"What do you want to ask?" Belle says, glaring at the old man who is holding his friends hostage. Cam is looking between them with a confused expression on his face, but eventually settles in by hovering over his shoulder.
"That's no way to treat someone in this position, I'll have you know that if you continue to be rude, I won't hesitate to chop off a finger or two." The old man states, dropping Leslie to the floor and stepping on him as he grabs out a pocket knife. Belle grits his teeth, but stays standing still, no need to piss him off right now.
"My first question: Are you the one who inherited the Streaming System?" The old man asks. Belle quickly inhales, looking over the old man with suspicion.
"I'm waiting." The old man brings the knife up to Avery's hand.
"Yes," Belle answers, letting out a sigh of relief as he brings the knife away.
"Good, now then, do you have any information about…The Ghost King?" The old man questions, the name tickles the back of his mind, but it's Cam who gives the bigger reaction.
"How could you…a human, know that name!" Cam shouts, glaring at him. It all clicks in Belle's mind, back at the hot spring Cam had gone off the edge after the woman in red antagonized him about the Ghost King, that was the main reason he hadn't brought Cam out till now.
"It seems you know something…tell me, how do I summon the Ghost King?" The old man demands.
"I wouldn't tell you that even if I knew how to!" Cam spits.
"I'm sure these two would be very sad to hear about how you let them die because you didn't answer a simple question." The old man threatens, bringing the knife back up.
"Cam…do you know?" Belle asks, his hands shaking as he glares at the old man.
"I don't. I can't remember much about…before, but I do know there's no way to summon him now." Cam replies, glancing between the old man and him anxiously.
"Did you hear that? We don't know the answer to your question." Belle says to the old man. He watches them sharply for a second before bringing the knife back down again.
"Right, then, do you happen to know the way to transfer the system?" The old man asks.
"Transfer? You can do that?" Belle questions, turning to Cam, who just shrugs his shoulders in reply.
"Oh yes…but the system must first deem you…unworthy." The old man responds, a twisted grin on his face that makes Belle's stomach sink.
"H-how does it decide that?" He curses the stutter as soon as it comes out, but the old man standing in front of him gives him an entirely different feeling of dread than he's ever gotten before.
"If you fail its missions over and over again, it will deem you unworthy. And then it will reset to its base form, waiting for its next host." The old man explains, waving the knife around as he talks. Belle keeps his eyes trained on that knife.
"Listen, I find myself in a position where that system could be useful to me, so I would appreciate it if you fail the next mission and give it to me when the system deems you unworthy."
"Or what?" Belle asks, against his better judgment. The old man smiles before snapping his fingers. An elegant female ghost appears out of nowhere, and the old man points at Avery and Leslie. She places her hand on their necks, and a mark appears out of nowhere before slowly fading away.
"That mark will kill them within a month, if you don't manage to do what I ask in that time…well, you can say goodbye to your friends." The old man cackles, snapping his fingers again as the ghost disappears. He drops Avery to the ground and gives Leslie one last kick as he stalks off.
"That's all for today, I hope to see you again soon." The old man waves, dropping a small card on the ground. Belle clenched his fists, trying to stop himself from racing off and trying to bludgeon the old man; it wouldn't do any good.
Instead, he walked over to Leslie and Avery, checking over them for any injuries. After making sure they were fine, he let out a sigh of relief as Cam hovered worriedly over his shoulder. He took the chance to end the stream; he didn't know how much of the conversation the system had filtered out, but he didn't want to deal with the camera anymore right now. To let out some steam, he faces the shrunken monstrosity and grabs the gun, shooting it a few times until it completely disappears. He plops himself down on the floor afterward and turns to Cam.
"Did you get any more memories back?" Belle asks Cam, trying to calm himself down with a conversation.
"Kind of, I remember him…just a bit. I know he's not here anymore, and he left me behind for some reason…I remember my feelings about it…about everything, really." Cam says, looking down at the ground.
"Well, if you ever want to talk to me about it, you can," Belle says, smiling up at him. Cam nods, a bit disheartened.
"I guess we should destroy that last ritual site, so it doesn't cause any problems." Belle sighs, standing up from his spot on the ground. Cam picks Leslie and Avery up with his ropes as they head over to the last ritual site, which had been in use recently, obvious by the ashes of a burnt fire on the ground and some human bones left on the scene.
Belle destroys it quickly, not wanting to look at it any more than he has to. With the mission complete, Belle starts to head out of the forest, but about halfway to the perceived exit Cam starts fading away, forcing Belle to try and carry both Avery and Leslie on his own. It's a relief when Avery wakes up, he immediately drops her and tells her to walk on her own.
"I just passed out asshole! Give me a break!" She whines.
"...I seem to remember me doing all the work to finish the battle." He responds, a beat late.
"Is everything alright?" She asks, turning to face him.
"Kind of…when we get back, there's something I need to tell you." He replies absentmindedly. Avery's stomach turns, but she has no choice but to wait until they get back to their cars to find out why.