The Start Of My Career
It had been a little while since we moved to the Mansion. We had mostly refurbished it as we made quite a few trips to the city below, which was also known as the town of Escabec. While they didn't have everything we wanted, they had most of the things we needed, such as a bed and some actual stuff for our kitchen. I honestly felt that Anchova would've taken the walls as well if he could. Another strange phenomenon as well was that my face felt inflamed.
While that happened, my breathing got raspier and my heart slowed. I don't know what it was a side-effect of, but it was really inconvenient. To combat this, the Builder made me a small Cookie mask that covered up the front of my face. It would constantly make my face feel cold and had a built-in respirator so I wouldn't die of suffocation. He even made this incredible prosthetic arm for me that didn't require any cookies at all. Honestly, the Builder was more than I deserved.
Strangely enough, it didn't seem like the weird mix of flesh and mechanical eye that the Builder implanted in me actually did anything. Sure, it showed my vital signs, but that was about it. It didn't really have any other function. I had yet to even try Cookies. I wondered what they would do since we used it as an ingredient. But it didn't matter. My goal until I knew this was to steal cookies.
I actually had no idea exactly what the Leader was trying to accomplish precisely. The data hub would most likely have all the information that I needed. But after the explosions at the Tagine fortress, the Leader wasn't messing around. He increased security a lot. By a lot, I didn't actually know by how much. For now, I was going to work my way up to it by getting rid of the smaller outposts. Fewer outposts mean that the Leader is more cut off from the rest of the world.
This meant that I had to work quickly. Within these few weeks, I had been sparring with Elaine. A big reason why I had nearly lost to the Half Giant was because I wasn't trained in unorthodox combat. The main premise of that was that there was no one style. It was all about survival. I found that a good way to do so was to mix and match. It would work well against the soldiers as well, since if it shared some similarities, I could throw feints and they wouldn't even realize it.
I decided that today would be the day that I tried eating a cookie. It had been a while since I'd eaten one. I already adore eating cookies. They were soft and juicy. I loved the way the warm chocolate chips lingered in my mouth after I had finished. Best of all, the smell of freshly baked cookies was divine. There was no greater pleasure and no greater pain than waiting for a batch of cookies to complete baking.
To work properly, the cookies had to be baked. They couldn't be factory-made because then the magic circuit engraving wouldn't be possible. As the professor had stated earlier, inorganic beings cannot use magic circuits. I guess that meant I couldn't either with my right hand. It was fine, though, since I just trained a lot more with my left hand after that. I was probably ambidextrous now.
Elaine waited for me at the training grounds. We stepped onto the arena, and Michael did the countdown.
"3...2..."
I pulled out my boxes of cookies. I decided to start with one that was nice, simple, but original. A plain cookie. My head spun. Suddenly, my right eye started to glow red. "Error! Excess power! It is highly recommended that you release this energy immediately; otherwise, the unused power may blow a circuit!"
"1..."
Elaine sped toward me, but, like the eye said, I suddenly felt like I.. could do anything. I placed a hand on her back and sideflipped over her. She reacted quickly, trying to sweep my legs while I landed, but I did a handstand off of her legs and pushed off of her body, sending her flying. I was faster, and she could barely keep up with me anymore. I was stronger; one kick to her ribs sent her flying. I was smarter, I could tell that she took it on purpose and didn't pursue, and I was more agile. She pulled out her paintball gun, and from the smoke, she shot.
However, this time I grabbed another cookie. This time, a sugar cookie. I heard a sound, boom! That was the paintball gun. It felt like time was slowing, but I could think at a normal speed, even though time was going slower. Or maybe I was just thinking faster? I ran toward the smoke and dodged the paintballs, and I grabbed her and threw her into the center of the arena. As she landed, she backhand sprang and gracefully landed back to a stable position. I was excited. I needed MORE!
I grabbed a butter cookie, and suddenly I could make my body slimmer or thicker. I made my fist bigger and slammed it into her. She went with the punch and used the wall to push off and come at me faster. I barely dodged, but she was just getting faster. It seems like I still have a lot to learn.
I ate a snickerdoodle cookie and globs of what seemed to be cookies formed in my hands. I threw at Elaine, and she dodged all of them. However, when they hit the ground, clumps of dust appeared in small mushroom-shaped clouds. By this point, my eyes couldn't take it anymore and suddenly... BOOM! A small explosion happened, partially damaging my arm.
Michael was in a corner, cowering, and the Builder came running. Elaine was on the ground, dazed from the sudden explosion, and I was just lying on the ground a few meters away, looking like an idiot, confused about this turn of events.
"What happened?!" exclaimed the Builder. He took one look at me, and his face turned to disappointment, and this time, he said, "What did you do this time?"
"Well... I ate a bunch of cookies and... I think my arm exploded."
He raised an eyebrow, "There's more, isn't there?"
"Maayyybee I should've noticed when my eye gave a warning message"
"A warning message? The eye? What did it say?"
"Something about overload and unstable power?"
"That's strange. Let me look at it real quick."
He kneeled down and widened my eye. There was a faint white light glowing in my grayish pupil. Next, he opened my arm panel. Where there were supposed to be thin red and green wires, thick metal pipes had barged in, and it had seemingly descended from my eye, connecting the two.
"Well... this is peculiar. I've never seen the eye react like this before. When the Leader had tried to use the artifact, there had been no reaction like this. There was no glow. It simply rolled out of this eyehole. We had to use an entire regeneration potion to fix the wound."
"You think it chose me or something?"
"Maybe, but I still don't know for sure. As for why you got the error messages, I think it's because you ate too many cookies at once. You're not used to your powers yet. The power is unstable, but it should be able to handle more cookies the longer you use it."
"That's unfortunate. There are still quite a few that I haven't tried yet."
"Unfortunately for you, mister, training is over for now. You are going to help me fix your arm. I want you to do most of the work this time. I need to see how much you've learnt anyway. This arm is much more complicated than even the armor. "
"Fine. Let's go."
"First, what did we learn?"
"Uhhh, each cookie only lasts for 5 minutes at a time. My maximum is 4 cookies."
"No, the lesson learned is not to ignore warning messages, stupid."
A little while later, I came back with a brand new arm. I had done a mostly good job, but I still wasn't half as good as the Builder yet, so he'd finished it up for me. Right now, it was time to start discussing our plan of attack. I couldn't just attack in random places. There just wasn't enough time for that. We all sat down in the library, which was surprisingly big for just a personal collection. I pulled out my whiteboard, and Michael drew a map.
"Alright, guys, how are we going to go about this?" asked Elaine.
"Ok, first off, let's go through this systematically," I said, "Michael, do you have a list of every known Leader outpost or Fortress?"
"Yeah, just gimme a second. I need to pull it up."
He scrolled on his S.A.D and began to mark off locations with a red marker. There were at least 100 locations.
"Can we narrow this down to major bases, outposts, and datahubs?"
He erased some of the Xs with his finger. Only about half remained.
"Okay, that's great. Can you narrow it down to the places where the most Cookies are?"
He looked at his S.A.D for a few more minutes, then erased a bunch of Xs. Only about 20 remained.
"Wait! You're missing a location!" Elaine chimed in, "There's also an X here and here."
She wrote in 1 more X. One at the very top right of our map.
"This place is very important to the Leader," she said, "I accidentally overheard the Leader talking about it a while ago."
I raised an eyebrow, "Accidentally?"
"Yes ACCIDENTALLY!"
"Ok, ok. I'll leave it at that. Is it a place where we should go raid?"
"It doesn't have many cookies, but I heard it's important. I don't know if we can go there yet since the Leader is still a big threat."
"I see. So that's somewhere we can go to after? Okay, well, another thing we should do is gain influence. If we can rally people to our side, then we should be able to stand on equal footing against him. I doubt even he can take everyone at once."
"So where should I start?" I asked.
"It would be best to start attacking a data hub first. We can't only attack Datahub,s though because that would just ramp up the difficulty each time. We need to make the attacks look erratic and unpredictable, like we're just some sort of terrorist group. Kinda like Tide," said Bucket, "We've already narrowed down the places with the greatest amounts of Cookies. To make it seem truly random, we need to hit the ones with the lowest/medium quantities most of the time. We should attack the large quantity ones once every few missions, and a data hub rarely. For now, our main priority is stripping the Leader of the cookies."
"That's a good plan, but we still need to find our way around each fortress. Ironically enough, we've seen more of the enemy's territory than our own," said Michael
"Let's just destroy a datahub with a lot of cookies. Without them, we're basically stripped of half our assets since we can't use magic enchantments, which are carved in essentially all of our gear," I said, " you and I can go inside the hub since we have the best synergy, and Elaine and Bucket can go and keep watc.h"
"That's fine, I don't like rolling around in the dirt anyway," said Michael.
"What should I do?" asked the Builder.
"You're not a fighter, so you should stay back and do research. Do you have any connections?"
"Not too many-"
"I do!" interjected Bucket.
"Fine, then you go to gather information in various places, while the Builder stays back. For now, Bucket, you can stay in Crimson City. If security gets too tight, then just come back. In a bit, I'll make a small teleporter that will transfer you to the top of the mountain so there won't be any difficulties getting back up."
We all agreed and got ready to go. Bucket put on a small backpack, gathered all of his weapons, got in his civilian clothes, and put on some dark sunglasses. The less conspicuous he looked, the better. I put on my armor and then a jacket over it. Luckily, my armor wasn't too bulky or flash,y so I just looked bulkier than usual. Michael and Elaine put on their black jackets as well. Since we had to drop off Bucket, I decided that we might as well start our first raid there.
Crimson City was the first place that the news of his fortress going down would go to, so that meant that I had to start somewhere ther,e so it would be difficult to pinpoint our actual location. Since I covered up my tracks well, I doubt he'd be on to me, so the first thing he would do wouldn't be to change much of the procedure. Codes, landing sites, and such would stay relatively the same. Security would be much tight,er but since I now had this power suit, dealing with them wouldn't be difficult at all.
We all loaded up our stuff onto the ships. Michael flew the ship while I explained how this would all go down.
"Bucket, we'll be letting you out on the outskirts of the town. It'll be your job to sneak in through cargo. While security is high, since we know the home protocol, it should be a piece of cake getting in," I said. He nodded. Bucket then pulled the ejection button as we flew over a small forest, which was near the ocean of the cargo bay.
I pulled up a geographical model of Crimson City on my S.A.D and projected it on the table. The data hub that we were aiming for had quite a few cookies. It was a few miles away between the 3 minor cities, Black Berry Barn yard, Torus Heights, and Gravel Grove.
Elaine then turned to me and said, "Since you have the armor, you can attack head-on while we disable the alarms and steal data. After that, you can swoop in to steal the cookies."
"Got it"
"Well folks, we're here," said Michael.
He set the ship down, and we silently went out. The data hub was a massive building. It was the size of at least 3 or 4 outposts stacked on top of each other.
I went in. There were 2 guards at the front door and 6 patrolling the actual outpost itself. It was a rather small building, only being around the size of a large house. It also had a chainlink fence around the side of it near the generator. I approached the men. Immediately, they were on guard. A person in mysterious armor walking toward them? Like that was a thing to see on a normal day.
"Identify yourself!" said the first soldier. I didn't stop walking toward him.
"I repeat! IDENTIFY YOURSELF!" He raised his gun and prepared to shoot while the other soldier called for backup. Great. Be focused on me and only me! I needed to stall until they got inside just so that the security wouldn't kick in.
"Me? I... am the Cookie Bandit!"
"Cookie who?"
"Forget it!"
Bang! Bang! Bang! The other soldier started to shoot at me. Of course, I dodged each and every shot. Meanwhile, Elaine and Michael stealthily snuck in and were able to go through a small window near the back. There were around 20 technicians in the building.
They shot a big red button, which was at the center of one of the control panels and the emergency button,s which were on the side of the walls. By this time, I had taken out everyone at the front.
I found a technician who was rag-dolled across the floor and forced the location of the vault out of his mouth. He pointed to a large gray door to the far side of the room, and we all approached it. I ate a biscuit cookie and instantly felt myself get stronger. I got in a stance and punched it
Jackpot! The vault was overflowing with cookies. Just the smell was making my mouth flood. Seems my love for cookies had just gotten stronger with this transformation. I pulled out my vacuum jar and filled it with cookies. As I was doing so, Elaine came back and pulled out her tablet.
"Not good, apparently a Captain is coming here for an inspection today at around 2100."
"Well, that only confirms that there is something important hidden here. I don't think cookies can help me figure out what that is, though. Any ideas?"
"If we don't know, then we just have to check every possible way to hide anything," said Michael, " I can go through files and check for anomalies. I doubt he's doing anything like hiding encrypted messages or something like that, since I don't think he's working with anyone. I'll check for plan.s"
"Then I'll check with a geosensor," said Elaine.
Beep! Beep! Beep! I looked down, and it seemed that the Geosensor had identified something. So it was something in the ground. I tapped the ground with my knuckle. Bong! Bong! Bong! Bing! I found it. Even though the floor was thick, it still made a different sound. But wait! If I broke the floo,r they'd immediately know that someone was in there.
I carefully lasered through the blocks instead and punched with my armor. A perfect square slid through the floor, making a hole big enough to go through. Quickly, we all jumped down and scampered down the stairs, only to reveal a small greenhouse. Well, that... was unexpected.
There were a variety of flowers in the greenhouse, but none were plants I recognized. There were plants that were big and small. Some smelled good or odorless, while others... didn't have the best fragrance.
Then... I saw it. The flower. The flower that I had known so well since my birth. The flower that made me unique. The Anastasia Flower. What did the Leader need this for? I heard a muffled boom. I jumped. We quickly hid in a corner.
The trapdoor opened slowly and then suddenly, bullets went flying. The Captain rushed down the steps and looked around. Huh. Nobody? Hmmm... he was about to pick up the flower he was tasked with when Bang! He instinctively dodged a bullet.
We charged towards each other, one look at the armor and he immediately went on the defensive. He wasn't overconfident like Captain Titan was. He was like a snake. He slipped through my defenses with great difficulty but managed to land a few hits on me. When he got up close to me, I was finally able to see who it was. It was my childhood friend, Axl Corus. As my sword was nearing his neck, I hesitated, but he didn't. I blocked his sword and took off my helmet and cookie mask. He froze mid-swing.
"Z-zy-"
"Don't say my name out loud."
"What are you doing here?" he whispered aggressively.
"I've come to take revenge. Funny how you didn't even realize that I was here until now."
He looked puzzled.
"I'm Veris"
His eyes widened.
"I know you don't have much time," I continued, "So let's just meet up again later when the time comes. Tell the leader that my identity is Cookie Bandit in your report."
He nodded, quickly snatched up the Anastasia flowers, saying, "I'll need this," and left. Sighhhhh. We got lucky this time. If he hadn't survived the explosion, then this might've gotten a whole lot messier than it did.
__________________________________________________________________
The Leader sat at his desk, his hands folded. He looked pensively at the report. The materials were nearly ready. He just needs the strength to power it. Luckily enough, the flower had grown. The key component of his plans. He didn't have time to worry about other things. He had other people for that.
Even though Captain Titan was dead, he still had other connections.
"Sir! Reporting for duty!"
"At ease, Captain Axl Corvac, holder of the Skeleton Sword."
"I have brought the flowers, sir!"
" What about the others?"
"Destroyed by a terrorist, Sir! His name is the Cookie Bandit."
"Oh well, those ones weren't that important anyway. So you actually confronted him this time?"
"Yes, sir! I know what he looks like, too, sir. Oh, also, I captured a picture of two other accomplices hiding nearby," he said as he handed him a picture.
"Fine. I'll forgive you this time. You're dismissed. And send in the Circuit Tattooist on your way out."
"Yes, sir!
Looks like Elaine really did manage to escape. Funny how everyone who rebelled all banded together. There was one thing that the Leader realized, however. Once he was gone, there would be chaos. People would be making a dash for his wealth. Eventually, society would collapse in his absence. But this new enemy, the Cookie Bandit, society could rally under his banner. For now, he was in their good graces and could eventually lead society after he left. For now, he couldn't die. The important part was, he had his key component. Now, just the mundane tasks were left. It would also be good to set some traps for the Cookie Bandit... he seemed awfully strong for someone he had just learned about. Maybe... that power... could be his...