after unlocked: a sokeefe fanfic

Chapter 48-Keefe/Sophie

"She recruited me, mate. She was my mentor. Plus, I owe her for promoting me."

"So you're loyal to her?" Maybe he could reason with him, get him to help them.

Ilic smiled. "Nah. She's great and all, but I'm loyal to the Neverseen. It's every man for himself here." Welp. Never mind.

"Look, I won't hurt you if you let me go."

Ilic arched an eyebrow, obviously amused. "You wouldn't be bargaining with me if you could just knock me out here and now."

"How do you know I can't? Maybe my friends brought us some Umbruna Extract and now I can use my powers?"

"Your friends. You mean the Vanisher and the Telepath?" He laughed at Keefe's expression. "We aren't stupid. How do you think those friends of yours got past our outposts? By outsmarting us? We have protocols set in place in case something like that happened. They were supposed to make it through. The Moonlark was supposed to attempt an escape, then we'd have an excuse to kill 'er."

Keefe glared at him. He drew his sword. Good thing something didn't need print programming, he thought bitterly.

Ilic smiled. "This'll be fun."

He advanced, pausing, "Sorry, mate. Job's a job. No hard feelings, right?" And thrusted.

"None whatsoever," Keefe grunted, deflecting the thrust.

He gave an overhand swing, and Ilic blocked it with a CLANG. "Nice cut," he said appreciatively.

"Thanks," he muttered, stepping behind the rock formations.

Ilic feinted and swung for his legs.

Keefe dodged back, his back colliding with another rock formation. He barely a managed to roll away from the horizontal swing that was about to cleave him in two mini-Keefe size pieces and hit off a swing of his own.

He stopped back out of reach of Ilic's sword.

"You don't think we could just settle this with like, an arm wrestle?" He asked tiredly. "It's not really a fair fight when I've been tortured for the past three days."

Ilic shrugged. "You don't seem too weak."

"Looks can be deceiving," Keefe muttered and lunged forward.

Ilic easily batted the blade to the side, and in a fluid motion, spun quickly away, coming out of the turn with the sword in his left hand, delicately slashing the blade at Keefe.

Pain exploded just above his eyebrows, and Keefe staggered, desperately wiping the blood falling into his eyes away. A hand grasped his shoulder and shoved him to the ground.

"Oldest trick in the book, Mate," Ilic said. "Besides your little feint there. It was a good try though."

An explosion of rage and pride flashed through him, so strong that he could almost see the sneer on Ilic's face.

"Get off." He puffed out.

Ilic laughed. "Yeah, and let you go? I'm debating whether to kill you now, or to wait for Vespera. She wouldn't be too happy if her fun was taken away, eh? But then, it's so much fun making her mad."

Keefe's hand bumped against cold metal. He grasped it, a slight smirk flashing across his face at the feel of the solidly built Melder. Maybe it would shoot, but there were other uses.

He could still barely see, but he knew that Ilic was struggling to draw his knife from his pocket. "I'll just choke you to death," he decided, his voice growing near. "Then when Vespe—"