Farmer, Not Jedi? 2 (Patreon)

Farmer, Not Jedi?

Chapter 2

-VB-

She did not open her eyes when she woke up. Instead, she listened and felt the world around her. This wasn’t something just anybody could do! She had to train herself to immediately stop herself from rousing up, which did end up saving her life and dignity more than once.

The world around her was … humid. Warm. Dark. She could hear very little around her right now. Was she inside a room? If she was outside, then she would have heard some ambient noises. She didn’t, which left her worried.

Realizing that she wasn’t going to get anything out of feigning sleep any longer, she opened her eyes.

And then she regretted opening her eyes at all.

She found herself in a dimly lit room, and in this dimly lit room, she saw flesh. Pulsating flesh that were the walls, the ground, and her ceiling. The doorway was made out of bones and the door a mere flap of skin. It was … it was a reimagining of what a room was but told to a depressed yet still aspiring artist with too much time on their hands and not enough time spent outside.

She didn’t want to be here.

So Stephanie Gorgeous rose up to leave the room.

How had she even come to be here?

What should have been an easy assassination with her normal gear ended up turning into a skirmish in the savannas as her shot failed to kill their target and the target retaliated with his own prepared measured.

“Watch out!” Stephanie shouted at her temporary ally as clones of their target came at them with shields, hammers, and guns. Their guns didn’t bark out with gunpowder explosives tossing lead but quieter cracks that shot skewers of bone. She rolled out of the way from these slower attacks but her allies weren’t as good at observation or even dodging. They tried to dodge like she did, but three of them got skewered immediately. They screamed … but the time they spent dodging from the bone skewers was time the shield and warhammer wielding clones had spent closing the distance.

She grimaced as she brought up her unmodified AR15 and fired in a burst to test their shields. The wooden shield cracked underneath supersonic lead but held.

“Fuck! Bulletproof shields!” she shouted for her allies’ sake than hers.

Even more cracks and bangs rang out across the yellow-grassed savanna as her allies and the clones shot at each other. Someone’s scream ended abruptly as she saw a warhammer come swinging down onto the grass far away from her.

She raised her gun again to fire-.

“Uk-!” she uttered out in pain as something drove into her gut. She looked down at saw one of those bone skewers sticking out of her stomach. Quivering in pain, she fell backward while grabbing the thick skewer. “A-Ahaha…!”

She and her allies had been given a chance at freedom. To be more than just clones of their original selves that would be sold like cattle. To be violated in all manners. But it wasn’t enough.

Stephanie gurgled as she felt blood seeping out.

The bangs and cracks drew to a close around her. No more screams.

“...clear…?”

“...clear…!”

Fuck.

They lost.

She looked up from where she had curled up on the ground and saw one of the shield carriers.

“... Do your worst.”

Instead of raising his warhammer and bringing it down on her head, he knelt and reached toward her.

“Oh,” she muttered. “We lost.”

She looked down at herself. She was still in her trademark attire, though with holes here and there, including where she distinctly remembered getting skewered.

She sighed.

This wasn’t the first time that a mercenary like her had been screwed over by her employer either by not doing enough of her own research or receiving faulty information. In this case, it was the latter because she and her allies had been told to “go and attack immediately.”

At least she wasn’t dead. Or tied up and getting raped. All sorts of things happen to enemy captives when there wasn’t a military around to dictate the laws. Worse, if this was anywhere like Academy City, then she might have been tossed into a hidden lab somewhere to be used as a human experiment subject. No consent, of course.

Shakily, she stood up and walked over to the flap of skin serving as cover. With a grimace, she pushed it aside and walked out of the room. She came to a short corridor made out of flesh. She felt a bit of bile coming up as she looked around at all of the unnaturalness of it all.

Finally, she made her way through the corridor and into some kind of living room. It looked less like a living room and more like what she would expect to see from inside a large animal’s stomach. From there, she found what looked like the exit and pushed another flap away.

Sunlight shined down on her and made her feel … cold. She blinked, realizing that the insides of the flesh house had been humid and warm. The outside was cool and dry. She shivered a little. She hadn’t noticed it before but it was cold around here, wasn’t it?

‘Or it could just be morning,’ she thought to herself when she noticed that it was morning from the sun rising on the horizon.

“Oh, you’re awake.”

She turned around to look at the speaker and saw him, the man whom she failed to kill twice - the rocket didn’t kill him and her attempt with a rifle hadn’t succeeded.

He looked surprised and a little wary.

And now, when she looked at him, she saw the targ- the man who defeated her.

He stood almost a head taller than her with black hair. He didn’t look particularly handsome, though she definitely wouldn’t rate him as average. He also hadn’t touched her when she was down and out, which was a low bar but it was a low bar that many men failed to pass in the heat of the moment and the life-or-death lifestyle. He also prepared to fight in a number of ways and not with just one gimmick. That said a lot of about him than anything else she’s seen so far. However, his reaction to his first house getting rocketed told her that he wasn’t familiar with combat. She supposed that that’s not something that was too big of a deal if - big if - she got together with him, she’d have him be at home.

… What the hell did she think? Get together with him? At home? Not being good at combat was okay?!

“Hi,” she greeted him gruffly. “... I’m going to guess that you Stamped me?” she asked him. Stamping was just a fact of life in the Company. She chose to take this mission because she wanted to get away from it, but her attempt only drove her into a Stamp. Figures. “There’s no other way for me to think about whether or not you’re a good fit for my domestic life when I don’t do domestic life.”

He blinked. “Yeah. I did Stamp you and put you under for three days. You weren’t even supposed to wake up.”

She blinked. “I’ve been out of the count for three whole days? Wait, what the hell, mate? Not let me wake up?” she grouched.

“Look, I would rather not have a trained mercenary who, according to the Company, is a known saboteur in and around my base while I got ready to sell her back to the Comp-.”

“Can you not do that?” she interrupted him quickly. “I … I really don’t want to go back. I got lucky this time.”

He frowned. “... Yeah, and how does that affect me?” he drawled. “If I sell you, then I can buy a different clone of you and have a point left over because of how I set up Intensity from the Catalog.”

She found herself brought up short.

Intensity was an exchange of point restriction for more points earned per Companion captured and sold. If … if he really chose such a high Intensity that he got more points from capturing and selling her, then there was nothing she could do to present her case. Fuck, a different clone of her wouldn’t even have mixed feelings about this because it wasn’t her life that her clone had to consider!

“T-The Company recycles clones that gets returned,” she sputtered out.

He paused. “Say what?”

“The Company only keeps the originals, not the clones. Clones are just killed and their bodies are dumped back into the biomass pools. I-If you sell me, then I’ll die.”

He looked a little conflicted by what she said … but then her heart dropped when she saw him looking at her coldly. “And I’m supposed to care about that when you tried to kill me?”

“The C-Company sent us! They offer the clones a chance to be free if we succeed in killing you!” She was going to die. She was going to die. She -. “L-Let’s make a deal!” she stuttered out. “M-My clones aren’t going to be like me, right? See? Look at me! I’m desperate! I’m willing to do anything!” She got down on her knees and grabbed her hands together. Begging. God, she was crying, wasn’t she? “If you just get another clone of me, then it’s not going to be same with me! I know where I stand! I’ll suck your dick all day every day! Please … please don’t send me off to die…”

“... like how you tried to kill me?”

“I’m not anymore, right?” she smiled, trying to put on her best whatever face. She didn’t even know what she was doing at this point. As long as she didn’t get sent back, she’ll… “L-look, mate. Look at me,” she begged. “I-I’m … I’m a young woman. I’ll let you do anything to me. You can fuck me up as much as you want. J-Just…” she sniffled. What the hell could she offer? What else did she have to offer?!

He … looked like he was thinking about it. She had a chance!

-VB-

It was … kind of tempting.

One of the drawbacks that I took for a higher Intensity on my Catalog was No Loyalty, which changed how the Stamp’s mental effect worked. Or rather, didn’t. The Stamp put a form of magical binding that changed a person to make them become more susceptible in every way to the Contractor that Stamped them. The No Loyalty drawback removed that mental effect on top of classifying, to the Company, that this clone of Stephanie Gorgeouspalace was a familiar and not a waifu, which already made her not have a romantic interest in me anyway.

This is part of the reason why I would rather sell her than keep her. With 3 points from her capture and 3 points from her sale, I could get someone else who was as useful if not more useful than she was while having romantic interest.

… At the same time, this was kind of like summary execution of a defenseless person. If what she said was true, then selling a clone - which meant every single one of the Companions that would be participating in the raid - would be killed the moment I sold them. Was I heartless enough to do that to someone, even if she had tried to kill me? From what I was getting, she was only trying to free herself from the Company’s clutch.

Were 3 extra points worth killing someone over?

On the other hand, she was desperate and willing. She knew exactly what she was offering, and while she wasn’t exactly the most beautiful person I’ve ever run into, she was still pretty.

But then again, she tried to kill me and was now pathetically begging for her life.

What to do…

-VB-

A/N: If you came this far, this is where you vote. Sell her, Keep her as a “pet,” or Keep her as familiar (ie not dicking her down).