Collab post between me and [@ChaoticFox].

As soon as Maven touched Sergei's shoulder, the images in his head faded.
Maven showed some kind of notebook, Sergei vaguely read some stuff, until reading something about what seemed to be what happened to his old house.
"So it was the prophets... Those bastards..." He said out loud, slowly returning back to a normal pace of breathing.
As Maven wrote down that she was the new leader, Sergei stared thinking again.
"I don't remember seeing her there... new leader?" Sergei looked at Maven once again.
"Wait.... what do you mean with new leader?! Don't tell me you did this to me?!" Sergei said, tears suddenly coming from his still functioning eye. Sergei rarely showed emotion, but during this little mental breakdown he couldn't resist crying.

"So... are you here to take care of me? You guys took everything I had from me... My friends... The hosts of the home who were close to parents..." Sergei said to himself out loud again.
Sergei noticed that Maven was looking at him, with a look of empathy in her eyes.
"Wait... you said previous leader... Don't tell me that bastard was responsible for this?" Sergei said, looking Maven straight into the eyes.
"Please tell me everything you know.. I need to know what happened that day... My only purpose in life is to get rid of those who did this to me... who made me this monster..." Sergei said to Maven, as he removed his mask, showing a face full of scars, burn marks, one eye which looked empty as veins ran all over his face.
"They... they made me a monster..." He said, as he put it back on.
"I can't even breath without this.. I look like a monster..." Sergei said, looking at Maven.
"Please... Tell me you weren't responsible for this!" He cried out to Maven.

Maven looked at Sergei with sad eyes. She couldn't speak to tell him it wasn't her, she wouldn't have been old enough to lead the Prophets when his home was attacked, let alone was she heartless to do such a thing. Only one thing could prove to him that she wasn't responsible for the death of all he knew before. 

Maven pulled back her hair revealing the bolts that attached the mask to her face: two on each side drilled directly into her skull. What she did next would've shocked everyone who knew her. She began to unscrew the bolts, taking one last breath of the gas before shutting the valve and removing the mask with a slight whimper "...I n-never would've wished that on y-you...They turned me into this.." she gasped and opened the valve, taking another breath "Michael Baptist....ex-leader of the Prophets... I killed him." She gasped for another breath and put her mask back on, screwing in the four bolts. 

Maven looked up at him after covering the bolts with her long blonde hair. Tears were slightly evident on her face as well, she remembered the pain as if it were yesterday. 

As Maven pulled her hair back, Sergei noticed the bolts that attached the mask to Maven's face.
"My god... are those.. bolts?!" He said, shocked at how... strange they looked.
Sergei was shocked when Maven removed the mask.
"Wait... are you sure you can.." Sergei wanted to say, but he noticed Maven wanted to say something.

"What?! They turned you into this?!" Sergei said a bit loud, as yet another tear from his eye.
"I thought I had it bad..." Sergei thought to himself, unable to keep his tears back hearing the tragic story of the girl.
Sergei let Maven finish the rest of her sentence before continuing to talk.
"Wait.. you killed the previous leader of the Prophets?!" Sergei asked the girl, with a really sad look on his face as he didn't expect to ever meet somebody who had it worse than him.

"It must have been painful for you.. Being made like this..." Sergei said, as he looked Maven straight into her eyes.
He noticed Maven started crying too, and he couldn't help but offer the girl a hug.
"I thought I had it bad... But it seems you had it even worse than I had... Those bastards from Prophets will pay for this..." Sergei said to Maven, anger now showing in his face.
"Messing up such a pretty girl... how dare they!" He said to himself out loud.
Sergei started to realize that the one he wanted to kill was already dead.

"I honestly don't know how to feel.. The reason I came to this school in the first place was to get rid of the one who did to me... but it seems you already did it for me.. Is there anyway I can pay you back?" Sergei asked the girl as he calmed down a bit more.

Maven just shook her head at his final question, unzipping her jacket slowly and letting it slide to the ground. Underneath, she wore a borderline skin-tight, long sleeve sport shirt, but that was the least interesting part. She rolled up her sleeves, revealing the frankenstein-esque patchwork they had done to make her breathing apparatus possible. From her wrists, small tubes were visible under the skin running the length of her arms and into her torso where they disappeared. The devices on her wrists were quite literally part of her, drilled into the bone and replacing the skin of that area. Just above her wrists were matching tattoos of the standard medical info: Date of Birth, Gender, Name, and the Serums given to her currently.

Maven looked up to him as if to say "Well, what do you think?", when in reality she remained silent. The bolts in her jaw prevented speech when the mask was on, a method for the Prophets to control their creation's thoughts and freedom.

Other than the extremely obvious, her body was fairly normal despite the black/green veins in place of blue ones. Partnered with her unnerving eyes and almost unreal muscle tone, she was what most would think as normal. Her arms held other tattoos apart from the ones described, these more artistic, as if abstract. Drawn in black and red ink, they lined both arms and from the faint silhouettes, her stomach as well. Her neck had matching ones running up either side, stopping at her jawbone. "I am a monster.." she thought to herself, taking her own appearance in.

To drive the appearance home, two larger tubes ran from the mask and dug into her neck, running along her spine under the skin to her lungs. While the procedure looked to have been done cleanly, it looked painful just to have them there.

Maven could be described as a machine in a human body, mechanical in her nature and methodical in her actions, yet executed with more precision than a machine could provide. She wrote one thing in the notebook before handing it to him after he was done examining her "I was awake for every procedure."

As Maven started to undress, Sergei observed.
"Poor girl.. I thought I had it bad with my situation.." Sergei thought to himself.
"I... I... I..." Sergei had to take a breather, before being able to continue to talk.
"I just don't know what to say.. How could they do this to you?" Sergei said, as yet another tear rolled out his eye.
Sergei continued to inspect Maven.
"Damn.. even with those things she looks kinda cute.. How can they do this to a human being.." Sergei though to himself.

"Why did they do this? I mean... I have my mask because I need it to survive, but I believe you said they did this to you? What happened" Sergei asked.
Sergei still had to take everything he just saw in.

When he finally came to a realization what they actually did to her, Maven passed him her notebook.
"I was awake for every procedure?!" Sergei shouted in anger.
Sergei started to remember how hard it hurt when he got burned alive, and he could only imagine this as being worse.
"I just... I just... I don't know what to say..." Sergei stuttered, before offering a hug to Maven.
"I'm afraid I can't do much to improve your situation... If I could I would.."Sergei said afterwards, with a sad look in his face.
Sergei removed his hoodie, and all that was visible was that his entire body was covered in bandages, like a mummy.
"After all these years, my body hasn't recovered..." He said, before temporarily removing some of the bandages.
Under it you could see veins running all over his body, as his skin looked dark, black at some parts, with some open wounds here and there.
"As far as I know I will never recover from this.." Sergei stated, as he removed his mask once again.
"My left eye is completely blind, my right eye can see a little bit, and only in black and white.. I have become fully colorblind after what happened..." Sergei said before putting his mask back on, taking a few long breathers.

"Anyways... The name is Sergei... Sergei Golovanov.." He said, offering his hand to Maven.

Maven looked at the hand outstretched in front of her, she took it gently. With barely a whisper from under her mask, she managed "Maven.." without too much pain, before drawing in a deep breath. She looked up to Sergei, looking him right in the eyes after looking over his bandaged and burnt body. To her, it looked just as painful to live with that as it did to live in her condition and while she couldn't voice it, her eyes told the whole story like an open book.

She hugged him tightly at his offer. Never. Never had she been attached to someone. It was a new feeling. Maven wasn't sure if she liked this feeling yet, but she let it linger in her brain. The feeling of actual contact was a nice thing to have as well, she felt safer in his arms for some reason, despite being able to defend herself perfectly well.

Maven let go and looked to him as she asked about the reasoning behind her transformation and strained herself to whisper out an answer, her jaw screaming with pain in protest "Q-quieter area....I'll e-explain......everything.." She closed her eyes, letting the pain simmer down to a dull roar, something tolerable at least. While she acted and presented herself as tough and indifferent, inside she was still a teenage girl. Delicate despite the attitude, just as the doctor had said.


"Nice to meet you miss Maven." Sergei said, bowing down a bit.
Even though Sergei's memory is all over the place, he still had some manners teached to him by his adoptive parents from the foster home that he still remembered.
Sergei noticed that Maven had to take a deep breath after saying her name.
"Damn... in that condition it must hurt to even talk.." Sergei thought to himself, feeling really bad for the poor girl.

Sergei noticed the expression in Maven's eyes as he looked at her.
"At first, I thought I had it the worst. I felt like I was in hell when I first looked in the mirror. I couldn't even look at myself. I decided to walk the path of revenge, I would make sure that whoever did this to me would pay. My entire life for the past few years was based on revenge... I was foolish.." Sergei said, before hugging Maven.

It had been a while since Sergei hugged somebody, or even felt attached to somebody. It made him rethink his situation. Does he really need to take revenge? Isn't it possible to just live normally like this? Lots of questions rushed to Sergei, but instead he just took a moment to appreciate the comfort in Maven's hug.

As Maven started to whisper, Sergei couldn't help but notice how much it hurt Maven.
"As much as it hurts.. She is doing her best to talk to me..." Sergei thought, only being able to see how much pain Maven had.

Sergei put one of his fingers in front of Maven's mask.
"Stop talking... You don't have to pretend against me, I can see the strain it is putting on your body." Sergei said, trying to smile under his mask.

Sergei grabbed his notebook, and wrote down the following:
"If we were to be in a room filled with whatever gas that is in those cartridges, would you be able to breathe and talk without mask? Y/N?" as he handed over the notebook and a pen.

Maven gave him an odd look after reading the message. Yes, in theory she'd be able to breathe in such a room but the amount of gas required would be astronomical, let alone the fact that they'd need a place to actually put it all and that Sergei would need a full face mask so his eyes wouldn't burn out. She shook her head lightly. Inside she knew how much he wanted to help her, but to recreate a room like the one she'd been in before was quite the task. She took the book and wrote a reply before shaking her head at Sergei. The message read "You don't have to do this for me. If you want me to talk I will find a way."

She pondered the message for a moment before scribbling down an additional part to it, then handing it to Sergei "Impossible to obtain enough gas without reservoir."

Maven reached over to take his hand, straining herself one last time to utter a few words no louder than a whisper "Let's...g-go somewhere....q-quieter.." She looked to him, her eyes slightly begging him to follow her. After picking up her large hardcase she began to lead him on, moving towards a quieter area, specifically the music room. In theory there shouldn't be anyone there during lunch, right?

Sergei saw the look in her eyes, and realized that it probably wasn't possible.
Maven handed him back the notebook as she shook her read.
"You don't have to do this for me. If you want me to talk I will find a way..." Sergei read to himself, before looking back to Maven.
"If there is a way, I will do my best to make it happen.. I promise.." Sergei says, trying his best to smile, even though its close to impossible to see under his mask.

Sergei wanted to continue, but Maven whispered a few words as she extended her hand.
"Ofcourse, if thats what you want... We shall go somewhere quite, even though I have no idea where..." Sergei says, gently accepting Maven's hand.
As he followed Maven, he kept looking around, scouting the area. Sergei has a visual memory, seeing things makes him remember more.
"When we reach the place you want to go, could you explain me how your mask works?" Sergei asked, remembering that it almost went wrong a short while ago.

Maven led him on down the hallways of the Academy, her boots clicking on the hard tile floor. "It should be around here somewhere...." she thought to herself. The halls seemed endless, the flourescent lights humming in the silence of the empty corridors. Maven gently squeezed Sergei's hand and looked over with a small smile, hoping to lighten the mood a bit.

Finally, after what had seemed like an eternity, the door to the music room appeared in front of them as they turned a corner and Maven stopped in front of it. She reached forwards slowly, silently praying that it was unlocked and to her surprise, it was. She flicked on the lights as they entered and closed the door behind them, looking to Sergei. Maven grabbed a few chairs from the front and brought them over to the side of the room, gesturing to Sergei to sit down while she sat in the other.

She looked over to him and began to undo the bolts once again, taking a deep breath of the gas before shutting the valve. "The l-little cylinder....it g-goes in the slot..h-here.." she gestured to her wrist, taking another breath from the mask. "That's w-what holds....the gas....Cyanothane, a sssynthesis between Hydrogen C-cyanide.....and Mmmmethane.." she struggled a bit with the words before taking another breath. "It t-travels up....I breathe....it goes down into lungs...excess is brought back up through...t-tubes...reused.." she said, tapping the large tubes that entered the back of her neck. "T-they tried..to kill me with the s-same gas....I adapted. B-but....killed my digestive t-tract...in the process.." she finished, gasping at her mask for a breath.

"Needles to eat...to drink...to stay alive."

It took quite a while to reach their destination, but Sergei didn't mind it during a bit longer, as he felt good being around Maven.
As they walked to their destination, Maven squeezed his hand gently, and he could notice Maven was smiling, so he tried his best to smile back.

As Maven tried to open the door, Sergei was ready to grab his katana to force it open if needed, but luckily enough it was already open.
As they entered the room, he studied the room once again, trying to remember as much of the room as possible, until he noticed Maven was gesturing for him to sit down on one of chairs.
"Thanks miss Maven." He said, showing something resembling happiness on his face.

Sergei patiently listened to Maven's explanation on how her breathing system worked, nodding now and then.
"I see.. Now it makes sense why you need those cartridges..." Sergei said.
Sergei removed his mask, and showed the front to Maven.
"This.. this basically.. filters the air.." Sergei stated, before coughing a bit.
"Apparently.. some stuff in normal oxygen.." Sergei tried to get out, before coughing a couple of times again.
"Is poisonous to me, and can actually destroy my lungs..." Sergei said before coughing a few times again, putting his mask back on.
"According to the doctor who treated me, if I remove this mask for too long, my lungs will start to slowly fail, and I would end up having one of the most painful deaths imaginable..." Sergei said with an agonizing look in his face, before listening to the rest of what Maven had to say.

"Wait.. You can't eat at all? How do you get the necessary nutrients into your body then?" Sergei said with a shocked look on his face.
"Unable to eat and drink.. What kind of monster did this to her?!" Sergei said to himself.
"I understand it completely if you don't want to think of your past.. But would it be possible to tell me exactly what happened that made you like this?" Sergei said, looking Maven into the eyes, showing sympathy in his own eyes.
Sergei at times can almost feel what happened that night again, the feeling of being burned alive, just by seeing all those flashbacks, and it seemed to him that Maven had it even worse.