Partnerships

So after making my new friend make a post on his blog, I guess I'll fill in the rest of the blanks and announce here, that after a very, very long and heated conversation between us, we have finally come to an agreement.

As soon as we got out of London and got as far away as possible from that vessel we borrowed, we ended up crashing in one of the warehouses present on the docks. Personally, I would have kept moving, but Malik's stubborn nature (And probably the fact that he was tired after such a long swim) refused to go along with that idea and instead he started walking towards the before mentioned warehouses, not saying a word to me. His friend, Franky, obviously, followed after him. Did I mention that he didn't say a word to me after our first encounter in London, after I told him that I'd help him get out of London, he stopped talking to me after that and just would follow me out of London, I guess he was too busy thinking about his next move, suffice to say, the journey was pretty awkward.

Anyways, I followed him towards the warehouses, which he then proceeded to break into, I just stood and watched him try his hardest to make the lock budge with his sword.

"You know, I could easily open that right?" I said to him, seeing if I would finally get a response.

His form of a response was to try and make it budge even harder, gonna have to give it to him, he managed to break it off, which would be impressive, if the chain holding the lock wasn't rusty as shit.

Once inside, he started gathering anything flammable and piling it up, yeah, he was clearly freezing from the long swim we had to undertake. He started the fire and both him and Franky sat down near it, as for me, I decided to pace around the warehouse, going back and forth in front of Malik, pretending like I was looking around.

"Would you just fuck off already!?" He, suddenly burst out at me, there it was, a reaction.

I stopped across from him, the fire burning between us "So does that mean you don't want the information I have on your friend's killers?" I shrugged.

"You can spare me your bullshit, as if you'd give a single shit about that type of information to obtain it." Logical, he's right there, I'd never care enough to get that type of information, but I didn't need to.

I chuckled at his observation "You're right, I don't have that type of information..." I trailed off, knowing full well that he would not hesitate to interrupt.

"Exactly, so how about you cut the crap and tell us what all of this is really abo-" I'm sure this thought he was about to voice was super interesting, but I didn't finish my previous point due to his interruption, so I returned the favour.

"But I know who does, I believe his name was Claude, wasn't it?" I couldn't help but smile, knowing full well the type of reaction that name would elicit.

Malik went silent, but I could tell by the glare in his eyes the amount of anger he held towards the person behind that name, but then he took a deep breath, composed himself and replied "So you read up on my blog, congratulations, next thing you're going to tell me is that you know how to find him?"

"Find him, hah, why look for someone..." I began to take off my bandages, at the same time preparing myself for an oncoming outburst from him, due to the nature of my revelation "When they are already here?" 

Recognising the face of the man responsible for the death of one of his closest friends, whatever logic he had possessed, immediately went out the window as he began to lunge at me, pulling out his sword in the process.

But I was prepared for it, didn't even need to rely on my darling to avoid a hit from him, I just ducked underneath him, grabbed the back of his neck and pushed him upwards in the stomach with my second hand, flipping him on his back and sending him to the ground, his sword falling from his hand.

His friend immediately jumped up and was ready to attack me as well, but I quickly put a stop to that bad decision, by pointing one of my sharp edged sleeves at Malik's throat "Alright, let's take a deep breath, before we all do something very stupid." My attempt at calming the situation down.

"YOU FUCKER, I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!" The boy was practically fuming at the mouth, whilst clawing at my leg that was located on top of him, preventing him from standing up. Clearly he wasn't thinking about what was happening here, blinded by his rage for the face of the body that I have been occupying for quite some time now.

Which is funny, up until my re-union with Minxie, I had no idea who this schmuck, who's body I was occupying, was. During our meet up, once I took off my bandages to reveal my face to her, per her request, she immediately recognised who's face she was looking at, she gave me the background info on who this guy was, which led to her name dropping Malik, which in turn made me remember the real intended host my past self prepared for me, which was the kid underneath my boot right now, funny how things just happen to click sometimes, huh? But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I kicked Malik in the ribs to make him shut up, Franky didn't take to kindly to that, I saw him tense up, but in the end he couldn't do anything due to the spike that was near Malik's throat.

"Shut up and think for a second, you're a rational kid, yes, I'm the guy who was responsible for the death of your dear friend, but I'm also Kelevra? How do you suppose that works?"

He seemed to calm down a bit, as confusion and questions began to swarm his mind, as his breathing steadied, I retracted my spike and took my boot off of him, allowing him to stand up. He threw a glance to his sword, most likely contemplating attacking me again, but in the end his just sighed, looked at me with a very annoyed look and asked "Ok, what in the fuck is going on? Start talking."

I shrugged with a smile and began explaining, as I've said, my past self originally intended for Malik to be my host. Shortly after that small group my past self led fell apart, he began thinking of a way to preserve himself, in order to return after death, this was during the period as him and my darling were slowly morphing into something... different, creating me. I remember Kelevra, staking out one of the Proxy operations to get his mind back on track after the disaster that was his little group of Rejects, he tended to do this very often, he enjoyed watching different factions killing each other off. These particular Proxies that he was observing, were about to raid a Timberwolf hide out, I guess they saw it as easy pickings after Kelevra and his little band of rejects did a number on a number of their bases in order to attract the attention of Archangel, in order to pull off this stunt. Guess who was one of the proxies in that little raid? That's right, Malik was in that group and the thing that attracted Kelevra to him, would have to be the fact, that despite him being only a foot soldier in that group, he didn't hesitate to call out the idiotic infiltration plan, their leader had laid out in front of them. Now, it might not seem like a lot, but that takes guts, considering the fact that most of these Proxy group leaders tend to just off any critics present in their group. He however, only earned himself a pretty hardcore beating, but that didn't stop him, because no matter how hard the group leader kept beating on him, he kept on talking, pointing out obvious flaws in his plan, which would get the rest of the group killed. But none of them listened, so they just left him on the spot, beaten and bloodied as the others would carry on with their plan and effectively get themselves killed. As his team mates were getting slaughtered in the Timberwolf base, Malik struggled to his feet and would proceed to walk away from the scene, leaving the idiots to their own fate.

I'm not sure what was it exactly that Kelevra saw in the kid, whether it was his ability to plan, or his blatant defiance in the face of authority, which Kelevra himself would do quite regularly during his servitude. Something clicked and Kelevra would proceed to look up information on Malik, around the same time as he was conducting his studies into Sergei's mind. Once he had enough information on the kid, he set up a bogus mission for him, posing as a proxy higher up, he would send out a mission specifically addressed to Malik, tasking him with retrieving a certain briefcase filled with very dangerous liquids. The briefcase contained various glass vals filled with different types of Servant blood, which one of Kelevra's ex-associates named Krogav used to inject himself with, in order to gain the abilities of said servants for a period of time. Which is when he plucked me away from himself, put my in one of the glass vials, which is where I've spent all the 4 years before my return.

I don't know how exactly Kelevra was going to get Malik to inject himself with me specifically, if he left an instruction note within the briefcase, or whatever. According to Malik, the mission brief that Kelevra planted, stated that the briefcase were to remain in Malik's possession until further notice and not to be made known to anybody that it was in his possession, the briefcase also contained instructions (Probably written up by Kelevra) explaining what was the purpose of the liquids in those vials (Why he left all the other liquids present in the briefcase, if he wanted to inject himself specifically with me, is beyond me, probably not to raise suspicion, I don't know). And so it remained untouched, until Malik's friend was murdered and the Timberwolves were the likely suspects, so filled with grief, Malik popped open the case and injected himself with Maenad blood and went on a rampage, yeah, Malik didn't use Kelevra's intended vial, for a long time in fact. It wasn't until after Malik found out that it was his friend Claude that aided the killers in their friend's murder, the killers being Proxies, who were sent out to leave a message for Malik, for his numerous acts of insubordination.

Eventually, whilst hunting for Claude, Malik gets captured and taken to their warehouse, the Proxies now possessed the briefcase with the vials and presumably, wanting to test them out, they sent Claude into Malik's holding room and instructed him to inject himself with the Azoth vial (Which was housing me) and kill Malik with the abilities and that's pretty much when I began to fester inside of his body, apparently my release somehow even managed to attract the attention of our Tall Friend at the time.

"And that's how ended up inside of your friend's body." I finished my long and slightly convoluted explanation.

His expression was mixture of shock and confusion, no doubt going over the parts that made sense and fit perfectly into the time frame that he had spent tracking Claude, but also questioning the very obvious flaws in this slightly convoluted plan, however, in the end, the only question that escape his mouth was "So is he still alive?" He looked at me, no doubt inquiring about the current status of his betrayer who's body was now owned by me and my darling.

"Hard to tell, I used to fight him for control quite regularly prior to my re-union with Fortissimo, back then it was just me and him." I tapped my finger against my chin "But ever since my merger with Fortissimo and the countless Azoth liquids that she was fused with in that disgusting lab..." I tensed up, remembering how badly my darling was tortured during my absence "I have felt no trace of him."

He looked at the ground, remembering that his sword was still on the ground, he bent over to pick it up and once he came back up, looking at the sword in his hands he asked: "And what about the information regarding her killers?"

To this I smiled "Because I have been occupying his body for quite some time, I can access his memories and find out exactly who gave out the order for your friend's murder."

He looked at the ground once again, clearly thinking and considering his options, he then looked at Franky, Franky didn't say anything, nor did his face reveal anything on account of it being covered up by a blank white mask. They stared at each other for few minutes, but eventually, Franky gave him a nod. After which, Malik looked at me and said: "What the hell, got nothing left to live for anyway..."

I extended my hand, looking for a handshake which would verify our partnership. He looked at it and then looked at me: "I'll work with you, on 2 conditions: One, you never take off those bandages again; Two, once we kill everybody involved with Alesa's murder, you give up Claude's body, I don't care how you do it, whether you find a different host, or whatever."

I thought about it for a second and then just smiled at him: "All of that is doable."

After which he shook my hand, establishing our partnership.