"Our old salvage yard - the perfect place for a piece of trash like you," laughed Shane, who punched me in the stomach as soon as his men pushed me in his direction, "Lass, you're messing with the wrong guy today."
"You're just a coward." I muttered before coughing and spitting up blood. It definitely hurt more than it had in the hall and I'm sure he hadn't held back there either. I had no idea what had changed, but as soon as we entered the salvage yard, my bomber jacket couldn't absorb the blows any more. A quick glance at Shane's face was enough to tell me that he was enjoying his current stunt to the full.
Meanwhile, Hannah had also been taken to the salvage yard and dumped next to me. One look at her face was enough to tell me that she had also been beaten on the way back. But I noticed something else. Usually you could see a kind of apathy in her face from a few yards away. This time, however, it was as if she had completely shut herself off from reality and disappeared into a world of her own. I couldn't blame her. We were up against a pack of grown men. Let's face it. As soon as we put up a fight, they would just beat us down again with ease.
"Two of you will stand guard at the entrance. We don't want anyone to disturb us by mistake," Shane ordered his thugs and once again I couldn't keep my big mouth shut and groaned, "So only eleven of you against the two of us. Our odds are getting higher. Sorry for calling you a coward, looks like you're braver than I thought."
Damn, I haven't been that sarcastic in ages. And I'm afraid I might have hurt Shane's tiny little ego a little too much, because he got really angry at that moment. "Take the little brat's jacket off," Shane ordered and I was sure I could hear deep hatred in his voice.
"Watch carefully," he shouted at Hannah, "This will be your future. What happens to that little brat will happen to you if you continue to refuse to join us. That would be a shame, because we still have some use for you. Unlike your useless little friend here."
With an evil grin, he said to my face, "You know what, loudmouth? I think I'll sell you to one of the brothels when I'm finished and you're still alive. If you are still alive."
Shane's words hurt me more than any of the blows he'd given me so far. And the fact that he was using me as a living punching bag to force Hannah to reconsider her decision didn't help. I was nothing but a pawn to him. What he didn't know was that she had no reason to change her mind because of me - we'd only known each other for half a week. Hannah then had to watch as some of Shane's men tore my jacket off my body while I fought them tooth and nail. Shane used the time to prepare to beat the shit out of me and the look on his face said he was looking forward to it. The chances of getting out of this situation unscathed were nil. The chances of me defending myself properly against him were also nil. And all the glowing points around me didn't help either, because this coward wouldn't let me crawl in any direction to get anything like a weapon. To put it bluntly - I was pretty much screwed.
"Make sure the researcher bitch is watching very closely," he ordered some of the men who'd stayed with Hannah, telling a couple of thugs next to me rather harshly to line me up while the rest of them spread out in the room and wait for his instructions. I noticed that two of them grabbed me roughly on either side and lifted me into the air. As I was a flyweight, one would probably have been enough. But I guess they didn't want to push themselves too hard and as soon as I was in an upright position I had Shane's fist in my stomach again with full force. And again.
"The oh-so-great and heroic adventurer needs the support of two other men to deal with a weak and useless girl. You're a real hero." I muttered before spitting blood again. Maybe I should learn to keep my mouth shut at some point.
Being held down by his thugs, I didn't fall into the dirt this time. The problem was that this allowed Shane to continue without a break. I only noticed when he punched my unprotected stomach with full force for the third time in a row.
"You want to know why they're holding you?" Shane grunted, "It's simple. I don't want to watch you slowly lifting your weak, fragile body every time I hit you. That would just take up more time than necessary. I think we can all agree that we don't want to take the fun out of it." Then he said arrogantly, "And I don't want my nice leather shoes to get dirty because I end up kicking you like a mangy street dog.”
"Always in the stomach..." I murmured as the first tears rolled down my cheek from the pain. "Believe me girl. I want to punch you in the face. But I have to think about my purse too. If you survive all this, I'll have to invest money to make your face look respectable again. I really don't want to lose any money when I sell you to a brothel later because I completely mangled your face," Shane replied coldly before showing some mercy and punching me in the ribs this time, "but you're right. I could start breaking some of your bones right now."
He asked one of the grunts to hand him an iron bar. "I don't want people to think I'm just bullshitting at the end," he said smugly, but the thug replied, "Don't you think it'd be more fun to finish her off with your fists? You are still one of Yorkchester's biggest brawlers."
I wasn't sure if the man was just too lazy to look for an iron bar, or if he just didn't want to follow Shane's every order.Shane didn't care and kicked me hard in the thigh. He hit me completely unprepared and as soon as I felt the full extent of the pain my eyes went black for a moment.
Suddenly the words
Skill: Puppeteer
This skill allows the user to temporarily control steam-powered objects.
appeared in front of me.
"This is probably the worst situation in which to learn a new skill," I thought, starting to cry from the pain. Somehow I managed to mumble "show status screen" before Shane punched me in the stomach yet again. I screamed in pain before my eyes went black again for a moment. "I didn't mean for this to happen," Shane continued, "all you had to do was join our guild. Then you would have been spared all this pain."
Shane's grunts seemed to enjoy the show as they suddenly started to cheer him on. You could tell that Shane was enjoying all the attention, and as Shane was being celebrated by his supporters, I took the opportunity to skim over the few scraps of words that I could only see blurred by all the pain.
"Overrides … scavenging … 'Start Puppetry' … see usable ... ‘Control Puppet’ … controlled … hands … incredible … ether".
In the current situation, I had no choice, so I muttered the words Start Puppetry.
The little glowing points began to change colour to green or red, and many of them disappeared completely. At one point I guessed that the colour represented which objects I could use at the time. The only problem was that there was only one green point in the whole room.
Come to think of it, the only good thing about my current shitty situation was that the grunts holding me had gotten a bit careless and started holding me under my armpits. They weren't using much force to keep my hands behind my back. "Control Puppet," I muttered under my breath, and as soon as I said the words I started to feel dizzy. It happened much faster than when I used my repair skill.
Hannah, who had made several unsuccessful attempts to free herself in the meantime, seemed to sense that I had done something really stupid. I could see out of the corner of my eye that she had gone very pale from one second to the next. I probably just looked a lot worse now because of the extreme ether consumption. Sorry Hannah, I had to do it. It was pure desperation.
Anyway, Shane wouldn't stop until I couldn't move, and somehow I wanted to put up at least a little fight. I was not really convinced that I could use my newfound ability in my current state. But there was nothing else I could do but hope. Shane had turned his attention back to me by now, so I had to take the risk and try to move the object towards me with my last ounce of strength. I curled my hand slightly and made a quick movement towards me - at least I hoped it was moving towards me and not against a wall. Shane was about to strike again when he was hit from behind by a broken old copper robot. The robot bore a strong resemblance to me. It was small, worthless and had probably seen its best days. But that also made it inconspicuous enough for no one to notice that it had suddenly attacked.
"What the hell," he cursed and turned around. As soon as he realised what had just disturbed him, he grabbed a nearby iron bar and tried to smash the object with it. Somehow I managed to dodge it a few times with the little garbage robot. But eventually my ether ran out and my new little friend was stopped in one fell swoop by Shane. "You can't beat me with these ridiculous little tricks," Shane said threateningly to Hannah and me, "but if that's really all you can do against me, then I should probably stop playing now and finish off the weakling in front of me. It's a shame, because I've only been warming up so far." He turned his full attention back to me.
"This is getting really boring. I expected you to at least put up a bit of a fight," Shane grumbled, taking another swing. Apart from the fact that I wouldn't have had a chance against him if I'd taken him on alone, I was also being unnecessarily held down by two of his men. Not knowing if I'd survive another blow, I just let my tears flow. "I'm sorry I'm so weak," I whispered.
