirty things to him?" she asked.

"Sure, why not?" Cameron replied, until a familiar sound of a clicking tongue came to me from somewhere off to my left.

"Behave," Casey said. "Until we get all of the excess feedback out of his system, he needs to do as little as possible."

"He doesn't have to do anything. I'll do all the work," Bianca said suggestively, as she sat up, and rubbed her hands across my chest.

"Hey! Lie back down. Maximum body contact, remember?"

Bianca frowned as she obeyed Casey's order, and I turned in her direction and shot her a questioning look.

"What is this?" I asked, and Casey sighed.

"After sleeping with your princess, you accumulated more feedback. I'm not sure why, but you absorbed most of the excess feedback that she was afflicted with, and it made you really sick."

I frowned, as if I had done that, it certainly wasn't intentional.

"So, this is what? Feedback therapy?" I asked, and Bianca smirked.

"Yep. I'm saving your life here, so you better remember to thank me for it later," she said.

"Maybe he should thank us all... one by one," Molly added suggestively, and Leanna squirmed a little against my arm.

Casey moved closer to us, then as she stared at me, I eyed her with a look of surprise.

She was gazing into my energy core!

As soon as she was finished looking at whatever she was checking on, she caught the expression on my face, and smiled.

I learned to use it, she said into my head; quite proudly, I should add, and I shot her a quick smile.

The smile immediately faded, however, as soon as I realized that Cameron was behind me.

"Wait, if this thing makes you sick, why are you doing this too?" I asked, turning to her, and she shook her head, caressing my face lovingly with her hand.

"I'm not in as much surface contact with you as those three," she said, gesturing to the other girls, but that reassurance did little to settle my fears.

I shot Casey a quick look, and she nodded.

"Maybe I should take over for a bit?" she suggested, and Cameron frowned.

"I guess I could grab something to eat," she said, and I quickly nodded in agreement, as she slipped from behind me, and Casey took her place, resting my head against her lap.

As everyone settled in again, however, Leanna squirmed against me, and as I suddenly noted a slight bit of heat coming from her, where her body pressed into mine around her sex, and I began to stir almost instinctively.

I panicked for a second as Bianca's expression told me that she felt it, as she turned to me and smiled.

But, thankfully, she didn't say anything... and soon enough, I felt myself falling back into another deep sleep.

I woke up a few more times during the night, still smothered pleasurably in a tangle of limbs, but the girls were all asleep those times, and I lay there, unmoving, not wanting to 'upset the apple cart', until eventually I drifted back off to sleep.

This continued throughout the night, until I awoke to the sight of the girls being roused and led, groggily, to their own spots in the sleeping area.

Evie, Ryker and Gisela then joined Casey in checking on me.

Evie took a look into my energy core, then nodded.

"Almost all of the feedback seems to have cleared up."

I frowned.

"It's not gonna make the other girls get sick, is it?"

Casey shook her head.

"When the feedback is drawn out in small amounts, and especially while sleeping, it actually just gets absorbed by their own cores."

I rubbed my chin.

"So, absorbing feedback in small amounts can develop your own core?"

Casey nodded.

"Well, yeah. But if it goes over a really small threshold, it makes you really sick, and unable to recover your own core capacity for a while."

I stretched a little, before turning to Evie.

"How's Myrinne doing?" I asked.

"She's stable now. I had to be careful about accelerating her healing too much because it still drains her own core, and when I tried to use my own core to accelerate it, Ryker stopped me."

I shot him a questioning look, and he braced, as if I was about to slap him.

"Why?" I asked.

"He said that when you pour your own energy into another, it almost always results in feedback for both parties," Evie explained, and I frowned.

I'd done that twice yesterday, hadn't I?

With Bianca, and later on with Miriam...

No wonder I felt so sick.

I felt much, much better now though.

I stretched lazily again, as my limbs felt slightly numbed from remaining unmoved for so long.

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Two hours before the final segment of night," Casey answered, and Gisela nodded at her.

"And how far away are we from our first destination?"

"We will arrive this day-cycle," Gisela answered, and I tilted my head at her.

"We're getting out of this grove that quickly?" I asked, and Gisela bit her lip nervously.

"Our trajectory is changed; we aim for a little cluster originally meant to be bypassed."

"Will the princess be well enough by then to see visitors?" I asked, and Gisela shook her head.

"No, but our image is aided if the princess sees to visitors while tended to by her god-mate," Gisela said, nodding to me, and I smiled.

A little Florence Nightingale gender-swap play, huh?

Sounds good to me.

"Is it safe for me to use skills again?" I asked.

"Yes-"

"No-"

Evie and Casey looked at each other, having given me the two contradictory responses respectively, and I snickered a little at Casey.

"Sorry, but you've been overruled by my attending physician," I said, and Casey frowned.

"You should rest a little more," she said, and I shook my head.

I'll be damned if I let that thing come back here and hurt Cameron, or my child, I thought.

"Did Bianca sleep all night?" I asked, and Casey nodded. "And Lucia?"

"Yeah- you want to train them? Now?"

I nodded.

"We need to step up the daily training a bit. From the dangers we've seen so far, we're overdependent on a small group of fighters, and if any of us get hurt like Francesca did, we'll end up in trouble."

Casey bit her lip, but Evie nodded in agreement.

"Nate is right. I've been useless in the last two conflicts, and many others have too. We need to step up."

I turned to Ryker.

"I want to include you in the training, not to teach you combat skills, but to improve your core capacity. Would you be okay with doing that?" I asked, and the boy cast frightful glances between me and Evie, but as Evie gestured that it would be okay, he quickly nodded.

"Is it really safe for us to core-train the only Kobalt versed in medicine, though?" Casey asked.

Ryker actually shook his head at this, before interjecting.

"All of the companion-servants have been trained in healing," he said, and I nodded.

"Besides; Lucia recovers her core capacity after a four-hour nap; that's a little over one segment," I said turning to Ryker. "We can afford to have you sleep at least that much, at least once a day, right?"

Ryker nodded shyly, and I smiled, ruffling his hair a little playfully as I did.

The boy blushed, and I noted that he had many mannerisms that one might consider 'girly', in addition to having a face that one might consider quite beautiful, but also in a rather feminine way.

"I'm thinking of training Gunter as well," I added. "He's shown some potential in the use of sensory skills."

Gisela rubbed her chin, then nodded.

"I see little use in training such a sapling, but none will object; and Gunter will be most pleased."

She bowed, and headed off to attend to things elsewhere, and as Evie headed off to fetch Lucia and Bianca, I took the moment to embrace Casey, and she studied me.

"What is this?" she asked, and I snickered a little.

"Thanks for holding down the fort," I said, and she shoved me playfully in response.

"I'll take that gratitude in kisses, please," she said, her eyes flicking past me to the rest of the group. "When you're done playing with your little girlfriends, I mean."

She stuck her tongue out at me, and I smirked a little as she sauntered off after Gisela.

As Evie gathered up the trainees, I took a look around for a suitable place for us to train, when Francesca began to stir.

She took a look around, then sleepily made her way to my side.

"Hey," she said. "You gonna do some training?"

She began to stretch a little, and I eyed her curiously.

"Yeah; what're you doing?"

"Warming up?" she said, and I snickered at her.

"Come here," I said, patting the seat at my side, and as she came over, I began to examine her hand. "How is it?"

"Should be healed by tomorrow, with that new healing trick you taught me. It wasn't that bad a break, and Ryker made sure the bone was set and everything."

I patted her on the head.

"Well, I still want you to take a break from training. At least for today?"

She pouted.

"Can I still watch? And maybe help?"

I nodded.

"Sure; but no one-handed pushups or anything else like that," I warned, and she nodded reluctantly.

"Nate~. It's still dark," Bianca whined, as she darted to my side. "Please tell me we don't have to train now? Pleaseeeee~."

I snickered at her.

"You have to train," I said, and she pouted, but as she shot a quick glance at Francesca's broken arm, she seemed to brighten up a bit.

"Okay. This is my chance!" she declared, and I snickered as she darted off to the supply cart.

"Lucia," I called out, and the girl turned timidly towards me.

Still feeling badly about that, huh?

"Go with Bianca and get yourself a dagger from the supplies," I called.

"Okay," she answered, and I shook my head in surprise.

"Since when is she speaking English?"

Francesca smiled a little.

"She's been picking up words here and there from me," she said, and Evie frowned.

"I tried to get her to talk all day; then she hears Francesca say one thing and she picks it up. By the way, she says 'fuck' whenever something happens. Guess who taught her that?"

I eyed Francesca, and the girl blushed.

"What?"

"Do you let your parents hear that foul mouth of yours?" I teased, and she shrugged.

"They were never around much; plus, I played a lot of online games, so I curse a lot more than you can imagine."

I chuckled a little as I studied Francesca in a new light.

Would have never pegged her as a gamer, I thought.

As Bianca and Lucia returned with some of the armor and weapons, I asked them to sit in front of me as I began to peer into their cores.

As I figured, Lucia also seemed to have unlocked the dagger skill that I noticed in Bianca before, but I was quite shocked to see that the bump that represented that skill in Lucia's web seemed to be much more pronounced than Bianca's.

Hadn't Bianca trained many more times with the dagger than Lucia had?

And shouldn't her implant have accelerated the rate at which she gained that skill by an even higher factor?

It was pretty strange, and I made a mental note to keep an eye on it.

"I wanna try something," I said, as I retrieved one of the wooden staffs that we'd been using for training.

I retrieved the dagger, then cut two lengths of wood; the same length as that of the dagger, then handed them to Lucia and Bianca.

"I want the two of you to picture these pieces of wood as daggers, and attack each other as if you're trying to kill the other person? Do you understand?" I asked, turning to Lucia, and she nodded, then charged at Bianca who yelped as Lucia stabbed her in the leg.

"What the fuck? You little fucking rascal!" she exclaimed, aiming a kick at Lucia who easily leapt out of the way.

I chuckled at Bianca as I held her back, then separated her from Lucia.

"Wait until I tell you to begin," I said, and Lucia simply turned her head up at Bianca, as if to say she wasn't sorry, even so.

Bianca scowled, then got ready, and Francesca eyed me, as I moved to her side.

"What are you thinking?" she asked.

"Let's just watch," I said, and she shrugged, as we turned our attention to the two.

Evie and Ryker also moved to join us, bringing more stuff from the supply cart as they did.

"Are you letting Bianca fight a kid?" Evie asked, and I nodded.

"Okay, on three!" I said.

"One, two-"

I never got to three, as Lucia darted in at Bianca, and she complained loudly again, but Lucia used the opportunity to stab at Bianca's gut this time, and she fell to her knees, clutching the spot.

"She's cheating!" Bianca complained, and I snickered at her.

"She might be; but you need to keep your eyes open. Monsters aren't gonna count."

Lucia was grinning wickedly at Bianca, and I noted that it was really getting under Bianca's skin.

The two got ready for another round, and this time, I simply yelled 'go!' and Bianca moved quicker this time.

She circled away from Lucia, and as Lucia lunged in to attack, Bianca evaded, then spun with surprising agility, and slashed at Lucia's hand.

The girl's wooden dagger went flying, but as Bianca moved in to finish the job, she contented herself with gently tapping the stick against Lucia's neck, which seemed to annoy the child even more.

"Again!" Lucia said, and I snickered a little at the response, as I retrieved the child's wooden weapon.

I handed it to her, then nodded.

"Again," I said, and she readied for the next round.

As I returned to Francesca's side, however, I noted that she was studying them quite intently.

"This is so weird; when they fight with the longer sticks, neither of them is anywhere near as good as this. What's going on?" she asked.

"I think our respective weapons teach us skills which make us more efficient in using them," I suggested.

"Oh! That makes sense. And they've been doing their core training with the daggers, huh?"

She thought about it for a bit, then frowned.

"Should I try to diversify a bit, then?" she asked.

I shook my head.

"A spear fighting specialist is much more useful against monsters than dagger specialists are."

"Ouch! You little bastard!" Bianca cursed, and I snickered a little as she hopped on one foot.

Bianca was doing much better than I'd expected, but even as the age advantage that she held over Lucia showed through, Lucia, I noted, had a knack for scoring the odd victory, mostly by resorting to underhanded tactics, or doing things that were downright unexpected.

It was a very rogue-like way to fight, and I had to admit; it was quite impressive.

As the sparring continued, Nolan and Jordan, who were on the night watch, eventually found us and came over to observe.

"Hey, you seem pretty much healed up," I noted, and Nolan nodded, though he seemed quite uncomfortable, and I suddenly remembered the conversation that Cameron had intended to have with him.

"He is," Jordan added, a little more brightly. "Even the scars are basically gone."

"I'm glad to hear it. Has there been any sign of that creature since the attack?"

Jordan shook his head.

"No sign of anything, really."

As Bianca easily disarmed Lucia again, I suddenly felt the urge to test her out against a slightly more evenly matched opponent.

"Hey, Jordan. Do you mind going a round with Bianca?" I asked, and he rubbed the back of his head nervously.

"Should I? I am on watch."

"Everyone's up, more or less. I think it'll be fine," I said, and he reluctantly agreed.

"Should I disarm?" he asked, and I quickly shook my head.

"Actually, this might work perfectly," I said.

Jordan retrieved one of the wooden sticks, but as I noted that he now carried the sword at his hip, I retrieved the stick that I'd cut before to make the dagger length pieces, and to my delight, I found that the remaining length was about as long as his sword.

"You can use this as a sword," I suggested, and he shot me a relived look, as I called Lucia to my side.

She seemed annoyed that I'd stopped the fight just as she'd lost another round to Bianca, but as the two readied to fight, she seemed to settle down, and watched with interest.

"Ready? Go!" I chanted, and Bianca quickly darted towards Jordan.

She made a stab at his leg, and he evaded, before making a slashing attack which struck Bianca in the ribs.

"Oww~," she whined. "That hurt!"

"Sorry," Jordan began, as I moved to her side.

I inspected the damage, then opted to put on one of the chest pieces on her, as well as the leg plates and arm guards.

She was still studying me with a glum look, when I patted her on the head, then leaned in to whisper:

"If you beat him, I'll let you cuddle naked with me tonight," I said, and her eyes lit up.