Night 56: Main Hallway, 1-Center

[age_of_kings]

[ from here]Tolten tried to seem confident as he took the lead, proceeding further into the dark corridors. There had been nothing overtly threatening so far, but his heart was racing in his chest even so. He couldn't shake a sense of lurking danger, of shadowing hidden fear. He tried to tell himself he was being foolish, but experience told him

Comments

[sixth_attack]

"The first one is named Alita..." Sechs answered, his serious tone softening somewhat. "She's a bit shorter than you..." he further explained, raising his light-bearing arm above Aigis' head, "...Shoulder-length black hair and real pouty lips..."

The Replica paused for a moment, the amusement he always got over picking fun at Alita's "Octolips" fell short before it could become even a hint of a chuckle. The reminder of having Alita as a "visitor" the week before still ached deep inside his chest. With a somber shake of his head, Sechs added, "I'd say she looks kinda like my little sister, if that description helps ya a better..."

Describing the doctor who used six needles to inject the toxic blackness into Sechs' back was a different story however. Sechs never got a clear view of his torturer's face, but his voice was forever embedded in his mind. "Don't ask me about the doctor..." Sechs quietly growled, "I'll know when I've found him..."

All thoughts of Alita and the faceless doctor were swept clear out of Sechs' mind as the radio's message began to unravel before them. Sechs' shot of adrenaline was now pouring throughout his body like a rampant flood as his confusion turned into bewildered fury.

He must have been hearing the radio wrong! The radio man, the bodiless stranger Sechs had no choice but to trust for the past few nights, was sharing the airwaves with the Head Doctor himself! But it couldn't be! Wasn't the radio man on the prisoner's side? What the HELL was he doing working alongside Landel?!

And to hear that bastard Landel talk over the radio with the same infuriating arrogance he had over the speakers in the past was enough to send Sechs' body into an uncontrollable tremor, like a quake that shook the earth before a volcano erupted. Sechs could just barely hear the radio over the enraged rumbling in his ears. By the time the radio's message ended, Sechs' fingers had gripped so furiously into the little machine that its surface cracked beneath the pressure. If Aigis' angry breaths were audible, Sechs' furious heaving was positively strident in the hollowed hall.

"That... That bastard!" Sechs snarled, his eyes nearly bulging as he hunched over the now silent radio. "How could he be working with... with him?!" he snarled through beastly breaths, "After all the SHIT he made some of us go through! I nearly had my ASS handed to me after getting that STUPID note he wanted us to find nights ago...!"

What surrounded that note triggered more guilt into Sechs' system, a mixture which turned into sickening betrayal. The man on the radio never bothered to ease Sechs' worries over what became of Lydia, who was revealed as a double agent by the note Sechs and the others recovered. Sechs felt partly responsible for Lydia's unknown fate, and the arrival of the military afterwards didn't help much either. Had he and whoever else who followed the radio man's instructions been duped all this time? Was the stranger really trying to help them? Sechs could not fathom just how having Landel himself as part of the plan be any helpful to anyone in the first place!

"I thought he was helping us!" Sechs cried, betrayal clear in his voice, "But if he's been with that Head Bastard all this time then-- ARGH!!"

There was another snarl, and a sudden blur of motion as Sechs furiously threw the radio down, its metal casing clattering upon the floor near his feet. "DAMNIT!" Sechs brought down his axe, but in the very last moment he spared the fallen radio from his blade; instead he dropped the head of the axe to the ground and wearily leaned upon its handle as he continued to growl and curse between his furious panting.

"I... I don't get it!" Sechs answered Aigis with a quiet growl, his head bent low and tucked between his arms. "I trusted him before... and now... I don't know anymore..." Sechs gulped, his head still bowed and his eyes wide in the darkness.

"And what's this whole thing about the basement ballroom? Why would that bastard Landel be allowed to spout his usual crap at us like that anyways?" Sechs snapped, unsettled by the doctor's foreboding warning and hating him all the more for it. Why did the mentioning of a basement ring a bell for Sechs so much?

[no_dont_go]

Alita would be easy to spot if she were to come into Aigis' view. Someone like Sechs, but female. Aigis understood the concept of sisters. She had once had many but now all were destroyed. And she was alone. But she had her friends, so the loss of them did not trouble her as it might have at this reminder. She kept her thoughts objective, nodding at all points of recognition and storing them in her mind. She would do what she could to help him find Alita, during the day as well as the night.

As for the doctor... Aigis understood almost immediately Sechs' anger and did not question any more. She knew about the torture sessions this place hosted every other night, and knew of people who had suffered through those sessions. It was not easy to ask after those horrible moments of their captivity, nor was it ever easy for them to speak of it.

Sechs' violent reaction to the men over the radio startled Aigis, but she merely took a step back. She empathized with his rage at the betrayal. And she knew, from dealing with Junpei in the past, that sometimes rage required playing out rather than stoppering up. She gasped lightly, seeing the axe almost come down upon the radio, but he stopped just a moment before.

Once he seemed to have relaxed, or at least fallen into sullen fuming, Aigis reached out and touched his arm, looking up into his eyes in an attempt to arrest his attention. "I believe that here, we can only fully trust ourselves. And sometimes," the hand on his arm twitched, clutching a bit, "sometimes we can afford to trust one another here." She trusted Sechs and she hoped he trusted her.

She looked down, at the radio still on the ground. Her voice returned to a harsh hiss, barely holding back her disgust. "But they could never fully understand this pain. One may try to offer help, one may try to offer condolences, but they will never truly know." Her gaze returned to Sechs. "They are not one of us."

Aigis removed her hand from his arm and stopped back, taking a moment to clear her thoughts. "However, I do not think it's wise to disregard all they have to say." She stepped to the wall, looking at nothing in particular as she considered their words. Her lips twitched. Not a smile, not a frown. An accepting grimace. "We cannot disregard what they say because they have knowledge we obviously do not possess. It is unfortunate that we can only move at the pace they set for us but... it is necessary to investigate everything." She turned back. "That is my opinion on the matter."

[sixth_attack]

Even though the radio had been silenced, its message still held a resounding effect over Sechs; all he could do was stand there, leaning upon his axe with a defeated hunch, with his head bowed low and his eyes glaring at the radio that laid by his boots. His heart was still pounding inside his chest, his head spinning from the angry chemicals that flooded his blood veins. He felt like he had just left an intense battle, yet not a single punch had been thrown. Knowing that somewhere, out there, Landel was working alongside someone who Sechs thought to be an ally! It was so maddening! And yet he couldn't do a thing about it...

The touch of Aigis' hand upon his arm gently stirred Sechs out of his furious brooding, and he raised his head slightly to gaze upon the fellow droid past the curtain of hair that hid his face. His sharp, yellow eyes became locked into the round, blue ones that peered back at him.

"Yeah... You're right..." Sechs agreed, his voice slightly hoarse from all his yelling and cursing, "Stupid dumbasses have no idea what we're going through..." And it was obvious that the radio man had no idea on just how... offensive it was to have that Landel working with him!

Sechs grew a little calmer, begrudgingly picking up the radio (now with several dents in its casing) and stuffed it back into his pocket; he may still get some good use out of it after all, even though its main source of information was no longer likeable in Sechs' book.

Pondering over Aigis' words, Sechs lifted his axe with a grunt and rested it back on his shoulder. He took a few heavy steps closer to where Aigis stood, chin cupped in his free hand.

The mentioning of a basement was really bugging Sechs' brain. He was sure he had heard of it before... The ballroom part really threw him off though, why would an institute have a ballroom, never mind one in a basement?

So far, every time Sechs attempted to reach an area beyond the second floor, he had been stopped by his M-U effects and monsters. Had he been looking in the wrong place? This basement did sound promising, even when it was worded out by Landel himself...

Then, it finally clicked. Sechs remembered now! The night when he and Forte had their confusing escapade through the random portals embedded in the doors! There was that one point where he and the other battle robot found themselves in that walk-in freezer, and the drug acted up in Sechs' back from the sudden cold. Yet thanks to his near fainting spell, Sechs accidentally came upon a trap door in the floor. Forte had confirmed that it was the way to the basement, but no thanks to the doors going haywire that night, their decent through the secret door took them to another random location... They never got to see the basement.

"I... I know where that basement is..." Sechs finally said, his gruff voice perking up a little with cautious excitement. "A friend and I found the trap door to it... It was in a walk-in refrigerator... We ran into it by accident the night when all the doors were turned into portals that took you to random places..."

The idea of finding a new place that could offer more answers did excite the Replica, but his freshly broken trust in the radio man kept him solemnly wary as well. Like a bothered beast in a cage, Sechs found himself slowly pacing in the darkness. "I don't know exactly where it is though, but I'm betting it's in the kitchen just behind the cafeteria..."

Yet there was something else Sechs wasn't quite recalling... Forte had said something else about the basement... but what was it again? Sechs felt his chest tighten as his recent grief threatened reemerge. If only Forte was around for him to ask... Or better yet, join him into the unknown basement of the institute. But Forte was...

He turned away from Aigis, clenching into the left side of his chest plate where his heart was beating behind. "I... I don't know if we should go there or not..." Sechs said, keeping his voice a low rumble against the tight sensation that crept up his throat, "Not when you know who is the one mentioning it... Could be a trap..."

[no_dont_go]

Aigis, though enraged by Landel’s words, was much more in control of herself than her friend at the moment, and that helped her gain a grip on the situation a little quicker than had she been left to her own devices. She was able to retain reason, but the anger still smouldered underneath it all. She wanted to find a way to release the pent-up rage, but she had seen how pointless it had been in the long run with the food fight fiasco. She needed a positive end to work towards. There was precious little information.

She looked up at Sechs when he mentioned the basement, prepared to take in all he had to say on the matter. She had no recollection of getting to any place remotely like a basement in the institute. Down a trap door within a walk-in refrigerator seemed... wrong, in some way.

"I remember that night..." Aigis hadn't experienced it herself; she had been too busy catching up with Yukari to make it far that night. And if they had gone through a portal, they must have been been too caught up to notice a difference in the normal scenery.

"The logical area would be in the kitchen, or else another storage place nearby." She felt pretty certain, at least.

The gruff tone of his voice seemed to be straining, setting Aigis on edge, but she was unsure if he wanted her concern now. He may just have been struggling more with his anger. That could cause a change in tone. "It is possible. But do you believe the radio man would allow him to plant a trap in front of us so blatantly? He seemed to really not want Landel there, even if he is currently accepting his help."