Night 57: Grand Ballroom

[ninelivesonce]

Taura jogged down the stairs, and looked around. The room seemed far too large to belong down here. More benefits of being at the bottom of a gravity well -- space was cheap, and air was free. The fountains wouldn't be out of place in a fancy hotel lobby, though the rest of the decor was a little macabre

Comments

[boketa]

Hmm there were just so many options. Goku ultimately grabbed a pork shoulder and hefted it into his arms for a quick test of substance. It was just a big block of muscle and shaved fat that was bigger than his head.

"Hee hee..." This would do nicely. The monkey boy bet it would taste pretty good if he dipped it in the ice-cream too!. "Okay, I'm ready--Ah..." The first big problem was he had more items than arms. If only he had his nyoibo, the kid would have a holster for it and then he would be free to pig out with both hands. So the question was how would he rectify this?

It took a bit of thinking (also known as staring vacantly into the distance), but Goku finally came up with a solution. Pulling his pole closer, he took the raw slab of meat and skewered it on his newfound staff. Now he had a weapon and food in one! It was time for ass kicking

[bodhiandspirit]

As Taura led the way down the stairwell, Rita left her bag of cookies on a shelf inside the refrigerator. Most of the fruit, along with another banana peel, were left alongside it. She didn't want to carry a whole armful of food into what could be a trap. One apple was brought along with her, and she took a few bites from it as she descended

[ninelivesonce]

There was one thing Taura wanted to try, too, and Rita had just handed her a golden -- or, er, blood-red -- opportunity. Literally handed it to her. "Give me a second, yeah?" Taura reached into her pocket and pulled out the materia Rita had managed to make heal her cut the previous night, and looked at it.

What did she do now? Think at it? Physician, heal thyself!Something blasted its way out of her mind on a jet of flame, turned, with the effortlessness of zero-G maneuvering, and sped off in a different direction -- towards Rita. None of it was visible, except for a faint green glow from the stone, reflected in her eyes. And the skin on Rita's finger, which was as perfectly repaired as the ring had been, save for a little smear of blood

[witchdetective]

[ from here ]

By now, Erika had gotten used to that rush of wind and vertigo that swallowed her up every time Sync used that ring, but she could never really prepare herself for the drop afterwords. It was like riding a roller coaster or a broken elevator, she supposed, and the human body never really appreciated having the floor give way from under you and gravity taking it's hold. However, she had used the ring enough times to figure out how she was going to land without hurting herself. Erika made sure to pivot her body so that her landing would be cushioned and let her mouth twist into a satisfied sneer when her calculations met their mark and Sync's body conveniently cushioned her fall

[falseblack]

Increase in bodies seemed to mean a more disorienting ride, like the loss of artificial gravity in the dead of space. When he compared ring usage and past experience, Nigredo predicted the greater fall, and when everything came to a sudden drop, he released his hand and pushed away from the group. The last thing the child wanted was to land on his legs and burst open his stitches, and without room to maneuver, he would do exactly that. Would break his promise to Albedo to keep from further harm

[affictitious]

There were two things about this newest ride that were, on and off, disheartening.

1. They hadn't landed in a lake. It was much worse than that. At least lakes were relative. You knew where you were with a lake. There were big, geographical markers to give you enough information to make a reasonable assumption about being in the same general area. Ballrooms? Vague. Vague as hell.

2. He was apparently the only one who lacked the grace (harr harr, angel humor) to pull off a gymnastic move in order to avoid landing on his face. You would have normally thought that landing on both feet after being sucked into a portal would've been impressive, but noo. All those years of flying didn't involve round-offs or cartwheels or whatever the kids were doing these days.

Whatever. He could shrug off vertigo rather expertly. What kind of angel would he be if he got motion sickness?

At the very least, he'd learned a few interesting tidbits. Even if it was all getting a little Lord of the Flies for him, it was easier to hang back and notice things

[ran_on_empty]

The fact that he was often the host that transported whoever accompanied him, Sync knew that that his fate would often reside on the bottom of the body pile. The rush of vertigo came and went, which gave him a few precious seconds to brace himself for the fall. Yet before he could pull in his own show of acrobatics, the God-General was stopped when he felt someone above him crash down on top of him, stumbling forward as soon as he landed before falling over.

Pain immediately crawled up his back, and his glare had the potency to kill if that were even possible. He could almost feel the smirk of satisfaction on Erika's face for her minute accomplishment. She was lucky; if he was injured then she really would be on her own with her bag of garbage

[toxicspiderman]

[from here]

The group that had blasted the door off the hinges and left a wake full of booby traps was a bunch of middle schoolers and their camp counselor, two of whom were lying in the prepubescent version of an orgy on the floor. He shined his flashlight over on them for a second, and sneered.

At least Peter had a brain, when he wasn't freaking out about Spidergirl. Spiderwoman? Spiderwoman. If she had half Peter's mood swings, she'd kick anyone who got that wrong in the nuts. (And if they didn't have nuts, there was always gender-ambiguous cloning, first.)

"Yeah, sure. You guys owe me a drink." Two, if you counted the beer he'd bought them. "Without me you'd be stuck in the Sun Room, getting ground into bloody froth on the carpet." If not tonight, one of the past few nights. There'd been the nightly apologies on the bulletin, and on torture nights the scab workers didn't apologize.

[scalyfishman]

And here they were, back in the ballroom and under the light of the chandelier, gleaming eerily from the marble and blah blah blah. Been there, done that. Depth Charge moved out of the way of the stairs so that the others could come on through, standing by a candle mounted on the wall with his arms folded in casual defiance to his surroundings.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. You're a regular miracle worker, S.T.," he said with another faint grin of acknowledgement. Never underestimate the techie. It was like having Rhinox and Rattrap all in one with the guy, and without any unpleasant odours to boot.

Having said that, though, maybe he was the one who reeked here, because the Maximal couldn't help but notice that Dent seemed to be giving him the cold shoulder. He should have figured as much- they hadn't exactly been sweetness and light with each other way back in Doyleton, and first impressions stuck like scratches on new paint work- but it didn't bother him particularly. Whatever. He was used to rubbing people up the wrong way.

[unheroed]

With Peter and Jones continuing to have their very important conversation, Harvey just focused on following everyone down into the ballroom. He spotted more food littered on the ground and wondered who was snacking on the go. Maybe someone from the group of four that was also here and that they'd seen in the hallway before using the ring. They had to have one of their own if they had gotten here so fast

[toxicspiderman]

If Harvey had ever asked, he would have explained. The pantry was quiet. About the worst they'd be parachuting into would be a few cockroaches. It was also a backup escape route. If the things had enough range to get to town, they could blip them back out of the basement.

And when they were done with this mission, he could use it to go grocery shopping. No fossil fuels or ice cream melting in the blistering heat of a wire bike basket.

Looked like it was just brains and brawn, and this door wasn't home to trinket number three. He watched Indiana Jones do his Basement of Doom routine, and then followed Peter in.

[to here]

[vsyourface]

[From here]

There were voices coming from below. Nothing panicked, either, which boded well for their own group. Scott climbed down a little faster, curious to see exactly who had made it down before...

!!!!!

Scott might have yelped had he not already yelped a few minutes prior, and thus, he found himself able to contain the noise this time. How?! How had Doom Girl and her cronies made it down before them? Was this the "exploration" she had been talking about at brunchfast? Noooooooo! Screw my luck so hard...

So, Scott kept behind S.T. as well as he could, hoping that the man's somewhat bulkier form would hide his scrawny ass a bit better than no cover at all.

[its_the_mileage]

"Keep your mouth shut," Indy snapped at Pilgrim, rounding on him just long enough to make the point clear. As irritating as it was to have his private life questioned by a kid who probably wouldn't know what to do with a girl even if he could find one, the bigger issue was that you didn't talk that way about a woman, especially one of Indy's acquaintance. Sure, he and Willie weren't all that close these days (actually, he wasn't all that close to anyone these days), but that didn't mean he was going to put up with other people saying bad things about her. Indy'd always preferred to do that himself, to her face

[razing_phoenix]

[From here.]

As far as Guy could tell, the ballroom was completely empty. What did that mean for the people who had come here ahead of them? Were they fighting in the coliseum or off working on one of the challenges?

Guy frowned to himself, not wanting to think too hard on either of those options. It was too late to stop any of their fellow patients from doing what they wanted down here, though he still wished that he could have prevented it all somehow.

Instead, they had their own reckless decision to carry out. Guy turned around and moved toward the doors that were directly behind them, ones he had never paid much attention to until now. Part of that was due to the fact that they were pretty unremarkable; the only thing that stood out about them was that they looked almost impossible to move.

Forcing out a sigh, Guy turned to eye both Claude and Anise. "So... are we ready for this?" They didn't know what they were getting into and that was made him hesitate.

[gald_digger]

Anise's heart sank a little when she saw the empty ballroom. She knew immediately what that meant: that whoever had gone ahead of them was already risking their lives with trials, or even the Coliseum itself. If they'd come sooner, maybe they could have warned them...

But there was nothing they could do about that now.

She turned her attention to the massive doors behind them. "Wow, I never really noticed these before. There's so big, I thought they were a mural or something from far away," Anise commented as she bent her neck backwards to look up at the top of the doors. On top of being enormous, they were pretty imposing - and ominous, too.

Though she felt nervous, there was really only one answer she could give Guy. "I'm as ready as I'll ever be," she replied, looking over to him with a small, uncertain grin. There really wasn't anything more she could do to prepare, so she'd just have to gather her courage and be ready to face whatever was behind those doors.

[full_score]

With how much trouble they'd gone through to get here, Claude had half-expected some kind of trap to greet them once they got to the ballroom. Then again, considering that at least one other group went ahead of them, maybe it wasn't so shocking. He hated to think there were other patients going through what their group endured, but, unfortunately, there wasn't much they could do. Landel had done a good job silencing their warnings.

And now, after everything that had happened, they were finally standing in front of their destination. As he gazed at those looming doors, the fact they had no clue of what waited for them sank in. It was scary, yet a small wave of exhilaration washed over him. Ready or not, they were here, and they were about to see what was inside. Claude sure hoped they were prepared