To The Home Base!

"It's… different. I can't understand it myself, the blue blood is within you, but the one that dwelled within you was already… distinct..." Io's tender touch caressed my bleeding hand.

"... so the blue blood isn't affecting the BOR Parasite?" I questioned.

"Indeed." She closed her eyes, "it appears that an equilibrium exists between the two, the crimson blood is potent but not as dense yet."

I internally sighed at the news.

It seems that the blood of the queen wasn't trying to take over me and use me as a proxy now that she is split apart in an attempt to resurrect herself or some grand bullsh!t. Now I have a new problem in my hands, more like in my chest, it seems that my BOR Parasite was special from the beginning, and who knows what kind of effect it will have on me once I restore it along with the memories of the original owner of this body.

Oh boy. I don't know if this is worse or better. But I do know that it can talk… kinda.

But what about the other one if this thing was one of the voices when I was about to frenzy when I woke up? I recognize one of them being feminine, despite the distortion. There are only two kinds of blood in me so I would guess that it belongs to the Queen or Cruz while the other one is undoubtedly my parasite…

One was telling me to kill and survive while trying to take over me and the other told me to hold my ground… Man, this is kind of confusing but at least I suppose I'm able to talk to them. After all, that voice back in the underground facility, if you could even call it a voice, told me that it couldn't use whatever gift I was trying to use or something along those lines.

"Was I of any assistance?" Her mellow inquiry made me realize I had zoned out too long.

"You helped out a lot, thank you." I smiled and patted her fluffy hair with my other hand. I was truly relieved. Despite having a new and probably bigger problem than before, I now had a clearer course of action to take.

"Alright, so there won't be any danger if I use this vestige, right?" I assumed, looking at the red crystal lying on top of a worn-down cloth.

Such crystal would usually mean death to the revenant who holds it, but I was an exception. Due to being contaminated by the queen's blood, I became a successor even without implanting a relic, a queen's body part, inside of me. This is also why getting my heart partly destroyed didn't work since the queen is so damn resilient that she couldn't be killed and was sealed away inside compatible individuals. So my unique situation is even special among the successors.

But the ability I inherited from the queen isn't some op power right off the bat like creating shadow clones as Nicolas Bonaparte does or becoming an Indu version of Sif. However, I gained the ability to purify mistles and blood springs and obtain blood codes from vestiges. Something more useful in the long run.

And the vestiges themselves seem to be the same according to the explanation that Io has given me. Crystal-like formations left once a revenant either turns to ashes or a lost does. The former seems to be more common though. They have echoes of the user and also hold a part of their blood code. As for the why and how? nobody has an idea since you literally suffer a fate worse than death by just touching it.

"There shouldn't be. But if there is, I will stop the transfusion." She declared. Resolute in helping me no matter what.

I nodded, "alright, then follow me." She let go of me and I cleaned our hands with the cloth, the cut on my hand was already closing.

We got up and left the small room, making our way upstairs directly to the top of the building where a sitting Yami gazed down at the post now overflowing with copious amounts of wild Lost.

"Ren, you were wrong, revenge does satisfy the ich." The remaining twin muttered to himself. Quite a lovely young man.

But he was right. Don't let Disney tell you otherwise.

"Still enjoying the view?" I approached him, my comment making him crook his head slightly.

"Yup, I can still hear his screams. He is the embodiment of a cockroach… I'm pretty sure they are still around somewhere." He responded before injecting an ichor capsule into his mask.

He is a bit more chatty than when we met in the caverns.

"So you still can hear from here?" I knew his blood code had something to do with sound waves, but to be able to hear a barely audible scream between those monsters howling and growling over the smell of human blood was impressive.

It must also be why there are so many empty cartridges on the floor, he should've had his gift active for a good while. "Oh well, even if you heard of what I talked about with this lovely lady, you will still have to see this for yourself."

"I don't know how you could even use a vestige, you do know the thing will make you frenzy immediately, don't you?"

"Yes, but I'm built different."

"Oh, pleas-"

"He just turned into ashes."

"You… You can see from here??"

The amusement in my eyes was the only answer needed.

He snorted, "...alright, show me what you got. I will believe whatever you and your girl are roleplaying for a second. Just don't expect me to join." He dusted his pants and approached us.

"You are in for a world of wonder." I guided him to the floor below, away from the prying eyes.

And now, with a willing Yami and a cute Io standing at each of my sides, I held the vestige in my hand.

I could feel the spikes jutting out from the center pressing against my fingers… the same spikes that will turn my hand into Swiss Cheese when I activate it…

"..."

"..."

"Well?" He asked after a few uneventful seconds of me holding the ominous crystal.

"I…I'm just preparing myself..." My voice faltered for a moment.

Honestly, I can fight Lost and Revenants alike, where there is a genuine risk of death and forgetting who I am, yet the idea of holding Grodo's long-lost cousin so I can go down memory lane was almost making me shake in my boots.

"Preparing for what-"

*Tchck!*

"AHHHHSONOFABI-"

"HOLYSH-"

"It will be okay."

As Io held onto my arm, a light engulfed all three of us…

♧£○¤"°₩~€♤○8;×>&"!!$+

A heated argument took place in a dim cavern. The environment was weirdly blurry. But the general scenario could be recognized.

"Why did you let her run?!" Yami shouted in distress.

"why?" Ren was bewildered by such a question, "You are asking WHY? We were humans once! Did you forget that too?!"

Yami shouted back, getting right in his face."So what?! Is it worth it, keeping some moral high ground while we are being swept on dirt and filth? We could've bought our freedom with her! Don't you get it, what's that vial gonna buy-"

"YOU don't get it!" Ren jabbed his twin's chest with his finger, "that is what he wants, he just won't stop with his 'sacrifices' and other bullsh!t to brainwash us! Once you see things as he does you will join him as the others have done!"

"And look at how they are fari-" The twin attempted to counter.

But Ren kept pushing. "Look at Oliver for God's sake!!! Did you see how they kept him on a leash with that kid, always on the verge of frenzy? They will do the same with us! Don't you get it?"

Yami found himself with his back against the rocky walls of the cavern. "We are our weakness, the moment you show doubt he will get one of us. I'm not risking it.

WE ARE ALL WE HAVE!"

"..."

"..."

Silence finally took its rightful place back into the caverns for a moment, only broken by Yami's back grinding against the rough touch of the walls as he slumped down onto the ground.

"... Fuck sake." He found himself unable to respond.

Things became blurry, and voices accompanied by more shouting were heard before the environment became somewhat clear.

A sitting Ren held his arms in front of himself, a small rock resting between his hands "... Does it make a-"

"I'm trying to find out!" His fatigued twin snapped at him and went back to closing his eyes and seemingly concentrating again.

Ren kept his arms up as the rock floating in the air changed shapes ever so slightly.

"There!" His eyes shot wide open in excitement.

The rock that was suspended in the air had now gained a weird shape, similar to U but with many small bends all over it.

"Really!" Ren shouted, only now was it clear that the distance between each other was dozens of yards.

"Yes, hahahahah."

"yes! Time to make about 10 more!" Ren cheered.

"NOOoooohh…"

The scene changed once again, only this time the positions had swapped.

"Com'on! We don't have much time!!" Yami urged his brother who was panting on the ground, putting it his all, working on a small blade with a few broken prismatic materials around him.

"I'm trying, shut it!!" He practically yapped. Using his blood code to transform his ichor into a metal-like substance that was already consuming, then condensing it to the absolute limit where it becomes something similar to the slayer queen metal was a tall order.

Barely audible cracks rang out from the stunningly beautiful metal surrounding the blade of an ornament knife.

"It's not as easy as it looks…" He wheezed as he put the knife down. He massaged his temples and nodded, "I'm done, now at least we have a weapon for when we are inevitably sent down there with busted gear."

Darkness overtook the environment once again, but this time it came back to stay.

'Who can I trust?' Ren wondered as he was held in a cell devoid of any source of light.

In solitary confinement. 'Oliver? Maybe… Anderson?'

Due to some unfortunate events, the child that Oliver was looking over had turned to ashes during the last Lost raid. Although Yami is the one who is the closest to the gentle giant, Ren did help the little kid make the hammer for Oliver, so maybe he had a chance to convince him. 'But his unstable mental state could make this dangerous… but I know that they believe him to be completely broken, unable to rise against them… something that they are trying to do to Yami and me at the moment by putting us in different cells…'

Many more thoughts went through his mind, trying to refine the plan he had come up with long ago but lacked the tools to even take the first step.

'As for Anderson… I can't read him at all. I know he takes care of those two girls in the cell where Yami used to be jailed. Maybe if we present a good enough chance he will take our side…' Yami spent hours, possibly days even, trying to take the next step toward freedom.

'We just need two more people. Oliver could be considered part of the plan, so we only need another one to set the explosives to distract them and make a run for it…'

Light suddenly broke through the cell…

"Are you alright?" Oliver extended his hand towards a laying Ren.

"Oh, sorry. I zoned out for a moment." With Oliver's help, he managed to get up from the cold hard surface of the tunnels.

The moment he was on his feet Oliver began to check on him for any wounds.

"I'm alright, really." Ren held his hands up. Oliver had gotten better, however, he would pretty much orbit around the twins, always protecting them. Although they have told him to not act that way since that could make things worse. At the moment they are being allowed to go back to scouting, but that is only due to the blood beads becoming more scarce.

"If there is something wrong, tell me," Oliver solaced but sounded more like begging. He just couldn't afford to lose more…

Ren knew that Yami, despite being one stubborn bastard, relies on him a lot. One of the reasons their boss held him in solitary confinement more than his twin, if Ren breaks, so does Yami.

'He will definitely set me up if we take too long to escape… better have one slave who works for you than two who could fight back… it's just a what-if scenario. But when that happens, what will we do?... We are in desperate times, and that means that he is likely to take desperate measures…'

"...I… just… listen, I just want to ask you- No, I want you to do ask you a favor."

"Yes." The brunette looked Ren right in the eyes.

"Yami is a little more emotional than he likes to show. I know that you are pretty much the only one aside from me who that stubborn dumbass would ever rely on for something." Ren voiced his thoughts out loud.

"So… if things go south, please-"

'-be there with him!' Ren growled as the Lost tried to tear him to pieces, bit onto his arms and back.

But a set of thorns shot out of his body, preventing them from doing any more damage. The marbled spikes impaled the lost to stop them from attacking. But the incoming horde was stubborn in getting close to him, even if it meant running at the clear danger that those thorns represented.

'To think he would genuinely use the last drops of human blood he had on me… that damn fake ichor vial!'

Ren dragged his feet. Even with some of the Lost piling on the thorns between him and them turning to ashes, they just kept coming.

"Well, I'm flattered." He snarled, sparks created by the grinding of his thorns against the cave walls lighting up the environment enough to see the absurd amount of monsters running at his thorns. Barely dragging himself down the ledge into a more plain and more prominent space, he began to grow more thorns.

The exhaustion caused by his continuous usage of ichor made him feel weak. But it's not like he cared about conserving energy anymore. He forced his BOR Parasite to its limit to produce Ichor. Constant production and manipulation of using his gift muddling his thoughts…

For now, the Parasite would listen to him. Only for now…

He knew that his life ended here. So he made sure that any monster coming to him would die by his spikes before even thinking about going after his twin.

His senses were becoming numb. The snarls and constant sound of flesh being pierced became quiet, his thorns scarring the cave walls weren't audible anymore, eventually, he could barely hear his own stiffened breath as the miasma entered his system through the broken mask.

Not many live to tell the tale of what frenzying is like. Most say that you go crazy or simply feel sleepy and lose consciousness.

The frenzy quietly and slowly creeps its way up your back, waiting for you to go to sleep.

'... this is worse than I thought.'

He was losing.

'I'm really not ready for this…

For my consciousness to slip into a slumber in which something else will wake up…

I… I don't want to forge-'

*thud*

♧£○¤"°₩~€♤○8;×>&"!!$+

(A/N: Could you imagine this as a memory echo in a vestige? Tell me.)

I walked down the stairs with the duo silently walking behind me. We were all thinking about our own stuff after what we experienced. One thing is for sure, memory echoes don't work as a depressing version of It's A Small World Ride anymore. I was feeling exactly that, memory echoes. I wasn't there, but it definitely felt like it.

A memory that you can't exactly remember but know happened. Just that this wasn't mine.

Arriving down the hall my gaze was met by Louis and then Anderson's. The man gave me a nod and walked away with the rest of my ex-inmates, guess he was done talking with Louis.

"You ready to part?" The young researcher posed with a radio in his hand.

"Ready to go," I told him and he got back to the radio telling in advance to the home base about our arrival.

"Alright then." Oliver picked up his hammer and rested it on his shoulder. "It's been a tiring day, I really need a nap."

Louis nodded, "we should move before sunset then."

I turned to Yami and so did Oliver. "Yami?" The brunette called.

"You coming or are you going with Anderson?" I voiced my question to the silent revenant. Although I already know the answer, he should've sorted out his thoughts on our way down here.

He looked at the researcher, "depends, y'all got showers?"

"We do have a spring. You can use it as much as you like." Louis' response earned a little cheer from Oliver and Yami.

We left the building and Yami chatted, trying to up the mood, "now that I think about it, the last time I took anything resembling a shower was when I slipped down through a crack in the underground."

I winced at the image of myself falling into those dark waters. "Ugh, in that kind of water, you would freeze in seconds."

"Man, it's worse than you think!" Yami groaned in annoyance. "Especially when you get out. Because that water is more sticky than it looks!"

"Last time I technically took a shower was when the post got flooded by rain…" Even Oliver's hygiene care wasn't better.

Most of our talk during our journey was about either having a good shower or a comfy bed, at least only at the start.

"Hahahahaha!" I couldn't help but laugh in pure glee as I jumped a 6-meter wreckage of what used to be a gas station and used an unsuspecting giant hammer-wielding lost at the other end of it as a new foundation to support my jump.

In the middle of doing my front flip, I snuck a few shots as even when seeing the world upside down my eyesight remained as accurate as ever. I could feel a strong gust of wind reach my head as the lost made a poor attempt at smacking me off the air, but that busted kneecap wasn't something it could ignore.

These monsters wielding wrecking balls as hammers were some big motherfu*kers. About twice my height and a bit more sideways. Seriously, although they look like fat blobs that will melt if they stay out too long on a sunny day, they have plenty of muscle under all that fat. They seem to have pale skin with dark blemishes all around them which makes them look like bloodless decomposing bloated corpses. Whatever causes them to grow in such a way is some fuc*ed up stuff.

Jumping between thorns of judgment, buildings, and many other structures allowed me to gain a bit more perspective about the full-range movement that a revenant can have when not trapped inside tight places like the underground parking lots from before.

This kind of mobility plus the blood code that I just had acquired would make me the Spider-Man of this world.

Oh boy, things are just getting better and better!

"Well aren't you an adventurous fella?!" Despite the wind hitting my ears with the constant running and me dispatching the lost in the surrounding area, I could clearly hear Yami's side comment.

"I thought you would be a bit more of a serious person at the start, to be honest…" He continued, dogging a strike from the flailing stone crusher before getting personally close and giving it a palm strike. Visible waves moved through the fat of the monster and its movements visibly lost power.

"Let me guess, was it my eyes?" My answer was a rhetorical question when he caught up to me after cleaving through a monster, leaving the crippled and paralyzed lost to be finished by Oliver.

"You said it, not me. The word 'humorous' doesn't go well with those eyes." He held his hands up in surrender

*Bam!*

Oliver's hammer sunk the head of the stone crusher deep into the street before it turned into ashes. "... Did everyone here have a bad impression of you?" Oliver asked with embarrassment.

"... Io didn't." Anderson and she appeared in my head, but the former was hard to read so Io was the only definitive answer for me.

Speaking of her-

*bang*

She accurately made a shot through the heart of a lost that approached me and Yami from behind after the racket we made. Though it's a bit counterproductive since she made more noise but it's not like we were going to stay any longer.

"Yeah but…" Yami rolled his eyes, "she's your girl so it doesn't count."

"I… uh, you are right." I agreed with him but not for the reason he thought. The girl was pretty much created to help and look after me. Like any attendant does with a successor. Only later is she supposed to do her duty out of real drive, determination, and care that makes her go beyond the purpose dictated to her.

*PEEEP*

An alarm sound descended upon the streets, its source a building from far away.

"The path to the base should be clear shortly." Louis joined the group once again in our established meeting point after going to the tallest building near us to activate the alarm.

Guess this was one way to let us reach the base without any more useless confrontations.

Finally, I would be able to rest on a bed. Not that I mind my head being cushioned by Io's thighs, but the rest of my body also needs something comfy to rest on.

And a shower too! I really need one. I also would need extra clothes…

Oh, and Io more than anyone else. As much as I like the laws of physics of this world and how much I would like to explore them further, i.e Io's breasts bouncing because of the bayonet's recoil, I really can't let the girl lewd herself like this when she is too innocent to even know the effect she was having on me…

But my main reasoning stems from my virtuous morals who I definitely follow because I want to do the right thing.

My chivalry knows no bounds.

A growl was heard before another followed right after when the alarm began to become louder. And just like he said, the sound seemed to attract the attention of most lost that weren't dormant. Hordes of monsters rushed to the origin of the alarm while a few others remained in place, almost unresponsive to the chaos surrounding them. Even if only half of them were lured by the alarm, their numbers weren't something you could scoff at.

Mountains were forming on the streets around the building that had stopped its alarm already. Monsters squish each other into red mush before turning into ashes, many more falling through ravines opened by the thorns of judgment.

"Damn…" Yami was the only one who vocalized our astonishment at such a horrendous sight.

"Let us not waste any more time." Louis woke us up from our trance and led us through the now almost empty streets leading to the church.

____________________________________________

Word Count: 3,964

Unrelated to the chap or even the fic, but has anyone played hollow knight? It's a banger game.