As I said in my previous post, it was easy to track what hospital he was taken to since I remembered his car's number plate, I was going to pay him a visit with Franky whilst the Bandaged Retard was off gallivanting around in the Catacombs, but instead we were swept up in the mess between him and The Wolf. However, since we helped him out during that mess, that meant it was now his turn to help us out, so I brought him along with us, but not into the hospital, I had a lingering suspicion after the last time he had helped me and Franky out, bringing him along proved to be a very useful distraction.
Charles was on the fifth floor of the hospital, recovering from the operation he had to have on his neck, after he received the gash on it, thanks to Franky's Denizens causing his car accident. Now, we couldn't just walk in under the guise of "concerned family members" or whatever, all thanks to the various witnesses that saw me and Fanky fleeing the scene of the accident, the cops are not treating it as a mere car accident, they're treating it as attempted murder, I'm sure because Charles has some connections to warrant that kind of treatment based on mere speculation of a few witnesses. However, the connections are apparently not that tight, since he was only assigned one Officer to guard him, it still made getting into his room difficult, on top of that Franky hasn't completely recovered yet, hence why Pathing in and out tires him out tremendously, we had to use it sparingly this time. Hence why I asked him not to Path us anywhere specific, just in the general area of the hospital, he Pathed us in an empty alleyway, few streets away from the hospital. Long walk and a few fire escape climbs later, we were now standing on the neighbouring roof of the Hospital, across from the fourth floor balconies of hospital rooms, separated only by a big enough gap, that a failed jump would guarantee ones splatter on the ground. We weren't going to be jumping anywhere just yet, it was still day light outside, so we hid, observing the various windows on the fifth floor, trying to find Charles, I knew what room he was in, but it was kind of hard figuring out which room was which from the outside.
Eventually, I gave up trying to find his room that way and we just sat around waiting for the night. Once it was dark, we went back to the edge of our rooftop, I had Kelevra carry me and Franky over to the balcony opposite of us with his tendrils, we could have tried jumping it, but the last thing I needed was to wake up the patients with our loud thuds. We agreed that he'd keep watch from the rooftops for any outside surprises, while we made our way to Charle's hospital room. We started climbing our way up to the balcony above us, just so we'd be on the fifth floor after which we snuck into the hospital room the balcony was attached to, peeked through the door that led to the hallway full of other doors lined against my side of the wall, leading to other hospital rooms, the one we currently were in was the 312th room, Charles was in the 343rd. We went back to the balcony and began climbing through the balconies, counting down each balcony we passed.
And there he was, sleeping like nobody's business, tubes stuck in his nose, his neck encased in a brace, the hart rate monitor quietly beeping away, it sickened me, this piece of shit was still feeling comfortable enough to drift away to sleep, well that was about to change. Unlike the previous room, this one's balcony door was locked, but when you become a proxy, lock picking is one of the first things you are taught, so the lock wasn't a problem. This is where my eagerness got the better of me, as soon as I entered the room I heard the sound of a gun being cocked, turns out Charles wasn't asleep and judging by the massive bags under his eyes, he hasn't been asleep for quite some time now, a thought that warmed my heart, however, I wasn't in a better situation myself, because he was clearly waiting for me to pay him a repeat visit, hence why he had a gun handy, which he was now pointing at me. His grip on the gun was shitty, it was shaking like crazy in his hand, his heart was jumping up fast, I'm sure sleep deprivation and a near death experience had their effect on him, still, I didn't take any chances and stood still, he was clearly going to speak, since he didn't try to shoot me the second he pulled the gun on me.
"Your friend stays outside." It was funny that he thought he was in a position of power here, but I indulged his little delusion, I was going to tell Franky to stay outside and keep an eye on Kelevra's roof anyway, so he promptly turned around and closed the balcony door behind him. After that he just continued to stare at me, whilst trying very hard to keep his gun steady, so I broke the silence "Why the hesitation? If you're going to shoot me then shoot me, stop wasting my time." he seemed to be caught off guard by the sudden break of silence, he then managed to stutter out a sentence "I just want to know, what makes some teenage punk think he can take me out, the shit I survived, the shit I seen, all in the name of the tall one, who the fuck do you think you are?" Perfect, he was a talker, this would make things much easier "I would understand you not knowing who I am, it just sucks for you that I know who you are, murderer." He burst out laughing, nearly dropping his gun in the process, could have rushed him then and there, but there was no reason to, not yet. "Do you even realise how little that narrows down boy? The amount of people I've killed, shit, that list goes through the ro-" I decided to cut him off before he diverted into pompous ranting "Yes, I'm sure you're a very hardcore badass, problem is, you didn't seem like such a badass with your car driven against a lamp post, with you laying on the ground, bleeding from your neck." That seemed to snap him back into his current predicament, that was evident by his grip on the gun getting tighter "What the fuck do you want you little shit?" There we go, now we were getting on the same wavelength, all I had to do now, was ask questions in such a way that he would spill bits and pieces of information "Well for one, I want to know who gave you and your partner orders when it came to the elimination of other proxies." he smiled in return, here it was coming "And why the hell would I tell you anything?" now to feed him a stupid line "So I could find him and kill him." another fit of laughter, gun was held steady this time "You're hilarious, aiming for the head honcho just like that, man you are just an idiot, aren't you?" tap on the window coming from the balcony, it was going down, we were now officially on a timer "Guess I am." I smiled at him as I saw realisation come to his face, when he noticed that Franky was no longer on the balcony, he Pathed in behind Charles, grabbing his hand and forcing it up, the surprise forced Charles to release a shot into the ceiling, realising that his guard would be alerted by the shot, I immediately ran towards the door, grabbing a chair on the way, as the officer burst through the door, I smashed the chair against his head, knocking him out instantly. "LET GO OF ME YOU FUCKING FREAK!" the sound of confidence in his voice was now replaced with that of fear and uncertainty, music to my ears, I started to approach him, he was thrashing around wildly, but Franky was holding him down effectively, whilst also holding onto his hand that released the shot earlier, making sure to keep his finger off the trigger, I unsheathed my sword and once I was close enough, Franky immediately released his gun holding hand, he tried to bring the gun down, trying to aim it at me, but was too slow, his hand and his gun were now on the floor. His wail of pain was far too enjoyable as he was bleeding from his newly acquired stump, however, he quickly shut up when I pointed the sword at his face "Look at you, a real fucking badass, crying like a little bitch!" I positioned the tip of my sword just a few inches away from his eye, the smell of urine began to circulate around the room, there's no doubt there, he fucking wet himself "Thanks to your big mouth I know that the person who gave you orders is still alive and you know who they are, so I suggest you don't bullshit me, who the fuck was behind the orders!?" he began stuttering out his answer "If it had something to do with other proxies, I know that it was always coming from the top..." I had no time for a lecture, so I squeezed his stump to hurry him up "WHO!?" he screamed out through pain "IT DEPENDS ON THE TERRITORY!" I smacked him across the face with the butt of my sword "Chigwell, Dacre Close." he was breathing heavily "Fuck, right, the cul-de-sac, shit..." he was clearly gathering his thoughts together "Martha... You're looking for Martha Hall." his breathing began to slow down, he was clearly struggling to stay conscious, I decided to help him out, by grabbing him by the hair and pulling him out of his bed, forcing him to walk after me "Where do I find Martha Hall?" as he stumbled behind me, leaving quite the blood trail "I-I don't know!" I pushed him out onto the balcony, right against the rail, putting my sword close against his neck "WHERE!?" he glanced at the drop below him and then back at me "I REALLY DON'T FUCKING KNOW! It's been nearly a year since she contacted me, fuck man, she could be anywhere." I began pressing the sword against his encased neck "Better think of something useful that can help me track her and fast." I was running out of patience, I could hear the sirens approaching down the street, after a bit of silence he finally blurted out "One time, she paid us from her personal bank account, it was weird at the time, since payments are usually made through the database, figured she was in a hurry." he lifted his hand, pointing at the cupboard next to his bed "Details are in my phone, my bank log-in is set to auto-fill, receipts of all transactions are there." Franky didn't waste any time checking up on what he was saying, after a few minutes, he gave me a thumbs up, that's about when my hostage began to whimper out "Listen man, I ain't stupid, you obviously aren't going to let me live, so at least tell me what this is about." I considered for a moment, should I let him know the reason for my anger towards him, should I drop her name for him to ponder over in his last seconds? Nah, instead I decided to drop him, without warning, I grabbed him by the legs and pushed him over the railing, making him fall 5 stories, piece of shit was dead and my day was made.
This is where things were supposed to smoothly end, with me and Franky Pathing out, we were going to grab the Bandaged Idiot with us, but he wasn't on the neighbouring rooftop and we didn't have time to play hide and seek with him, because the sirens were closing in, so I just told Franky to Path us out. The way it usually goes, is it happens in a blink of an eye, only you yourself don't blink, more like your... mind blinks? I dunno, bottom line, it usually goes smoothly with Franky, but not this time, instead of Pathing in our base, I Pathed in somewhere unknown and was immediately met with the sensation of falling, the sensation didn't last, because on my way down I began to clip several black tree branches which twisted me around due to the momentum, making me hit the ground face first. As I got up, I could feel the scorching heat all around me, I was surrounded by fire, white fire, so bright it seemed to drain the colour from everything else around it, not that there was much, I was in the middle of some forest and it was rapidly catching on fire. It didn't take a genius to figure out that I was within the Path, I had to get out of there, but again, everything around me was on fire, not to mention it was so white and bright, it was blinding, no way was I going to attempt to walk through a burning forest with my vision impaired. But at the same time, the heat was quickly becoming unbearable, I was becoming light headed and could barely stand on my feet, but I still managed to catch a glimpse of it, Slendy, just standing there amongst the fire, his pale head once again blending with the white fire, making it seem as if a headless, tall businessman was just observing me from a distance. Then he began to get closer, due to the fire, I couldn't see his legs moving, it's as if he was hovering closer to me, this is when panic set in, irrational thought began to take over, I was considering just jumping into the searing fire and that's when I heard an all too familiar laughter coming from somewhere within the flame, just like a freight train Kelevra came running out of the fire, his arm wrapped around Franky dragging him along, his Jacket morphed around their backs, clearly protecting them from the fire. Fucker grabbed me by my chin, pushing me backwards, making me hit the ground, once I looked around, we were back in our base.
Franky came over to help me up, Charle's phone still on him, I noticed that Kelevra was pretty beat up, his bandages stained with blood in several areas, looks like my hunch was correct, for which he gave me plenty of shit, but I don't want to write that confrontation down, I'm sure he will do so on his blog.
The important thing is, we got a bit further in our pursuit, I just need some time to dig through this phone.
