[A Lamb Freed] 7 – Prep Work

[Booker DeWitt's POV]

'Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt!' A phantom voice lingered in my mind as I cautiously walked out of the small building Elizabeth decided to make into a FOB. I did not know what I was expecting when I first saw Columbia, but not this. Elizabeth, if that is even her realm name, was not human. No human could do what she did, even with Vigors, as they liked to call them here in Columbus.

With a mental command, my left hand lit fire as I called upon Devil's Kiss. I had gathered only a few Vigors in my time in Columbia so far, and every one of them would be incredibly dangerous in sure hands, so they sold these out to the common people. Just imagining an entire army wielding such...supernatural abilities made me shudder.

Once I felt that the area was secure, even though I spotted many eyes keeping an eye on the building and me, I stepped back inside and froze at the sight before me.

Standing in the center of the small warehouse-like building was a floating Elizabeth, dozens of tears in reality around her constantly flashing to life before disappearing over and over. The once empty warehouse was now full of boxes, crates, barrels, and chests of random items, weapons, and goods, and it all suddenly froze as she opened the largest tear yet, pulling in a stack of crates marked with various vigor emblems.

Suddenly, she turned to me, as if knowing I was behind her and floated down to the ground before gesturing me to come over, as she turned around and stepped towards the mountain of crates.

Hesitantly stepping forward, I stopped not far from behind her as she opened a small tear in the air and grabbed a crowbar from what looked to be a warehouse on the other side; this warehouse, but different before it suddenly closed.

"Mind helping me with this? I don't have the strength to pop one of these open," she gestured to one of the boxes, offering the crowbar.

Stepping forward, I grabbed the crowbar and leveraged it under the wood top of the closest crate before pushing down, popping the lid straight off on this side, and it didn't take long to do it to the other sides as well.

Together, we shoved off the top of the crate, revealing rows and rows of Vigor bottles sitting in straw.

I did not recognize the bottle, but Elizabeth clearly did, as she grabbed one and revealed the front of the bottle.

"This here, is a Vigor called 'Telekinesis,' it allows the consumer to levitate objects and throw them, if you got skilled enough, you'd even be able to grab bullets from the air and return them to the shooter," she explained, instantly catching my attention with how useful such a Vigor could be.

"From what I can tell, there are a few of these boxes, and there's probably around twelve or fifteen bottles in each, though the way we...use these Vigors is inherently different from the ones you see people commonly drink," She informed me as she pulled up the top 'cork' of the bottle, only to reveal that it wasn't a cork. It was a big ass needle. One that could easily pierce through one side of her arm and out the other.

"Well...bottoms up," she hesitantly grinned before raising the needle and jamming it down into her arm, causing her to cry out in pain.

"What the hell!" I cursed before seeing her drop the needle back into the box alongside the bottle before violently shaking.

Backing up, I watched as from where she stabbed herself with the big ass needle, a blue light began to travel through her body through her bloodstream aggressively, and then the area around us began to shake violently and vibrate.

Seeing her grit her teeth and seethe in pain, I backed up even further before she took in a deep breath and calmed down.

"Ha...okay, now it's your turn," she gestured to the vigors in the box.

"Yeah...no. No way in hell am I doing whatever the hell that was," I backed off, only to freeze when she raised her hand.

"Don't be such a baby, Booker. It's not that bad," she told me with a scary smile.

...

[Elizabeth's POV]

It seemed that the warehouse I opened a tear to was not storing just Vigors, but it seemed to have crates of Plasmids as well from the city of Rapture. Of course, I  did not ignore this boon and immediately started using these military-grade Plasmids, gaining a wide variety of powers within a few hours, even managing to drag Booker through the process as well.

I had all of the known Vigors and Plasmids from both Columbia and Rapture.

The Plasmids I obtained were Cyclone Trap, Electro Bolt, Engrage, Hypnotise Big Daddy, Incinerate, Insect Swarm, Security Bullseye, Sonic Boom, Target Dummy, Telekinesis, Winter Blast, Little Sister Antidote, Aggresor Irritant, Parasitic Healing, Sanctuary, Speed Boost, and Teleportation.

As for Vigors, I got Bucking Bronco, Charge, Devil's Kiss, Murder of Crows, Possession, Return to Sender, Shock Jockey, Undertow, Old Man Winter, Peeping Tom, and Ironsides.

Sadly, this did nothing for my EVE capacity, meaning I'd at most be able to use a few of my new abilities once or twice before I was running dry; the same problem Booker was having, though we had a few crates of EVE in the warehouse now, in case we needed to 'recharge.'

"What exactly is your plan?" Booker asked, sitting on a crate filled with weapons.

"Simple, we have plenty of food, water, clothes, medicine, and whatever else someone might need to survive an infinite amount, one might say," I gestured along, helping him get the picture of what I was aiming for.

"You realize that the situation you're proposing will likely not go the way you think, right? These people are desperate, yes, but they will also see as part of their oppressors and likely will keep their distance or resort to violence," Booker spoke up, illuminating his thoughts.

"That's why I have you. If any of them make a fuss, you'll sort them out while I work," I smiled, twirling as I looked at everything in the warehouse.

"Now, come help me! We still got a few more hours till sundown, and this food isn't going to cook itself!" I could already see the frown on his face, making me chuckle.

I already had a few meals in mind that would be easy to prepare, filling, nutritious, and, most importantly, delicious. In actuality, I had a few different things in mind, and now that I had the ingredients available to me, I could not wait to get started! Though Booker did not seem to have the same enthusiasm as I did, going by the expressions on his face.