Nightshift 60: Main Hallway, 1-West

[toxicspiderman]

[from here]Even the main hall was deserted. S.T. switched on his flashlight and took a look around. Yeah, it was empty. No roadkill, no other patients. If he ever made it home, he was never bitching at any of the girls who didn't want to do night ops alone again. It was different when you knew there were things out there in the darkness.

Comments

[razing_phoenix]

Anise's sudden appearance was both good and bad. On one hand, Guy wanted to offer as much help to Claude as he could regarding the whole situation with Ilia, which he wouldn't be able to do now that Anise was here. On the other hand, it might be a good idea to focus on the task at hand tonight, since they needed to make much better time than they had yesterday.

Guy could understand why Claude didn't want to dump all of that on Anise. While she was someone who would understand it better than most, seeing how she'd been there with them, Ilia was her friend and hearing about it now would probably upset her. Then again, it would be worse if Ilia ended up losing her life in that arena, only for Anise to find out about it after the fact.

That was something he could bring up with Claude later, though. For now, Guy also took a moment to admire Anise's outfit. He'd been wondering when hers would show up, seeing how she'd been here about as long as he had. "Looking good," he complimented her with a charming smile. With the three of them dressed in their own outfits, they certainly stood out.

There was still something that he had to bring up to them, though. Guy hated to kill the mood, but it wasn't something he could just brush off either. "I was wondering, though... Now that Landel is back in power, are we still going to go ahead with this plan?" It seemed wrong to back out now, but he thought it was worth consideration nonetheless.

[gald_digger]

Nothing? Anise wasn't sure she believed that, but if it wasn't something they needed to address, then she wasn't going to push the subject.

"Yeah!" she chirped in response to Claude's question. "It's my Fon Master Guardian uniform! It's cute, right?" She looked between the two men with a wide smile, pleased to hear Guy deliver a compliment with perfect timing (as usual).

But also as usual, they needed to get down to business... though Guy surprised Anise by starting with raising the question of whether they should be continuing at all. It wasn't hard to figure out why he asked, though. "Oh, yeah. It was the Head Doctor that pointed us there in the first place..." She tilted her head as she thought. It was sickening, in a way, to blindly follow the bait he threw for them. But...

"I'm still willing to try," she said after a moment, straightening her posture. "We knew from the start that it could be a trap. But maybe, if we keep going... we'll find something. Maybe the Head Doctor himself." If that happened, they could try to take him out for good. Maybe he was too strong, but that chance was worth fighting for. "And... if we don't go, someone else probably will."

Like Ilia. Or any of Anise's many other friends who talked about going to the basement. Anise wished more than anything that her efforts could someday put a stop to the tragedies in the Coliseum.

[full_score]

"Very cute!" Claude cheerily agreed. Although, once he took a moment to think about it, maybe it was a little too cute. For a military uniform, those colors seemed awfully bright, after all. Pink and white were bound to make her stand out more in battle, right? Then again, as a Fon Master Guardian, maybe she was supposed to draw attention to herself. Either way, Claude wisely decided to keep his mouth shut, since she looked awfully proud of it, and he did want to stay in Anise's good graces.

And, in any case, they needed to focus on what they needed to do tonight. Claude grew more somber as he listened to what Anise had to say about the subject. Her last words in particular left an impression, because, deep down, Claude knew she was only speaking the truth. As long as the mystery remained unsolved, someone was going to want to dig deeper until they got to the bottom of things. Like Guy had mentioned before, they didn't exactly have any other clues to go off of right now.

"You're right," he quietly said after a small pause. "For all we know, we're the farthest along with things, too. If we give up, other people will just keep going down there in order to find out what's there, and it might take that much longer for anyone to figure it out. What if there really is something that can help everyone?"

[razing_phoenix]

As bad as Guy felt for bringing up the topic, he was relieved to find that both Anise and Claude took his question seriously and also gave reasonable responses. They had already started now, so there really wasn't any backing out, was there? Guy didn't consider himself a quitter in most cases, although part of him was still concerned by the fact that they couldn't bring Tear or Luke along with them on these nightly explorations. He could talk to Anise about that when they were alone, though.

"That's true. If we can pave the way for everyone else and determine once and for all whether it's worth it, then it's probably still worth fighting for." Guy knew that they were taking a huge risk by still pushing forward despite so many signs that they shouldn't, but... Well, it wasn't like they'd done anything other than that back on Auldrant, right? He was pretty sure that Claude had accomplished some death-defying feats of his own on Expel, too.

"We're decided, then," he continued, grabbing the bone bracelet out his pants pocket. "Doing it on three worked pretty well last time, so should we just try that again?" Guy wasn't looking forward to dealing with Charon again so soon, but it wasn't like they had much choice.

[gald_digger]

When the others spoke in agreement, some of the anxiety lifted from Anise's mind, and her expression shifted into a relieved smile. Even though she was scared and uncertain about what was ahead, it felt comforting to know they were all standing together on this. Whether the path they were taking led to something good or bad, she was just going to have to trust that it would be somehow worth it. If they could find an escape, some answers, or some way to help the other patients survive... those were all worth fighting for.

"Then it's decided!" Anise was back to grinning with her usual youthful enthusiasm as she produced her own bracelet, positioning it in front of her hand. She nodded eagerly at Guy's suggestion. It wouldn't be fair to hog the fun part to herself every time, though, so she looked to her friends with a playful expression. "Who wants to count this time?"

[full_score]

Despite the dangers waiting for them, Claude took some comfort knowing that they were unanimous in their decision to keep going. They'd already demonstrated their teamwork in getting this far, which hopefully boded well for whatever challenges the basement threw at them in the future. At any rate, he wanted to believe that their efforts weren't in vain, that they'd unearth something that all the patients would find useful -- and, perhaps, something that would prevent further casualties in the coliseum.

Just like Anise and Guy, Claude didn't hesitate in pulling his own bracelet out of his pocket. "I'll do it," he promptly answered. There wasn't much sense in waffling over who counted down to the main event, after all. What mattered was that they reached that shore together.

"All right," he said once he was certain everyone was ready. "On 'three', then." Holding the bracelet steady in front of his hand, he licked his lips. "One...two...three!"

[razing_phoenix]

[To here.]