"And welcome back!" The young woman said to her audience. "I am the Assistant," she needlessly introduced herself.  She never gave her name.  "And this is video number six in my series of Impossible Illusions, the Web Show!"  She bowed to her unseen audience.

The Assistant was on a stage that could have been anywhere, with a white backdrop that rolled out along the floor. For this show, she wore a simple white one-piece swimsuit, white slippers, and a face covering mask to distort her voice and prevent people from easily identifying her.

"Thanks to all my backers! For their donations allows me to keep this series running.  Today's show is another request!  Well," she said a little shyly, "they're all requests now."  She knelt down and picked up an envelope that was flush against the floor, invisible to the camera.  Standing, she opened it up.  "This request comes from a donor who wishes to not have their name revealed, probably because they used it on their donation receipt."  The Assistant looked up and shrugged. "Common enough."

"Dear Assistant," she read. "I haven't seen a good rendition of the Sword Basket illusion in a long time. Could you fulfill my request, and show how it's done?"

"Of course!" The Assistant replied. "And for that, we're going to go SPLIT SCREEN!"  She walked up to the camera and took something from under it. It was another camera. On the screen, the first image was compressed to the right, while another appeared on the left. She looked down at the new camera, her mask in frame, and the first camera seeing both.  "Good," she said. "It's working properly.  Now, for this performance, I shall call upon my stage helper!"

Behind her, a male figure dressed all in black and wearing a face covering black mask stepped into frame. He was carrying a large wicker basket which he set down on the floor. The Assistant took the camera in hand and carried it over to the basket. "As you can see," she said as she swept the camera around the basket, removing the lid and pointing it inside, "the inside is completely normal. We bought this, for, like, thirty bucks, so we didn't have to make it."

On the other side of the screen, the stage hand returned, this time with a small, low table and another basket that was full of swords.  The Assistant stepped back and recorded as he put the wicker basket on the table. "That," she explained, "is to prevent me from escaping out the bottom."

With the basket in place, the Assistant put the camera in it, then started to climb in with a helping hand from the helper.  The camera was aimed upward, and got a very good look as she stepped in feet first and crouched to start to settle in.  "Normally," she said as she picked up the camera to wiggle around, "the person in the basket would be able to escape, or contort around the swords.  However," one could almost hear the grin in her voice, "that's not what I'm going to do."

In the long view, the helper confirmed that the Assistant was inside the basket, then closed the top over her.  On the left side of the split screen, she turned on the light on the camera, illuminating the interior of the basket, or what could be seen past her curled up form. "Now at this point, a traditional assistant would be out of the basket, or the basket would be large enough for her to contort around the swords."  She wiggled a little. "As you can see, this isn't the case."

Outside, the helper could be seen checking the selection of blades before picking out a long, thin foil.  He approached the basket, and held it over the top, ready to drop it down.  Inside, the Assistant kept talking, heedless of the threat above. "Now, at this point," she said into the camera, "I have no idea how my helper is going to proceed. In order to provide a more authentic experience, I have instructed him to do as he pleases until there are no more swords.  READY!"

The helper stabbed the sword down into the basket, pushing clear through and out the bottom of the thin table.

Inside, the Assistant reacted as the metal passed through her. She lifted up the camera to the top of the basket, where the view was unmistakable. There was a slice of metal going down through her thighs. "As you can see," the Assistant said, "I have no where to run, no where to hide.  In a normal performance, the remaining blades would go in at an angle to maximize the volume that the assistant could contort through."

Outside, the helper lined up the second blade. It was side-on to the camera, half way down the basket. He shoved it in.

Inside, the camera caught the blade push in, sliding between the Assistant's legs, then through her stomach and out the other side.  "Ooof!" She said as she poked at the new arrival with one finger while aiming with the camera with the other hand. "It's a good thing I'm a professional. Otherwise, that could have hurt!"

Outside, the man lined up another sword, another vertical stab to one side of the basket.

"Oooh!" the Assistant purred as she felt the third blade. She carefully manoeuvred the camera to show where the next one had gone down through her hips. "I'm not quite pinned in place," she said as she shuffled her legs and arms, "but I think there's still more to come!"

Indeed, the next sword went up through the basket at an angle, and the interior camera caught it going through her knees.

"Come on!" the Assistant called out. "I'm over here!"  She banged her head against the basket.

Outside, the helper paused at the outburst, then rummaged through the basket for something special.  He came back with a wider blade with a short point, instead of a thinner, stabbing one.  This one, he lined up over the basket, carefully aiming downward, then stabbed it through with plenty of force.

Inside, the camera caught the stroke.  The wide blade came into view, the point finding the Assistant's bosom. Her flesh deformed, pushed down for a moment before the sword cut into it from the side, down through the two mounds and into the bottom of the basket. If it wasn't for the mask, her expression of shock would have been apparent. "W.. w.. well," she managed to stammer as her free hand groped at her nearly bisected body part. "Well, that's certainly an experience."  As if to defy expectation, she slid the top half of one in one direction, and the bottom half in another.

While she was doing that, the helper pulled out another sword, and lid it horizontally through the basket, this time toward the front of it from the camera.

The Assistant rotated her wrist as the sword went through her again. This time, it showed how the thin blade entered the basket, went through her arm, then through her neck and out the basket. "This," she said with a gulp - or as much of one as she could manage, "would be the part where I have proven to you that I haven't escaped the basket."  She rotated the camera around to show off the many swords so far. "And my helper may or may not be done, so I think I'm going to put the camera down before this gets out of hand."  She let go of the camera dropping it to her still-free hand, then set it down to view her masked face.

On the outside, the helper was busy stabbing the basket through, sword after sword until nothing was left.  The Assistant yelped, shook, and flinched at each new touch, the fixed internal camera catching on the barest hint of such things as most of it occurred off camera.

Soon, it was over. A dozen blades protruded from the basket at many angles.  He bowed, and left the screen.  Inside, the Assistant turned to look at the camera as best she could though her body was run through in many different ways. "And that's my Impossible Performance," she said carefully. "Thank you all for watching, and remember to contribute to my donation account so I can make a new one soon!  Like, subscribe and watch!"