32 Logbook #025 - The Solvent

Resting herself on the rear, the lass sat by the edge side of the bed as she cared for the older woman she just met. As the older lady looked at her, her mouth has an odd inability to speak full sentences yet mumbled dryly "hungry, food."

Tired, the older lady was given some food to spare before she took off for a rest. The lass watched over her and took care of her vitals and made sure she had enough dosages of food and energy supplies to keep her body running fluidly.

With the help of the veteran medic, she took turns overtime to tend for the old friend of hers. Sometimes a visitor or two would come and give her a gift or so, or would just try to communicate with her, mostly consisting of simple subjects such as nature and personal liking.

"What is there to do in a wasted land?" The lass asked NZ who was explaining about his adventures through the desert of Arida, the state of the earth there are in and the name of the land they reside.

An old-world filled with countries separated and bordered but now have to be knit one way or another for the remaining starring of life.

"What an interesting question, curious gal," NZ replies as he gleams a smile through his lips as his sharply toothed incisor shone through the reflection of light. "Everything can be done in a wasteland. Your creativity is unless you find the right things. Art, Sports, Inventions, you name it."

"Yeah, about that..." Making a shake of her head, she then points to herself.

"My house is on a desert plain. I have to go far east to reach the forest and far west to reach here the ruined cities. You don't expect me to ride around everywhere in this dangerous world?"

NZ opening his eyes finally got back into reality, "Oh yeah, I remember."

Sherri ford who was listening to the two lot having the odd conversation, laughed softly as she reaches her hands to Mary, asking for her hand before pointing to her ear.

"Huh, what is it?" She reaches back. "You want to whisper something to me?"

Nodding her head on her rested pillow, she gave a slow reply in agreement.

With a curious smile, Mary heads to Sherrinford from the other side and lowered her head, listening as closely to her mouth.

Opening her mouth, Sherrinford whispered into her ear about something and was only available for Mary's ears only.

"Huh, alright then..." Mary replies as she gets up and walks towards the entrance of the exit. "I will excuse myself NZ, I am going to get something, also we have to go soon to the North."

"Yeah, got it. " He replies as he turns towards Sherrinford. "I am glad you are back, it has been too long, indeed."

Sherrinford smiling, she mutters a soft 'Yes, it has."

"Well, we have to go soon before the night comes, I will make a move now," NZ replies as he gets up and puts back his gloves on.

Waving to Sherrinford, he exits the room and walks past a glass panel, giving her a smile and a teasing gesture before walking away.

Being informed to go to a certain place, he ran through a flight of stairs carefully before opening a wooden door welded with metal strips as protection.

Here, he was in a barracks of sorts, filled to the brim with both weaponized scrap and also typical military-issued weapons.

Catching his eye in surprise was his old weapon kit, laying on the table like the last he placed them which was years ago. Though a tad dusty, a blow and a little dab of oil would do the trick. "Amazing, it's still working..."

He smiles and hugs his gun as he cocks it and does a spin onto it before using an extra pocket on his vest to holster the gun.

With that out of the way, he heads into the deeper parts of the armoury where he met up with Leuutenegger and Chau-min as he was approached by a very strong-looking lady in guard attire. "Who are you?"

"Huh?" He flinched and looks at her in a quick movement. "Me?"

"Yeah, you. Who else? A guardian?" She replies.

"Well, who knows I do have a guardian on me so I can't know if you speak to me it refers to them." He answers back with a sarcastic attitude.

"Ugh, Please, just tell me who you are?" She snapped and shouts at him.

Chau-min and Leutenegger alerted, they stop their conversation as they turned towards the commotion.

"The name's NZ, what's yours?" NZ replies as he tries to stop the angry woman. "Now, now no need to get angry at me. I mean no harm."

"Quiet. What kind of a name is that, is it short, just tell me the whole name!" The ferocious woman scolds as she starts to make a physical threat by holding onto her handgun holster. "Who are you!?"

Chau-Min surprised, runs towards the two and calms down the lady. "Oi oi oi, calm down. She is a friend of mine, I told her to come here. Her name is NZ, like really, so excuse him."

The lady dumbfounded looks at NZ and makes a flustered look. "Oh, sorry. I didn't know." Her English was scattered and she had difficulty speaking in proper verses, she may not be from around here, that's for sure.

"It's alright. I have been in encounters like that before. People always think NZ is my initials when it's the real deal." A white lie amongst the truth, he had a reason to don this new name but never really told why.

The lady nodding, she teachers her hand for a shake. "Ereda." She says. "Erada Kalamazoo, from Somalia."

"Oh, Somalia, that's a nice place. Never got to visit it though. Nice to meet you, Ereda." NZ replies with a more excited and lax tone.

"Ereda, NZ and Miss Leutenegger would be sharing some of their supplies in exchange for ours, transfer those boxes over there into their vehicle in front of the entrance, alright?" Chau-min orders her kindly as she points around.

Ereda nodding, she follows the order and does the work.

"She's not from around here, is she?" He asks Chau-min softly.

She shakes her head. "She's here for a job, her tribe has gone extinct and she is the last one in the family. I found her during a trip on a boat, rafting herself on some plank with limited supplies. She is a city girl but due to the tribal communications and the odd changes in society, her English became worse over time, as far as she told."

"Ahh, I see. Thanks" NZ replies before heading towards Erada. "Wait, come, let me help. It looks heavy."

Erada with a slow nod, let NZ help her with the containers of goodies and a few duffel bags of unknown contents.

"How long would this take?" Leutenegger asks Chau-min as the two left the armoury last and locked the door with a dual shifted key.

"A few minutes."

...

Shifting onto a suitcase filled with gun parts, old money and other knick-knacks, Mary found herself a small brown bag with several tapes in it. She didn't know why Sherrinford asked her to take it, but she just did what she was told.

"How did she know?" She asks herself. "I left my bag in the buggy, how would she know I hold a tape recorder. Unless it was just a coincidence, right?"

As she looks through the bag, a few tapes were hanging about cleanly. There were a few others but they were damaged or crushed from loads of weight being put upon over time. "Ahh man, I hope they didn't lose anything important in there.

Leaving the broken bits be in the bag in case of potential fix-ups, she tightened the bag and places it into her hip pocket before putting everything back neatly into place and leaving the unknown room.

By the time she reached the entrance, the two were already waiting for her as they said their final goodbyes towards Chau-min and the other villagers, including the guards who greeted them by the gate.

"What took you so long? Being curious again as always, aren't you?" NZ asks as he smirks and made a smile after.

Mary nodding embarrassingly, she waves at the others as she looks towards the chief, Chau-Min Heungson.

"Thank you for everything Miss Chau! Hope we can meet again one day, someday!" Mary tells her as she respectfully greets her as the other two entered the buggy and Leutenegger started its engines.

"Yeah! It was fun even if it only took a while. I will give my regards to Sher for you too, NZ, Stal. Have a fun trip!" Heungson replies as the buggy was slowly driving off.

NZ waving to Chau-min, he pops his head out the window and waves towards her. "Till next time, silly cat!"

As the car sped off through the dunes, the darkness of the vehicle slowly vented off as it got replaced with the wind of pressure.

As Mary shuffled the brown bag from her pocket, she pulls out a tape that she arranged properly and places it into her Tape Recorder.

Clicking play, she puts on her earphones.

"Logbook 25..."

"Logbook 25?" Mary asks herself. "Where's the others? Don't tell me they were the ones which got smashed to bits, shit!"

As she knocks her hand onto the metal door side, she pulls back her arm and rubs the sore bit.

Leutenegger looks at the back mirror and looks at her. "You alright? Why did you smash your hand on the door for suddenly?"

"Ugh...nothing, nothing at all. Just was trying to stretch me." Mary replies as she blows on her hand to numb the pain.

Observing closely, Leutenegger notices her earphones and her tape recorder running. "Ahh ok, I see." before concentrating on driving. As they revved through the sandstorm of the setting sun, they headed off north-west, to reach their proper destination, to the old ruins of yonder of a so-called place of Reading.

...

---Tape Starts---

"Are you sure about this?" A voice said out loud from the far ends of the tape recorder. The consisting area mostly induced with the sounds of timely calm breaths and a mild struggle.

Switching to video form, the tape recorder gave a running video of a small happening within the apartment of these ran-down motel catered for the underground organisation.

With that, two unknown assailants who constantly grunt and was wrapped up to down in black cloth of clothing were essentially two hired assassins of the axis employed to hunt down the three followers.

William who was tied up from mouth to arms behind his back was sitting on the bed as he stared towards the two who were blade held towards necklines.

Using speech aids, the assassins grunts turned to full-on sentences, translating and also giving them a voice of sorts, way too robotic for a normal human. 'Tell me, where are the documents?'

'What documents?' Captain Leutenegger, Shanina asked as she tries not to flinch with the blade by her near the neck.

'The intel of the lady, yes, the lady. Vulture.' The user of the knife asked as she holds her neck tight and shoves her towards William who was struck by the torso from her hard head.

'Who is Vulture? We don't know anyone by that. You may have gotten the wrong place.' Leutenegger replied as she gets up cracks her neck and neatly arranges her cufflinks professionally.

'Don't play games. We saw you during the attack in our Cathedral Operation. You two were in the car watching the whole attack and that person over there, killed half of my soldiers!' The leader of the assailants replied as she points her knife towards William. 'She was helping him, Vulture.'

'Wait, you mean Katherine? We don't work for her.' Shanina replies as she combs her hair back. 'We were just doing our jobs as mercenaries.'

'What were you three doing then? Tell me, if you aren't lying, you will be free.' An obvious lie that could be detected by the tone of the robotic voice.

'We were spying and suppose to assassinate our target.' Shanina who is a professional in espionage knows a thing or two when it comes to body language and tone of voice, with her mild and bland tone when she speaks English, it is much easier to fall for her tricks. Like prey towards the predator.

'But you guys came without even being called or notified.'

The leader turns off the voice aid and turns to her partner, grunting at her something that sounds like questions and a reply. 'You outsiders....? Were helping Axis?'

She then asks Leutenegger in their language without the voice aid.

Shaking her head, she points towards William, who obviously know how to speak the language as the effect of his guardian's abilities. 'She speaks fluently in Axigra. We two don't.'

With an angry and roughened sound, the leader heads towards William and pulls down his mouth guard as she asks the same question again. 'Who in thee, do you work for?'

Nodding slowly, William grunted back at her with a verse of certain semiotics and tones. 'We in thee work for the bio-mother.'

It was true. The axis worked in odd ways, most of the time they are dumb then there are times there are geniuses. It all depends on the past lives of the people they once were before being corrupted and manipulated.

Noticing something odd glowing on his vest pocket, the assailant reaches to it and pulls it out. A blade glowing in a dark black aura. William couldn't see it but everyone else could. It was a special knife still corrupted but somehow balanced in wavelength to not injure William in any physical or mental way possible. A sort of bionic relationship.

With a surprised face, The leader holds the knife and looks at her partner. 'Karra... Beona es thera Krrap.' She says, in a slew of curiosity and interest. Roughly translated to "Corrupted... Beo the Corrupt.'

Inspecting the blade, she flips it front and back before nodding. Hpushing the blade back into the pocket, the leader snaps her fingers and click her tongue, causing the magically enhanced knots of drops to release.

After that, she switches on her audio aid and translates her words. 'I will let you guys free. My apologies on my behalf. You guys had Continuum uniforms so we thought you were working for them first. You three must be hired spies, I suppose. Considering your leader, being very clever and that other girl speaking our language.'

'You are free.' She ends it as she spins her blade and creates a neon purple of a portal as the two fell through the circle created.

'Fuck sakes, that was close.' William softly sighs out as he rubs his jawline, aching from the tight rope.

'That blade, it is a corrupted guardian. How the hell, do you have it?' Leutenegger pointed to it as she notices the dark aura fluidly mixing in with the aura of William. 'You two are also contracted, its aura is perfectly mixed with yours.'

'This blade? I can't remember, I think I got it during the ambush into the British Axis HQ.' William replies as he pulls it out and looks at it. 'It doesn't look like a guardian one bit.'

'Wait, you are telling me you cannot see the aura of it?" Leutenegger asked as she goes near it and takes a closer look.

'Yeah.' He answers. 'No shit, I am blind with or without my glasses of this aura you speak of.'

Demonia pulls out her phone and scans the room with a sort of device attached to it. 'Don't worry, just checking for something.'

With blue lights emitting from he device it scanned the room around for so called 'bugs', a usual secret device placed to listen in on the others.

Spotting a red beaming infra-red light from a corner, she reaches towards it and squishes it like a bug between her index and thumb fingers. 'Das ist dar...' She mutters before flicking off the crushed bits.

'So, this is a corrupted blade?" He asks as he inspects the blade back and forth, seeming to looking like a normal looking millitary-issued combat knife.

'Yes, yes it is...' Shanina sighs, realising she broke her german speakingonly in Germany promise, she gives up and just continues speaking English to William. 'I wonder, how you cannot see that, but can spot others. Maybe, it likes you?'

'If it likes me, wouldn't it corrupt me?' He asks as he then stretches himself and buttons back his shirt.

Leutenegger who prepares her weapons, holsters it into her pocket as she puts on her pair of dogtags, hiding it between her shirt and coat.

'Thats not how it works. Mostly if a corruption guardian likes you, it would attempt to try to help itself if it wants to become back to normal. On the other hand, it could torture you to make you fall into a painful agony just for fun as a victim, like a cursed object. A curse is common but you don't seem any different then normal, unless your sickness came from it.' Leutenegger replies as rubs er suit clean.

'Alright, grab the keys, we are going to the German Base now. We need to report our incidents, findings and let them investigate the blade you have on you currently.'

As she points towards the ring of keys by the table desk, she then unlocks the door and looks carefully outside before putting on her glasses to put up a disguise, though she actually wore glasses when she was reading or casually roaming about.

'Sure, just let me grab my coat... here's yours Damonica.' Handing her white fur jacket to Damonica, he sniffles his nose a small sneeze before his own. 'Excuse me.'

With a smile, Damonica guides him out before closing the door and locking it properly.

As the three headed to the lift, they waited for it as they thought in their heads their own individual minds.

'Beo, huh? That's your name?' He pats his pocket which contained the blade. 'You and I will be friends.'

As they then went through the many levels of the motel, they then exited the place and headed through another narrow alleyway to end up in a parking lot. Filled to the brim with cars, some looked very expensive as others were quite broken off. Most of the expensive looking cars could be cheap knockoffs or worse, stolen.

But whatsoever, they are not the police so it isn't their duty to worry about traffic laws of other people.

Screwing a key into the driver's door, Damonica unlocks the door and let the others enter. 'I will drive today. Maybe when we head back, William can.'

'I don't have a driving license, you know.' William replies with a soft red chuckle. 'I usually took the bus and train just for kicks, I didn't like to drive.'

'Oh, but you do now.' Shanina hums an odd tune as she tosses him a card with a picture of his face that he used in Continuum's registration and his personal details printed onto it. 'Wait, since when?'

'Since, you joined Continuum. The officials don't tell you this but they give free licenses for driving to those who don't as not everyone can afford it.' Shanina explains. 'But here's the trick, you obviously have to still learn it or else someone might get heard. Take it as a test today, I will teach you.'

'Today, seriously? After all we been through today and two days ago.' He sighs as he shakes his head, noticing the city lights of Koln brightening the surroundings of the nightly skies.

'Your choice, night is best to give better awareness and concentration, you know.' Damonica replies for Shanina.

'Jee, Fine. German teaching driving license here we go, totally not going to be bloody terrible.' He sighs out softly as he relaxes himself.

Tapping his pocket once, he closes his eyes to take a small nap before they reached the base which will take some time, money and stations, relaxing himself, he whispers softly. 'Let me try to know more about you, Beo.'

As the clock ticks its end, the fog of the surroundings engulfed them, swallowing them to a whole as the night sky vanished them on-sight of a traffic camera.

Where did they go?

A place of unknown origin. A broken down house as its flames crisped anew. Heaps of bodybags, wiggling about like earthworms as there stood a single person on the middle of the field as Damonica stops her ride.

Slowly turning to them, she tilts to them and smiles. 'Let's be friends, Will.'

Her eyes drooping in exhaustion and sadness, she was draped in a black gown only to be ripped off by tons of ashes, bullet holes and knife marks. A battle she fought all alone, and she herself survived.

Shanina in shock, taps William's shoulder quickly trying to wake him up. Not responding, she pushes herself forward and orders Damonica. 'Reverse now!'

Clutching the car's gear, Damonica reversed the car, only to be stopped by some unknown barrier.

Fully showcased with her multiple satchels and a rusted old dagger, breaming in a heavy and fuming dark aura, she heads towards William's side of the door.

Slowly reaching her limping arm towards the door, she unlocks the door with her aura as she opens the door slowly.

With every creak, an inch open.

Wiping her dagger on her gown, she carries the lad as she half drags him into another foggy cloud of smoke, an entrance of sorts.

'Hey wait!' Shanina shouts as she gets up and takes out gun, preparing it as she exits the car. 'Where are you taking him?

'None of your business.' With a cloud of smoke crawling from behind of Shanina, it latched onto her arms and tosses her into the car as the whole area turned back to a empty highway, the road they were taking.

Groaning in pain, Shanina whimpers and rubs her wounded areas as she slowly got up. 'What the hell just happened? Who was that!'

'I don't know, Miss Leutenegger. But whatever that was, it wasn't human. It had to be a Guardian or maybe something even more paranormal.'

She replies as her body stiffened and held onto the steering wheel, in a state of shock.

'Fuck!' Shanina shouts as she hits her fisted right arm onto the leather seat both in frustration and in pain.

'Now what?' Damonica asks.

'Just go... to the base. We will explain what happened to general. I don't think even the police can help us with this. Go!' Shouting her lungs off, Damonica gained her attention and continued driving in the nightly black sky.