Day 54: Breakfast

[arc_wrench]

For once, HK was working very hard to hide a giddy facial expression as he met his nurse at the door. He'd already hidden his scalpels in his clothing. The wonderful, sharp implements of doom would be needed today. “Statement: Despite my reticence towards all processed meat and plant products, I am experiencing intolerable levels of hunger,” he

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As a toy, Woody had seen a lot of things over the course of his long life. Moves, birthdays, garage sales, kids growing up -- all of that and more, which ought to have left him prepared for just about anything at this point. But over the past few days, he realized how wrong he was. Dead wrong, even, except that was a terrible phrase to use right now, so he thought of it as little as possible.

Still, that didn't change the fact that there were few things more disorienting than minding your own business, getting ready for a night out with your buddy, and then suddenly...waking up in bed again, as if someone had conveniently pushed some kind of "reset" button. Sure, he knew that the "patients" here had a tendency to black out at the end of the night, but that early? It didn't make any sense!

Worse than that, had Buzz been waiting for him all night? Oh, no -- what if a monster got to him while he was alone? The thought was enough to form a knot in Woody's chest. He almost missed the Head Doctor's announcement, but managed to hear his words enough to take them into consideration for later. Right now he was mostly worried about his friend, and so, despite the nurse's insistence that he not waste much time in the sun room, he hurriedly jotted down a note on the board before getting led off to the cafeteria.

Even with how worried he was, though, the new uniformed people patrolling the area didn't go unnoticed by Woody. He gave them a wary glance before being pulled along by his nurse, who proceeded to cheerily put a breakfast tray together for him.

"Oh, look, Bryan Michael's sitting over there," she said as she pointed at someone sitting among the slowly growing crowd. Woody immediately recognized the brown-haired young man he'd talked to in the library a couple of days ago. "Why don't you say hi?"

Frowning, he sent a glance over his shoulder as he desperately searched the faces of the other patients filtering into the room. "But, my friend, he's--"

"Oh, there's no need to worry about that," she assured him. "If you're asking after Mr. Taylor, he's more than capable of eating breakfast on his own. In fact, I'd say it would do him some good." Smiling, she clapped him on the shoulder. "Now! Let's get you situated with Bryan..."

Woody didn't make much of an effort to hide his exasperation as she brought him over to Scott's table. The nurse fixed him with a sunny smile. "You don't mind if Mr. Wheeler sits by you, do you?" Without waiting for an answer, she set Woody's food down across from the other patient and hurried off.

"Hey, wait--" Woody turned to stop her, but she was gone.

He really wished she'd stop doing that.

"Uhh..." Shifting his attention over to Scott now, he offered a feeble smile. "Hi, there. Again."

[vsyourface]

Scott looked up when he thought he heard Tom Hanks approaching his table. His suspicions were confirmed when he caught sight of the disturbingly well-proportioned head of Woody being ushered down the cafeteria aisle. More mostly-relief washed through Scott's system at the sight of him. Thank goodness, the childhood icon hadn't been taken out on any of the past few nights; Scott's hopes about Woody being able to take care of himself had been well-founded. The guy didn't look too visibly injured, either, which was even better. That all raised the question, though: had Woody actually run into any monsters yet? Some patients were weirdly lucky that way, and the fact that Woody didn't seem injured made Scott wonder. He knew he would look like a big weirdo for warning Woody so thoroughly only to have nothing threaten the guy other than a few night chills. And heaven forbid Scott Pilgrim look like a weirdo in front of a talking cowboy doll.

"Hey," he greeted back. Once the nurse was gone he nodded his head back in her direction. "You kinda have to get used to that, sad to say. Or just be really fast getting to places when shifts change, before there are people around for them to force you on." He paused, then clarified hastily: "Uh, not that you're being forced on me or anything! I've been kinda worried, actually. It's good to see you're still okay, man."

Scott put a hand behind his head awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck. "You are okay, right? How's, uh... night been treating you so far?"

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This wasn't the first time the nurse had done this to him, sadly, but at least she'd put him with someone like Scott instead of Rita. Not that he hated Rita or anything, it was just awkward talking to a girl who thought she was from outer space (and had an attitude problem to boot). Weird outbursts aside, Scott was probably one of the more normal people he'd seen around.

Of course, in hindsight, his outbursts hadn't been all that weird after all, had they? Woody felt kind of bad for not even bothering to hide his skepticism that day they'd talked, but Scott didn't look like he held it against him. Heck, he'd even been worried. Considering they'd only met the one time, that was actually pretty decent of him.

He wondered if Andy would make friends with people like him in college.

Thinking of his owner only brought a pang to his chest. For now, Woody forced himself to focus on the human sitting in front of him as he finally took a seat.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," he assured him, trying not to sound as distracted as he felt just then. "Well, I mean...I haven't gotten, you know..." Woody gave a shrug as he tried to think of how he ought to word himself. "...eaten or anything, obviously." His tone was a bit tired and somber, without any traces of his usual sarcasm.

Two days ago, he wouldn't have believed he was having this kind of conversation, but that giant bird-monster in the recreational field had definitely changed his mind about some of the things he'd been hearing when he first got here.

Still, Woody's face brightened a little. "I ran into my friend Buzz the first night, though!" he explained. Glancing at a nurse who passed by, however, he couldn't hide a bit of his frustration. "Well, they don't like us talking together too much during the day, but..." One good thing about night was that they didn't have the staff breathing down their necks every second, so it was better than nothing.

[vsyourface]

From the way Woody hesitated on the word, Scott could guess that he probably almost had been eaten. Scott winced, remembering the thing that had taken a chomp out of Keman. And then that got him thinking about Keman again. Great, now his expression probably matched Woody's own somber one, he thought as he tried not to think about the myriad of ways in which people could possibly "disappear" from the Institute. It was all he could do to hope that Keman had just been sent back to Middle-Earth, or at least just brainwashed and sent out to wherever all the visitors he had heard about went. Then he would be alive. At least.

His attention perked up some when Woody mentioned a friend, though. "Wait, Buzz is here too? Nice! Can we meet him?" ...was what Scott would have said, had he not bit down on the sides of his tongue and kept that exclamation to himself. He was getting a lot better at holding in his inner hopeless fanboy these days. Ramona would be so proud. Instead, he waited for Woody to finish speaking, like a normal person, before answering. "That sucks, man. Why the hell would they keep friends apart like that? I mean what harm do they think that does?"

Before he could listen much to Woody's response, a voice sounded from a row or two in front of Scott, yelling something about meatbags (what?). He didn't recognize the guy, really, other than having noted that both he and this guy had been some of the first patients into the cafeteria today. What was he doing? Why was he holding his breakfast up like he had found an item in Zelda or something? Scott peeked his head around Woody's trying to get a better look. "A present, what-?"

And then Scott got hit in the face with a fried egg.

It took his brain a couple seconds to process the fact that he literally had egg on his face. And only a couple seconds more before a spark of glee took over his expression. "Oh no you didn't!" Scott pulled the white disc off his face and swiped the goo out of his eyes before hurling the edible projectile over Woody's head and right back at the big guy, followed by a chunk of his own scrambled eggs.

Scott had a feeling that the premonition of intensity he had felt earlier was going to turn out a little bit differently than he had expected.

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That was a good question. As far as he could tell, the nurses didn't get anything out of keeping him and Buzz apart. Of course, he really didn't see how they got much out of shoving them both into human bodies, either, but by now he figured there was little rhyme or reason to what these freaks did. One of the things that set a crazy person apart from everyone else was how unpredictable they were, right?

Speaking of freaks, though, Woody's gaze snapped over to the general source of the voice that piped up over the murmur of talking patients. "Meatbag?" he echoed with an incredulous look. What was that about? Some of the latest kid lingo or something? Except, that hadn't sounded like a kid just then--

And, then, out of nowhere -- splat! All he could do was watch, wide-eyed, as Scott got hit in the face with an egg. Before he could even say anything, Scott retaliated by dishing out his own serving of eggs. "Woah, woah, hey now!" he blurted, ducking down as the food sailed over his head.

Was this...seriously about to turn into a food fight? Did people Scott's age even do stuff like that!?

[vsyourface]

Scott didn't care if he was about twenty years too old for this kind of thing. It had been fornever since something really wild and crazy had happened during dayshift, or at least something that Landel had no say in. Maybe the nurses or soldiers were going to come and sedate him afterwards. Maybe they were going to do something else. To that Scott said: so what? If the patients were all part of Landel's precious little selection process or whatever, he was betting the soldiers weren't going to actually do serious damage to anybody, at least not during the daytime. What better time to raise a little hell?

And so more food went. Other patients were getting in on the action now, throwing eggs, sausages, muffins, milk, and even plates and trays around. Scott didn't care who he hit back so long as more chaos was kicked up and more fun was had at Landel's expense. He was even starting to keep score after a couple of throws. He lobbed his orange juice at the back of some girl's head, scoring 100 points plus a 50-point bonus for splashing it dead-centre. Another splat of breakfast coated his sleeve from another direction, and Scott just had to laugh, even as he deducted a point from his HP bar.

The girl he had hit sounded pissed. One more toss of sausages out in a random direction, and Scott ducked down with Woody under the table, hoping the girl wouldn't pin him as the attacker. Still, he couldn't wipe the grin off his face. "Can you believe this, dude?" he asked the cowboy as he caught his breath, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder. "This never happens! Oh my god, come on! Come up and let's have fun with this while it lasts!"

What Scott didn't notice amid all this chaos yet, however, was the sound of hard military shoes clacking very swiftly in the direction of their table.

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Woody wished he could have half as much fun with this as Scott. Not that he wasn't up for a good challenge, but this seriously looked like they were playing with fire here. Maybe it was the toy in him, but cutting up in broad daylight sounded like a terrible idea. Not without a good plan!

"Are you crazy?" he hissed at Scott, shaking his hands at the other patient. "Didn't you see those guys wearing uniforms!?" They didn't look like the kinds of people you wanted to mess around with, that was for sure.

Woody grunted as he shifted his knees beneath himself. Sitting under the table with such long legs wasn't as easy to do in a human body, which only made him more irritable. In fact, he almost missed the sound of feet headed their way. But a lifetime spent falling limp at the slightest hint of someone approaching helped Woody zero in on that sound in an instant.

Sucking in a sharp breath, he sent a terrified glance over his shoulder. "Oh no--"

[vsyourface]

Scott shook his head. "Nah, man, think about it. What are they really going to do? Sedate us? We can't do anything during the day anyway. And they're not going to, like, kill us in broad daylight either. That's what nighttime's for, right?"

The more Scott thought about it and the more he wanted to just screw the normal dayshift routine in the ass, the more he convinced himself that these military guys were just for show. Who knew? Maybe they were here to review Landel's performance, and if the patients screwed things up badly enough for the guy, then they would all get released and sent back to their home worlds on account of the totally tru fax of Landel being an incompetent douchebag. As far as he knew, in a best-cast scenario, throwing eggs around could be their ticket out of the Institute. To Scott, that seemed like a pretty dang good reason to risk having fun.

Woody didn't exactly seem convinced (imagine that). Scott shrugged. "Ah well, it's cool if you still don't wanna get sedated, I guess. I for one could use the nap after this," he said with another grin.

Missing the start of Woody's terrified glance, he pulled himself back upright to the table and grabbed another handful of scrambled eggs. Just as he swivelled around to throw it behind him, however, he finally caught sight of the very put-out soldiers headed his way, followed by his nurse. It was too late to stop moving, however. Scott's arm already had momentum going, and his hand was too slow to stop the eggs from leaving it. Breakfast sailed out of his grip hit the lead soldier square in the jaw. Bam. Instant loss of military dignity as yellow goop slipped down the guy's jacket.

And you know what? It was entirely satisfying to see.

Part of his mind screamed at him that he absolutely should not do what he was thinking of doing. The other part - the crazy part, the part that was sick and tired of taking the Institute's shit - headbutted it right the hell into submission.

Maybe if Scott had just left it at the eggs in the face, they might still have sedated him and chalked it up to him being overexcited. Instead, Scott decided it was a good idea to throw the last of his eggs on his plate at the nurse and her posse, followed by the plate itself, and then the tray. "How do you like that, huh? Huh?! Delicious stuff, isn't it?!" The grin Scott had worn before had morphed into something else now, something more raw. This grin leaked the wear and tear of almost two weeks trapped in Landel's clutches, losing sanity, dignity, and friends left and right. It wasn't a pretty sight.

The two soldiers were having none of Scott's manic spree, and they rushed at him. Still, Scott wasn't fazed yet. "Come on, what are you gonna do to me? Stick me with whatever you want! I don't care-" He hadn't been expecting to be clocked in the side of the head then. Scott crashed back into the table, ending up on on the ground in front of Woody with one arm supporting some of his weight on his chair. It took him a few seconds to process what had just happened, and another few for the pain to really kick in. Had he really just...? In broad daylight...? Like, in front of the nurses...?

The soldier who hit him waited, daring him make another move with a hard gaze downward. Scott's eyes narrowed back at him. Well if they're gonna do it like this? Then yeah I'm gonna make another move!

"Oh hell no, I've taken out vegans tougher than you guys!" In the same movement, Scott pushed himself up off the chair and lashed out at the soldier with an uppercut. It would have done some serious damage had it been on target, but unfortunately for Scott, the blow to his head had disoriented him some. His punch grazed across the surface of the soldier's jacket, then empty air as the well-trained man shifted backward, then forward again for another hit, this time to Scott's back, above the shoulder blade.

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Scott was talking like sedation was the worst they could to him, but Woody had the horrible feeling that things weren't so simple. Wally had already told him that they pulled people out of their rooms at night to torture them. Not only that, but those guys patrolling the building didn't look like they were afraid to get their hands dirty.

Just barreling into a food fight while waving your fists everywhere wasn't going to do anyone any good! What was so hard to understand about that?!

It didn't sound like Scott saw things his way, though. Woody tried to grab him, but Scott wasted no time in ducking out from under the table and launching another barrage of items at the oncoming staff and soldiers. "Scott!" he said through his teeth. "Scott!"

But it was no use. Worse yet, things were starting to get ugly. Cringing, Woody couldn't help but throw a hand over his mouth as he watched them knock Scott over the head, sending him tumbling down onto the floor. And then--no, what was Scott doing?! He was actually getting back up for more?!

They were going to beat him down for sure, Woody realized with mounting dread. They were going to beat Scott, and then there was no telling what they were going to do to him later. That knowledge pushed Woody out from under the table, his limbs seemingly moving on their own.

Patients had to stick together. There was no way he was going to just watch while they took him out.

Woody gripped onto a nearby chair and swung it toward the man who was about to hit Scott. "Yahhh!"

[vsyourface]

Scott stopped himself from hitting the ground with one hand. A sharp burn sliced through his arm from his shoulder blade, but he didn't let himself fall. He had to keep himself up as long as he could, because two hits? Seriously? Screw that. He wasn't going to let himself get taken out with two freaking hits. Landel had de-powered him, taking away any ability he might have had to punch physics in the jeans, but he knew well enough by now that his endurance and fighting skills could not just be erased the same way. Scott Pilgrim without the will to fight would be like Peter without his wise-cracking, Keman without his tragic past, or Indy without his uncanny resemblance to Harrison Ford - take away any of those things, and you just didn't have the person anymore.

As the man moved in for a finishing blow, Scott darted out of the way with a side roll. Just as well, because at the same time, Woody took that moment to come out with guns chairs blazing. Scott tensed with a surge of panic for the cowboy's safety. Woody hadn't wanted to get involved in even throwing food before; now he was throwing furniture at armed guards, and Scott was entirely responsible. Yep, there were those guilt pangs, right on cue. "Woody, no! I can take care of these jerks!" Scott protested, scrambling further back away from the soldiers.

When attacks were preceded by yelling, it tended to be a cakewalk to avoid said attacks. Thus, the soldier who had been about to hit Scott dodged Woody's chair easily. Regardless of whether the attack had been successful or not, though, an attack was still an attack. When patients got violent, there was only one correct way to respond - getting violent right back at them. Catching the leg of the chair as it sailed by his body, the soldier twisted it off to the side and out of Woody's hands, then let the thing clatter to the floor below. Following that, the soldier went in for a quick arm grab, intending to twist Woody's arm behind his back and push him back down onto the table or floor.

The nurse waited off to the side with doses of sedative ready to hand out once both patients were taken down, though the woman was quite visibly shaken by this whole ordeal.

As for Scott, he pulled himself back up to his feet, ignoring the dull burning of his body. He still had another soldier to deal with. He knew he probably wasn't going to win the fight with him, either. The man was bigger, faster, and probably wearing some kind of body armour. Much as Scott wanted to do the smart thing and surrender now, though, he couldn't let things just end here. He wasn't going to roll over and say "die" for Landel until the last possible second. Lowering his weight into a defensive stance, he extended his right arm out with palm facing upward. Fingers together, he made two quick motions toward his body - the universal symbol for "Come on: show me what you've got."

Either the soldier hadn't seen The Matrix or he wasn't exactly fazed by the skinny-ass patient goading him on (most likely both), but he didn't react one bit as he made a calculated rush forward. Scott was careful as well this time, watching for an opening and preparing himself to focus on taking advantage of it. Unfortunately and predictably, however, even that didn't help much. With a few good kicks and a punch, he was able to land a couple of hits on the soldier, but nothing beyond surface level. It didn't hurt the soldier's odds when he actually brought his gun into play, either, jabbing the butt of it into Scott's shoulder and knocking him down again. Scott continued to struggle following this, but it was no use anymore. He was getting continually more bruised and tired the more punishment he took, and the man was coming on too strong to let him get back up anymore.

At last, Scott let up. "Okay! Okay fine, fine! You win! Stop!" he coughed out after one more blow to the ribs with the butt of the gun. He at least had to stop before something got seriously broken. That wasn't going to help anybody tonight.

Scott slumped where he was, chancing a glance past to where Woody was as the nurse passed the soldier a syringe. With any luck, the cowboy had given up before he had. Woody was probably way smarter than he was that way. He hoped, anyway.

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The soldier's movements were quick and economical, taking Woody completely off guard. Before he knew it, his chair was hitting the floor, and the guy had roughly pinned his body to the table. "Owww!" Woody struggled against him, but that only made the soldier's hold that much harder. "Stop that!"

They were acting like he'd thrown the first punch or something. Did they honestly expect him to just sit back while he watched Scott take a beating?

The soldier twisted Woody's arm further behind his back to get him to cooperate. "Ow, ow ow ow!" He squeezed his eyes shut and finally quit resisting. Apparently they had just expected him to sit on his hands, but there was no going back now. He just wished Scott could have gotten away before the soldiers had done anymore damage.

"Scott?" he called, trying to get a look over his shoulder. The soldier gave him a hard shake, getting him to keep facing the table. His attention was suddenly drawn toward someone rubbing a cold swab of something across his arm. A spike of terror ran through him, and he couldn't quite hide the anxiety in his voice. "Hey, hey, hey, what do you think you're trying to do?!"

Before he could even figure out was going on, Woody felt a small prick. His movements began to grow sluggish. Wow, was it just him, or was his body was starting to feel...heavy...?