NTR Quest 37 - Academy - No Manipulation

“Fine. Don't.” You scoff. Aiden exhaled, feeling a wash of relief.
“But then what? He has everything of mine.”

“Not everything.” The Princess offered hopefully.

“I do have the Serane's.” You admitted. Her shoulders slumped.
“They are a factor that they likely know about now, but can their effect on things actually be predicted?”

“Probably not, right? Also, what if we just... Relax for a while. Let things cool off. You need to understand the facility better, right?”

“I do. Serane's experiments. Her Legacy. I took it up.”

“How nice.” Aiden beamed. You shot her a look of disdain.

“Not for any altruistic reasons. Her cause is very interesting. This whole place? What does it mean for the world? What is possible...”

“I'm not sure, but we can find out.”

“Without Esther it's going to be hard... Damn...” You slammed your fist against your palm in frustration.
“But we have one better... The Serane's retain some of her knowledge. I simply did not consider it significant enough before but now that it's my only option, I have plenty of assistance.”

“There you go.” Aiden cooed, rubbing your shoulders encouragingly.

“What are you going to do?” You stared at her pointed. She blinked and motioned towards herself.

“M-me?”

“You aren't using your powers. What can you actually do to help me?” You watched her closely and narrowed your eyes as she was about to speak.
“Don't say 'moral support.'” Her shoulders slumped.

“I-I will help in whatever way you need me, so long as it doesn't involve abusing my powers.”

“Ho... If there's a reasonable purpose would you use them?”

“Yes.”

“Just curious but what would be a morally justified reason to use them?”

She fell into deep thought. After a full minute she looked up. “I think if there's no way for someone to change, if they're harmful to themselves or others, if there's nothing to do except to kill them or lock them up I could use my powers to have them agree to never hurt themselves or others. Even that is kind of... The implications are a bit rough. I still don't know what to think about it, really. Come back to me and maybe I'll have a more certain answer.”

“Useless...” You muttered, withdrawing to inspect the individual pieces of the lab. Then it hit you.
“Tintamere!” As soon as you shouted out her name the bimbofied image of the great mage appeared in front of you. She was not perfectly solid but still appeared to be a lifelike ghost of herself.

“Yes?” She asked in a singsong tone. The woman was on the verge of a giggle and her wide hips seemed to be in a constant state of wiggle.
“What was the purpose of this location?”

“The Academy setting is a ruse to draw individuals from across the world and test them in hopes that a Turais will be identified from among them. So far the track record with this plan is...” She held up two fingers, then crossed her eyes looking at it for a second and gradually lowered her ring finger to make 'one.'
“Just one. You! Isn't that fun? It finally worked.”

“Wasn't the information I wanted, but still... It explained why the Academy accepts all. I suppose the practice of this goal was lost over time, since there's actually quite a bit of gatekeeping. Still... A gauntlet that churns and destroys lives all for the sake of finding one individual out of millions...” You glanced over at the pile of rings.
“I would've been more offended if I wasn't so intrigued by the purpose of this room in particular.”

“Originally the idea was to NOT have students dying all over the place. The Familiarization was set so that stakes could exist without actual threat.”

“But then rules were altered and loopholes were found and people started fucking about with the system.”

“Mhmm!”

“But then what about the forests, the beasts and these halls?”

“The things in the halls are automated holdovers. We did not think of such an ingenious method of controlling them until you did what you did!” She hopped a little, performing a cheer.
“The forest arose naturally and were unexpected.”

“How? You control this place?”

“It's related to the purpose of this room, actually.”

“Thank god...”

“The purpose of these Angels in general is to create more. To do so they need to seed life and accelerate it to it's eventual extinction. Set the chain reactions of sentient beings being born, learning, growing, reproducing and dying so that another Angel can be formed from the unified Aura of the world. These things we now utilize for our own purposes were sticking around to see to it that the process was never interrupted and that it was constantly, exponentially increasing.” You marveled at how she was able to talk without taking a single breath, but then remembered she was simply an image. A memory.

“Alright. The process is proceeding normally now?”

“No. I think it's probably proceeding completely out of control!” She explains in a paradoxically cheerful mood.
“95% percent of the sentient and non-sentient life that exists on this world is not native to it. Reality is bent to bring non-cored entities into the world which then are either adapted in rooms like this, or adapt themselves by assimilating their environment. We have various entities such as Beastfolk that are based off of animals from other worlds. Then there are core beasts such as spiders which assimilated living Cores to become Dyders and of course there are humans, which are the basis for most sentient life created here, but ironically can not adapt to this world without assimilating other Cored creatures.”

“What do you mean? We are humans.”

“No, we are Beastfolk that were based off of the combination of Human and animal information. It just so happened that the product so closely resembled the original and even retained the same name. The Majority of the creatures that are alive and sentient on this planet are Beastfolk that originated from those original designs.”

“What about the ones that aren't?”

“Uncertain. Core Beasts continue to be sucked out and dropped in areas that are affected by the residual Aura of these Angels.” She motions around the room.
“This is a lab, or more specifically a processing organ that is meant to create and process life. It is likely that some of the Species on this world were born right here.”

The gravity of it was not lost on you. You wandered over to the empty Syringe. “There was fluid in this . It was able to suck my core from my body.”

“I'm not sure about that!” she deflected.

“Got it...” You gripped the large syringe and smashed it on the ground. Tintamere did not flinch. She merely watched curiously. You picked up the broken plunger and stared inside. A smile crept across your lips.
“Residue. Serane!”

One of the shining silver automatons stood beside you obediently with her hands folded in front of her. “Yes Master?”

“How can we figure out what this is?”

-

You sat back safely, allowing your attractive silver servants to do the dirty work of moving the liquids into the syringes from the vials.
“Incredible.” You mutter.
“Weeks ago we had no idea.”

“Yes Master.” The Main Serane beside you agreed.

“W... what is it exactly?” Aiden asked, standing safely behind you.
“Looks like that stuff that Serane used on you.”

“It is.” You offered frankly.
“It took a lot of figuring out, but the answer was just common sense.”

“Common sense?”

“What is it that has the effect of consuming, or otherwise Assimilating Cores from living beings?”

“Core Beasts?”

You glanced back and grinned at her. Her emerald eyes widened. “N-no way! This is wrong.”

You laughed. “Not inherently. It's as wrong as familiarization, at least.”

“I think that's wrong too...” Aiden muttered.
“But what do I know?”

You stood up and held out your hand. One of the Serane's carefully handed the large plunger to you. “This... This is how we win.” You stared down at it covetously.

“How?” Aiden questioned nervously.

“It took a bit of doing to realize that what this was, was simply slime... It's not special. It's not interesting. It actually exists out in the world, in the forest and it's a mold that is known to be quite deadly if ingested or injected for whatever reason. But no one thinks of it. No one really questions it because it is not interesting. Plenty of things do the same. The reality? It's a genius weapon.” You stared down into the swirling green ooze within the plunger.

“When it enters someone's system it does one thing. It takes their Core, their personality and it sucks it into itself. Then it is expelled or sucked out, however we are going to do it.”

“W-we shouldn't use this. It's wrong.” Aiden warns.

“What are you going to do if I decide to anyway?”

“Uhm... Nothing, probably.” You eye her closely. She was looking away so it was difficult to tell if she was telling the truth.

“Hmm...”